That first dinner, when Hugh had introduced her to his family as the woman he intended to marry. Or the day, less than a year later, when they’d ended their relationship down by the folly, and she’d still had to sit down at this damn mahogany table for dinner afterwards.

Was he really having an affair with someone else? Rosalind wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

Through the dining-room door, she passed into the grand entrance hall, with its sweeping staircase and imposing family portraits. The golden dinner gong, set in a recess beside the door, trembled a little as she let the door fall closed, and she reached out to steady it. Beneath it, on the telephone table, was an envelope addressed to Hugh. She picked it up, to take to him in his study.

The light was poor, the wall lamps more for atmosphere than practicality, and in the semi-darkness she could almost imagine that she saw Lettice Davenport herself – not as the mischievous elderly aunt she’d met in the eighties, but as a young woman – descending that curved staircase. A man’s white shirt tucked into her skirt, short bobbed hair and that ever-present grey felt hat she wore in photos. The epitome of the 1930s woman who made her own rules.

Or was that Dahlia Lively, not Lettice? Rosalind had asked her once, if Dahlia did all the things that Letty herself wasn’t allowed to. Letty had grinned, and replied, ‘Perhaps. Or perhaps the things I got up to were too scandalous even for Dahlia.’

Rosalind hoped that was true. Everyone needed a touch of scandal in their lives, didn’t they?

At the foot of the stairs stood a dollhouse replica of Aldermere House, and Rosalind lingered to examine it. It was like looking into a miniature world. The rooms flowed from one to another just as they did in the real house, and Rosalind picked out Letty’s attic room study, her own assigned guest room looking out over the front driveway, even the tiny gong beside the dining room with its table set with minuscule knives and forks. And there, beside the replica staircase, was another dollhouse, with ever smaller rooms and features.

‘Lettice was a very visual writer, you know.’

Rosalind started at the unexpected, unfamiliar voice. ‘She used this dollhouse to plot out her murder mysteries – who was where when the murder was committed, and with whom. That sort of thing. Every book she ever wrote started here, with this model.’

Trying to calm her breathing, Rosalind straightened again, but didn’t turn away from the dollhouse.

‘Apart from all the ones that weren’t set in stately homes,’ she said. Really, was there anything more annoying than a man assuming they knew more than you? ‘She used maps for those. Letty told me herself, many years ago. The dollhouse was up in her study then, of course.’