Naughty In Nice (A Royal Spyness Mystery)

hears.”
    “I bet Her Majesty’s livid about that.”
    From down the platform came a loud whistle and shouts of “all aboard.”
    “You’d better be off, or you’ll miss your train,” I said. My face must have mirrored my own gloom.
    Belinda gave me a commiserating smile. “I wish I could spirit you with me, darling. I don’t suppose you’d fit in one of my trunks?”
    I laughed. The station clock began to chime ten. “Go, Belinda, or your luggage will be on its way to France without you.”
    She leaned across my dirty apron to kiss me on the cheek. “I’ll miss you, old bean. And I will try to find a way to release you from your bondage.”
    “Cinderella’s fairy godmother?” I asked.
    “Absolutely. Glass slippers and all.”
    She blew me a kiss, then hurried toward her platform. I didn’t say it, but I thought that once Belinda was safely on the Riviera, surrounded by gorgeous tanned and rich men, she would forget that I even existed.

 
    Chapter 2
     
    Rannoch House
Belgrave Square
London W.1.
Still January 15, 1933
     
    It was raining as I left Victoria Station—a sleety, freezing, almost horizontal rain that stung like needles on my cold skin. By the time I reached Belgrave Square and went up the steps of Rannoch House I was feeling thoroughly dispirited. I arrived at the same time as the afternoon post and retrieved two letters for Fig from the mat. One bore a Derbyshire postmark and her mother’s perfect penmanship, the other a foreign stamp. I was naturally curious about the latter. I didn’t think that Fig had ever been abroad. She didn’t even like abroad. She mistrusted anything foreign, to the extent that she once refused to eat chicken cordon bleu, even though we assured her the chicken had been English through and through.
    But at the moment I put the letters on the salver, Fig’s voice floated down from somewhere on the first floor. “Why can’t we go to the Riviera like everyone else? This climate is too depressing and it’s not good for me to be depressed in my current condition.”
    I couldn’t hear the reply, presumably Binky’s, but could hardly miss Fig’s shrilly annoyed, “But everyone else is there. London is practically empty.”
    Obviously Fig’s governess had not drilled into her, the way mine had, that a lady never raises her voice. Or perhaps all the rules could be broken if one was in the family way. But in any case it was a slight exaggeration that London was practically empty. Fig had obviously never traveled on the tube during the rush hour.
    I fumbled with my scarf, trying to make my frozen fingers obey me. The front hall felt delightfully warm for once. Since Fig and Binky had returned to London there had been fires in all the grates and good food at every meal. A far cry from when I was trying to survive alone last year with no servants, no heating and no money to buy food. I suppose one could learn to put up with Fig for the sake of such conveniences. . . .
    At that moment Hamilton, our butler, appeared with that uncanny sixth sense that butlers seem to possess that someone has arrived, however quietly one creeps.
    “Welcome home, my lady. Most inclement weather, I understand.” He helped me out of my sodden overcoat. “Shall I have your maid run you a bath? Tea will be served shortly.”
    As if on cue Fig appeared at the top of the stairs.
    “I thought I heard voices in the front hall,” she said, coming down cautiously with one hand on the banister, attempting to look as frail as La Dame aux Camélias, but not quite accomplishing it with her sturdy, horsey body and her ruddy, outdoor complexion. “I think we’ll take tea in the morning room today, Hamilton. It’s so much cozier in there.”
    “I remember your telling our American guests once that nobody ever went into the morning room after lunch for any reason,” I couldn’t resist reminding her.
    “Economy, Georgiana. One uses less coal in a small room. Rules have to be bent unfortunately. I never thought it would come to this, but it has.” She scowled at me critically. “You look like a drowned rat, Georgiana. Go and have a bath, for goodness’ sake—if your maid can be trusted to run one for you without flooding the place again. Really, that girl is too hopeless for words. Tell Lady Georgiana what you found her doing this morning, Hamilton.”
    Hamilton gave an embarrassed cough. It was against the servants’ code to tell tales on one another. “It really wasn’t