“He did an awfully good duck breast for us,” I said. “That would be something the average English person doesn’t have too often, wouldn’t it?”

  “That sounds like a good idea. If he does it well. We’ve had a remarkably good response. I’ve spread the word and we already have quite a number of sign-ups, including the famous actress Jill Esmond and her husband, Laurence Olivier. I rather think my publisher might have a hand in this, as there is talk of making a film version of my book After Midnight, and this Olivier chap would make an excellent vampire. Dark and brooding, you know. A little too handsome.”

  The way his expression changed made me wonder if he was actually attracted to other men as Edwin had implied. That would explain why he never remarried after his wife died.

  “Oh dear,” I said. “Perhaps we should not attend if the rest of the company is to be famous.”

  “Not at all, my dear. Frankly the rest of the company may well be boring beyond belief. The names don’t mean anything to me, apart from your godfather and the charming princess. I suspect the others might be devoted fans of my books, dying to interact with me. We’ll just have to see. But then, they will be paying twenty guineas for the privilege, so I have to make sure they get a slap-up meal.” He stood up again. “Let’s ring for your chappie and see what ideas he has for the menu.”

  He tugged on a bell pull. Slow footsteps could be heard and a stooped, white-haired old man came in. “You rang, sir?”

  “I did, Ogden. Please summon the visiting chef.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  And the footsteps shuffled off again.

  “Poor old thing. It will take him half the morning to deliver the message. I should really let him go,” Sir Mordred said. “He should have retired years ago, but he’s no family so I keep him on out of the goodness of my heart. He came to this house as a boy, can you believe. Worked his way up from boot boy. He remembers meeting Prince Albert.” He suddenly turned to me and gestured excitedly. “Your grandfather, right?”

  “Great-grandfather,” I said.

  “Splendid.”

  The way he said this gave me the feeling that Sir Mordred himself was rather struck by celebrity. I suspected he, not his publisher, had invited the film stars, and that I was being included as a token member of the royal family.

  Contrary to his prediction, Pierre appeared shortly after. He was invited to sit and Sir Mordred peppered him with questions about the menu.

  “I’m sorry. His English is still lacking,” I said and translated for him. “Maybe we should continue in French.”

  “Sorry, but my French is as lacking as his English,” Sir Mordred said. “I never was much good at languages. And don’t ask Edwin either. He was a dashed useless student. Paid for an expensive school for nothing, didn’t I? And had to bribe them to get you into Oxford.”

  “Well, you went to an equally expensive school and apparently you never managed to learn French either,” Edwin said. “Touché, Papa.”

  “Impudent puppy. Go on. Bugger off.” He waved an imperious hand.

  “I can tell when I’m not wanted,” Edwin said. He stuck his hands into his pockets and sauntered out of the room.

  “Useless little bugger,” Sir Mordred said. “God knows what he’ll do with himself after Oxford. His idea of life is to go out drinking at nightclubs with his friends. Or visit someone’s yacht on the Med. Of course, he’s never had to work for a crust like I’ve had to.” He swiveled toward Pierre. “Right, young man. Menu. What do you propose to dazzle my guests?”

  Between English, French, and much gesticulating we managed to establish that he’d suggest starting with a crab mousse, decorated with caviar, followed by a cream of asparagus soup, then quenelles of some kind of fish, and for a main course perhaps venison.

  “Venison?” I asked. “It’s not the hunting season. I don’t know where you’d find venison.”

  Pierre looked surprised. “But you have deer on your estate. I have seen them from the windows.”

  “You can’t go killing one of my deer!” I heard the horror in my voice.

  “Who would know? It’s your land, is it not? And your deer. You can kill them when you wish.”

  “But these are exotic deer, Pierre. Sir Hubert brought the first pair back from the Himalayas years ago.”

  “Then they have bred well. If we eat one, then there will be another to take its place.”

  I supposed this was true, but I was rather fond of my deer and it seemed wrong to kill one of them.

