“So you took it upon yourself to do that?” the Dowager remarked.

“I am sorry – it was wrong,” Carina said. “Lord Lynche told me to mind my own business – but Lady Lynche is dying.”

“We all have to die sometime,” the Dowager retorted sharply. “The doctors gave me up years ago, but I am still here. Now listen to me, child, I want to tell you something and, if you are half as intelligent as you look, you will understand. This Castle has passed from father to son since the Norman Conquest. You will find the name of Lynche in every history book. They have played their part not only by serving their King, but by keeping the family alive by ensuring that the family traditions and family loyalties were carried on in every century.”

The Dowager paused and looked round the room.

“This room has seen generation after generation come into the world and pass from it. Every room in this Castle is filled with treasures and legends. Every Lynche has inherited not only his name but the glory and the traditions of his ancestors. Can you understand what that means?”

“Yes, I understand,” Carina said.

“Father to son, father to son,” the old lady said, “and now you bring this –this little by-blow from an Eastern bazaar. Do you expect us to be pleased?”

“Your son should have thought of that when he fell in love.”

The Dowager gave a snort.

“Fell in love!” she said. “One does not fall in love with trollops. He was enamoured with desire for a woman who doubtless went out of her way to satisfy his lust and pick his pocket at the same time. Do you call that love? There are some very harsh names that are far more appropriate to it.”

“But – he married her,” Carina said softly.

“Was he drunk or crazed when he did it?” the Dowager asked and now there was an expression of pain in her eyes and in the tone of her voice, which was very different from the harshness with which she had spoken before.

“How could he not have remembered that he is a Lynche?” she cried suddenly. “How could he have sunk to such depths that he could let us be faced with a creature like that child?”

“Oh, poor Dipa!” Carina said quickly. “Please don’t hate him.”

She looked across the room to where the child had scrambled into a chair at the dressing table and was playing with a gold hairbrush. He was brushing his little head with it upside down and making faces at himself in the mirror as he did so.

“A monkey!” the Dowager said almost beneath her breath. “A little monkey from the jungle!”