‘You are quite right – he is a boar hound. Do you like dogs, Mademoiselle Dorcas?’ said Aline Houdart. ‘I can ask him to leave . . . Naughty Bruno! Bad boy! He knows he ought not to be here. I eject him ten times a day and he somehow manages to creep back. He is a trained guard dog and not very friendly with strangers but he will not attack you if you ignore him. Oh, do take care! Mademoiselle!’

Dorcas had advanced smoothly on the huge brindled dog stretched the full length of the hearth. She knelt, a small and vulnerable figure, at his side and spoke a few words into his ear. His heavy head went up in surprise but he made no objection when she proceeded to scratch him under the chin, murmuring the while. His tail thumped and he gave a strangled whimper of ecstasy. An embarrassing scene, Joe thought, and cleared his throat in warning but Aline appeared enchanted. When Dorcas went to sit on a sofa the dog heaved himself up and, with what Joe could have sworn was an apologetic glance all round, followed her, settling down uncomfortably on her feet.

‘It’s a talent she has,’ murmured Joe, recovering himself. ‘Runs in the family.’ He didn’t want Dorcas to launch into one of her stories about the esoteric lore she had acquired from her father’s gypsy friends where he was fairly sure the party trick had come from.

At any rate the ice was broken. And perhaps that was one of the dog’s functions he thought, cynically. The tea arrived and Dorcas, extricating herself, slipped easily into her role of stand-in hostess, dispensing it with quiet skill, leaving Aline Houdart and Joe the opportunity of starting their conversation. Aline did not beat about the bush. In less than the ten minutes before the men arrived she had outlined and delicately put a question mark by the friendly relationship between her brother-in-law Charles-Auguste and Sir Douglas and she had prepared Joe for the discord between the close members of the family, defining their allegiances and ambitions.

‘So, you will find, Commander – I say, shall I call you Joe? I feel a ridiculous compulsion to salute when I use your rank! – you will find that I am alone in my claim that this man is my husband. Both Charles and my son Georges maintain that he is not. There is little enough peace in this household at the best of times and I would say that this is decidedly one of the worst.’ Her smile and her good humour suggested otherwise.

‘May I just ask, madame, before it becomes inconvenient, what exactly is the position in law of the inheritance, should this gentleman prove to be Clovis, your husband?’

‘Oh, very little change,’ she shrugged. ‘My son inherits the estate in its entirety whatever happens. Very soon if Clovis is indeed dead. Rather later if his father returns, since he will have to await his death. But at all events he will inherit. Charles-Auguste is my son’s guardian, no more than that. He has his own estate in the south but is kind enough to spend time with us helping to run the champagne business which is, you must understand, far more profitable than an estate producing a very ordinary vin de pays. In medieval times, Charles-Auguste would have been known as the équyer or maître d’hôtel. An honoured position in a noble household. Ah, here they come!’

She heard the sound of footsteps in the corridor seconds before Joe’s keen ears picked them up. Her eyes flashed a warning, a finger hovered playfully over her lips for a moment involving them in her game.

It was deftly done. In minutes she had recruited them to her team. He’d known generals who would have benefited from this skill. And two who had it.

Charles-Auguste came in closely followed by a young boy who could at first sight have been taken for his son, though the boy was a good head taller. Joe experienced a moment of confusion, struck as he was by the resemblance between the handsome middle-aged man now holding out a hand to him and the lost soul they had seen in a hospital cell. Charles Houdart was shorter than Thibaud with the same greying fair hair and blue eyes, the same fair complexion. But there the similarity gave out. These eyes were focused, friendly and intelligent. The man crackled with energy. He brought into the refined room an eddy of fresh air with the slightest scent of the stables. Must be a little difficult to live with, Joe guessed and instantly dismissed the thought.

More introductions were made, kept efficiently to the minimum by Houdart. He looked about him, preparing to present the young people. Georges advanced and shook Joe’s hand. A firm grip, an inquisitive eye. A shy smile.

‘And you must meet the Commander’s niece, Dorcas,’ said Aline. ‘A young lady as clever, I suspect, as she is pretty – which is to say, very!’

Georges followed her waving hand to the sofa where Dorcas was once again sitting in uncomfortable proximity to the hound Bruno. He stared and took in the scene at once. ‘No! Don’t get up, mademoiselle!’ he said and went over to shake her hand. ‘We know better than to disturb old Bruno when he’s settled.’ He sat down by her side with no further ceremony and began to talk. The boy smiled a lot, Joe thought, for a sixteen-year-old. He had thick chestnut hair like his mother but there the similarity ran out; his nose and chin might, flatteringly, have been called decisive. Not love’s young dream, Joe was relieved to note, but better than that – his face was full of the promise of character. And a good character at that.

Dorcas smiled back and replied. The boy laughed and whispered something. Dorcas laughed. They both patted the dog. So far so good, then. Joe felt free to turn his attention back to Houdart and answered his keen enquiries about Sir Douglas and London which he appeared to know well.

Conversation flowed and Joe was surprised to hear, distantly, a clock sounding five, the signal for the party to break up evidently. Aline rang for the footman to have them shown to their rooms adding: ‘We will be dining at seven. Earlier than you are accustomed to perhaps? But this is the country not Paris or London and we have our country ways. Our country cooks too! I hope you like simple hearty food? Foie gras? Smoked haunch of wild boar? Poulet au champagne? Do join us for drinks in the salon when you come down.’

As they climbed the stairs a step or two behind the footman, Joe leaned towards Dorcas and hissed at her: ‘That trick of whispering magic into dogs’ ears, miss – does it work on boys?’

She gave him a knowing look. ‘Oh, yes, it does. Trouble is – you can only use it once on a human. I’m saving it up.’

Joe woke to the insistent serenade of a song thrush perched on the parapet in front of his window and groped for his wristwatch. Seven. Eight o’clock breakfast had been declared so he had plenty of time for a shower. He scrambled out of bed and slumped on to the stool in front of the dressing table to check that he’d survived the night. Incredibly, he had no headache, not a sign of the hangover he had expected. And yet he’d drunk a large quantity of excellent champagne, he remembered. Jokingly, the family had chosen a different champagne from the estate to accompany each of the courses, promising the more usual parade of Pouilly and Clos Vougeot the next day.

He frowned at his dark unshaven features incongruously framed by the ornate gilded mirror and decided that the blue and white draperies of toile de Jouy did him no favours. He blinked and yawned and wandered off into the adjoining bathroom to start his day.

At ten to eight he tapped on Dorcas’s door and tapped again, disconcerted to hear no reply. Odd. She didn’t have many virtues but punctuality was one of them. She never kept him waiting. Had she overslept, worn out by the strain of appearing at a dinner party? They had sat down eight to dinner, the numbers swollen by neighbours chosen, Joe guessed, for their youth and animation. Dorcas, discreetly dressed in blue silk and Lydia’s best pearls, had looked very pretty and she’d behaved, he remembered, impeccably, seated between Georges and Charles-Auguste; every time he’d glanced in her direction she had been listening or talking with enthusiasm, even laughing. A strain on a girl, anyway, and he wouldn’t blame her if she was intending to have a lie-in.