Day Four

Coldicott took my coat and hat and brolly into room off the foyer and then conducted me down the side corridor and knocked on a door halfway down, which he opened and announced "Lord Foxbridge, sir" inside, then stood to the side to allow me to pass.

I stepped into a small dark office lined with cabinets to chin height with a lightless window and a harsh ovehead lamp, which I think but am not sure used to be a secondary coat closet in Mummy's day, and was confronted by a tall and stupefyingly handsome young man coming at me with his hand out.

"Good afternoon, Lord Foxbridge," the vision said in a beautiful deep voice of pure Etonian vowels and not a whisper or scintilla of an accent, "I am Kiro Radovanovitch, the charge-d'affaires of the Embassy."

"Dobro popladne, gospodine Radovanovitch," I shook his hand, garbling the Serbian greeting I'd memorized on the way over.

"That's very good," he blinded me with a dazzling smile, still holding my hand, "I remember you from Eton, though I don't believe we actually met, different years and different Houses. You are remarkably unchanged." 

"Golly, how mortifying," I laughed, "I still look twelve?"

"More fourteen or fifteen, as you were when I matriculated," he laughed back, "But it's more that your colouring and looks are so distinctive, I'd recognize you anywhere."

"I'm sorry I don't remember you," I packed a little flirtation into the sentence, but not so much that he couldn't ignore it if he chose, "You were in Manor House, weren't you?"

"Yes indeed, and you were in Godolphin," he didn't respond to the flirtation, but was still holding my hand, so I was getting mixed signals, "I doubt anyone would remember me from my Eton days, I was not notable, I played no games and seldom left my study."

"That's a shame," I said, trying to imagine a beauty like this hiding in his study. But it would be why I didn't remember him, as I made a point of collecting the best-looking older boys.

"Would you care to tour the grounds, Lord Foxbridge? There was no damage in the house from the flood, the basement is remarkably watertight, but the garden is in shambles."

"Oh quite, quite," I scrambled to remember why I was there in the first place, "I suppose my Pater would want me to take a dekko at the cellars, but I wouldn't know what water-damage looks like, so unless your kitchen staff are in waders I can take your word for it."

"The flood came right to the edge of the terrace, but it appears the architect took it for granted that the Thames would flood someday, and there's an excellent drainage system around the house."

"That's good to know," I stepped back a bit as Radovanovitch sidled past me to open the door again, "I expect the drainage was put in when the Embankment was built. Drainage was so much on everyone's minds in those days."

"I asked Coldicott to serve tea in the Garden Room when you arrived, and we'll take a look at the grounds after, if that is amenable."

"Oh, quite, quite," I agreed and followed him back out into the corridor and through a rather more grand doorway to the Garden Room, a place I remembered well and was entirely unchanged, down to the placement of the delicate Louis XVI chairs covered in flowered chintz that matched the Adam-designed murals and ceiling. It looked rather grimly chilly with the rain still coming down, though not as heavily as in the morning.


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