‘Right. Yeah, let’s go.’

Clementine moved past the dollhouse, and up the sweeping staircase with its deep forest-green carpet, studded with gold emblems. Her fingers wrapped around the heavy wooden bannister, Posy started to follow, but paused to stare down at the hall, and the roof of the replica Aldermere, and Hugh Davenport crouched in front of the dollhouse, still holding the little stabbed figurine.

Posy had never starred in a period drama before, but maybe this was what it would feel like. Like she was living in two times at once, walking from the modern day into Lettice Davenport’s world, and back again.

With any film you had the movie world and the real world, the lines between them never as clearly drawn as it would seem from the finished product. There were always crew members ducking out of sight, wires and equipment to avoid tripping over, constant reminders that the life she was living for the cameras was a fake.

But here, this weekend, there were no cameras. No phones, no modern tech.

Just her; a twenty-first-century girl in a world she didn’t quite understand.

‘Posy Starling as Dahlia Lively appears like someone who has accidentally time travelled back to the 1930s and isn’t quite sure what she’s doing there.’ Posy scowled at the critic in her head, and hurried to catch up with Clementine.

At the top of the stairs, a landing opened up in both directions, with another staircase straight ahead leading to the floor above. Clementine turned left, and led her to a room at the corner of the house.

‘We’ve put you in the China Room, if that’s okay?’ Clementine said, as if the name should mean something to Posy. ‘It has a lovely view towards the river, over the alder trees. Plus, of course, it’s the room that Lettice wrote into her second Dahlia Lively mystery, Never Underestimate a Lady.’

Posy smiled, and mentally added book two to her reading list. ‘That’s perfect, thank you.’

She almost retracted the statement when Clementine opened the door, though. Inside, the walls were covered in the sort of blue and white patterns that Posy’s English grandmother had displayed in her china cabinet. On tea cups they were fairly inoffensive. Surrounding her on all four walls, the chintzy patterns felt almost claustrophobic.

She might not have read Never Underestimate a Lady yet, but already she could see why this room would make someone want to commit murder.

Posy dropped her bag onto the faded blue and white bedspread and turned to look out of the window. Outside, the gardens of Aldermere House seemed to stretch for miles. Formal gardens, outbuildings that Posy assumed were the stables, then meadow and woodland, a stone structure she couldn’t even begin to guess the purpose of, then trees and finally the river.