A Royal Affair Read online

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  TO MY NEPHEW, BENNET,

  WHO ILLUSTRATES HIS STORIES SO BEAUTIFULLY,

  AND LIVES HIS LIFE EVEN MORE SO.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  In addition to sources cited in her previous work, the author gratefully acknowledges books and articles written by Philip Eade, Fiammetta Rocco, Hugo Vickers, Anne de Courcy, André Gerolymatos, Sir Compton Mackenzie, John Sakas, Paul Halpern, and Father Simon Thomas. Questions on smaller points were more than adequately answered by Paul Negus, Stewart Gilles, and Peter Gilbert.

  The author takes full responsibility for any errors made. Indeed, she cheerfully embraces them as evidence of her own humanity.

  No plinths were harmed in the making of this book.

  A Greece truly independent is an absurdity. Greece is Russian or she is English; and since she must not be Russian, it is necessary that she be English.

  —EDMUND LYONS, BRITISH AMBASSADOR TO GREECE, 1841

  The most important tool for a King of Greece is a suitcase.

  —ATTRIBUTED TO GEORGE II, KING OF GREECE, 1922–1924; DEPOSED KING IN EXILE, 1924–1935; KING OF GREECE, 1935–1947 (INCLUDING SECOND EXILE, 1941–1946)

  CHAPTER 1

  “Men find me intimidating,” boomed Miss Hardiman. “That’s the problem.”

  “Surely not,” Sparks protested.

  “Oh, it’s been like that ever since I was little,” Miss Hardiman continued, at a volume that made Sparks fear for her eardrums. And the windowpanes. “Not that I was little for long. I was the tallest early on. You have no idea what that’s like.”

  “I never have,” Sparks agreed, shrinking back at the onslaught. “But they must have caught up with you eventually.”

  “By that time, they had grown up terrified of me,” said Miss Hardiman. “And I had got used to being the Terror of Tiny Town. I liked it, to tell the truth.”

  “The truth is what we require here at The Right Sort,” said Sparks.

  From our clients, at least, she thought.

  “So, you came to London in thirty-nine?” Sparks asked, holding her steno pad in front of her, painfully aware of its inadequacy as a shield.

  “Right. Perfect timing. Things went potty right after I showed up.”

  “Not cause and effect, of course.”

  “Oh, dear! You are a caution, and that’s no lie! No, I showed up in July, two months of dashing about, looking for work, then came the war. I joined up right away, of course.”

  “Well done,” acknowledged Sparks. “Where did they assign you?”

  “Office jobs at first,” said Miss Hardiman. “But I presented too much of a distraction, or so they told me, and not for my bombshell looks, which was disappointing. Yes, I’m joking, I know what I look like. No, I was too much of a tiger in a cage. I switched over to the motor pool, which was boring. Finally, I found my true calling.”

  “Which was?”

  “I was an Ack-Ack Girl,” declared Miss Hardiman proudly. “Started as part of a team, worked my way up to commanding my little squad.”

  “Really?” exclaimed Sparks, perking up. “You got to fire the big guns?”

  “Oh, yes, and it was glorious! Perched up on the hilltop with the twin 525s, watching the searchlights scour the sky, trying to spot the Messerschmitts coming out of the clouds, calculating trajectories on the fly, bellowing commands at the tops of my lungs! Then BOOM!”

  Sparks involuntarily snapped her pencil in two.

  Gwen, where the blazes are you? she thought. I need reinforcements.

  They were sitting on opposite sides of her decrepit desk in the small office which constituted the entire premises of The Right Sort Marriage Bureau. It was a humid Tuesday morning in early July, and the standing fan that Gwen had managed to sneak out of her in-laws’ home pushed the thick London air only a few inches forwards before it gave up, leaving the rest of the office, particularly the space around Sparks herself, unrefreshed.

  Miss Hardiman had, since only one of the two proprietors was present, plunked herself down in the single guest chair directly across from Sparks. She was tall enough, even seated, to bring the top of her head in line with the dartboard that hung on the wall behind the door. This gave her the appearance of having a gaudily striped halo, the bull’s-eye perched over the top of her energetically bobbing bun.

  Sparks found her eyes drifting towards the bun, her hand itching for a dart.

  “One moment,” she said, taking the surviving portion of her pencil and sharpening it. She licked the point when she was done, a habit left from childhood.

  “Right,” she said. “Ack-Ack Girl. Any success?”

  “Two confirmed, shared a third,” said Miss Hardiman. “Do you know that we were the only women in the services who actually killed the enemy?”

  Not the only ones, thought Sparks, maintaining her bland expression.

  “How about you?” asked Miss Hardiman. “How did you spend your war?”

  Who do you work for? shouted Carlos, his hands around her throat, her own scrabbling for the knife under the pillow …

  “Clerical work,” said Sparks. “Nothing as exciting as what you did.”

  “But essential, I’m sure,” said Miss Hardiman with more than a touch of condescension.

  “Every cog in the machine matters,” said Sparks.

  “Is it odd to say I miss it?” asked Miss Hardiman. “It was terrifying, but I felt I had purpose like I never had before. And now, of course—honestly, I envy you.”

  “Me? Why me?”

  “You still have purpose,” said Miss Hardiman. “You’re in charge here.”

  “I am only in charge of myself,” said Sparks. “Mrs. Bainbridge and I are equal partners and have no other employees. I’m hardly a mover and a shaker.”

  “But you run your own show, with no ridiculous men to boss you about,” said Miss Hardiman. “That seems like paradise, in a way.”

  “It is different,” said Sparks. “We’re making a go of it, I’m glad to report.”

  “After all the publicity about solving the La Salle murder, I should think so.”

