“And what help do you think you are being?” the Dowager asked. “But then, you always were spineless. You had better leave this to me. Whom have they seen since they arrived?”

“Newman, who let them in and Percy Rockley, who came out into the hall while I was talking to them.”

“So that man has seen them!” the Dowager remarked acidly. “In which case the child cannot be kept hidden.”

She looked Carina straight in the eyes and said,

“Put the child down, I want to talk to you.”

Carina put Dipa down on the ground, where he instantly darted away from her towards the dog on the hearthrug.

“Doggie, doggie!” they heard him calling in his high sing-song voice. “Doggie play with Dipa?”

Carina turned to find the Dowager looking full at her and there was something formidable in the dark sunken eyes, which made her feel instinctively that she must be on her guard.

“Are you trustworthy?” the Dowager asked.

Carina’s chin went up. This was something that touched her personally.

“I am,” she answered.

“Can we trust you? That is the question,” the Dowager said.

“It depends what you are going to ask of me,” Carina answered.

“So you have spirit, have you?” the Dowager said with a sudden chuckle. “I like girls with spirit. What is your name?”

“Carina – Warner,” Carina replied, conscious that the Dowager had noticed the little pause between her first and second names and annoyed with herself for being always off her guard whenever she had to answer that particular question.

“Well, Miss Warner, who are your parents?”

“My parents are both dead.”

“Your relations?”

“I have very few, I-I did not exactly see eye-to-eye with them.”

“So that is why you are earning your own living, because you don’t like your relations and you want to be independent?”

Carina inclined her head.

“Good! So you need money. Nobody works unless they need money. Well, we are prepared to pay you a good deal more than you have received in the past. Will that satisfy you?”

“It still depends on what you want me to do,” Carina said again.

“We want you to look after the child, of course,” the Dowager snapped. “That should be obvious. But we want you also to keep your mouth shut!”

Carina glanced out of the corners of her eyes at Lord Lynche.

He was looking cynical and imperturbable as he stood listening to his mother.

‘He is despicable!’ Carina thought to herself.

“You and the child will live in this house,” the Dowager went on, “and no one – you understand that? – no one must ever know who he is or who his parents are supposed to be.”

“Mama, really!” Lord Lynche interrupted, only to be silenced by an imperious gesture of his mother’s hand.