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Fitz refused to look at him.
Ethel was not going to let Fitz off lightly. She said: "Shake hands with the earl, Lloyd. "
Lloyd stuck out his hand and said: "Pleased to meet you, Earl. "
It would have been undignified to snub a nine-year-old. Fitz was forced to shake.
For the first time, he had touched his son Lloyd.
"And now we'll bid you good day," Ethel said dismissively, and she took a step forward.
Fitz's expression was thunderous. Reluctantly he stood aside, with his son, and they waited, backs to the wall, as Ethel and Lloyd walked past them and on up the stairs.
Historical Characters
Several real historical characters appear in these pages, and readers sometimes ask how I draw the line between history and fiction. It's a fair question, and here's the answer.
In some cases, for example when Sir Edward Grey addresses the House of Commons, my fictional characters are witnessing an event that really happened. What Sir Edward says in this novel corresponds to the parliamentary record, except that I have shortened his speech, without, I hope, losing anything important.
Sometimes a real person goes to a fictional location, as when Winston Churchill visits Ty Gwyn. In that case, I have made sure that it was not unusual for him to visit country houses, and that he could well have done so at around that date.
When real people have conversations with my fictional characters, they are usually saying things they really did say at some point. Lloyd George's explanation to Fitz of why he does not want to deport Lev Kamenev is based on what Lloyd George wrote, in a memo quoted in Peter Rowland's biography.
My rule is: either the scene did happen, or it might have; either these words were used, or they might have been. And if I find some reason why the scene could not have taken place in real life, or the words would not really have been said-if, for example, the character was in another country at the time-I leave it out.
