'And later, Henry Tudor allowed him back,' young Kate said. 'And restored his estates.'

'Which inspired our family motto,' Michael added.'I always return.'

'And always have.' Paul pulled Kate close and put his arm about his brothers. 'Always together. We are Rashid, and we are Dauncey. Always together.'

He hugged them fiercely and Kate cried a little and held him tight.

After Sandhurst, Paul was commissioned into the Grenadier Guards, did a tour in Ireland and then in ninety-one was pulled into the Gulf War by the SAS.

This was ironic, because his father was an Omani general, a friend of Saddam Hussein's, who had been seconded to the Iraqi Army for training purposes and found himself caught up in the war as well, on the other side. No one questioned Paul's loyalty, however. For the SAS behind the Iraqi lines, Paul Rashid was a priceless asset, and when the war ended, he was decorated. His father, however, died in action. For his part, Paul accepted the situation. 'Father was a soldier and he took a soldier's risks,' he told his two brothers and sister. 'I am a soldier and do the same.'

Michael and George also went to Sandhurst. Afterwards, Michael went to Harvard Business School and George into the Parachute Regiment, where he did his own tour in Ireland. One year was enough, however. He left the army and joined a course in estate management.

As for young Kate, after St Paul's Girls' School, she went to St Hugh's College, Oxford, then moved into her wild period, carving her way through London society like a tornado.

When the Earl died in 1993, it was totally unexpected, the kind of heart attack that strikes without warning and kills in seconds. Lady Kate was now the Countess of Loch Dhu, and they laid the old man to rest in the family mausoleum in Dauncey churchyard. The entire village turned up and many outsiders, people Paul had never met.