Naughty In Nice (A Royal Spyness Mystery)

admonishing her.
    “And you know what I’ve been thinking, miss?” she went on, taking a place opposite me without being asked. “I know I speak real common, so I’ve decided to better myself. When I get home I’m going to save up and take them ‘hellocution’ lessons. People are going to think I’m a proper toff, just like you.”
    Oh, golly, I’d got Eliza Doolittle on my hands now. “Good idea, Queenie,” I said.
    At that moment there was a toot and a slamming of doors, and we glided out of the station. A big grin spread across my face. I was really on my way to the south of France and adventure. About two small annoying facts I chose not to think: one, that I was to share a villa with Fig and her sister, and the other, that I was supposed to commit a robbery for the queen.

 
    Chapter 7
     
    January 21, 1933
On the Blue Train. Heading for the Riviera. Hooray!
     
    The gray, rain-splashed French countryside flashed past us, with rows of leafless poplars between brown fields of stubble. Darkness was falling as we reached the outskirts of Paris. Instead of going into the Gare du Nord, as other trains from the Channel did, this train skirted the perimeter of the city, moving through dingy suburbs and going over lots of points until at last it stopped at the Gare de Lyon on the southern side of the city. The attendant knocked on my door. “Does your ladyship require anything while we are in the station?” he asked in French, assuming, I suppose, that anyone who traveled on this train spoke the language. “Should I arrange for a dinner box for your maid? There is only the first-class dining car for people like yourself.”
    “Thank you, that would be most kind,” I replied in the same language.
    “And dinner will be served as soon as we leave the city,” he went on. “The dining car is to your left.”
    A box was delivered for Queenie, who wasted no time in tucking into it. “Funny bread,” she said, “and this ham tastes of garlic, but it ain’t bad. My friend Nellie ’uxtable, what works down the Three Bells, said we’d have to eat frog legs and little birds. I told her not to be so ruddy daft. Just’cos she went on the day trip to Boulogne once, she thinks she knows about France.”
    “It’s not polite to talk with your mouth full,” I pointed out as crumbs spattered over the seat of my compartment, “and I think you should take your meal in your space. I am going to get ready for dinner.”
    I wasn’t sure whether one dressed for dinner on a train. We certainly hadn’t on trains I’d traveled on before, but then they hadn’t been this train. I was wearing a decent jersey dress, but I found my pearls and put on a little lipstick before I ventured to the dining car. In truth I felt a little shy about going alone to dinner. I know I’d been brought up to mix with the cream of society in theory, but in practice the cream of society rarely came to Castle Rannoch and I still felt schoolgirlish and awkward among the real social butterflies.
    “ Bon appétit , milady,” the attendant said as he held the door open for me. I passed through the connecting area and opened the door to the dining car. I looked down the rows of white-clothed tables, their silver and china gleaming in the glow of little lamps. From here I couldn’t see a table that wasn’t occupied and wondered what the protocol was about joining other diners and whether I could ever pluck up courage to do that.
    Of course the first person I noticed was the handsome Frenchman, sitting alone with another bottle of champagne beside him. He looked up from his soup and caught my gaze. He didn’t smile or nod as would have been usual. Instead he frowned at me.
    “You are English?” he asked in French.
    I replied that I was.
    “Curious,” he replied. He was about to say something else when a voice from farther down the car called to me, “I say. Aren’t you Georgiana Rannoch?”
    It was a smartly dressed English lady, probably in her late forties. She was sitting with an exquisite and obviously French woman, dressed in what looked like a man’s black suit topped with a stunning necklace. I agreed that I was.
    “Would you like to join us?” the first woman said. “It’s rather full at the moment but we have room, don’t we, Coco?”
    The Frenchwoman nodded and smiled. “Bien sûr,” she said, waving a cigarette holder in my direction.
    The Englishwoman stuck out a hand. “You look the spitting image of your