Naughty In Nice (A Royal Spyness Mystery)

important, Your Grace, and I have spoken to the girl.”
    “He asked her to help clean the silver and do you know what she did?” Fig’s strident voice echoed up the stairwell to the balcony above. “She lifted her skirt and started polishing the salt cellar with her flannel petticoat. Can you imagine?”
    I thought this was rather funny, but I tried to keep a straight face. “It saves on cleaning cloths, I suppose,” I said.
    “She claimed that was the way her ‘old mum’ always did it,” Fig continued, eyeing me triumphantly as if it was I who had been caught out. “Hopeless, Georgiana, simply hopeless. Surely you can manage to find someone better?”
    “One can’t afford to pay a top-class maid from an allowance of zero,” I said sweetly. “Which is the amount I am currently receiving from the Rannoch coffers.”
    Fig flushed. “Binky has no obligation to support female relatives past the age of twenty-one,” she said, “even if he had the money to do so, which he hasn’t. Times are very hard, Georgiana. We are having to cut back to the bone as it is, and I think Binky is being jolly generous, allowing you to stay on at Rannoch House with us.”
    “I expect Cinderella felt much the same way,” I said.
    Hamilton coughed again, not wishing to overhear this conversation. “I’ll instruct the girl to run your bath, then, shall I, my lady?”
    “Don’t bother, Hamilton. I’m going upstairs anyway. I can run it myself.”
    “Yourself, my lady?” His tone implied that I was about to sell fish from a barrow in the East End.
    “It’s really not hard. One turns two taps and puts a stopper in,” I said. “I’ve done it before.”
    “As you wish, my lady.” Hamilton bowed and retreated behind the baize door.
    “Really, Georgiana, you must learn to be a little more sensitive,” Fig said. “Servants should be allowed to do their jobs. They’ll become lazy if they are not constantly being given things to do. And your girl is lazier than most to begin with. You must give her a stiff talking-to, and if you don’t, I will.”
    I sighed and dragged my weary feet up the stairs. One doesn’t realize how tiring it is to stand for several hours. Walking is no problem. I could tramp through the heather all day, but standing in one place with cold feet is dashed uncomfortable. I stopped off at the second-floor bathroom and turned on the taps full blast, then I went through to my bedroom. The curtains were drawn and the room was in half darkness. I flung down my jacket on the bed.
    There was a scream. I believe I screamed at the same time as a figure reared up from my bedclothes. My heart was still beating fast when Queenie’s round, vacuous moon face came into focus.
    “Queenie. What are you doing lying in my bed?”
    She got up in leisurely fashion, stretching like a cat. “Sorry, miss. I must have dozed off. I always get a bit sleepy after me dinner, especially when it’s stodge. You know, steak and kidney pud. And we’ve been getting a lot of stodge lately, let me tell you.”
    “That’s because Her Grace the Duchess is trying to economize,” I said.
    “When it suits ’er,” Queenie replied. “I noticed she got through half a pot of Cooper’s Oxford marmalade with her breakfast toast this morning when she thought no one was looking.”
    “Queenie, it’s not your place to comment on your employers,” I replied, although I was secretly delighted to have this little tidbit about Fig to bring out when necessary. “Times are hard and Her Grace economizes as she sees fit. You are lucky to be fed and clothed in this house. There are plenty of girls waiting to take your place, you know.”
    “I’m sorry, miss. And I’m sorry about dozing off, I really am. I was putting your clean clothes away and I just happened to sit down for a moment and before I knew it, bob’s yer uncle and my ’ead just hit that pillow.”
    “You really are hopeless, Queenie.”
    “Oh, I know, miss. My old dad used to say he’d pay someone a thousand quid to take me off his hands if he had the money.”
    “And for the millionth time, Queenie, let us please try to get one thing straight. I am Lady Georgiana Rannoch and so I am not a miss. I am a lady. So the way you address me is ‘my lady,’ not ‘miss.’ Can’t you please try to get it right?”
    “I do try, miss—Lor’ love a duck, there I go again, don’t I? My old dad used to say I must be twins because one person couldn’t be so daft. I do