“There you are, then. We can only make a prediction based on what you tell us, and that also isn’t always accurate. Anyway, no point in debating it. The young woman is in labor, and if you’ll leave the room, sir, I’ll examine her to find out how far along she is.”

  “If she’s in labor we must get her to the nursing home right away,” Darcy said.

  The doctor looked up. “No time for that, Mr. O’Mara. Her water just broke. That baby is well on its way.”

  Suddenly it was all hands on deck. Darcy woke the servants. The bed was stripped. A rubber sheet added. Hot water and towels brought. I lay there watching it as if it was a film, feeling excited but frightened at the same time. Outside the window daylight appeared in the sky. The dawn chorus was deafening. I went from feeling quite normal to being consumed with a round of pain.

  “How long will this go on?” I asked when Maisie wiped sweat from my forehead.

  “With first babies it could be a few more hours,” the doctor said. “We must just let nature take its course.”

  Not the news I wanted to hear. I began to think about stories I’d heard. Women who had died in childbirth. Babies born with the cord around their neck. “It’s going to be all right,” I told myself.

  Sir Hubert was informed. Apparently he telephoned Zou Zou, who said she was on her way. I wasn’t sure how much time passed, but the interval between the contractions was getting narrower. Then I was conscious of a commotion in the doorway. In burst Fig.

  “Georgiana, my dear girl, why didn’t you call me? I’d have come immediately. You need a woman by your side. Not these heartless men. Do you want some barley water? Brandy? Let me massage your back. That sometimes helps with the agony, so I’m told. Not that I ever experienced it. Binky wouldn’t come near the room when I gave birth. Frightened he’d faint dead away, stupid man. And you know what Dr. Mackintosh was like. Not exactly the most kindly of men. Told me to lie there and push.”

  “Should I be pushing?” I asked, giving my doctor a worried look.

  “Not yet. You’ll know when you have to,” he said, glaring at Fig. “I think Lady Georgiana might feel more comfortable if she was alone at this moment.”

  “Not at all. She needs a woman. A close relative,” Fig said and pulled up a chair beside my bed to emphasize this point.

  It must have been midmorning when there was a ring at the doorbell. I heard Mrs. Holbrook’s voice. It sounded pleased. A female voice. Light feet on the stairs. It must be Zou Zou, I thought and felt comforted that she was here.

  Then someone came into the room.

  “Darling. Don’t worry. Mummy’s here now,” said my mother, enveloping me in a cloying wave of perfume.

  Chapter 34

  July 29

  Eynsleigh

  No time to write my diary. Rather busy. Too many things happening. Some good. Some bad.

  “I came as soon as I heard the news,” Mummy said, perching herself on the bed beside me. “I was in London anyway. I told Max I had to be ready to greet my grandchild so I’d just arrived at Claridge’s when I ran into Zou Zou at dinner last night. Then she telephoned me first thing this morning with the news and we drove down together. She’s coming up when she’s put her motorcar away. So now you are in the good hands of the women who love you.” She looked up, looked around. “Oh hello, Fig,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

  If I hadn’t been in so much pain I’d have smiled.

  “Madame, I think there are now too many people in this room,” the doctor said.

  “I quite agree,” Mummy replied. “And for your information I am ‘Your Grace’ and not ‘madame.’ But as her mother I think I have a right…” She looked around. “Darcy, why don’t you take Fig downstairs and get her brandy. She looks a bit pale. We don’t want her fainting in here.”

  “I’m perfectly fine, thank you,” Fig said in an icy voice. “I wouldn’t have thought you’d know how to assist and comfort a woman in labor, having only had one child and then deserting it. I have produced two wonderful children who are the light of my life.”

  “As long as you only see them for an hour a day at teatime,” Mummy replied sweetly.

  “I resent that.” Fig’s voice was rising dangerously.

  “Oh, come on, Fig. I’ve seen you with your children. You don’t have one maternal bone in your body.”

  “Enough not to run away with a succession of men!”

  “That’s because no man ever asked you…”

  I sat up, grimacing. “All of you. Out of this room! Now!” I yelled. “Leave me in peace to have my baby.”

