Royal Blood - By Rhys Bowen Page 0,11

tried to get down my own tea and toast although every crunch of toast sounded like cymbals going off in my head. I was just wondering when Belinda might be home and how much better it would be to sleep on her uncomfortable modern sofa when the doorbell rang.

“Who can that be at this hour?” Fig said, staring at me as if she thought it was my next lover come to call. “Georgiana had better go. It wouldn’t be seemly for you or I to be seen answering our own front door. Word does get around so quickly.”

I went, as curious as she was to know who was at the door. I was half hoping it would be Darcy, coming to rescue me, although I suspected he wasn’t the sort to be up and around before noon. Instead, the first thing I noticed was a Daimler motorcar parked outside and a young man in chauffeur’s uniform standing outside the door.

“I have come for Lady Georgiana,” he said, not guessing for a moment that I was anything other than a servant. “From the palace.”

That’s when I noticed the royal standard the Daimler was flying. Oh, golly. Thursday. Luncheon with the queen. With my brain pickled with alcohol I had completely forgotten.

“I’ll inform her,” I muttered. I closed the front door and was about to rush up the stairs in flat panic when Fig’s head emerged from the top of the kitchen stairs.

“Who was it?” she asked.

“The queen’s chauffeur,” I said. “I’m supposed to go to the palace for luncheon today.” I implied that luncheon with Her Majesty was a normal occurrence for me. It always annoyed the heck out of Fig that I was related to the royals and she was only a by-marriage. “I’d better go up and change, I suppose. I shouldn’t keep her chauffeur waiting.”

“Luncheon at the palace?” she demanded, scowling at me. “No wonder you don’t bother to keep any food in the house if you are always dining in high places. Did you hear that, Binky?” Fig called down the stairs. “The queen has sent a car for her. She’s going to lunch at the palace. She’s going to get a decent lunch. You’re the duke. Why aren’t we invited?”

“Probably because the queen wants to talk to Georgiana,” Binky said, “and besides, how would she know we are here?”

Fig was still glaring as if I’d arranged this little tête-à-tête just to spite her. I must say it gave me enormous pleasure.

Chapter 5

Buckingham Palace

Thursday, November 10

In spite of a head that felt as if it were splitting down the middle and eyes that didn’t want to focus, I managed to bathe and make myself look respectable in fifteen minutes flat. Then I was sitting in the backseat of the royal Daimler being whisked toward the palace. It wasn’t really a great distance from Belgrave Square down Constitution Hill and I had walked it on previous occasions. However, today I was most grateful for the car because the fog had turned again to a nasty November rain. One does not meet the queen looking like a drowned rat.

As I looked out through rain-streaked windows at the bleak world beyond I had time to wonder about the implications of this summons and I began to worry. The queen of England was a busy woman. She was always out opening hospitals, touring schools and entertaining visiting ambassadors. So if she made time to bring a young cousin to lunch, it had to be something important.

I don’t know why I always expect a visit to Buckingham Palace to signal doom. Because it so often did, I suppose. I remembered the visiting princess foisted on me by my royal kin. I remembered the instruction to spy on the Prince of Wales’s unsuitable woman, Mrs. Simpson. My heart was beating rather fast by the time the car drove between the wrought-iron gates of the palace, received a salute from the guards on duty and crossed the parade ground, under the arch to the inner courtyard.

A footman leaped out to open the car door for me.

“Good morning, my lady. This way, please,” he said and led the way up the steps at a good pace. I followed, being extra careful as my legs have been known to disobey me in moments of extreme stress.

You’d have thought that someone who was second cousin to King George V would find a visit to Buckingham Palace to be old hat, but I have to admit that I