“I’ve just acquired some fine pieces from Paris if you’d care to look, miss,” he said as he wrapped up the boxes for me.

“I’m afraid that I don’t have the money for your lovely things,” I replied, giving him a regretful smile.

“I understand.” He handed me the boxes. “It’s not easy to survive these days for most of us, is it? It’s rare that I have a call for my better-quality items these days. My compliments of the season to you, miss.” Then he added astutely, “Or should I say ‘my lady’?”

I came out of the shop with three pixies then went into the sweet shop next door and bought a box of chocolates for Mrs. Huggins and Black Magic for Lady Hawse-Gorzley. I wasn’t going to attempt to buy anything for the invisible Mr. Coward.

Chapter 12

The next lot of guests arrived around two o’clock. They were Mr. and Mrs. Upthorpe and their daughter, Ethel—a large girl with a rather vacant moon face and Marcel-waved hair that somehow didn’t make her seem smarter. Both mother and daughter wore well-cut clothes that shouted Paris, but they still seemed ill at ease. The Wexlers and the Upthorpes regarded each other suspiciously. I showed Ethel up to her room.

“I’m glad to see there’s someone else ordinary here,” she said in a whisper. “I was afraid they’d all be lords and ladies. We’re plain folks really, except that my dad has made a lot of money. But that’s not enough, is it? They wanted to have me presented at court, but I got turned down. So now my mum has set her heart on my marrying into the aristocracy; that’s why she decided we had to come here. But I don’t actually see any young men around.”

“I gather that three of them are due later today,” I said. “The son of the house, his friend from Oxford and his cousin. I can’t tell you what they are like because I haven’t met them yet.”

“So what does your dad do?” she asked.

“He used to be Duke of Glen Garry and Rannoch,” I said. “He’s dead now.”

She put her hand up to her mouth. “Oh, crikey. I know who you are. I’ve seen your picture in the society pages. Oh, I do feel a fool.”

“That’s all right,” I said. “I am quite ordinary, really. I’m unattached with no job, so probably worse off than you are.”

“But you have royal relatives,” she pointed out.

“Well, yes, that’s true.”

“I should be curtsying and calling you ‘my lady.’”

“Not at a function like this. We’re all friends together this week. Why don’t you call me Georgie?”

She beamed at me. “You’re a good sport, Georgie. Just wait till I tell the girls at home about this.”

At least I’d made someone happy. We came downstairs to find that Colonel and Mrs. Rathbone had arrived. They looked exactly as I would have expected. He was portly with a small military mustache. They were both wearing country tweeds and she had a good-quality Cairngorms brooch in her lapel.