About four years after Nathan adopted Sam and Ben, farther south near the small town of Great Barton, a man and a woman in a smart sports car paused at the gates of their country estate.

“We should stay,” said the woman.

“My love,” her husband replied. “Look at the sky!”

Their names were Théophile and Isobel St. Rémy, and they were on their way to an airfield, to go up in an airplane. Théophile was French, with a head of wild curls and twinkly brown eyes. Isobel was English and fair, with creamy skin, which smelled of roses. They were like people in a fairy tale, these two, kind and loving as well as beautiful and rich, and blessed with an adored eight-year-old daughter called Lotti, who had the wild hair and impetuous nature of her papa, and the blue eyes and kindness of her mama. It was the thought of Lotti that made Isobel hesitate now. Lotti would have loved to go up in an airplane, but she was stuck in bed with a streaming cold, being looked after by the servants and an old cat called Queen Victoria.

“She was so disappointed,” said Isobel in the car. “Let’s all go together when she’s better.”

Théophile hesitated. He also hated to leave Lotti. But then he looked again at the blue, blue sky.

“It’s just such a perfect day for flying …”

So they went. And a terrible thing happened, but … well, it’s like with Ben’s shoes. If they had stayed, there would be no story.

The storm came from nowhere, people said, which was stupid. Storms are created when a center of low pressure develops with a system of high pressure surrounding it. They do not come from nowhere.

But still. Wherever it came from, the storm did in the airplane, and it did in Lotti’s parents.

In their will, Théophile and Isobel left everything they owned to their daughter, and appointed Isobel’s much older brother, Hubert, to look after both Lotti and her fortune until she was twenty-one.

Poor Lotti …