Naughty In Nice (A Royal Spyness Mystery)

nice for you to have a chum to talk to.”
    “I don’t like talking,” Maude said. If ever a child had been well named, it was this one. She looked just like a Maude.
    “She’s very sensitive,” Ducky repeated. “She’ll need time to come around.”
    “If there’s nowhere for me here, I shall have to go home, I suppose,” I said. “The queen will be disappointed.”
    That was my trump card, as I knew it would be.
    “We can’t let the queen think that we gave Georgiana the cold shoulder,” Fig said. “We’ll have to make room for her somehow.”
    “I suppose we could put a camp bed for her in the library,” Foggy suggested. “Nobody ever goes in there, do they?”
    “It’s a rum do, Georgie,” Binky said. “This house has a library, a smoking room, a music room, a billiard room, but a distinct lack of bedrooms and bathrooms.”
    “Auntie Georgie can sleep with me and Nanny,” Podge said, moving to my side in a display of solidarity.
    I thought that would be an admirable solution. “Nanny and me,” Fig corrected. “Please make sure you get your grammar correct, Podge. And it wouldn’t be healthy to have three people in one bedroom. Not enough fresh air.”
    “And my maid?” I asked.
    Fig noticed Queenie for the first time. “You brought that person with you? What on earth possessed you, Georgiana?”
    “One does need a maid, and she’s the only one I have.”
    Fig turned to Ducky. “She is the dreadful girl I told you about. Absolutely from the gutter. Hasn’t the slightest idea how to behave in polite society.”
    “Nevertheless, she needs somewhere to sleep,” I insisted.
    “She’ll have to share with your girl, Fig,” Ducky said with a sigh. She turned to Queenie. “Take your mistress’s things upstairs, girl.”
    “It shall be done as you desire, madam,” Queenie said with her mock posh accent.
    “How dare you try to imitate your betters,” Fig snapped. “Honestly, Georgiana, she’ll have to go. Start looking for a French maid immediately.”
    At that moment the gargoyle in black stepped from the shadows and rattled off a string of French at us. I think I was the only one who understood. “She says she had no idea that I was coming because nobody told her and where do they think I am going to sleep?” I translated. It was clear they were all terrified of her. “Who is she, anyway?”
    “Madame Lapiss. She’s the housekeeper. She’s frightful,” Foggy said.
    “She’s going to sleep in the library,” Fig said in very bad French.
    “Impossible! Valuable books will be ruined!” The gargoyle waved her arms and flashed her eyes, glaring at me as if I might be capable of any kind of vandalism.
    “Only temporarily,” Fig explained.
    The gargoyle gave a large and dramatic sigh, grabbed my heaviest suitcase and stomped upstairs with it to a large gloomy library. The walls were lined, floor to ceiling, with old musty books. Most of the floor space was taken up with a mahogany map table. We managed to push this against a wall and there was just room for a camp bed. Nowhere to hang my clothes. No mirror. Clearly they didn’t want me to stay long.
    I felt tears of anger and frustration as I unpacked some of my toiletries and put them on the table. I should never have come. If the queen had wanted me here, she should have given me money for a hotel. She should have known that any relative of Fig’s would be stingy in the extreme.
    I freshened up and came downstairs to see if tea might be imminent. Through an open door I heard Fig’s voice, or was it Ducky’s? “At least she can keep an eye on the children, can’t she? And she could give Maude some lessons; then you wouldn’t have to look for a tutor.”
    “Maude’s a particularly bright child. I’m not sure your sister-in-law would be up to the task. But I suppose we could try. It would save considerable expense.”
    I coughed as I entered the room. “Is it teatime?” I asked.
    “We’re not having tea while we’re here,” Ducky said. “We’re dining early so that Maude can join us, as we are on holiday. It’s good for her to learn to participate in adult conversation.”
    “We’ve had nothing to eat all day,” I pointed out. “You don’t mind if I ask your cook to make us sandwiches, do you?”
    “I suppose not,” Ducky said grudgingly.
    “And Georgiana,” Fig added, “we thought you might help out with the children. Give them some lessons, you know. Otherwise they’ll just run