Score!

‘But Tristan could be in prison for life,’ begged Lucy. ‘The police think he killed Rannaldini to stop him spreading some vicious tale about his parentage.’ If she hadn’t seen a flicker of fear in Florence’s faded grey eyes, Lucy might not have persisted. ‘Hortense is the only person who might know the truth,’ she went on. ‘Please let me stay in case she regains consciousness.’

Florence was wavering when there was an imperious skidding crunch in the gravel and Rupert, resplendent in a pale yellow suit and grey striped shirt, emerged from a cloud of dust and a hired Mercedes. Apparently unaffected by the heat, he made Lucy feel plainer and hotter than ever.

‘What are you doing here?’ she snapped.

‘Resisting arrest, disobeying the orders of Gablecross, casing the joint. Bonjour, Madame.’ Slipping into effortless French, Rupert turned all his charm on Florence.

Absolutely bloody typical, fumed Lucy. She’ll take one look and roll over. But fortunately it seemed that Aunt Hortense loathed men, particularly those who looked like blond Luftwaffe pilots, almost as much as Germans. Rupert was sent packing as summarily as Wolfie.

Lucy, who was allowed to stay on for a little while, couldn’t hide a suspicion that both men were glad of an excuse to escape.

‘We’ll go back to La Reconnaissance and chivvy ambassadors,’ said Rupert, sauntering towards the Mercedes. ‘Join us for dinner if you can get away.’

‘We’ll leave everything in “your loyal hands”,’ quoted the ever-pragmatic Wolfie, clearly delighted at a chance to ingratiate himself with Tabitha’s father.

Frantic with thirst, Lucy gulped down a whole jug of orange pressé. Heat was coming in great waves through the kitchen window. Only endless sprinklers kept the garden green. Beyond, like purple shagpile, stretched fields of lavender.

Once the maid had disappeared to shop in Montvert, Florence relented and got out the family scrapbooks she’d kept since Tristan was a little boy. It wrung Lucy’s heart to see him always hovering at the edge of family groups, like an outfielder desperate not to miss a smile that miraculously Étienne might one day throw him.

At least the later scrapbooks were crowded with Tristan’s cuttings. Florence had already pasted in the marvellous reviews of The Lily in the Valley, dominated by the luminous beauty of Claudine Lauzerte.

To stop herself falling asleep, Lucy begged to be given a tour of the house. Downstairs big high rooms papered in cranberry reds, Prussian blues and deep snuff browns were the ideal setting for the Impressionist collection, acquired ahead of fashion in the late nineteenth century, and for Étienne’s great powerful oils, but not to lighten the heart of a little boy. Everywhere frayed tapestries of hunting scenes hung above cabinets lovingly painted with fruit, flowers and birds. Leggy gold tables and chairs seemed poised to race through the french windows into a park shimmering with heat-haze. You couldn’t see the mountains for dust.

The great hall housed the family portraits.

‘That was Louis who died at Crécy, and Edouard who was wounded at Agincourt, and there’s Blaize,’ Florence ran her finger inside the frame to test for dust, ‘who died in Spain on a secret mission. He was murdered by the Spanish Inquisition.’

Lucy peered at Blaize in excitement. Handsome, hawk-faced, with dark cynical watchful eyes, he was definitely a Montigny, and one of the reasons Tristan had embarked on Don Carlos.

‘And there’s Henri, painted by David,’ said Florence proudly, ‘Such a great general that Napoleon coaxed him out of exile to fight at Austerlitz and Borodino. The Montignys have always been a great military family.’

Soldier-citizens of the world like Posa, thought Lucy.

‘Tristan’s brother Laurent was brave, wasn’t he?’

‘More hotheaded,’ said Florence, somewhat disapprovingly. ‘A pied-noir builder fell off a ladder here one day. Madame Hortense rang six doctors but none would treat him. Laurent jumped in the Jeep, drove to the nearest, put a shotgun to his temple, and didn’t remove it until he’d come back and set the leg.’

‘How romantic,’ sighed Lucy. ‘No wonder Tristan hero-worships his memory. Why isn’t there a painting of him?’

Florence glanced round nervously.

Laurent’s portrait had hung in the hall, she admitted, smiling a welcome to everyone coming through the front door. But Étienne was so devastated when he was killed, the painting was locked away with everything else in his room.

‘But surely after Étienne’s death…’ protested Lucy.

‘He left instructions in his will that the door was to remain locked.’

‘At least let me look at Tristan’s room.’

‘It was very small.’ Florence looked unhappy. ‘When Tristan went to university Étienne turned it into an en suite bathroom.’

Don’t show your anger, Lucy had to keep telling herself.

‘There should be a portrait of Tristan. He’s the handsomest of the lot,’ she said crossly.