‘Well, come out!’ I say excitedly. ‘Go on, Suze, come to LA! Have a little holiday. We’d have such a laugh.’

‘Oh …’ Her face is torn a million ways. I can see exactly what she’s thinking. (This is why she’d make a brilliant actress, in fact.)

‘Tarkie can come too,’ I say, to forestall her objections. ‘And the children.’

‘Maybe,’ she says hesitantly. ‘Except we’re supposed to be focusing on business expansion this year. You know we’re starting weddings? And Tarkie wants to create a maze, and we’re revamping the tea rooms …’

‘You can still have a holiday!’

‘I don’t know.’ She looks doubtful. ‘You know the pressure he feels.’

I nod sympathetically. I do actually feel for old Tarkie. It’s quite a burden, inheriting a stately home, with your whole family looking on beadily to see if you manage it properly. Apparently, every Lord Cleath-Stuart has added something special to Letherby Hall, through all the generations, like an east wing, or a chapel, or a topiary garden.

In fact, that’s why we’re all here today. Tarkie’s launching his first major addition to the house. It’s called ‘The Surge’ and it’s a fountain. It’s going to be the highest fountain in the whole county and will be a big tourist attraction. Apparently he had the idea when he was ten, and drew it in his Latin book, and kept it ever since. And now he’s built it!

Hundreds of people are coming to watch it being switched on and the local TV station has interviewed him, and everyone is saying this could be the making of Letherby Hall. Suze says she hasn’t seen Tarkie this nervous since he competed in the junior national dressage when they were both children. That time he mucked up his half-pass (which is apparently bad) and his father, who lives for horses, nearly disowned him as a result. So let’s hope things go better this time.

‘I’ll work on Tarkie.’ Suze swings her legs off the bed. ‘C’mon, Bex. We’d better go.’

The only disadvantage of living in a house like this is it takes you about six hours just to get from the bedroom to the garden. We walk through the Long Gallery (lots of ancient portraits) and the East Hall (lots of ancient suits of armour) and cut across the massive Great Hall. There we pause, and breathe in the musty, woody aroma. Suze can burn as many Diptyque candles as she likes, but this room will always smell of Old House.

‘It was amazing, wasn’t it?’ says Suze, reading my thoughts.

‘Spectacular.’ I sigh.

We’re talking about the birthday party that I threw for Luke, right here, what seems like no time ago. As if on cue, we both lift our eyes to the tiny first-floor balcony where Luke’s mother, Elinor, stood hidden, watching the proceedings. Luke never knew she was there, nor that she basically funded and helped to arrange the whole thing. She’s sworn me to secrecy, which makes me want to scream with frustration. If only he knew that she’d paid for his party. If only he knew how much she’d done for him.