A Royal Affair

by Allison Montclair

“Not specifically. Some things that were crime-ish, but for a good cause. We met during the course of a murder case that Gwen and I were investigating. Do I shock you?”

  “If you want to shock me,” said Dr. Milford, “then you should be less obvious about your desire to shock me.”

  All right, she liked him, she decided.

  “Fine,” he said, putting down his pen. “Why are you here, Miss Sparks?”

  “Fear of flying,” she said promptly.

  “And when did that start?”

  She was taken aback. She had thrown it out as a flippant answer. She hadn’t expected him to treat it seriously.

  “Well,” she began.

  Falling through the night sky, the cold air whipping about her, the rip cord useless in her hands, not knowing how many seconds she had left—

  “Well, Miss Sparks?” he asked gently.

  “How much did Gwen tell you about me?” she asked.

  “I can’t discuss what transpired between any other patient and myself,” he said.

  “Confidentiality.”

  “Of course.”

  “How far does that go?” she asked.

  “As long as you don’t intend to commit any crimes, or things that are crime-ish, our conversations never leave this room.”

  “How about things clandestine?”

  “Are we speaking of matters from deep within your psyche, or wartime activities?”

  “The latter,” she said. “Although there are vast territories where they intersect.”

  “You would not be the first person from Intelligence or Special Operations I have treated,” he said, opening a drawer and removing a manila folder.

  He opened it and slid it across the desk. Inside was a sheaf of typed papers.

  “My copy of the Official Secrets Act,” he said. “I became a signatory precisely for this reason. You’ll find my endorsement on the bottom of the last page.”

  “Right,” said Iris, flipping through it. “Have one of these myself.” She closed the folder and slid it back.

  “Satisfied?” he asked.

  “Never,” she said. “But let’s proceed.”

  * * *

  Gwen finally managed to get the tears under control. She looked up to find all the young men looking at her with concern. All but two.

  “Are you all right, ma’am?” asked the one-armed man.

  “I’m fine,” she assured them.

  “Well, if that was true, you wouldn’t be here, would you?” he said, and his mates broke into laughter.

  “Truer words,” she said, laughing with them.

  “You and your friend look familiar,” said one of the soldiers. “Weren’t the two of you in the papers last month?”

  “Yes, I’m afraid so,” she said.

  “Were they?” asked one from the other couch. “What for?”

  “Solved a murder, didn’t you?” said the first. “The Yard had the wrong man practically dancing on the gallows.”

  “It wasn’t quite that dramatic,” said Gwen.

  “You’re a detective, then?” asked the one-armed man.

  “Not at all,” said Gwen. “We run a marriage bureau.”

  “And you’re not going to solicit anyone for business in here,” said the receptionist sternly. “Now please hush. Have some consideration for your fellow patients.”

  The room fell quiet, but the one-armed man winked at her before going back to turning the pages of a magazine on his lap.

  She looked, as she always did, for the magazine with the princess on the cover, but it must have been buried in a different pile. She found the April issue of Woman’s Own, which had an amusing cover illustration of a young man with a shock of unruly hair sitting in a chair, looking down with an expression of appalling dismay at a beautiful baby girl in his arms. Whether the dismay was caused by her wetting herself or his contemplation of life as a father, it was difficult to say. The two causes produced identical expressions, in her experience.

  Except for Ronnie, she remembered. He embraced fatherhood, including its messier aspects, with joy and frequent glee. Even with their nanny hovering at his elbow, he insisted on making a ritual of changing Little Ronnie’s nappies, nuzzling the baby’s belly, making him squeal with delight.

  He would have loved to see what his son had become now, she thought sadly. They would be out in the park, playing cricket—

  Good Lord, she thought. Who will teach him cricket? She must get on that straightaway.

  Prince Philip must play. He went to an English boarding school for a while. He never had much time with his father, as far as she could tell, and now his father was dead. She wondered how that had affected him.

  Let’s see, she thought. He was born in Corfu in June 1921, so …

  June 1921. Seven years after the last daughter.

  She thought about that, then pulled her notebook from her bag and started to write.

  She became so enmeshed that she didn’t even notice Iris had come back out of the office until Iris was standing directly in front of her. Gwen looked up at her friend’s face. She saw no discernible change in expression, but there was something behind her eyes that made Gwen want to reach out and clutch her hand in sympathy.

  She didn’t, however. Not in front of the lads.

  “Done?” she asked.

  “For now,” said Iris.

  “Drinks and cake?”

  “Just cake, I think,” said Iris.

  Gwen looked at her in shock.

  Iris grinned, then turned and walked out the door, Gwen scrambling after.

  CHAPTER 7

  Gwen held back her questions until the waiter was out of hearing range. Between the two women rested a pair of plates, each holding a rectangular piece of sponge cake, its cross-section a four-square checkerboard of pink and yellow, bordered with apricot jam, encased in marzipan.

  Battenberg cake. They had both wanted it as soon as they saw it on the menu.

  “I’ve often wondered why they didn’t change the name to Mountbatten cake,” commented Gwen when it arrived. “If the Battenbergs were so sensitive about sounding German during the Great War that they took a new name, then the cake should have followed suit.”