  There was a stunned silence. I didn’t often yell.

  “Well, if that’s what you want, I suppose we should leave you to get on with it,” Mummy said in a huffy voice. “Come on, Fig. Let’s go.”

  “Not you, Darcy,” I said as he hesitated at the door. “I want you here, with me.”

  He came over to the bed. “You’re doing splendidly, old thing,” he said. “It won’t be long now, will it, Doctor?”

  The doctor gave a noncommittal grunt. “You can never tell with first babies,” he said. “They take their own good time.”

  Midday passed. They brought me up some broth but I didn’t want it. Darcy went down to get a bite to eat. Zou Zou came in and said some encouraging words. “And wait until you see the divine stuffed elephant I’ve brought with me,” she said. “The little darling will love it.”

  But I didn’t even want Zou Zou anywhere near me at this moment. I couldn’t be bright and cheerful and polite. I wanted to scream and a lady does not scream in public. I gripped Darcy’s hand when a wave of pain came over me. He looked at me. “It’s all right. Go ahead and yell if you want to.”

  Then suddenly I said, in a surprised voice, “I have to push. Something’s happening.”

  “Good girl,” the doctor said. “Wait for the contraction, then push with all your might.”

  I waited. I pushed. I waited again and pushed again.

  “Why isn’t it coming?” I asked.

  “It is coming. Very nicely. I can see the top of the head. Lots of dark hair. Just like the daddy. Now, one more big push…”

  And suddenly a loud and lusty cry filled the room. I looked at Darcy in amazement. The doctor wrapped the baby in a towel. “You have a fine son,” he said.

  “A little boy,” Darcy said, his voice cracking with emotion.

  “I have a little boy,” I repeated and burst into tears.

  The doctor cut the cord, cleaned up the baby and put him into my arms. Little dark eyes frowned up at me. “I think I know you,” they seemed to be saying. A tiny hand reached out and touched my cheek. It was all too amazing to be real.

  “He’s got good big hands,” Darcy said. “Going to be a rugby player.”

  * * *

  When I was spruced up and ready to receive visitors, the rest of the household was allowed into the room.

  “You’ve a boy. An heir. A future Lord Kilhenny,” Sir Hubert said, patting Darcy on the back. “You must be very proud.”

  “I was hoping for a little girl,” Mummy said. “Weren’t you, Zou Zou? Not much fun dressing a boy. They get everything dirty.”

  “But he is a lovely baby.” Zou Zou reached forward to stroke that dark hair. “Handsome. Going to be a heartbreaker like his father.” She gave Darcy a knowing wink. Those two had been rather too close at some stage, I suspected.

  I looked around and saw my grandfather hovering in the doorway. “Come and see your great-grandson, Granddad,” I called.

  The others parted to let him forward. He stared down at the baby with a look of such tenderness that it melted my heart. “He looks a lot like your uncle Jimmy did,” he said. “He was a handsome baby too, I remember.”

  “You have an Uncle Jimmy?” Fig asked.

  “He was killed in the Great War,” Granddad said.

  “Have you decided on the name?” Fig asked. “Is he to be Darcy? A rather strange name, I’ve always felt. Not quite normal.” And this from one who was called Hilda.

  “We’ve discussed it,” Darcy said, “but haven’t quite decided.”

  “You’ll have to come up with a name for the birth certificate,” Fig said sharply.

  Darcy caught my expression. “Georgie needs to rest now,” he said. “Let’s give her some time to sleep.”

  They tiptoed out, one by one.

  “What do you think we should call him?” he asked me. “Definitely not Darcy as his first name. Two in one family is too much. And my baptismal first name is William because the priest told my parents that Darcy wasn’t a true saint’s name. So he could be William. Or Thaddeus Alexander like my father?”

  “Oh golly, no,” I said.

  “Or Albert after his grandfather and great-grandfather?”

  “That should probably be in there somewhere,” I agreed. “But Albert is such an old man’s name.”

  “William, then?” Darcy studied his son’s sleeping face.

