“Oh, Darcy, you’re up. Jolly good.” Bunty stopped short when she saw us together. “I was wondering if you wanted to go out for a shoot. Oodles of pheasants around here just waiting to be bagged.”

“I think we’d better see what your mother has planned for us,” Darcy said. “She seems to have the whole thing organized.”

“There’s no need for family to have to take part in all her silly fun and games,” Bunty said, latching on to his arm. “You and I could slip away and not be noticed.”

“Another time, Bunty,” he said. He gave me a swift glance, saw me trying to look indifferent, then cleared his throat. “Bunty, I think you should know that Georgie and I . . . well . . .”

There was a dreadfully long silence in which I shifted uneasily on my seat.

“I knew it,” she said at last. “I saw the way you look at her. Oh, bugger. Well. I suppose I’d better be charitable and say ‘Bless you, my children.’ I probably wouldn’t have been able to marry my cousin anyway. Blast and damnation. How am I ever going to meet anyone decent stuck down here?”

And she stomped out. Darcy and I exchanged a long look. “I had to tell her,” he said. “She’s been pestering me every second since I got here.”

“I hope her mother won’t mind,” I said, trying to look blasé while all the time a voice was yelling through my head that Darcy had acknowledged me as his sweetheart. “Perhaps she had her heart set on a match too.”

“A match?” Darcy smiled. “I don’t think I’d be described as much of a catch at the moment. A title sometime in the distant future and no prospects for the present. Hopeless, if you ask me.” He gave me another one of those smiles.

Other people began to drift into the breakfast room muttering “Morning” in a way that indicated they too were suffering from hangovers. I got up. “I should go and see what Lady Hawse-Gorzley wants me to do,” I said. But before I could leave the room she came in.

“Georgiana dear. The weather’s not promising this morning. It may snow again. May rain. Dashed nuisance. So I suggest you round up the young people and get to work on the pantomime.”

“Pantomime?”

“Oh, yes. We always put on a pantomime on Boxing Day. The funnier the better. Ask Bunty for the local jokes. I’ll have the servants bring the dressing-up box down from the attic. Always such fun. And we’ll keep it down for when we play charades. You can have the small sitting room next to the ballroom.”

She looked around the table. “Everyone all right? Splendid. Splendid. I’ll have the butler put the morning papers in the library for you.”

And she was off again. I looked down at Darcy.

“How are you at pantomimes?” I asked.