  “No, Pierre. No venison,” I said.

  He shrugged in that Gallic way. “Then what do you suggest? The boring roast beef, I suppose. Like all you English. No imagination.”

  “I thought your duck with the orange sauce was awfully good. It’s not a dish that’s on the menu often in England.”

  He frowned. “How many people again?”

  “We’re capping it at thirty,” Sir Mordred said.

  I translated.

  “Duck for thirty—that is much work. To dismember and prepare all those ducks…”

  “Maybe you could have Queenie help you prepare them?”

  A horrified expression crossed his face. “How would she know how to prepare a duck? She will cut off the wrong parts.”

  “You can show her.”

  He shrugged again. “Very well, if you insist. And to accompany—the proper English peas. Queenie can shell them in advance.”

  “And for pudding?” Sir Mordred asked.

  “Pudding?” Pierre looked horrified. “You wish me to make a pudding? What kind of pudding? Not the type that the girl makes with the suet and the raisins. The spotted dock?”

  “Dick,” I said. “No, Sir Mordred didn’t mean that type of pudding. It’s what we call the dessert course in England. Pudding. Afters. Anything sweet to follow the main course.”

  “Ah, the dessert.” He nodded. “I understand.”

  “Do you have a favorite?” I asked Sir Mordred.

  “We have a lovely crop of berries in my kitchen garden. Strawberries, raspberries, loganberries…Can we use those?”

  Pierre nodded when I translated this. “I could make the small tartes,” he said. “The fine pastry—the pâte sucrée, a layer of creamy custard, the crème pâtissière, the berries, and topped with the crème fraîche.”

  “That sounds very nice.” Sir Mordred nodded with satisfaction. “And to finish? A savory?”

  “What can be better than the good cheeses and fruits?” Pierre said. “A cheese board with the good Camembert and Roquefort and a bowl with the peaches and plums.”

  “And chocolate liqueurs to accompany the coffee!” Sir Mordred clapped his hands. “I get a special sort from Fortnum’s. If this doesn’t give them dyspepsia, I don’t know what will. But they will damned well be getting their money’s worth.”

  A thought had occurred to me. “What about your chef, Sir Mordred? I should not like him to think he was being ignored. Can we give him one or two of his specialties to create?”

  “He’s a lazy bugger these days,” Sir Mordred said. “But he does do some rather good pastry.”

  “You said we’d be having a reception beforehand?”

  He nodded.

  “How about he makes some appetizers to hand around?”

  “He does make bloody good cheese straws and curry puffs. And those little puff pastry things stuffed with shrimp. Yes. They’d go down nicely with champagne. A Dom Pérignon, I thought.” He managed the ghost of a smile. “Splendid idea, Lady Georgiana. Well done.” He patted my hand. His own hand was cold. He got up. “Right. I think we’ve done it. Come over whenever you want, Monsieur Pierre.”

  “So how will we arrange for the purchase of all the foodstuffs?” I asked. “Do you want Pierre to order them or would you rather your Mr. Henman orders from his usual suppliers?”

  “Oh, I think Pierre should do his own choosing of items. It would be an insult to expect him to work with food that might not be up to his standards.”

  Pierre nodded, looking pleased. “Exactement, monsieur. I will choose the best.”

  “And we haven’t discussed his fee for the evening,” I said.

  “The event will certainly enhance his reputation in England, and he is already receiving a salary from you, Lady Georgiana,” Sir Mordred said. For one horrible moment I thought he was going to insinuate that Pierre did not need to be paid. But then he went on. “But five pounds for his extra work, do you think?”

  I relayed this to Pierre, who nodded. “Bien,” he said. I couldn’t tell from his expression if he was pleased or not. I stood up too. “We should not take up any more of your time. I’m sure you want to get back to your writing.”

