A Royal Pain (5 page)

It was a warm day and I was rather red in the face by the time I reached the top of Constitution Hill. I dabbed at my face with my eau de cologne-soaked hanky before I walked past those guardsmen. The visitors’ entrance is on the far side of the palace. At least a visitor like myself, arriving without benefit of state coach or Rolls, can enter through a side gate. I crossed the forecourt, feeling, as I always did, that eyes were watching me and that I’d probably trip over a cobble.

I was received with great civility and ushered upstairs, the royal apartments being one floor up. Luckily I didn’t have to face the grand staircase with its red carpet and statues, but was taken up a simple back stair to an office that looked as if it could have been any London solicitor’s. Here Her Majesty’s secretary was waiting for me. “Ah, Lady Georgiana. Please come with me. Her Majesty is awaiting you in her private sitting room.” He seemed quite cheerful, jolly even. I was tempted to ask him if Her Majesty had inquired about the train service to deepest Gloucestershire. But then maybe she hadn’t disclosed to him why she had summoned me. He may have known nothing about aunts with Pekinese dogs.

Thank heavens we’re not Catholic, I thought. At least they can’t lock me away in a convent until a suitable groom is found. That made me freeze halfway down the hall. What if I was ushered into the sitting room only to find Prince Siegfried and a priest awaiting me?

“In here, my lady,” the secretary said. “Lady Georgiana, ma’am.”

I took a deep breath and stepped inside. The queen was seated in a Chippendale armchair in front of a low table. Although she was no longer young, her complexion was flawless and smooth, with no sign of wrinkles. What’s more, I suspected she didn’t need the help of the various expensive preparations my mother used to hang on to her youthful looks.

Tea was already laid, including a delicious array of cakes on a two-tiered silver and glass cake stand. Her Majesty held out a hand to me. “Ah, Georgiana, my dear. How good of you to come.”

As if one refused a queen.

“It was very kind of you to invite me, ma’am.” I attempted the usual mixture of curtsy and kiss on the cheek and managed it this time without bumping my nose.

“Do sit down. Tea is all ready. China or Indian?”

“China, thank you.”

The queen poured the tea herself. “And do help yourself to something to eat.”

“After you, ma’am,” I said dutifully, knowing full well that protocol demands that the guest only eats what the queen eats. Last time she had chosen one slice of brown bread.

“I really don’t think I’m hungry today,” she said, making my spirits fall even further. Did she realize what torture it was to sit and stare at strawberry tarts and éclairs and not be able to eat one?

I was about to say that I wasn’t hungry either, when she leaned forward. “On second thought, those éclairs do look delicious, don’t they? We’ll forget about our figures for once, shall we?”

She was in a good mood. Why, I wondered. Was this a good-bye tea before she announced some awful fate for me?

“How have you been faring since I saw you last, Georgiana?” she asked, fixing me with that powerful stare.

I had been trying hard to take a bite of éclair without getting any cream on my upper lip. “Well, thank you, ma’am.”

“So you stayed in London. You didn’t go to the country after all, or home to Scotland.”

“No, ma’am. I had been planning to keep Sir Hubert company when he returned home from the Swiss hospital, but he has decided to complete his recovery at a Swiss sanitarium and there was little point in going home to Scotland.” (Sir Hubert was my favorite former stepfather and had been seriously injured during a mountaineering expedition in the Alps.)

“And are you fully occupied in London?”

“I keep myself busy. I have friends. I lunched at the Savoy yesterday.”

“It’s always good to be busy,” she said. “However, I do hope that there is more to your life than luncheons at the Savoy.”

Where was this leading? I wondered.

“At this time of crisis there is so much that needs to be done,” she went on. “A young woman like yourself, as yet unencumbered with husband and children, could do so much good and set such a fine example. Helping out in soup kitchens, giving advice on sanitary conditions to mothers and babies in the East End, or even joining the health and beauty movement. All worthy causes, Georgiana. All worth devoting time and energy.”

This wasn’t going to be too bad then, I thought. She clearly expected me to stay in London if she was suggesting I help mothers and babies in the East End.

“Excellent suggestions, ma’am,” I said.

“I am patron of several worthy charities. I will find out where your services would be most appreciated.”

“Thank you.” I really meant it. I would actually quite enjoy helping a charity to do good. And it would give me something else to do between house cleanings.

“We’ll put that suggestion to one side for now,” Her Majesty said, taking a sip of China tea, “because I am hoping to enlist you as a coconspirator in a little plan I am devising.”

She gave me her frank stare, her clear, blue eyes holding mine for a long moment.

“I am desperately worried about my son, Georgiana.”

“The Prince of Wales?” I asked.

“Naturally. My other sons are all proving satisfactory in their own ways. At least they all seem to have a sense of royal duty in which David is hopelessly lacking. This American woman. From what I hear, his fascination for her shows no sign of abating. She has her claws into him and she is not going to let go. Of course at the moment the question of marriage cannot arise, because she is married to someone else, poor fool. But should she divorce him—well, you see what a predicament that would be.”

“His Highness would never be allowed to marry a divorced woman, would he?”

“You say never allowed, but should he be king, who could stop him? He is then the titular head of the church. Henry the Eighth rewrote the rules to suit himself, didn’t he?”

“I’m sure you’re worrying needlessly, ma’am. The Prince of Wales might enjoy the playboy life at this moment but when he becomes king, he’ll remember his duty to his country. It is inbred into all members of the family.”

She reached across and patted my hand. “I do hope you are right, Georgiana. But I can’t sit idly by and do nothing to save my son from ruin and our family from disgrace. It is time he married properly, and to a young woman who can give him children of the proper pedigree. A forty-year-old American simply won’t do. To this end, I’ve come up with a little scheme.”

