seen in her living room. Hermès even named a handbag after her in 1980. But by the end of that decade, it had all just…stopped. She’d pop onto the balcony at royal occasions, always in the back, looking like someone else’s edict demanded she be there. Some pieces speculated that Georgina’s élan was snuffed out by heartbreak—she’d once caused a stir by telling a reporter at Spy, “Men are like the monarchy itself, aren’t they? Splendid to look at, occasionally fun to have around, but cruel and pointless to the end”—but no one could agree whether it was the French politician, the dashing matador, the heart surgeon from Canada, or the Welsh toy boy she’d taken to Capri. Nobody, not even Roberta, could connect the dots between the lively life of the party and the lonely lady of the manor. One article even mentioned “quietude and spiritual reflection,” as if The Firm had fed reporters that line directly. It reflected the way Nick’s mother’s condition had been recast as mere reclusiveness, with no further questions asked. But there was no evidence of any buried mental illness here; Georgina’s eventual liver cancer did lend credence to the supposition that she’d retreated because her wild life had worn her out and then turned on her, but that theory rang a little hollow to me. Better answers had to be in Apartment 1A somewhere.
I longed to discuss this with Nick, but if he wasn’t out glad-handing people for photo ops, he was in endless meetings planning the next few. It was the worst of times, yet The Firm had closed ranks and left me on the outside; our home life was in stasis with no end in sight, and I was loath to speak up in case this was construed as making the Queen’s ill health about me. But I couldn’t even escape to blow off steam with my friends without it turning into a whole security production. My boredom burgeoned until one day I did get so fed up that I yanked on a floppy hat and sunglasses and snuck out the back gate onto the high street, just to do it. My blood was fizzing from the adrenaline. But then a busload of camera-clicking tourists near Royal Albert Hall spooked me, and I’d ducked into the gardens and hidden in a shrub, calling Cilla in a panic to rescue me. I felt ridiculous and embarrassed and trapped.
“Ugh, I’m sorry I pulled you away from your job for this,” I said once we’d settled down with some snacks back at Apartment 1A. “I was starting to feel like a recluse myself, but I may have overcompensated.”
“Believe me, I’m thrilled to be called away for an emergency that involves tea.” She tore open a scone. “I’m up to my ears in Dutch state dinner minutiae.”
“Do you need an intern? Because I would love to have useful face-to-face conversations with someone, anyone, that don’t involve whether to turn one corner of the living room into its own walled-off office.”
“You should not,” Cilla said. “You have too many rooms as it is. Besides, it’s your reception room. It has to be grand.”
I blinked. “When you put it that way,” I said, shoving the renovation binder away. “This stuff is making my eyes cross. Should we paint the hallways Clotted Cream, or Cream Cheese, or Double Cream? They look the same to me, but what if Nick has strong feelings about cream?”
“Only Gaz has strong feelings about cream.”
“Or the kitchen. Twisted Goldenrod? Sunshine Martinet?”
She looked taken aback. “Isn’t a martinet a torture device?”
“In more ways than one,” I grumbled. “These are not real problems. Intellectually I know this. It’d be better if Richard would let me help with family business.”
“Small problems can still feel big,” she said. “Nick’s schedule will slow down in due time, and then you can sort out together what your public role will be. It hasn’t even been two months since the Queen’s stroke, has it? One of my mother’s cousins stole a hat from her sister, and they didn’t speak for thirty years. This is nothing.”
“Did they eventually make up?” I asked.
“In a sense. One of them died.” Cilla peered at the table. “Go with the Sunshine Martinet.”
We spent the rest of the afternoon chuckling at paint names, designating bedrooms for my mother and Lacey for when they came to stay, and agreeing that Nick and I should overhaul our own room last so that we could move into suitably modernized