  I looked too. Billy? Will? “He doesn’t really look like a William to me, no more than you do,” I said. “You know, I just had an idea. Granddad said he reminded him a lot of Uncle Jimmy. Would you mind if we called him James?”

  “James O’Mara. Has a nice ring to it,” Darcy said. “James Albert Darcy, Eighteenth Baron Kilhenny. Yes, I think we can go with that.”

  “That’s perfect.” I beamed at him.

  “Right. I’ll spread the news,” Darcy said, “and leave you to sleep. Is there anything you want?”

  “You know what I want?” I replied. “I’m starving. I’ve missed several meals. Right now I could do with scrambled eggs and bacon.”

  * * *

  The name was universally approved of, except that Binky wondered if we should add a Fergus, Bruce or Hamish to it, to honor my side of the family. I pointed out we’d got Albert and you couldn’t get much more of an honor than that. Granddad actually wiped away a tear when I told him we’d called the baby after Uncle Jimmy—and him, of course. Another Albert. So we were honoring both sides of my family.

  James Albert Darcy slept peacefully, woke up to feed and slept again. Mummy, Fig and Zou Zou amused themselves by annoying each other, in between trying to outdo each other in giving lavish gifts to the baby. The explorer, annoyed at not being the center of attention, I suspect, went home, having promised to send us one of his priceless artifacts as a christening present. I didn’t think a baby would be thrilled with a shrunken head or war club but was gracious.

  And two days later Darcy got a telephone call from London. He came into my room when I was nursing James. “Sorry to interrupt,” he said, gazing down at us tenderly, “but my man in London has reported back to me. About Sir Mordred. It seems his financial state is not that wonderful. His publisher confided that his books are no longer selling well. His sort of stuff is a fad that people tire of and he tends to churn out the same story each time.”

  “But he married money,” I said.

  “He spent her money buying the manor, and the house he inherited needs lots of repairs,” Darcy said. “Moreover, his wife left him an income for life but the bulk of her fortune goes to the two children, so he doesn’t have that much disposable cash, which he needs right now to fund this film with Laurence Olivier.”

  “He has to fund his own film?”

  “He has to come up with the bulk of the cash, and he’s desperate to do it because it will put his name back in front of the public.”

  I thought about this. “So you are saying that he held the open house and the banquet to make money for himself?”

  “It appears that way.”

  “And the old lady smelled a rat. She was going to check up on his South African orphans.”

  Darcy nodded again.

  “But would that make you want to kill, Darcy?” I asked. “It would be an embarrassment, that’s all. How many public figures have misused money, after all?”

  He nodded. “But he is a vain man, isn’t he? He’d hate to be scorned.”

  “And that doesn’t explain why he wanted Mr. Halliday out of the way.”

  “No, it doesn’t.”

  “You’ll share this information with Inspector Sturgeon, will you?” I asked.

  “Oh, definitely. It’s up to him what he does with it.”

  * * *

  After Darcy had gone and James Albert was lying in his bassinet, awake and alert, I thought about what he had just told me. So Sir Mordred was a shifty character, but surely people did not kill because they were mishandling money, unless it would mean their utter ruin, which this wouldn’t. In fact it might work the other way around. His name would be in the public eye again if there was a scandal. And scandals sell books.

  Inspector Sturgeon did not seem to agree with me when Darcy told him this. He was inclined to believe that the old lady’s death was of a weak heart, not from anything sinister. And he couldn’t come up with any good reason for wanting to bump off Mr. Halliday.

  And so, it seemed, we were at a stalemate. Mummy, Zou Zou and Fig flitted in and out with advice, presents, and complaints about each other (not Zou Zou; she never complained, but instead told stories about the other two locked in combat). I lay in bed, feeling bored and wanting something to do. This two weeks of lying in was stupid, I told myself. I felt perfectly fit and ready to get on with life again.

