Score!

In every room there were beautiful clocks depicting heroic scenes. How slowly the minutes must have ticked by for the young Princess Diana, thought Tristan, and for Carlos and Elisabetta. How d’you cure a broken heart in a gilded cage, particularly when every ravishing piece of Sèvres showed idyllic scenes of young shepherds and shepherdesses in love?

‘I want a scrolled codpiece for Christmas,’ said Meredith, bringing everyone back to earth.

‘Her Majesty enters the Throne Room through that emergency exit,’ murmured an official, who’d recognized Rannaldini, ‘so she doesn’t have to walk through a lot of rooms.’

‘That’s nice,’ piped up Meredith, ‘so she can always retreat down the backstairs for a squirt of Diorissimo.’

‘Half the big-looking glasses,’ confided the official, ‘despite being covered with gilt patterns of leaves and flowers, are actually hidden secret doors.’

Rannaldini’s eyes gleamed. How perfect for the to-ing and fro-ing of lovers and Inquisition spies, often the same thing in Don Carlos, and for himself, who liked to vanish like the Cheshire Cat.

They had reached the great spine of the state rooms — the Picture Gallery — mostly Dutch and Flemish masters. Tristan was enraptured and went into a flurry of oh-mon-dieus, particularly over Rembrandt’s Old Shipbuilder and His Wife, whose faces were luminous with affection and inner light. If only Lucy could make the faces of his cast glow like that.

Too much enthusiasm for anything other than himself unnerved Rannaldini, who whisked them past each masterpiece, only pausing to admire Guido’s terrifying painting of Cleopatra being bitten by the asp. Étienne had been the same, thought Tristan, with a pang. As a child he had never been given time to linger over a painting.

‘Christ Healing the Paralytic.’ Consulting the guidebook, Meredith paused before a large oil. ‘He ought to have a go at Tabitha Lovell.’

‘Is she still drinking?’ Tristan tried not to sound interested.

‘Buckets,’ sighed Meredith. ‘She’ll give birth to a little pickled walnut at this rate.’

‘This is the best picture in the room.’ A good-looking official drew their attention to Charles I astride a fine grey horse. ‘His eyes really follow one round the room.’

‘So would mine given the chance,’ said Meredith admiringly.

‘This is the Blue Room,’ purred Rannaldini, ‘where one gathers for drinks before grand diplomatic occasions.’

‘This is it, glorious,’ squeaked Meredith, whipping out his notebook and scribbling frantically. ‘Corinthian pillars the colour of Harrogate toffee, sea-blue flocked wallpaper, masses of gold framing the mirrors and ceiling, pale turquoise sofas, perfect for the Summer Drawing Room and Philip’s pep talk to Carlos.’

Diluting the gilded splendour, through floor-length windows green lawns could be seen sweeping down to a lake surrounded by willows. ‘I’m going to scrap my fences and flower-beds and sweep down to my lake,’ Rannaldini was thinking aloud.

‘Take a lot of mowing,’ chided Meredith. ‘Teddy Brimscombe would give notice and no-one else would put up with you. I like this vermilion,’ he mused, as they moved into the Music Room, ‘like a winter sunset and incredibly flattering to your colouring.’

Rannaldini smoothed his hair complacently, but the smile was wiped off his face when Tristan was suddenly mobbed by a party of French tourists, demanding his autograph, taking pictures and asking after Claudine Lauzerte.

Outraged to lose the limelight for a second, Rannaldini dived under the red rope and played ‘God Save the Queen’ on the Music Room piano. Guides blanched, security men with walkie-talkies rushed in, the French tourists, melting away from Tristan, cheered and clapped as they recognized Rannaldini.

‘I couldn’t reseest it.’

‘That’s OK, Sir Roberto.’

Their last port of call was the White Drawing Room, which took all their breath away.

‘This is answer for the Great Hall,’ exclaimed Rannaldini. ‘Then for Philip’s debate with Posa we can restore our Blue Living Room to its former glory with reds and crimsons.’

‘Isn’t that the room Helen just redecorated?’ said an aghast Tristan.

‘Yes, poor darling,’ agreed Meredith. ‘We tried a hundred coats before we got the right blue. But this gilt and white is to die for. And there’s darling Queen Alexandra over the chimneypiece. She was as good about fat Edward’s philandering as Helen is about yours, Rannaldini, so we might placate her with a new portrait over the fireplace.’

Meredith does get away with murder, thought Tristan, as they trooped down the staircase.

Out in the sunshine, Rannaldini stalked off to the Palace shop.

‘We must take Sexton a present,’ said Tristan, as he and Meredith panted after him. ‘He was so heartbroken he wasn’t allowed to join us.’

‘He’d have wanted chandeliers in the larder,’ said Meredith sensibly.

‘Get him a box of royal fudge,’ mocked Rannaldini, who had bought a mug for Tabitha and crested tea-bags for Helen and Bussage.