It was the photographers who saved her, calling out, ‘Lady Rose! This way, Lady Rose! Love the hat, Lady Rose!’

The eye-catching little hat had been made specially for the occasion. Fashioned from a stiffened loop of the same material as the suit, it had a dark pink net veil scattered with tiny velvet ribbon loops that skimmed her face, breaking up the outline, blurring any slight differences that might be picked out by an eagle-eyed picture editor.

Breathe, smile…

‘How was lunch, Lady Rose?’ one of the photographers called out.

She swallowed down the nervous lump in her throat and said, ‘It was a wonderful lunch for a great cause.’ Then, when there was still no challenge, no one pointed a finger, shouted, Fake!, she added, ‘The Pink Ribbon Club.’ And, growing in confidence, she lifted her right hand so that the diamond and amethyst ring on her right hand flashed in the sunlight as she pointedly touched the little ribbon-shaped hat. ‘Don’t forget to mention it.’

‘Are you looking forward to your holiday, Lady Rose?’

Growing in confidence-it was true, apparently, that people saw only what they expected to see-she picked out the photographer who’d asked the question and smiled directly at him.

‘Very much,’ she said.

‘Will you be on your own?’ he dared.

‘Only if you all take the week off, too,’ she replied, raising a laugh. Yes! She could do this! And, turning her back on the photographers, she walked down the steps and crossed to the real people, just as she had seen Lady Rose do a hundred times on news clips. Had done herself at promotional gigs.

She took the flowers they handed her, stopped to answer questions-she could have entered Mastermind with Lady Rose as her specialist subject-paused for photographs, overwhelmed by the genuine warmth with which people reached out to her. To Rose…