  On a fine afternoon I was sitting in the armchair by the open window with James on my lap. His eyes were open and he was focused intently on my face, reacting as I smiled and talked to him. I, in turn, gazed at him in utter adoration. I couldn’t believe I had produced something so absolutely perfect. His little hand grasped my finger so strongly that I was surprised. I examined those little hands, those perfect tiny fingers…. And then I froze. It was almost as if I was having a vision. I was seeing those photographs of the rugby team at Harrow. Shrimpy Mortimer sitting in the middle, holding the ball. And in the final photo, the first fifteen, the finger on one of his hands was misshapen, with the joint swollen.

  I stood up and put James back in his bassinet, much to his annoyance, then rang the bell. Maisie appeared, out of breath from running. “You wanted something, my lady?”

  “Yes, Maisie. Please tell Mr. Darcy I have to see him immediately.”

  I waited impatiently, and it seemed to take ages to find him. I was worried that he had gone off to London or somewhere without telling me. But then I heard his feet, hurrying along the hall.

  “What’s up, old thing?” he asked. “Everything all right?”

  “He’s not the same person,” I blurted out.

  “What? You think they switched babies? I call tell you they didn’t. I watched him being born.”

  “No, not babies. Sir Mordred!” I started pacing excitedly.

  “Shouldn’t you be lying down?” Darcy took my arm to slow me.

  “I feel perfectly fine. Listen to this, Darcy. I was looking at James’s fingers, thinking how perfect they were, and then I remembered the rugby photographs that Mrs. Halliday showed us. In the last one Mordred’s finger was deformed.”

  “Yes, I remember Mr. Halliday reminded him that he’d broken his finger and they were worried he wouldn’t be able to play anymore but he battled through with his hand strapped up.”

  “Broken limbs never heal absolutely perfectly,” I said. “Always a little crooked or deformed. Sir Mordred’s fingers are long, straight, and perfect. Mr. Halliday noticed them. He was going to say something. I saw him. Perhaps he was coming to the conclusion that this Sir Mordred was not the same person he knew.”

  “But why lie about it? Why not say, ‘No, I’m not that Mordred’?”

  I was moving my arms excitedly again. “Because that Mordred inherited the house and the title.”

  “So who is he?”

  “Remember what he told us about South Africa? He and a friend were prospecting for diamonds and the hole collapsed on them and he was dug out but his friend wasn’t so lucky. What if the one who wasn’t so lucky was the real Mordred? What if the man we know was the friend—the penniless friend who knew that Mordred had just inherited a title and estate? Perhaps they looked similar enough that he could claim to be Mordred (who had told him he’d never met the cousin from whom he’d inherited), go back to England, and start a new and comfortable life.”

  Darcy was just staring at me. I went on. “Perhaps he’d always wanted to be a writer but never had the time or funds to do so. And in case anyone might recognize him, he adopted this extreme persona—the long silver hair, the round wire glasses, the ridiculous outfits.”

  “And he’s got away with it, until Tubby Halliday, a former close friend, wanted to come back into his life. And a close friend would know—already began to suspect that night that something wasn’t right.”

  “And when he saw Sir Mordred’s hands he knew,” I finished for Darcy.

  “So he had to die,” Darcy said.

  We looked at each other, digesting the enormity of what we were thinking.

  “How do we prove this?”

  “There must be old newspapers on file at the South African High Commission,” he said. “Surely a dramatic event like two young men in a mining accident might make the papers?”

  He went down to telephone the High Commission and the next day he set off for London, returning triumphant. “Here’s a copy of the article in the newspaper,” he said. He showed me the grainy photograph of two young men, bare chested, sitting together on a rock, holding shovels, smiling at the camera. One of them was Sir Mordred. And the other…“That’s Shrimpy Mortimer,” I said.

  Chapter 35

  August 4

  Eynsleigh

  Now I have plenty of time to write a diary. All is well with the world. I have an adorable baby, the most beautiful and intelligent child ever born. And a proud husband. And too many relatives around me. But Sir Mordred Mortimer has been arrested for the murders. When they searched his laboratory they found he had distilled atropine from deadly nightshade. It would only have taken a couple of drops. The elderberries were only added to confuse, to make Sir Mordred seem a victim and to pin the crime on Pierre.