Royal Spy 01 - Her Royal Spyness

by Rhys Bowen

  “Could be worse. There are some frightfully good-looking foreign princes. And it might be nice to be a queen someday. Think of all those lovely tiaras.”

  I scowled. “In case you haven’t remembered, there are precious few kingdoms left in Europe. And royal families seem to be a disposable commodity. What’s more, the suitable young men I have met have been so dull that assassination actually seems preferable than a long life with them.”

  “Dear me,” Belinda said. “We are in a blue mood, aren’t we? So your sex life must be pretty dismal at the moment.”

  “Belinda!”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I’ve shocked you. The set I mix with now has no qualms about discussing their sex lives. And why not? It’s healthy to talk about sex.”

  “I don’t mind talking about it really,” I said, although in truth I found myself squirming with embarrassment. “God knows we used to talk about it all the time at school.”

  “But doing is so much better than talking, don’t you agree?” She smiled like a cat with cream. Then she looked horrified. “You’re not still a virgin?”

  “Afraid so.”

  “It’s no longer required of a potential princess, is it? Don’t tell me they still send an archbishop and the lord chancellor to check personally before the marriage can be consummated.”

  I started to laugh. “I assure you I’m not saving myself from choice. I’d be perfectly happy to rip my clothes off and roll in the hay just as soon as I find the right man.”

  “So none of the young men we encountered during our season gave you hot pants for them?”

  “Belinda, your language!”

  “I’ve been mingling with Americans. Such fun. So naughty.”

  “If you want to know, the young men I have encountered have all been insufferably dull. And from my limited experience of groping and gasping in the backseats of taxies, I think sex must be overrated anyway.”

  “Oh, trust me, you’ll like it.” Belinda smiled again. “It is quite delish, with the right man, of course.”

  “Anyway, there is no point in talking about it, because I’m not likely to get in much practice, unless it’s with game-keepers like Lady Chatterley. I’m being banished to the country to be lady-in-waiting to an aged relative.”

  “They can’t banish you. Don’t go.”

  “I can’t stay in London indefinitely. I’ve nothing to live on.”

  “Then get a job.”

  “Of course I’d love to get a job, but I suspect it won’t be as easy as that. You’ve seen men queueing up for work. Half the world is looking for nonexistent jobs at the moment.”

  “Oh, the jobs are there for the right people. You just have to find your niche in life. Find a need and fill it. Look at me. I’m having a whale of a time—nightclubs, all the social life I could wish for, my picture in Vogue.”

  “Yes, but you obviously have a talent for dress design. I’ve no idea what I could possibly do. Our schooling equipped us only for marriage. I can speak passable French, play the piano, and I know where to seat an archbishop at table. This hardly makes me employable, does it?”

  “Of course it does, darling. All those nouveau riche middle-class snobs will positively snap you up, just to boast about you.”

  I stared at her in horror. “But I couldn’t let them know who I really was. It would get back to the palace and I’d be whisked away to marry a prince in Outer Mongolia before I had time to catch my breath.”

  “You don’t have to tell them who you are. One look at you and anyone can see you are top drawer. So get out there and have some fun.”

  “And earn some money, more to the point.”

  “Darling, are you stony broke? What about all the rich relatives?”

  “Money comes with strings in my family. If I go as a lady-in-waiting, I’ll obviously get an allowance. If I agree to marry Prince Siegfried, I’m sure they’ll come up with a wonderful trousseau.”

  “Prince Siegfried? The one we met at Les Oiseaux? The one we called Fishface?”

  “The very same.”

  “Darling, how frightful. Of course you couldn’t possibly marry him. Apart from the fact that Romania’s monarchy is in a bit of disarray at the moment. Exile can be remarkably dreary.”

  “I’m not sure that I want to marry any prince,” I said. “I’d rather build a career of my own, like you’re doing. I just wish I had some talent.”

  She eyed me critically, just as the queen had done. “You’re tall. You could be a model. I have connections.”

  I shook my head. “Oh, no. Not a model. Not walking up and down in front of people. Remember the debutante fiasco.”

  She giggled. “Oh, yes. Maybe not a model then. But you’ll find something. Secretary to a film star?”

  “I can’t take shorthand or type.”

  She leaned across and patted my knee. “We’ll find something for you. What about Harrods? It’s on the doorstep and it would be a good place to start.”

  “Working behind the counter at a department store?” I sounded shocked.

  “Darling, I’m not suggesting you work as a belly dancer in the casbah. It’s a perfectly respectable department store. I shop there all the time.”

  “I suppose it might be fun. But they wouldn’t take me on with no experience, would they?”

  “They would if someone who was a well-known society figure and woman-about-town wrote you a fabulous letter of recommendation.”

  “Who are you suggesting?”

  “Me, you idiot.” Belinda laughed. “When I’ve finished my letter, nobody would dare turn you down.”

  She took out pen and writing paper and started to write. “What name will you use?” she asked.

  “Florence Kincaid,” I said after a moment’s thought.

  “Who on earth is Florence Kincaid?”

