Naughty In Nice (A Royal Spyness Mystery)

delights,” she said, with an emphasis on the word “all.”
    “I’m sure you will experience them all, given time.”
    I watched this exchange, feeling uneasy and angry. Were they flirting, or was this normal fashionable society talk? Jean-Paul turned back to me. “You two are friends?”
    “We were best friends at school,” I said.
    “Ah. But I think that this young lady has led a more adventurous life than you since leaving school, ma petite .”
    “Oh, absolutely,” I agreed. “My life has been rather dull.”
    “Until now,” Jean-Paul said. “At the moment you must agree it is far from dull.” And he smiled at me, removing some of those fears. Neville joined Belinda, putting a protective arm around her shoulder and thus making sure that the flirtation with Jean-Paul didn’t continue.
    “Awfully glad to see you here,” he said to me. “The last time we met you’d just fallen off a stage and been robbed. I was frightfully worried about you.”
    “I’m fully recovered, as you can see,” I said. “I wish I could say the same for the necklace.”
    “Lots of thieves and crooks on the Riviera,” Neville said. “Damned foreigners don’t have the same moral code as we do at home.”
    “If you’ll excuse me, I should greet our hostess,” Jean-Paul said and melted away.
    I was about to follow him, but a thought had been nagging at the back of my consciousness. I remembered Neville saying that he’d seen me before. And Coco and Vera thought they’d seen me too. Even Belinda. I needed to locate this mysterious double who had been seen entering Sir Toby’s house.
    “‘Remember you said you’d seen me before?” I asked Neville.
    “Riding your bike up near our villa,” he said.
    “Where exactly is that?”
    “Up in Cimiez, very near where Queen Victoria used to stay when she came here.”
    I had never known that my austere great-grandmother enjoyed the delights of the Riviera. “She came here?”
    “Every winter during the 1890s, I believe. Rented a whole wing of the hotel. They even changed the name to Regina to make her feel at home.”
    “Goodness,” I said. “She must have been awfully old then.”
    “Oh, she was. She thought sea bathing was good for her rheumatism.”
    This went against the picture I had of the spartan life she led and the palace more freezing even than Castle Rannoch.
    “So how does one get to Cimiez?” I asked.
    “There’s a little bus that takes you up the hill from the Place Massena—you know, the big square in the middle of town? There are Roman ruins at Cimiez, and the view is delightful, so people take picnics up there.”
    “I must go and see for myself,” I said.
    “Do come up and visit anytime,” Neville said. “We’re on the Boulevard Edouard VII. Villa Victoria—aptly named, what? I’m sure my aunt would be glad to receive you.”
    “Thank you,” I said. “I hope to.”
    “And thank you for hitching me up with Belinda,” he said, squeezing her shoulder as if testing a ripe melon. “She’s a corking girl. Absolutely spiffing. Even my aunt likes her.”
    Oh, goodness, I thought. He sees Belinda as a future wife. I didn’t see her staying with him beyond the end of the week. In fact, I noticed she was watching Jean-Paul’s back as he joked with Coco and my mother. This time she’s not going to get him, I thought, and I was just moving to join him when a stir went through the crowd. It parted as if Moses had just arrived at the Red Sea, and there was Mrs. Simpson, with—miraculously—Mr. Simpson in tow and no sign of the Prince of Wales. I watched, absolutely bewitched, as Mummy came forward to greet her. As these two had been involved in mutual loathing since they had met, I couldn’t imagine what might happen next.
    But Mummy, ever the actress, held out her hands. “Wallis, how simply sweet of you to come.”
    “Wouldn’t have missed it for the world, honey,” Mrs. Simpson said and the two ladies kissed, about four inches from each other’s cheeks.
    “How nice to see you, Mr. Simpson,” Mummy said, holding out her hand to him. “Do help yourself to a drink.”
    This suggestion was met with a grunt, which was about all I had ever heard Mr. Simpson say. As he moved off, Mummy asked, “So might we be expecting a visit from a special friend later this evening?”
    Mrs. Simpson gave an annoyed little shrug. “One never knows which friends will turn up,” she said. “I have so many friends.”
    “You know the friend