I all but squealed in my excitement. ‘You did it! You managed to get me into the races. Thank you. Thank you.’
‘I say, steady on,’ she said, laughing. ‘It was the least I could do. Although in truth, you have Helen Titmus to thank. Roz Beddows was badgering her to join in, saying that we couldn’t have a proper ladies’ race with just the three of us, but I could tell she didn’t really want to. I caught her on her own a little while after all the plans had been laid, and let slip that you might be interested in racing. She was so relieved that she all but begged me to talk you into it. I said I’d see what I could do, and amended the race card accordingly.’
‘You’re the best employer a poor Welsh servant could ever wish for,’ I said. ‘What do the numbers mean?’
‘They’re the motor cars. We drew lots. It was all frightfully complicated, but the chaps insisted that Fishy shouldn’t be allowed to choose his own motor because he knows them all so well, so we put the numbers in a bowl and drew them out to see who should drive what.’
‘So that means I’m in Number 4?’
‘I believe so, yes. It’s Fishy’s friend’s racer – Herr Kovacs. He was quite pleased to have drawn his own motor for the gentlemen’s race. They say it’s quite a flyer.’
I just grinned idiotically.
The plan was that we should meet at the starting line at noon, and we arrived a quarter of an hour early to find that three of the racing cars were already there. They were the three we had seen in the coach house the day before. Sleek, dark-green machines. Elegant and beautiful, but strangely aggressive and frightening. Warrior goddesses.
We could see Morgan driving up from the motor stable in the fourth, an unfamiliar vehicle whose bare metal bodywork glinted in the noonday sun like brushed silver.
Lord Riddlethorpe was inspecting his motor, making minute adjustments to various valves and tiny levers. He looked up from his tinkering as we approached.
‘Hello, ladies,’ he said in his cheerful, boyish way. ‘I say, don’t you two look just the ticket in your driving togs? Fanners said you drove, but I didn’t think you took it quite this seriously. The other gels are going to have their work cut out for them.’
Lady Hardcastle laughed. ‘I’m not sure we’re up to your standard, dear,’ she said.
‘Perhaps, or perhaps not, but I’d wager you could give my sister a run for her money – she’s a shocking driver. I’ve not seen Roz behind the wheel, but if she drives like she conducts the rest of her life, you’d both better watch out – I can’t imagine she’ll be giving any quarter.’
‘Right you are, dear,’ she said. ‘You hear that, Flo? Watch out for Mrs Beddows.’
‘Will do, my lady,’ I said.
‘Oh, you’ve got nothing to worry about, Armstrong,’ said Lord Riddlethorpe with a chuckle. ‘Fanners has been telling Roz a few choice tales, and I think she might be a little afraid of you.’
‘Me, my lord?’ I said.
‘You, yes,’ he said with a grin. ‘Isn’t that right, Monty?’
Mr Montague Waterford loomed up from behind another of the motor cars, where he had been lurking, unseen, apparently indulging in some tinkering of his own. He was a little older than Lord Riddlethorpe, perhaps around fifty years. His red hair was already white at the temples, and there were wrinkles around his eyes. It was hard to tell whether they were the result of squinting or smiling.
‘What? Roz?’ he said, wiping his hands on a rag. ‘She looked positively terrified when Harry told her about you breaking that woman’s wrist with a single kick. Or was she simply horrified that a visiting servant had been allowed to get that close to the lady of the house? I can’t quite recall.’ He winked. I began to suspect that the wrinkles were caused by a surfeit of mischievous smiling.
Lady Hardcastle let out a ‘Pfft’, but said nothing.
‘The “lady of the house” was threatening to shoot a policeman,’ I said. ‘I just . . . sort of . . . stopped her. Anyone would have done the same.’
Both men laughed at this.
‘Not me,’ said Lord Riddlethorpe. ‘I’d have been cowering under the table. Best place to be when there are guns about.’
‘But I, for one, am looking forward to seeing you drive,’ said Mr Waterford. ‘There are a few ladies in the motor racing world, but not nearly enough. It’ll be exciting to see how you all get on.’
I gave him a smile and a nod of thanks. He seemed about to say more when something else caught our attention. Harry, accompanied by Ellis Dawkins and a man I didn’t recognize, was stomping across the grass towards us. Some way behind them, in a separate group, were Lady Lavinia and Mrs Beddows, who were stepping much more daintily, but with no less purpose. They had left Miss Titmus a little way behind as she fiddled with what appeared to be a rather natty little camera.
What had interrupted our conversation was not the sight of our fellow competitors, but rather the altercation that seemed to be taking place between two of them.
‘Nein, nein, es ist nicht das Gleiche,’ a wiry man with pince-nez spectacles was saying. ‘Not the same thing at all.’
Harry rolled his eyes as the other two continued to glare at each other.
Lord Riddlethorpe chuckled. ‘I say! Viktor! Steady on, old chap,’ he called. ‘Never met a man more determined to start an argument,’ he added to Lady Hardcastle and me, sotto voce.
The bespectacled man stopped mid-rant and glared briefly at his host before raising a hand in surrender and smiling ruefully.
‘My apologies, Edmond,’ he said. ‘I do not wish to sour the morning’s activities, but this young fool . . .’
The young fool raised his hands in appeal, and Lord Riddlethorpe laughed again.
‘Come on over here and meet our eighth competitor,’ he said. ‘You can save your rivalries for the track, what?’
The two combatants approached. Harry brought up the rear, a massive grin – so like his sister’s – lighting up his face.
‘Now then,’ said Lord Riddlethorpe. ‘Viktor, may I present Florence Armstrong of . . . I say, Miss Armstrong, where are you from?’
‘Aberdare, my lord,’ I said. ‘South Wales.’
‘I say, really? Well I never. This is Florence Armstrong of Aberdare, wherever the dickens that may be, but I’m sure it’s enchanting. She is lady’s maid to Lady Hardcastle, and all-round adventuress and good egg. Miss Armstrong, this is Viktor Kovacs of Vienna, racing driver, owner of Die Kovacs Motorsport Mannschaft, my bitterest rival, and dearest friend.’
Herr Kovacs clicked his heels and bowed slightly towards me. ‘A pleasure to meet you, Fr?ulein,’ he said. ‘Actually, I am from Budapest, but I have lived for many years in Vienna. You are to be driving my motor car, yes? Do you race?’
‘Not until today, sir,’ I said. ‘But I’m keen to have a go.’
He smiled. ‘The ladies’ race will be interesting, I think.’
‘It will,’ said Lord Riddlethorpe. ‘And Dawkins you know already. He’s from . . . er . . . somewhere or other. Bournemouth, or somewhere equally frightful, wasn’t it?’