  “As a matter of fact I am between books at the moment, which is why I decided upon this as the perfect time for my open house. There is much arranging to be done so that the day is an enormous success—and gets the publicity it deserves. But before you go I should perhaps show you the banquet room.”

  His feet tapped neatly on the stone floor, then he opened a door at the end of the gallery and we entered another long dark room. Again the walls were wood-paneled and this time hung with tapestries of pastoral scenes. An oak table ran the length of the room, adorned at the moment only with two rather extravagant candelabras. Light came in through thin arched windows and the floor was slate tiles. Not a very inviting space. It reminded me a little of Castle Rannoch, but then we had tartan carpet on the floor and fierce-looking weapons on the walls.

  “It will look quite different when there is silver and china on the table, and candlelight sparkling,” Sir Mordred said. “Do you like the candelabras? Magnificent, aren’t they? I got them from a convent in Spain, along with the table.”

  When he saw my shocked expression he added, “Oh, I bought them, paid good money and the nuns were short of cash.”

  I eyed those candelabras, wondering how much more of this place had been bought from poor nuns in order to create the image Sir Mordred wanted.

  He walked around the room, looking quite pleased with himself. “Maybe we’ll arrange for a musician or two up in the minstrel gallery.” I noticed then that there was a small gallery at one end of the room. “Quite the medieval banquet. I wonder if one can buy mead? A pity one can’t serve swan.” And he laughed. He then proceeded to show us the dumbwaiter, cleverly concealed in a sort of anteroom hidden behind curtains. “So the food comes up hot from the kitchen and final touches can be performed here before the plates are brought to the table,” he said.

  I relayed this to Pierre. He frowned. “You will have someone to perform the final touches out of my sight?” he asked. “How will this person know what the plates should look like?”

  Sir Mordred gave a little shrug. “Very well. I understand that great chefs are temperamental. Why don’t we ask Mr. Henman if he will be in here. You arrange a sample plate as you wish and he will decorate the others accordingly.”

  “If he does not object to this task,” Pierre said cautiously.

  “No. He’ll be delighted to be useful,” Sir Mordred said with great optimism. “Now perhaps I should also take Monsieur Pierre on a tour of the kitchen garden so that you can see what kind of fruits and vegetables are available. We grow most things here. No need to buy them.”

  We stepped from the darkness into the bright sunshine. Sir Mordred fell into step beside Pierre. “So you have come from France because you wish to make your name working with nobility? Are there not plenty of noblemen in your country?”

  “I came because I met Lady Georgiana and I liked her,” Pierre said, having understood the gist of Sir Mordred’s question. “And it is not my ambition to work with the nobility. In fact I am a communist at heart. I do not approve of nobility.”

  Sir Mordred laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. “Splendid. Splendid. That’s the ticket. You’ll be perfect, I’m sure.”

  “Ticket?” Pierre shot me a worried look. “What ticket must I have?”

  “Another silly English expression,” I said. “It means that it is just right.”

  “Oui, English is a very silly language,” Pierre commented.

  As we talked, we had been walking around to the back of the house, across a formal garden of topiary hedges and into an area of kitchen garden. I saw Pierre’s eyes light up at the array of fresh produce.

  “Oh oui,” he said. “You have the excellent berries. And the asparagus and peas. And the fine peaches too.”

  “You must come and help yourself nearer the date. Choose only the best.”

  “And you have the artichokes!” Pierre looked ecstatic now. “I will add the artichoke with the aioli as a cold appetizer. Magnifique.”

  I had to admit that the garden was magnificent and told Sir Mordred. He smiled. “The gardens are my passion, you know. They were really the reason I bought this house. I always dreamed of owning a fine, lush garden like this one. I was intrigued by the poison garden, I do admit, but the rest of the grounds were so magnifi cent that I had to buy the place. It’s quite a task to keep it all up to snuff, but I do employ the best gardeners. And I like to help out myself too. I have thirty varieties of roses in the front beds. And on that far side I have the exotic garden with plants from all over the world.”

