‘That’s what you’re learning here?’ she said sceptically. ‘The meanings of German badges?’

He laughed. ‘It’s one of the things we’re learning. One I can tell you about without giving away military secrets.’

‘Oh, I see.’

‘Why are you here in Wales? I’m surprised you’re not doing something for the war effort.’

‘There you go again,’ she said. ‘Moral reproof. Did someone tell you this was a way to charm women?’

‘Pardon me,’ he said stiffly. ‘I didn’t mean to rebuke you.’

‘Anyway, there is no war effort. Barrage balloons float in the air as a hazard to German planes that never come.’

‘At least you’d have a social life in London.’

‘Do you know that used to be the most important thing in the world, and now it’s not?’ she said. ‘I must be getting old.’

There was another reason she had left London, but she was not going to tell him.

‘I imagined you in a nurse’s uniform,’ he said.

‘Not likely. I hate sick people. But before you give me another of those disapproving frowns, take a look at this.’ She handed him the framed photograph she was carrying.

He studied it, frowning. ‘Where did you get it?’

‘I was looking through a box of old pictures in the basement junk room.’

It was a group photo taken on the east lawn of Tŷ Gwyn on a summer morning. In the centre was the young Earl Fitzherbert, with a big white dog at his feet. The girl next to him was probably his sister, Maud, whom Daisy had never met. Lined up on either side of them were forty or fifty men and women in a variety of servants’ uniforms.

‘Look at the date,’ she said.

‘Nineteen-twelve,’ Lloyd read aloud.

She watched him, studying his reactions to the photo he was holding. ‘Is your mother in it?’

‘Goodness! She might be.’ Lloyd looked closer. ‘I believe she is,’ he said after a minute.

‘Show me.’

Lloyd pointed. ‘I think that’s her.’

Daisy saw a slim, pretty girl of about nineteen, with curly black hair under a maid’s white cap, and a smile that had more than a hint of mischief in it. ‘Why, she’s enchanting!’ she said.

‘She was then, anyway,’ Lloyd said. ‘Nowadays people are more likely to call her formidable.’

‘Have you ever met Lady Maud? Do you think that’s her next to Fitz?’

‘I suppose I’ve known her all my life, off and on. She and my mother were suffragettes together. I haven’t seen her since I left Berlin in 1933, but this is definitely her in the picture.’

‘She’s not so pretty.’

‘Perhaps, but she’s very poised, and wonderfully well dressed.’

‘Anyway, I thought you might like to have the picture.’

‘To keep?’

‘Of course. No one else wants it – that’s why it was in a box in the basement.’

‘Thank you!’

‘You’re welcome.’ Daisy went to the door. ‘Go back to your studies.’

Going down the back stairs she hoped she had not flirted. She probably should not have gone to see him at all. She had succumbed to a generous impulse. Heaven forbid that he should misinterpret it.