She gave me that conspiratorial look again.

“Do you know the Bavarian royal family at all?”

“I have not met them, ma’am.”

“Not related to us, of course, and unfortunately Roman Catholic. They are no longer officially the ruling family, but they do still enjoy considerable status and respect in that part of Germany. In fact there is a strong movement to restore the monarchy in Bavaria, thus making them strong allies against that ridiculous little upstart Herr Hitler.”

“You are planning a match with a member of the Bavarian royal family, ma’am?”

She leaned closer to me, although we were the only two people in the room. “They have a daughter, Hannelore. A beauty by all reports. She is eighteen years old and has just left the convent where she has been educated for the past ten years. Should she have a chance to meet my son, what man could fail to be attracted to an eighteen-year-old virginal beauty? Surely she would make him forget about the Simpson woman and return to the path of duty.”

I nodded. “But where do I come into this, ma’am?”

“Let me explain my little scheme, Georgiana. If David felt that he was being forced to meet Princess Hannelore, he would dig in his heels. He has always been stubborn, ever since he was a little boy, you know. But should he glimpse her, across the room, should it be hinted that she is promised to someone else—a lesser princeling—well, you know how much men enjoy the chase. So I’ve written to her parents and invited her to come to England—to bring her out into society and improve her English. And I have decided that she shouldn’t stay with us at the palace.” She looked up at me with that piercing stare. “I’ve decided she should stay with you.”

“Me?” It was lucky I hadn’t been sipping tea at the time. I should have spluttered all over the Chippendale. As it was, it came out as a squeak and I forgot to add the word “ma’am.”

“What could be more pleasant for a young girl than to stay with someone her own age and of suitable rank? As you say, you mingle with friends. You dine at the Savoy. She will have a lovely time doing what young people do. Then, at the right intervals, we’ll make sure that she attends the same functions as my son.”

She went on talking easily. The blood was pounding through my head as I tried to come up with the words to say that there was no way I could entertain a young lady of royal blood in a house with no servants and in which I was living on baked beans.

“I may count on you, mayn’t I, Georgiana?” she asked. “For the good of England?”

I opened my mouth. “Of course, ma’am,” I said.

Chapter 5

I staggered out of Buck House as if in a dream. Well, nightmare, actually. In a few days from now a German princess was coming to stay at my house, when I had no servants and certainly no money to feed her. Queens never thought about little things like money. It probably never crossed her mind to inquire whether I had the funds to entertain a royal guest or whether I might like some help in that department. And even if she had promised me an allowance to help with the entertaining, that still neglected the fact that I had no maids, no butler, and worse still, no cook. Germans, I knew, liked their food. Baked beans and boiled eggs, which were the sum of my repertoire to date, simply would not do.

Why had I not spoken up and told the queen the truth? After the fact, it seemed quite silly that I had agreed to something so preposterous. But with those steely eyes on me, I simply didn’t have the nerve to refuse her. In fact I had followed in the footsteps of countless antiques dealers who had never intended to let the queen walk off with one of their prized pieces and yet had found themselves graciously handing it over to her.

And now I had no idea what I was going to do next. I needed to talk to somebody, somebody wise who would see a way out of my predicament. Belinda would be no good. She’d think it was all a huge joke and be eagerly waiting to see how I handled it. But then she really couldn’t imagine how penniless I was. She had come into a small private income on her twenty-first, which enabled her to buy a mews cottage and keep a maid. She also made money from her dress designs, to say nothing of her gambling winnings. To her, “broke” meant going without champagne for a few days.

Oh, God, I thought. What if this princess expects fine wines and caviar? What if she expects something other than baked beans and tea?

Then suddenly I had a brain wave. I knew the one person in the world to whom I could turn for help—my grandfather. Not the Scottish duke whose ghost now haunts the ramparts of Castle Rannoch (playing the bagpipes, if one is to believe the servants, although this does take a stretch of the imagination, as he couldn’t play them in life). I’m talking of my nonroyal grandfather, the former policeman. I hurried to the nearest tube station and soon I was heading through the East End of London out to the eastern suburbs of Essex and a neat little semidetached house with gnomes in the front garden.

I went up his front path past a pocket handkerchief-sized lawn and two meticulously kept rose beds under the watchful eye of the gnomes and knocked on Granddad’s front door. Nobody answered. This was an unexpected setback. It was six o’clock and I had felt sure that he couldn’t afford to dine out. Fighting back my disappointment, I was about to go home. Then I remembered his mentioning the old lady who lived next door. “Old bat” was his actual term of description for her, but in a fond way. Maybe she might know where he had gone. A shiver of worry went through me. He hadn’t been very well last winter and I hoped that he wasn’t in hospital.

I knocked on the second front door and waited. Again no response. “Damn,” I muttered, then glanced up to notice a net curtain twitching. So someone was there and watching me. As I turned to go, the front door opened. A large, round woman wearing a flowery pinny stood staring at me.

“Wot do you want?” she demanded.

“I came to visit my grandfather,” I began. “I’m Georgiana Rannoch and I wondered if—”

She gave a great whoop of delight. “I know who you are. Blimey, what a turnup for the books. I never thought I’d have royalty on the doorstep. Am I supposed to curtsy or something?”

“Of course not,” I said. “I just wondered if you knew where my grandfather might be. I came all the way to see him and—”

“Come on in, ducks,” she said, almost hauling me inside. “I’ll tell you where your granddad is. In my living room, having his tea, that’s where he is. And you’re more than welcome to join us. Plenty for all.”