  “She was a doll my mother brought me back from Paris when I was little. Mother wanted me to call her Fifi La Rue, but I decided that Florence Kincaid sounded nicer.”

  “You’d probably be offered more interesting jobs if you called yourself Fifi La Rue,” Belinda said with a wicked smile. She sucked on the end of her pen. “Now, let me see. Miss Florence Kincaid has been in my employ for two years as my assistant in the organization of charity fashion shows. She is of impeccable character and breeding, shows great initiative, poise, charm, and business sense, and has been a joy to work with. I release her with profound reluctance, realizing that I can no longer offer the scope that her kind of talent and ambition needs to blossom. How does that sound?”

  “Fabulous,” I said. “You are wasted as a fashion designer. You should become a writer.”

  “Now, I’ll write it out neatly and you can take it round to Harrods in the morning,” she said. “And now that I know you’re living on my doorstep, we must get together more often. I’ll introduce you to some naughty men-about-town. They’ll show you what you’ve been missing.”

  That sounded like an interesting proposition. I had yet to meet any really naughty young men. The only ones who had verged on the naughty were the ski instructors who frequented the inn across the street from Les Oiseaux and our interaction with them was limited to throwing notes out of the windows or, on a couple of occasions, drinking a glass of mulled wine with their arms around our shoulders. The young Englishmen were revoltingly proper, maybe because our chaperons lurked in the background. If they took one outside for a stroll and tried a quick and hopeful grope, one stern rebuke would make them gush out apologies. “So sorry. Damned bad form. Can’t think what came over me. Won’t happen again, I promise.”

  Now I was twenty-one. I had no chaperon and I was dying to see what naughty young men had to offer. From what I had heard, I was somewhat confused about sex. It sounded rather horrid, and yet Belinda obviously enjoyed it—and my mother had done it with oodles of men on at least five different continents. It was, as Belinda had said, about time I found out what I had been missing.

  Chapter 5

  Rannoch House<
br />
  Saturday, April 23, 1932

  I woke the next morning determined to take Belinda up on her other suggestion—the one for gainful employment. Armed with Belinda’s glowing recommendation, I sat facing the head of personnel at Harrods. He was eyeing me suspiciously and waved the letter in my direction. “If you had indeed proved so satisfactory, why did you leave this position?”

  “The Honorable Belinda Warburton-Stoke is going through a difficult period, as one does when setting up a new business, and had to give up charity events for the time being.”

  “I see.” He examined me critically, as several other people had done in the past twenty-four hours. “You’re well enough spoken and you’ve been well educated, that is obvious. You say your name is Florence Kincaid? Well, Miss Kincaid, don’t you have family connections? I’m wondering why you would want a job like this. Not just for fun, I hope, when so many poor souls are on the brink of starvation.”

  “Oh, indeed not, sir. You see, my father died some years ago. My brother has inherited the property and his new wife doesn’t want to have me there any longer. I’m as much in need of a job as anyone else.”

  “I see.” He frowned at me. “Kincaid. That wouldn’t be the Worcester Kincaids, would it?”

  “No, it wouldn’t.”

  We stared at each other for a while, then my impatience got the better of me. “If you have no position vacant, please inform me immediately, so that I can take my skills to Selfridges.”

  “To Selfridges?” He looked horrified. “My dear young lady, you need no skills at Selfridges. I’ll take you on trial. Miss Fairweather could use some help on the cosmetics counter. Follow me.”

  And so I was handed a smock in an unflattering salmony pink that made me, with my Celtic reddish blond hair and freckles, look like a large cooked prawn, and installed in cosmetics, under the disapproving glare of Miss Fairweather—who eyed me with a more superior stare than I had ever seen coming from one of my austere relatives.

  “No experience at all? She’s had no retail experience? I don’t know how I’m ever supposed to find the time to train her.” She sighed. She spoke with the kind of ultraposh upper-class accent developed by those of humble birth who want to conceal this fact.

  “I’m a quick learner,” I said.

  She sniffed this time. Frankly I thought she was a poor choice to put in charge of cosmetics, as no amount of cream, powder, or rouge would make that face look either soft, appealing, or glamorous. It would be like powdering granite.

  “Very well, I suppose you’ll have to do,” she said. She gave me a rapid tour of our products and what they were supposed to do. Until now I had thought that cosmetics consisted of cold cream, a brushing of the lips with Natural Rose, and powdering one’s nose with baby powder or those handy papiers poudres. Now I was amazed to see the selection of powders and creams—and the prices too. Some women obviously still had money in this depression.

  “If a customer asks you for advice, come to me,” Miss Fairweather said. “You have no experience, remember.”

  I murmured humble acquiescence. She moved to the other side of the counter like a ship in full sail. Customers started arriving. I called Miss Fairweather when necessary and I was just feeling that I was getting the hang of it and it wouldn’t be too odious a job after all when a voice said imperiously, “I need a jar of my very special face cream that you always keep hidden away, just for me.”

  I looked up and found myself face-to-face with my mother. I’m not sure who was the more horrified.