  “And the poison garden—where is that?” I asked

  “Ah, the poison garden.” He gave a wicked grin. “It’s behind this wall. I’ll give you a brief look if you like, but you’ll get the full tour when you come for the open house.”

  He opened a wooden gate in the wall.

  “You don’t keep it locked, then?”

  “My dear girl, it’s in a private estate with just me and my servants. Why should I need to keep it locked? I assure you my servants would never want to poison me. I pay them too well.” And he laughed as the gate swung open. We stepped inside into a space of neat beds. I don’t know what I had expected—strange exotic plants, but these looked remarkably ordinary. I even recognized some of them. “Oh, those are foxgloves,” I said. “And lily of the valley?”

  “Naturally. Both can be quite deadly. Even the most innocuous plants can kill. Remember even potatoes have poisonous parts. And rhubarb. And apricot pits are full of cyanide.”

  “Golly,” I said. “It’s lucky we’re still alive.”

  “There are some more exotic ones, of course.” He led me along a narrow path. “Castor beans. Quite a pretty plant, isn’t it? All parts of it are toxic, but the seeds are the worst.”

  “But don’t we take castor oil as a laxative? I’m sure my nanny used to give it to me.”

  “That’s because the toxin works well in small doses. The same for many poisons. There is arsenic in some medicines, I understand. I’ve started to study up on the subject.”

  Again he must have noticed my worried expression.

  “When one writes books like mine one has to get the facts right.” Then he laughed and patted my arm. “I think that’s enough for now. We don’t want Pierre to be helping himself to the wrong sort of thing, do we?” He glanced back at Pierre, who hadn’t understood this. “You will be getting the full tour on the day of the open house. And I can also show you the old books on herbal lore that I have acquired. I’m making it quite a hobby.”

  He ushered us out again, closing the gate behind us. We came around to the front of the house and I saw Phipps standing beside the car.

  Sir Mordred took my hand. “I bid you farewell for now, then. I am much looking forward to the big event.” He paused, chuckling. “But I suppose you have another event that you are looking forward to, even more than this.”

  “I do. Thank you for the tour. It’s been most interesting.”

  “I have enjoyed spending time with you. A most charming young woman.” He lifted my hand to his lips and planted a kiss on it. I was sharply reminded of my former suitor, Prince Siegfried, whom Belinda and I had nicknamed Fishface.

  Chapter 11

  July 20

  Leaving Blackheart Manor

  I’m not sure that I want to attend Sir Mordred’s banquet. I came away from Blackheart Manor feeling rather uneasy. Maybe it was the casual way he discussed all those poisons. Maybe it was the cold, damp feeling and musty smell of the place. Or the suit of armor with an axe that moved. Maybe it was Sir Mordred himself. I can’t forget the way he looked when he mentioned buying things from a convent—a look of triumph. Perhaps he really is as evil as the characters he writes about. Golly. I hope not.

  Pierre sat beside Phipps in silence as we drove home.

  “Are you looking forward to cooking this meal, Pierre?” I asked, leaning forward from the back seat. “It appears there will be celebrities present. You’ll make your name.”

  “That is true,” he replied. “But this house, I do not like. It has a bad feel to it, n’est-ce pas?”

  “I agree. I did not feel comfortable there.”

  He sighed. “I too do not feel comfortable. In fact I feel guilty that I can make a good living cooking for rich people who live this sort of life. As a communist, this all seems so wrong to me. That one person should live in such a great estate, when poor people are crammed together six to a room in the slums. How can that be right?”

  “It’s not right,” I said. “But I don’t know how to make it better. I only live in a great house because my godfather lets me live there. Before that Darcy and I were looking at the most horrible little flats in London. I might come from a royal background, but neither of us have any money, you know.”

  “Do you think it is right that one person should have many people waiting on him? Those old men, they should be retired by now, non? And yet they still work on while he sits and does nothing.”