A Royal Pain by Rhys Bowen Page A

porridge for breakfast. Mrs. Huggins wasn’t particularly good at porridge and it was like gooey wallpaper paste. I ate mine with expressions of delight. I thought the baroness might be beginning to crack.
    “When will king and queen invite us to palace?” she asked hopefully.
    “I couldn’t say,” I said. “It depends how busy they are.”
    “Is most irregular that princess not received at palace by king,” she said; then she added, “The food at palace is good?”
    “They are also trying to eat simply,” I replied, knowing that they were.
    “And where is your maid?”
    “I’m afraid she hasn’t returned from visiting her mother.”
    “Servants in England have no idea of duty. You must dismiss her instantly and find a good reliable German girl,” the baroness said, waving her stick at me.
    At that moment the post arrived, bringing two letters.
    One was indeed from the palace, inviting us to dinner on Tuesday evening. The other had been forwarded from my post office box and was from a Mrs. Bantry-Bynge, one of my regular customers in the house-cleaning business. Every now and then Mrs. Bantry-Bynge abandoned Colonel Bantry-Bynge and popped up to town, apparently to see her dressmaker but really for a tryst with a frightful slimy man called Boy. I had been called upon to make up the bedroom for her on several occasions now. It was easy work and she paid generously. Buying my silence, Belinda called it.
    But Mrs. Bantry-Bynge needed my services this Wednesday. She would be spending Wednesday night in town, dining with friends. Oh, bugger, I muttered. It is not a word that a lady ever says out loud, but one has been known to mutter it out of earshot in times of severe crisis. How on earth was I going to find an excuse to leave Hanni and the baroness for several hours? Maybe somebody at the palace dinner party might be persuaded to invite Hanni out for a spin in a Rolls, or maybe I could prevail on Belinda, wherever she was.
    I was just showing my guests the dinner invitation to the palace when there was a knock on the front door and in swept Belinda herself, looking startling in a silver mack.
    “My dears, it’s raining cats and dogs out there,” she said as my grandfather-turned-butler helped her off with the coat. “Positively miserable, so I thought I’d better come straight to you and cheer you up with good news.”
    “How kind of you,” I said, “but you haven’t met my guests.”
    I led her into the morning room and presented her.
    “Miss Belinda Warburton-Stoke,” I said. “A great pal of mine from school.”
    “How do you do.” Belinda executed a graceful curtsy.
    “How strange.” The baroness stared at Belinda. “You bear a strong resemblance to somebody.”
    “I have relatives all over the place,” Belinda said breezily. “How are you enjoying London so far?”
    “So far it has been raining and we have sat alone in this house,” the baroness said.
    “Oh, dear. You’ll be taking them out today, won’t you, Georgie?”
    “Yes, I thought maybe the National Gallery, since it’s raining, or the peeresses’ gallery at the House of Lords.”
    “Georgie, how positively gloomy for them. Take them shopping. Take them to Harrods or down Bond Street.”
    “Oh, ja . Let us go shopping.” Hanni’s face lit up. “This I like.”
    “All right,” I said slowly, wondering if royal protocol would force me to buy things for the princess. “We’ll go shopping.”
    Belinda opened her handbag. “Georgie, I came to see you because the invitation arrived this morning.”
    “Invitation?”
    “To Gussie’s party, darling. Here.” She handed it to me. It was impressively large.
    Augustus Gormsley and Edward Fotheringay invite you to an evening of merriment, mayhem and possible debauchery at St. James’s Mansions, Wed., June 15th, 8.30 p.m.
    This was most tiresome. I really wanted to go, but I shouldn’t take a visiting princess to an evening of possible debauchery, and I could hardly go