  “I had a birthday where they took sixteen Battenberg slices and arranged them into a chessboard, with dark and white chocolate chess pieces to play with,” said Iris.

  “That sounds too wonderful to eat,” said Gwen.

  “Oh, it was,” agreed Iris. “At first. Then my aunt Prunella challenged me to a game, the winner of which would get to eat the other’s king.”

  “Did you win?”

  “Of course,” said Iris. “It was my birthday. I figured out later that Prunella let me win quickly to break the spell and let us get to dessert.”

  They dug in blissfully, then had tea.

  “I’m not going to ask what you talked about, of course,” said Gwen. “But did you like him? Did you think it was worthwhile?”

  “I liked him,” said Iris. “He knows when to challenge and when simply to listen. As to whether it’s worthwhile, time will tell. I hope he saves me from the asylum.”

  “If he doesn’t, you can have my old room,” said Gwen.

  “Nice view?”

  “I don’t remember there being any view. Or any windows at all, for that matter. I think they were worried about me escaping. Or jumping.”

  “Ah.”

  “I was doing some thinking while you were at your appointment.”

  “What about?”

  “The timing of all this. We’ve been so focused on tracking down Talbot and the Greek royals that we haven’t stopped to consider why this is happening and, more important, why it’s happening now.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “This thing, this information in whatever form it’s in, has been around since 1926, assuming Talbot did bring it back from Corfu then.”

  “Talbot only died last year. He kept it safe and secret.”

  “But he d
ied over a year ago, and nothing happened then. It’s not the sort of thing one leaves to an heir. I doubt his daughter got a package with a note saying, ‘Darling, use this for blackmail if you ever feel the need. All my love, Dad.’”

  “No, he wouldn’t have done that,” agreed Iris. “I’ll bite. Why now?”

  “Because of who our mysterious correspondent sent it to,” said Gwen. “Why, if it involves an old scandal of Princess Alice’s, wouldn’t he send it to her? And for that matter, who would care if she was involved in something back then? Where is she right now?”

  “Athens, when she’s not visiting her family. In a small apartment. She was there all through the occupation.”

  “That’s another thing,” said Gwen. “She was put into one sanatorium after another for years. Years! Even with all my troubles, I was in for half a year at most. You don’t go in for that length of time unless there’s something seriously wrong. Yet she was released, and has never gone back.”

  “The reports were that the death of her daughter and family in that plane crash jolted her back into—I don’t know whether to call it reality or sanity,” said Iris. “I don’t necessarily agree that they are one and the same. Where are you going with this?”

  “My point is that there is no profit in trying to blackmail Princess Alice because she doesn’t have the wherewithal to pay to keep things quiet. Someone gets hold of Talbot’s secret treasure trove, sits on it for over a year, and then something happens that makes it valuable: Prince Philip and Princess Elizabeth are photographed at the Brabourne wedding, and the world now knows they’re in love. The exiled Greeks may not have two drachmas to rub together, but our own royal family can afford some hush money.”

  “Makes sense,” said Iris. “What do you think the scandal is?”

  “If it’s being sent to Princess Elizabeth, then it must be something that would scuttle any possibility of marriage to the prince,” said Gwen. “Something more than just the reputation of his mother. If insanity on his maternal side, adultery and abandonment on his paternal side, and Nazi brothers-in-law aren’t enough to stop an engagement, then it has to be something massive.”

  “Go on,” urged Iris.

  “For the first part of Andrea and Alice’s marriage, princesses are coming like clockwork,” said Gwen. “Then after the fourth, no new children for seven years.”

  “There was a war going on,” Iris pointed out.

  “But Greece was neutral, wasn’t it? So given that Andrea’s wife clearly was capable of producing children, and assuming his male ego required a son no matter how long it might take, why did it take him so long? Yet Philip doesn’t show up until 1921.”

  “These things happen.”

  “Yes, of course they do. Right, so prior to Philip, the family had been in exile, correct?”

  “Correct.”

  “They are welcomed back to Greece and reestablish themselves in Corfu, and a bouncing baby boy is born. Where did they live before Corfu?”

  “Switzerland,” said Iris, pulling out her notebook and opening it to her research. “The Greek king in exile—”

  “Pre–monkey bite?”

  “Not that king. This was his father, Constantine the First, who had abdicated. He was Andrea’s older brother. They were living it up at the Grand Hotel in Lucerne. Andrea and family were there, with the obligatory side trips to St. Moritz and Lugano.”

  “When did Andrea leave Switzerland to return to Greece?”

  “Erm, ah, here it is. He goes to Rome in September 1920, then back to Greece in November.”

  “And Philip is born the following June tenth.”

  Iris counted back on her fingers.

  “Nine months earlier is September tenth,” she said. “Cutting it close. A nice farewell present to the wife, then off to the intrigues. The monkey strikes in October, the royal nephew dies, big brother retakes the throne a month later.”

  “Cutting it very close,” said Gwen. “Philip must have been quite the surprise after so many years.”

