‘You know,’ she said in a loud voice, ‘I think my father would like to meet you. He’s been away, but I expect he’ll come for me anytime now. Perhaps you have heard of him? Captain James Hook?’
Lady Trottington fainted dead away into her plate of jellied eels. Lord Trottington let out a terrified scream. (Who would have guessed him to be a soprano?) As for Ambrose, the thorough scrubbing a housemaid gave his chair later that evening stood to testament to his reaction to Jacelyn’s pronouncement.