‘No. I wanted to be free to do something – anything – else. Something that was mine, you know?’ She looked up, searching for understanding in their expressions. ‘I’d always loved the Dahlia Lively stories – wanted to be Dahlia, as a kid. And when I saw the job come up working for the fan club, just when I thought my PhD studies might break me, I knew it was a sign. I dropped out before Marcus even formally offered me the job.’

It was strange, Caro thought, to think of Dahlia Lively as an alternative heroine for the twenty-first century, but that was what she seemed to have become – for Felicity, at least, and she probably wasn’t the only one.

The joy of Dahlia was that she never cared what other people, or even society, thought about her. She did what she considered was right. She used her brain when half the world she lived in seemed to think she shouldn’t have one. She never played down her brilliance to make men feel better. And she never pretended to be anything less than what she was.

‘When I heard there was going to be a new movie, that Dahlia would be brought up to date for my generation … I was so excited. But then Anton cast her and I knew that he didn’t understand who Dahlia was at all.’

Maybe Felicity was right. The Posy Starling the world thought they knew from her teen acting career and her exploits in the gossip pages wouldn’t be right for Dahlia Lively.

But that wasn’t the Posy that Caro had got to know over the last two days – even if it was the one she’d expected to find.

‘I think you’re wrong about Posy,’ she said, softly. ‘But go on. Tell us about the magnifying glass.’

Felicity blinked, twice, then reached for the drink Rosalind had poured her and took a sip, some of the wind seemingly gone from her sails. ‘I realised where I was – the freaking China Room – and that she was staying there, while I was up in the servants’ quarters in a tiny single room next to the shared bathroom, and I … I wanted to show her that she wasn’t my Dahlia. That some director guy telling us she was Dahlia didn’t make it so. You know?’

‘I can understand that,’ Caro admitted. ‘So you left the magnifying glass and the note.’

Felicity nodded. ‘I wasn’t trying to frame her, exactly. I figured she’d find it, then make a huge scene about it, you know? Freak out and run away, or whatever.’

Rosalind smiled, slow but amused. ‘Except she didn’t. Did she? She decided to investigate instead. And she asked us to help her.’

‘So you doubled down by putting the poison bottle there, to really scare her,’ Caro surmised. ‘Nefarious.’

‘It was a game,’ Felicity stressed. ‘One a real Dahlia would have understood.’