As if to demonstrate this the gearbox gave an awful grating sound and then the car leaped forward. Belinda managed to change direction after much maneuvering with the accompanying grating of gears.

“I’m sure that can’t be good for it,” I pointed out.

“He’s a good solid British motorcar,” she said. “He can stand any amount of abuse.” With that we shot up the drive toward the house so fast that my head was thrown against the back of the seat.

“Did you know he can do eighty miles an hour?” Belinda shouted over the roar of the motorcar’s engine. “I put him through his paces over the Hog’s Back.”

“Him? It’s definitely a male?”

“Obviously, darling. Can’t you feel all that masculine power and testosterone flowing? I’ve named him Brutus.”

I tried not to smirk. “How long have you had it—I mean, him?” I asked.

“Since yesterday. I only got back from Paris two days ago.”

“I thought you were planning on staying until the end of the year at least,” I shouted back.

“I was, darling, but I got a telegram from the solicitor saying that Granny’s will had finally been proved and he needed instructions on what to do with the money. You remember my grandmother had named me in her will, don’t you? Lady Knott . . .”

“Not what?” I asked.

She shook her head so that the red feather danced. “Knott, darling. With a K. My mother had to grow up being a Knott. Luckily she married someone with a more normal name like Warburton-Stoke.”

She paused to give me an indignant look as I laughed. “Anyway, Granny’s will has been proved, so I caught the next boat train home and, Georgie, you’ll never believe it, but I’m actually quite a rich woman!”

We screeched to a halt outside the front steps, narrowly missing the fountain.

“Hence the spiffy sports car,” I said.

She was smiling like a cat with the cream. “I came out of the solicitor’s office and spotted it in the showroom on Park Lane, and thought why not? So I went in and bought Brutus on the spot.”

I opened my door and climbed out, brushing off the dust that still hovered in a cloud around us. “Come inside and have tea and you can tell me all about it,” I said.

I let myself in and was just taking off my jacket in the front hall when Mrs. Holbrook appeared. “Oh, your ladyship,” she said, a worried frown on her face. “I didn’t hear you come in. We thought you’d gone up to town for a few days.”

“Change of plans, Mrs. Holbrook,” I said.

“And you didn’t telephone for the motorcar. How on earth did you get from the station? A taxi?”