“Ah, a sad day,” he said. “I knew it well. Although rather good for me. The little girls of the west coast have to come get their jodhpurs from me these days.”

“I like these,” said Blair, pointing at a large pair of waders hanging up.

“They’re for fishing,” said Crawford.

“Well, surely they’ll work in the snow too?”

Crawford and Carmen shared a look.

“Now here,” said Crawford, bringing up the wellies.

“They’re three hundred pounds!” said Carmen before she could help herself.

“I’m going to bill the publishers,” said Blair airily. “They’re the ones who left me in this mess.”

“They sent the thundersnow?”

He tried on a pair with a tartan fold over at the top and looked at himself in the mirror, obviously liking what he saw.

Crawford nodded. “Although . . .” he said.

“I know,” said Blair. And in a twinkling of an eye he was in a changing room, trying on a pair of navy cords with a tweed shirt, a mustard waistcoat, and a wildly expensive waxed overcoat. He’d texted the number of the airline to Carmen, but she was studiously ignoring it.

“Ta-da!” he said, emerging as a full country gentleman. Carmen burst out laughing, but the smile faded as she saw the disappointment on his face.

Actually, he looked rather nice, if ready for a costume party. The waistcoat suited him wonderfully, showed off his broad shoulders; the cords balanced his slim bottom half.

“Do you have a personal trainer?” said Carmen.

“Who doesn’t?”

Carmen rolled her eyes. “What time are we going to kill some foxes?”

“Want to try the flat cap, sir?”

“No,” said Carmen. “I think that’s far enough. You don’t want to go full Nigel Farage.”

“I don’t,” said Blair with a shiver. He looked at himself in the mirror. “This isn’t me at all,” he said. “Am I wrong to like it?”

“I like it,” said Carmen.

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Well, all right then.”

The bill was absolutely eye-popping, but Blair didn’t bat an eyelid, just tossed a gold credit card over the counter.

He marched out in his expensive Wellingtons and shiny new clothes, admiring himself repeatedly in the windows as they passed. A few more people were blindly feeling their way through the snow, including a woman who, when she realized whom she was walking past, tripped up in shock.

“Madam,” said Blair, back to his charming best, helping her up.

“Blair Pfenning!” she managed. “I . . . I love you!”

“Well, how nice,” he said smoothly, carrying on moving even as she fumbled for her camera with frozen hands.

“Goodness,” said Carmen. “Does that happen a lot?”

“Not nearly enough,” said Blair. “For example, some people just leave me stranded in a strange city without a flight out.”