‘And just how much do you know about inherited wealth, eh, darling?’ Ralph asks me drily. ‘Which reminds me. We’ve been married for fourteen years, Mimi, and I keep checking my accounts, but I still don’t think I’ve received any dowry yet.’

‘Hahaha,’ I say. ‘But isn’t it quite a relief to discover that the Cobbs aren’t entirely perfect after all? I’d never have pegged them as throne rangers.’

‘I don’t think you’re being fair,’ says Ralph. ‘The Michaels are probably old friends. And Camilla’s a neighbour from when they lived in Gloucestershire. Anyway, it’s always delightful, royals turning up,’ he goes on, as he makes the mistake of declining the offer of a date wrapped in Parma ham, which was easily the best thing I’d put in my mouth all year.

‘Especially for me. Since Granville’s given up his shoot to become a shrink, social climbing’s about the only exercise I get these days.’

Rose

I am sitting on Cath’s bed, in Cath and Granville’s bedroom, which is draped and sumptuous, with its de Gournay wallpaper. (I happen to know it was done by Nicky Haslam. When Nicky came to tea here a couple of years ago, bringing some table lamps from his South Ken shop, at the height of his spiked hair and tanned face and leather rocker phase, I didn’t recognize him at first. When I’d last seen the famous interior-design queen, he was a correctly attired white-haired man in age-appropriate suiting, with a free bus pass. ‘Nicky!’ I’d said. ‘It’s Rose! Rose Musgrove. I used to know you… in London… when you were old.’) While I am admiring the wallpaper, Serena is bleeding in the bathroom.

I found her up here. I’d repaired to the bedroom floor to call Virginie on my mobile. Just for reassurance, I suppose. And to tell her to forget about her plans to snap up the gatehouse at Hutton. That prime country residence, conveniently close to me, is no longer in play. Old Sir Michael’s found his heir at last.

I’m not having a good wedding, in other words. All that palaver with Gwenda, the ambulance, Sir Michael being taken ill, and now poor Serena. It’s rather threatening to sour my mood over Pierre’s newfound success, especially as Virginie’s cunning plan to turn the gatehouse into a Petit Trianon retreat, complete with lambs and doves and me, seems to have crumbled into dust.

And the other thing. The sight of Sophy, Noah clamped to her bosom, deep in conversation with Jesse Marlon, was a slightly disturbing one. I went up to them, and Jesse Marlon disengaged from her, and we went off into the walled garden, and he sort of explained the whole thing. He said that ‘Soph’, as he called her, was very emotional and a very fragile person.