CHAPTER ONE

      THEY were all there—the Brodeys—gathered together in the beautiful gardens of their magnificent baroque palácio near Oporto. All of them had come to celebrate the two hundredth anniversary of the House of Brodey.

      Celebrating with them were a hundred and fifty or so guests, standing in groups around the lawn, drinking aperitifs before lunch was served, talking, laughing. The spring sky was an unclouded blue; there was just the faintest breeze from the nearby coast. The gardens were looking beautiful, carefully tended and full of flowers: a perfect day and a perfect setting. For the guests the lunch party was pure pleasure. For Elaine Beresford it meant work.

      She stood as unobtrusively as possible in the background, making sure that the waiters were going to every group with their trays of drinks, that no one was left out. In the far garden the tables were already set for the exact number of guests who had accepted invitations. They would make their way to the tables in another halfhour or so, then she would have to oversee the serving of the food and wine, the clearing, and so on to the next course. A difficult enough task in England where she had staff that she hired frequently and knew and trusted, who spoke English. Here in Portugal she, and the two senior staff she had brought with her, had to cope through interpreters, dealing with supplies which hadn’t arrived on time, with temperamental chefs who wanted to do things their own way, and with a thousand other things which could, and usually had, gone wrong.

      And mostly, of course, she’d had to cope with the Brodeys.

      Things were running smoothly at the moment and she was able to watch them as they moved among their guests. They were something else, the Brodey family. The first of them she’d met had of course been Francesca, or the Princess de Vieira, to give her full title. They had known each other in London, before Francesca had married her Italian prince, and when Elaine, too, was married. Now neither of them was. Francesca’s marriage had ended in an ugly divorce, Elaine’s in the plane crash that had killed Neil, her husband, three years ago. They had become unlikely friends, the jet-set lifestyle that Francesca lived a million miles away from Elaine’s quiet country life. But after Neil had died, leaving little money, she’d turned a hobby into a business and started catering for weddings and parties. Francesca had asked her to organise her own wedding and that in turn had led to a whole lot more commissions and eventually to Elaine’s organising and catering for this whole week of celebrations that the House of Brodey had laid on to mark their bicentennial.

      Elaine had seriously considered refusing the commission; there were so many difficulties involved, not least the language. But she was ambitious for her company, wanted to see it grow, and, when it came down to it, she was unable to resist the simple challenge of seeing if she could do the job successfully.

      Francesca’s grandfather, old Mr Brodey, who was in his eighties, was the nominal head of the family and had taken a keen interest in the arrangements. But it had been to his grandson, the one they called Young Calum, that Elaine had sent her estimates and plans, had had long discussions with on the phone and pages of correspondence via the fax machine. Calum and Francesca were cousins; Elaine could see them both as they moved among their guests. Francesca was tall and beautiful in a brilliantly coloured outfit, Calum Brodey taller still, dwarfing most of the people there; both of them were fair-haired and English-looking among so many Portuguese. Francesca had a man in tow, some French count, but then, when didn’t she have a man around?

      Calum, it seemed, wasn’t married, although he must be over thirty, Elaine guessed, and was very good-looking, in a hard, arrogant kind of way. She moved to direct a waiter towards a group with empty glasses, passing the circle round Calum as she did so. He was speaking to the guests in fluent Portuguese. Resuming her post on the steps leading to a door of the house where she could see easily, Elaine thought how strange it was to find this family who had been living and working in Portugal for the last two hundred years and yet still seemed so very English. They all spoke English as naturally and fluently as she did; their children were sent to England to school, and they all seemed to have married English people. Especially each heir: there was some strange kind of tradition that he should always marry an English blonde, so Francesca had told her.

      There were few blondes here today; she could see only half a dozen among the women. And there was certainly no one with auburn hair like her own.

      Glancing at her large-faced, practical watch, Elaine saw that it was close to the time they had arranged for the guests to go in to lunch. Again she approached the circle round Calum. Someone made way for her, thinking she was a guest, and she was able to say, ‘I think it’s time.’

      ‘Of course.’ Calum spoke to those near him, while Elaine moved to another group, saying her carefully rehearsed, ‘Por favor, senhor, senhora. Almoço,’ and gesturing towards the other garden. It was more difficult because she spoke some Spanish and tended to use that accent instead of Portuguese. So she added, ‘Lunch is being served,’ for those who could speak English.

      There was an awkward moment when it was found that there was one too many guests and an extra place had to be hurriedly laid, but the little incident was soon forgotten as the first course was served and wine was poured. Elaine kept in the background as much as possible, making sure that all was well in the kitchen as well as in the garden, trying to be in two places at once and succeeding well enough. She’d had enough experience of catering for buffet parties to know how much food to provide, which dishes would be the most popular, which centre-pieces would attract the most comment. Today she had chosen, after consultation with Francesca and Calum, a large model of the Brodeys’ barco rabelo, a boat that was moored on the nearby River Douro, and which had once, long ago, carried the barrels of wine down from the vineyards further up the valley to their wine-lodge in Oporto.

      The guests exclaimed at the boat, set on a bed of blue flowers to represent the river, with its sail emblazoned with the single word ‘BRODEY’. It was a name that signified the pride of the company and that of the family which bore it. And they were a proud lot; Elaine had soon found that out. Especially Calum. She had suggested one or two ways they could cut the costs of the celebrations, ways that many of her customers had been happy to accept, but Calum had vetoed the suggestion with a brusque refusal: only the best was good enough for the Brodey company’s guests.

      The rest of the meal passed without incident, and afterwards Elaine was able to escape to the cloakroom for a few minutes. While she was there another girl came in, petite and blonde, one of the people who had been talking to the Brodey cousins before lunch, Elaine remembered.

      Back outside in the garden, a post-prandial glass of port was being offered. Some of the guests had already gone, but there were still quite a few enjoying this last drink. Suddenly there was a sharp cry and the distinct sound of someone’s face being slapped. An astonished silence fell as everyone looked in that direction. Elaine started to hurry over, but saw with relief that no waiter was involved. It appeared that the blonde girl she’d seen in the cloakroom just a few minutes ago had taken exception to something one of the other guests had said. Chris Brodey had already taken the man’s arm and was escorting him out of the garden. Calum, too late, was standing in front of the girl protectively. Then Francesca went over and took the girl inside the house.

      There had been a fascinated silence