Royal Blood - By Rhys Bowen Page 0,14

I went through a quick list of my friends. No princesses appeared on it.

But I could hardly call a foreign princess, apparently related to us, a liar. I smiled wanly. Then suddenly an image swam into focus—a large, chubby girl with a round moon face trailing after Belinda and me and Belinda saying, “Matty, stop following us around, do. Georgie and I want to be alone for once.” Matty—it had to be she. I had never realized that it was short for Maria Theresa. Nor that she was a princess. She had been a rather pathetic, annoying little thing (well, not so little, but a year behind us).

“Ah, yes,” I said, smiling now. “Dear Matty. How kind of her to invite me. This is indeed an honor, ma’am.”

I was now feeling decidedly pleased with myself. I had been asked to attend a royal wedding—to be in a royal bridal party. Certainly a lot better than freezing and starving at Rannoch House. Then the ramifications hit me. The cost of the ticket. The clothing I would need . . . the queen never seemed to take money into consideration.

“I suppose I’ll have to have a frock made for the wedding before I leave?” I asked.

“I believe not,” the queen said. “The suggestion was that you travel to Romania ahead of time so that the dresses can all be fitted by the princess’s personal dressmaker. I gather she has excellent taste and is bringing in a couturiere from Paris.”

Had I got it wrong? Matty, who always looked like a sack of potatoes in her uniform, was bringing in a couturiere from Paris?

“I will have my secretary make all the travel arrangements for you and your maid,” the queen continued. “You’ll be traveling on official royal passports so there will be no unnecessary formalities. And I will also arrange for a chaperon. It would not do to have you making such a long journey alone.”

Now I was digesting one word from that sentence. Maid. You and your maid, she had said. Ah, now that was going to be a slight problem. The queen had no idea that anyone of my status survived without a maid. I opened my mouth to say this, then found myself saying instead, “I’m afraid there might be a problem about finding a maid willing to travel with me. My Scottish maid won’t even come to London.”

The queen nodded. “Yes, I appreciate that could be a problem. English and Scottish girls are so insular, aren’t they? Don’t give her a choice, Georgiana. Never give servants a choice. It goes to their heads. If your current maid wishes to retain her position with you, she should be willing to follow you to the ends of the earth. I know that my maid would.” She dug into the cauliflower. “Be firm. You’ll need to learn how to deal with servants before you run a great household, you know. Give them an inch and they’ll walk all over you. Now, come along. Eat up before it gets cold.”

Chapter 6

Mainly at Belinda Warburton-Stoke’s mews cottage

Thursday, November 10

The car was waiting in the courtyard to take me back me to Rannoch House. It would have been a triumphant return but for one small fact. In one week I had to come up with a maid who wouldn’t mind a trip to Romania without being paid. I didn’t think there would be many young women in London who would be lining up for that job.

Fig appeared in the front hall as I let myself in.

“You’ve been gone a long while,” she said. “I hope Her Majesty gave you a good meal?”

“Yes, thank you.” I chose not to mention the near disaster with the grapefruit and the steak. And the fact that blancmange had been served for pudding and another of my strange phobias is about swallowing blancmange, and jelly—in fact, anything squishy.

“A formal occasion, was it? Lots of people there?” she asked, trying to sound casual while dying of curiosity.

“No, just the queen and I in her private dining room.” Oh, I did enjoy saying that. I knew that Fig had never been invited to the private dining room and never had a tête-à-tête with the queen.

“Good gracious,” she said. “What did she want?”

“Does a relative need something to invite one to a meal?” I asked. Then I added, “If you really must know, she wants me to represent the royal family at the wedding of Princess Maria Theresa in Romania.”

Fig turned an interesting shade