  “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

  “Look at how Andrea behaves towards his wife and son after,” said Gwen. “He shoves her into a sanatorium, sends the boy away, first to live with other relatives, then to one brutal boarding school after another. Barely visits him, never once visits his wife—his wife, Iris—in all the years that she’s confined. Is that how a man treats his first and only son and the woman who bore him?”

  “Yes, he was a nasty piece of work, I’ll grant you. But are you suggesting—”

  “That he was punishing her for having an affair that led to the illegitimate birth of her only son?” finished Gwen. “Obviously, I have no evidence to suggest that whatsoever.”

  “No.”

  “But what if someone else does? What happens to Philip’s prospects?”

  “They vanish like smoke,” said Iris. “Bastards don’t get to marry princesses. Officially, anyway. So the thing left behind in Corfu—love letters?”

  “That would fit the theory, wouldn’t it? Too precious to destroy, too risky to leave lying around. Hidden in the villa, or buried in an oilskin packet at the foot of a favourite tree, and forgotten in the haste of packing and fleeing until Princess Alice is safely on a British destroyer and it’s too late to go back.”

  “It could be,” agreed Iris. “Too bad we have nothing to back it up.”

  “Alice herself—”

  “Is off-limits,” said Iris. “Because if you’re wrong about this, the mere asking would be disastrous for the royal romance. Her lady’s maid, however, might have been a confidante. And the lover himself, if we could figure out who he was. Here’s a question: why would Alice tell any of this to Talbot?”

  “Could she have known him before?”

  “He’s in Athens in 1917, same year they flee the first time. There may have been some overlap. He could have traveled to Switzerland to sound out the exiles on behalf of Britain.”

  “What about after he left Athens?”

  “Let’s see. He’s naval attaché through 1920, then marries the French widow that June.”

  “Where was the wedding?”

  “London. Holy Trinity Church on Sloane Street.”

  “So, it’s not likely he was bored with the widow by September. She was French, after all.”

  “Good Lord!”

  “Just thinking about other possible men in Alice’s life. What else did you find out about her?”

  “She got heavily into spiritualism in Switzerland. Andrea’s younger brother, Christo, was obsessed with it. The sort of fad that people with money and time on their hands will indulge in.”

  “Interesting. A younger brother with a sympathetic ear. Or perhaps there came a dashing visiting lecturer on arcane matters, a charlatan with a charismatic bearing and a hypnotic stare.”

  “Rasputin was elsewhere at the time. You have a marvelous imagination, Gwen. You should sit in psychiatrists’ waiting rooms more often.”

  “Shake my brain sufficiently, things will come loose.”

  The bill arrived. Iris reached for her bag. Gwen shook her head.

  “My treat,” she said. “We are celebrating your courage.”

  “Courage? For facing an older gentleman in an office with you guarding me just outside?”

  “For facing yourself, darling,” said Gwen. “There’s nothing more terrifying than that.”

  They walked out of the café.

  “Are you all right with me handling the interview tomorrow with Madame Bousquet without you?” asked Iris.

  “It would make sense, given your choice of cover, unless I could be the photographer this time. But that might scare her off, and we do need to have someone in the office. So, go. You have my blessings.”

  “Thank you, Gwen,” said Iris. “I should be back late morning.”

  “Good hunting.”

  They went their separate ways home.

  * * *

  Little Ronnie bounded down the gra
nd staircase the moment Gwen came through the door.

  “Mummy!” he cried, jumping into her arms. “You’re home early!”

  “The better to see you in daylight,” she said, swinging him up into the air and catching him. “Goodness, you’re getting heavy! I may not be able to do this for much longer.”

  “Someday I’ll be big, and I’ll pick you up like this!”

  “I bet you will,” she said, lowering him gently to the floor. “Is Grandmother in?”

  “She’s in the library. She said you’re not coming to Tommy’s birthday party.”

  “I’m afraid not, but you go ahead and wish him a happy birthday for me.”

  “Will there be cake, do you suppose?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “One that doesn’t have toothpowder frosting?”

  “It all depends on how many coupons they’ve saved up. Maybe you’ll get real icing this year.”

  “I hope so. See you at dinner!”

  He dashed off. She thought about her post-session Battenberg indulgence with Iris and felt guilty. Wonderful, she thought. Grist for the psychiatric mill.

  She walked to the library and knocked respectfully on the door.

  “Come in,” said Lady Carolyne.

  Her mother-in-law no longer terrified her, but Gwen could not say they were on cordial terms. More of a tentative treaty, any of whose provisos could be violated by a single word muttered under a breath. Even the most casual of conversation topics required the utmost vigilance on Gwen’s part, and anything involving Little Ronnie could provoke territorial disputes bordering on full-blown war.

  “Good evening, Gwendolyn,” said Lady Carolyne, putting down a letter she had been reading. “Any successes on the marital front?”

  She was wearing a rose-coloured silk dressing gown with delicate silver filigree woven through it. It was what she wore before changing into evening dress, which meant that she would be going out shortly. Gwen anticipated the coming quiet in the household with relief.

  “We’re making progress,” she replied. “Some money has come in this week, I’m happy to report.”

  “I find this approach to marriage most unsettling,” said Lady Carolyne. “It would never have been heard of when Lord Bainbridge and I were courting.”