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On a pile of blankets in a corner of Emma Sergeant's vast studio, Carmen the bull terrier is moaning softly in her sleep. From time to time, her long, greying nose rises from the bed, as if she is fact- checking the story that is unfolding about her part in her mistress's new romance.
Carmen, despite her age and infirmity, is credited with having predicted and stage-managed the union of two of London society's most happily unmarried people. After years of circulating at the same parties within a champagne flute of one another, without ever meeting, Emma, the portrait painter, and Adam Zamoyski, the Anglo- Polish historian, finally bumped into one another. They are to be married this year.
Emma holds her dog responsible. "Carmen started acting strangely," she chatters. "She began looking at me as if I was going to abandon her. I told the woman at my swimming pool that it must be because I was about to fall in love. Six weeks later, I did. I trust Carmen's instincts completely. I have never seen her behave as she does with Adam. She follows him around and becomes frantic and hyperactive in his presence. It's the love story of Carmen. Before he came on the scene, she had had a stroke and was near death. Adam has been a complete resuscitation for her."
Perhaps because of these powers, he has been able to work the same magic on Emma herself. For all his Byronic charm, there is no doubt that Count Zamoyski's suit would have withered on the branch if Carmen had not approved the match.
Naturally, they met at a party. But this one - a dinner party at the fashion designer Tomasz Starzewski's house - was too small a group for them to avoid one another. "When I first saw him, I didn't think, `Oooh, I fancy that'. I collect features. I'm fascinated by hands and heads. I thought he had an interesting head. A head from another era. I think he has some Tartar blood."
Zamoyski had no idea that Sergeant was a serious painter with lots of grand commissions and three pictures hanging in Prince Charles's lavatory at Highgrove. Her works can fetch up to pounds 50,000. She...