Malice at the Palace (The Royal Spyness Series Book 9)

 

 

This was so unlike Belinda that I turned to look at her. “Belinda—you’ll meet the right chap, I know you will. You’ve got a brighter future than I because you’re so talented.”

 

“Dear Georgie.” She reached out to hug me. “You’re so nice. You deserve to be happy.”

 

“Cheer up, Belinda. Everything will work out splendidly,” I said. “You’ll find a job, or your father will relent and give you some money . . . and aren’t you set to inherit something from your grandmother?”

 

She made a face. “My grandmother will live to a hundred. She still walks three miles every morning and takes cold baths. And I’ll get no money from my father as long as my evil stepmother is in the picture. No, darling, I’m afraid it’s back to Crockford’s for me if I’m to survive.”

 

“Crockford’s? The club, you mean? Do you really expect to make money gambling?”

 

“Actually I do rather well, darling,” she said. “I play up the helpless and innocent young girl act—you know—first time at the tables and it’s all so terribly confusing. Kind men usually put in my stake for me. So I never actually lose my own money and I win remarkably often. Of course, some of the men expect something in return. . . .” She managed a bright smile. “But enough gloom and doom. There is room enough in my bed for two and in the morning we’ll make plans.”

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 3

 

 

 

MONDAY, OCTOBER 29

 

CLABON MEWS AND THEN RANNOCH HOUSE, BELGRAVE SQUARE

 

Dear Diary: Belinda came home unexpectedly last night. Rather embarrassing, actually. Now I have no idea where I’m going to go. I hate living like this, relying on the kindness or pity or duty of others to take me in. When will I ever have a place of my own?

 

In the morning the storm had blown itself out. The world was bathed in bright sunshine. I got out of bed and went over to the window, savoring the morning quiet. The pavement below was littered with swaths of sodden leaves and even small branches, bearing testimony to the violence of the night’s storm. Belinda sighed and muttered something and I turned to look back at her. She was still sleeping blissfully, looking remarkably innocent and angelic in sleep. I stood there, staring down at her. Belinda was usually the optimistic, opportunistic one, living rather well by her wits. She’d had affairs with glamorous Italian counts and Bulgarian royals. So it was quite unlike her to reveal a vulnerable side. I wondered if something had happened in Hollywood. . . .

 

Then I decided I should be more concerned about me. At least she had a place of her own to live. At least she didn’t have royal family connections to live up to. I wondered where I’d go now. Would she expect me to move out immediately? In which case I’d have no choice but to take the next train back to Scotland. Oh golly, I thought. Castle Rannoch with winter coming, lashed by gales, gloomy beyond belief. I’d have to write to Fig to see if they’d have me, since it was now no longer my home. And if she said no . . . I turned away from the window, trying not to think about it. Mummy said I was welcome to stay in Germany, but I didn’t fancy that either—not the way things seemed to be going there these days.

 

Either way, I’d have to start packing up my things. I’d need to collect Queenie from her parents’ house, which would mean an excuse to visit Granddad. That thought made me smile. I’d been visiting my grandfather on a regular basis while I’d been in London. I suppose I should add that I’m talking about my mother’s father, the retired Cockney policeman who lived in a semidetached with gnomes in the front garden, not the fierce Scottish duke who married a princess. The Scottish grandfather died before I was born, thank goodness, and it’s said that his ghost still haunts the battlements of Castle Rannoch.