  “Good God, Georgie, what on earth are you doing here?” she demanded.

  “Trying to earn an honest living like everybody else.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, darling. You weren’t raised to be a shopgirl. Now take off that horrible smock at once. It makes you look like a prawn. And let’s go and have some coffee at Fortnum’s.”

  She still had that china-doll look that had made her the darling of the London stage, but the eyelashes were definitely too long to be real and there were circles of rouge on both cheeks. Her hair was black this time and she was wearing a pillar box red jacket of obvious Parisian design and a matching jaunty red beret. Around her neck was a silver fox, complete with beady-eyed head. I had to admit that the effect was still stunning.

  “Would you please go away,” I hissed at her.

  “Don’t tell me to go away,” my mother hissed back. “Is that any way to talk to your mother, who hasn’t seen you in months?”

  “Mummy, you’ll get me dismissed. Please just go away.”

  “I certainly won’t go away,” my mother said in her clear voice that had charmed audiences in the London theaters before my father snapped her up. “I have come to buy face cream and face cream I shall have.”

  A floorwalker appeared miraculously at her side. “Is there some problem, madam?”

  “Yes, this young person doesn’t seem to be able or willing to help me,” my mother said, wafting a distressed hand in his direction. “All I need is some face cream. That shouldn’t be too difficult, should it?”

  “Of course not, madam. I’ll have our senior assistant assist you as soon as she is finished with her customer. And you, girl. Fetch a chair and a cup of tea for madam.”

  “Very well, sir,” I said. “I was perfectly willing to help madam,”—put emphasis on the word—“but she wasn’t able to tell me the brand of face cream she needed.”

  “Don’t answer back, girl,” he snapped at me.

  Seething with annoyance, I went to get my mother a chair and a cup of tea. She accepted both with a smirk. “I need cheering up, Georgie,” she said. “I am quite desolate. You heard about poor Hubie, of course?”

  “Hubie?”

  “Sir Hubert Anstruther. My third husband, or was it my fourth? I know we were definitely married because he was the straightlaced type who wouldn’t countenance living in sin.”

  “Oh, Sir Hubert. I remember him.” I did too, with a warm kind of glow. He was one of the few husbands who had actually wanted me around and I still had fond memories of the time I spent at his house when I was about five. He was a big bear of a man who laughed a lot and had taught me how to climb trees, ride to hounds, and swim across his ornamental lake. I was brokenhearted when my mother left him and moved on to pastures new. I had rarely seen him since, but I received the occasional postcard from exotic parts of the world and he sent me a most generous check for my twenty-first.

  “He’s had an awful accident, darling. You know he’s an explorer and mountaineer. Well, apparently he’s just had a terrible fall in the Alps. Swept away by an avalanche, I believe. They don’t expect him to live.”

  “How horrible.” Instant feelings of guilt that I hadn’t been to see him recently, or even written anything more than thank-you letters.

  “I know. I’ve been devastated ever since I heard. I adored that man. Worshipped him. In fact I believe he was the only man I truly loved.” She paused. “Well, apart from dear old Monty, of course, and that gorgeous Argentine boy.”

  She shrugged, making the silver fox around her neck twitch in a horribly lifelike way. “Hubert was very fond of you too. In fact he wanted to adopt you, but your father wouldn’t hear of it. But I believe you’re still mentioned in his will. If he does die, and they say his injuries are absolutely frightful, you won’t have to work behind shop counters anymore. What do the royals think about this, anyway?”

  “They don’t know,” I said, “and you are not to tell them.”

  “Darling, I wouldn’t dream of telling them anything, but I really can’t come to London never knowing when I’m going to be served by my own daughter. It just isn’t on. In fact . . .”

  She looked up with a charming smile as Miss Fairweather approached. “I am so sorry to keep you waiting like this, your ladyship. It is still your ladyship, isn’t it?”

  “No, I’m afraid not. Just plain Mrs. Clegg these days—I believe I am still legally married to Homer Clegg. What an awful name to be st
uck with but Homer is one of these straightlaced Texan oil millionaires and he doesn’t believe in divorce, unfortunately. Now, my needs are very simple today. Just a jar of that very special face cream you always keep hidden away for me.”

  “The one we import specially from Paris, madam, in the crystal jar with the cherubs on it?”

  “That’s the one. You are an angel to remember.” My mother gave her brilliant smile and even the stern-faced Miss Fairweather flushed coyly. I could see how my mother had made so many conquests in her life. As Miss Fairweather went to hunt out the face cream, my mother straightened her hat in the mirror on the counter. “Poor Hubert’s ward must be quite crushed by the news too,” she said, without looking up at me. “He worshipped his guardian too, poor little chap. So if you happen to bump into him, do be kind to him, won’t you? Tristram Hautbois.” (She pronounced it “Hote-boys,” naturally. It is the done thing to anglesize any French name when possible.) “You two were great chums when you were five years old. I remember you stripped off your clothes together and went romping in the fountains. Hubie did laugh.”