Page 100 of The Secrets of Ashmore Castle

‘Well, maybe you’re right – but curly shoes! No, I draw the line there.’ He shook his head, then seemed to recollect himself. ‘Dear me, where are my manners? You’ve done it again, Miss Sanderton, made me so comfortable I just jaw selfishly away without thinking. So, what are you supposed to be?’

‘Britannia,’ she said, pulling out a fold of the sash to demonstrate.

‘Well, that’s nice and patriotic,’ he said. ‘But isn’t there a …’ He twirled a finger over his head.

‘Helmet? There is, and a shield, but I hid them in the cloakroom downstairs a while ago.’

He beamed. ‘Very sensible. I think I might get rid of this turban the same way.’

‘Oh, not yet! It does make you look rather splendid.’

He looked at her suspiciously. ‘Now you’re gammoning me.’

Nina, who had been, just a little, straightened her face and said, ‘But tell me, were you at the Coronation? In the Abbey, I mean?’

He looked pleased again. ‘I was. The King was so kind as to send me a ticket – one of the out-of-the-way seats, and I couldn’t see everything because of the pillars, but it’s something to say I was there.’

‘But you weren’t invited to the banquet afterwards?’

‘No, no, I’m not that important. But when I told the King I’d got an invitation here, he said he wished he could come too, and that I’d have more fun than he would, for all the twenty courses. Of course, he knows our host very well, Mawes Morris. Makes him laugh every time, and His Majesty does love to laugh.’

At that moment, Mawes himself appeared, seized Nina’s arm, and said, ‘Nina, come with me. I must make a quick sketch of you as Britannia. I’ve had an idea for a cartoon for next week.’ He frowned. ‘Didn’t you have a helmet?’

‘And a shield, but no trident,’ she said. ‘I got rid of them downstairs.’

‘All right, I’ll send someone for them. Come along, while I’m on fire. Cowling, good to see you! You don’t mind my stealing your companion.’

He didn’t wait for an answer, but towed Nina away through the crowds. ‘There are other Britannias, you know,’ she said, ‘with better costumes than mine.’

‘But you have the face – particularly the profile,’ he said. ‘No, I must have you.’

‘I see you invited Mr Cowling,’ Nina said, as she followed him upstairs to his studio. ‘I thought he seemed – well, a bit out of his usual place.’

Mawes swung round the turn of the stairs, so she saw his grin. ‘Wasn’t my idea. He invited himself, quite pointedly, so I couldn’t refuse. I would never have imagined him enjoying a fancy-dress party of this sort, but you never know, do you? I half expected the King to slip in behind him – playing hooky from the official bun-struggle at the palace.’

Nina smiled at the thought. ‘I wonder what he’d have come as.’

‘Probably as the King of England,’ said Mawes.

‘It really is too hot in Florence,’ Lucia said at dinner, in the scented, mothy half-darkness of the arbour. ‘Look how your poor little wife is drooping, Giles, like a flower that wants water.’

‘Yes, what are your plans, Giles?’ asked the professor. His English was good, but not as perfect as Lucia’s – she had been secretary to an English Egyptologist. ‘You are welcome to stay here as long as you wish, but we do not remain in August, usually.’

‘I’m sorry, am I disrupting your plans? I’ve been so happily occupied I haven’t thought. Stupid of me! I had thought of going to Naples from here. I’d like to show Kitty the ruins of Pompeii.’

Both protested at once, and even Giulia looked surprised.

‘Napoli? Impossible! Intolerable!’

‘Giles, you cannot drag her round Pompeii in August. You cannot be such a brute.’

‘Every man of sense goes to the sea at this time of year.’

‘Is that where you’re going?’ he asked.

Husband and wife glanced at each other. ‘We always take a villa in Capri for August,’ said Lucia. ‘We have lingered here for you – and glad to do it—’

‘Then we must delay you no more,’ Giles said. ‘You’ve been too polite. I’m sure you’re sick of us by now.’