Warwick said. 'To be honest she's a bit rough and ready and she's dynamite when it comes to breaking crystal and china, so while you can leave all the heavy jobs to her you will still need to- well, supervise, anyway. But all meals, as well as the entertaining we will undoubtedly be doing, would be up to you. What kind of things do you like photographing-only scenery?'

Davina turned slowly to look at him. 'No. Flowers, birds-'

'Ah.' He stared at her with the utmost gravity, something she was later to come to mistrust devoutly. 'Are you aware then, Mrs Hastings, that one third of the plants on Lord Howe are unique? That hundreds of thousands of sea birds nest here each year, and that one of the world's rarest land birds lives here? I won't bore you with all the species but the island is a haven for terns of all descriptions from Sooties to Noddies; red-tailed Tropicbirds nest here as well as masked boobies and Providence petrel, fleshfooted shearwaters, otherwise known as Mutton Birds, which nest in burrows in the ground… As for the plants, flowers and trees, there's pandanus, banyan, island cedar, island apple, juniper, sallywood, kentia-of course kentia palms-'

'As a blackmailer, Mr Warwick,' Davina broke in tightly, 'you're incredibly obvious.'

He said nothing for a moment then he murmured, 'You see me quite dashed, Mrs Hastings-by the way, did I mention that Lord Howe has the southernmost coral reef in the world?'

They eyed each other until he added, 'Besides which, we have Ball's Pyramid only a dozen or so miles south of the island-now that is certainly worth photographing.'

'What on earth…?' Davina bit her lip.

'Is Ball's Pyramid? A sheer, pointed, eroded stack of rock that is the world's tallest monolith and it floats out of the ocean like a castle in a fairy-tale.'