  “That’s not our normal line of work,” said Sparks. “It fell into our laps, much the same way a grand piano does in those American cartoons. Now, let’s get back to finding you a good candidate. Would you say, given your … enthusiastic personality, that you would be happier with a man who stands up to it, or one who would give in to it?”

  “Ohh, that’s the nub, isn’t it? I’d think the first, except the arguing could get exhausting over the long run. But if the lad folds the moment I challenge him, there’s no fun. Could I ask for a bit of both?”

  “You could,” said Sparks, jotting down the answer. “Finding him is the trick.”

  “Which do you prefer?” asked Miss Hardiman.

  “I’ve had fun. I’ve been exhausted. I’m back to fun at the moment.”

  “You’re not married yourself, I notice.”
r />   “Correct.”

  “How do I know you’re any good at setting people up?”

  “Because we had enough faith in our abilities to do so to start a business doing it, and we’ve had enough success for others to share that faith. Yes, I haven’t followed a flower girl down the daisy-strewn aisle myself, but I bring a particular perspective to the search, and Mrs. Bainbridge brings a different but equally useful one. We are now on the hunt, Miss Hardiman. We shall put our minds to it, and contact you with a suitable candidate shortly.”

  Maybe one who’s hard of hearing, she thought as she rose to shake Miss Hardiman’s hand.

  She quashed the thought immediately.

  * * *

  Iris was in the middle of typing up her notes when Gwen returned, waving a pair of keys dangling from a metal tag.

  “Got them,” said Gwen. “Sorry I took so long. Mr. MacPherson was particularly difficult to find today.”

  “Where did he turn up?”

  “Napping in a vacant office on the second storey, broom in hand. How did things go with the ten thirty?”

  “Letitia Hardiman is now our latest client, I am happy to report. Tall, almost your height, in fact. Assertive, extremely loud. She led an antiaircraft battery during the war, which is impressive.”

  “When you say ‘extremely loud’…”

  “She brought down two bombers by yelling at them.”

  “Hmm,” mused Gwen. “We have Mr. Temple amongst our eligibles. Didn’t he lose most of his hearing to an explosion?”

  “I thought of him, but it shouldn’t be that superficial. And with all the shouting that would come from that match, I would fear for the equanimity of their neighbors. Maybe we should match her with someone who lives in a detached house. At the end of a street. In a cul-de-sac.”

  “Right. Well, I’ll take a look once you’ve typed it up. Who’s next on the schedule?”

  “We have a Miss Oona Travis at eleven thirty, then a Miss Catherine Prescott at noon. Nothing after that, so I suggest lunch.”

  “Suits me. Shall we take a look at the office next door since we have a free slot?”

  “Let’s.”

  Iris pushed herself up from her desk, which creaked ominously in protest. She glared at it.

  “It’s been doing that more and more,” she said as she walked between the desks to the door. “One of the legs has gotten rickety, but I can’t figure out where the problem is. I’d get Mr. MacPherson to fix it, but he’s been even more rickety lately.”

  “It’s what we get for taking what came with the office,” sighed Gwen. “At least your desk has four working legs. Mine has three and The Forsyte Saga supporting the fourth corner.”

  “A sturdy choice,” commented Iris as she followed her down the hall. “Have you read it?”

  “I keep meaning to,” said Gwen. “It’s very long. That’s what drew me to it for its present purpose. Here we are. ‘Cooper and Lyons, Chartered Public Accountants.’ I wonder what ever happened to them.”

  “Any idea of when they last occupied the space?”

  “Mr. MacPherson was uncertain on that point,” said Gwen, turning one of the keys in the lock. “As he is on most points.”

  She opened the door, peered inside, and gasped.

  “Iris,” she said in awe. “There are desks!”

  “Let me see,” said Iris, pushing past her. “Oh! How lovely!”

  The office itself was wider than their own by some four or five feet, which gave it room for a second window compared to their single one. There were no signs that it had been inhabited by anything human in years. There were signs of inhabitation by smaller species, and the place might have been swept and dusted within living memory, but that was not certain.

  What had drawn their immediate attention was a pair of massive matched mahogany desks, one in front of each window. They were broad, sturdy behemoths, resting on thick square columned pedestals, each of which in turn contained a drawer and a cabinet facing the two women.

  “Tell me it’s true,” whispered Gwen.

  She walked between them, her arms spread, trailing her fingers across the faded burgundy leather inserts, gently wiping the coating of dust from the gold-tooled ornamentations along the borders. She knelt reverentially in front of one of the desks to examine the logos on the drawers.

  “Harrods,” she breathed. “Partners’ desks from Harrods, Iris. I could positively swoon!”

  There were no keys apparent, but the center drawer had been left unlocked. Gwen slid it open. It was empty.

  Iris did the same at the other desk, and grimaced. “Something was living in mine,” she said.

  “So you’ve already taken possession of that one,” said Gwen, smiling.

  “Well, if we do expand, we should try to get the office furniture thrown into the deal.”

  Iris tried the other drawers. Some were empty. The rest were locked. “I left my lock picks in my handbag,” she said with chagrin.

  “You carry those with you all the time?” asked Gwen. “What on earth for?”

  “For occasions like these,” said Iris, feeling about the underside of the center drawer. “No, no secret compartment here. Maybe in the bottom drawers.”

  “Listen!” urged Gwen, sliding one open, then closing it. “So silent, so smooth. The craftsmanship—my God, I could sit behind this all day and spend my idle minutes opening the drawers.”

  “Easy for you with your height,” said Iris. “I would require a chair. And so would you, if only for appearances’ sake.”

  “There aren’t any,” observed Gwen, looking around.

  “So we’d need two for the desks and two for our clients.”

  “Only one, surely,” said Gwen. “We’re matching up individuals.”

  “Two, because I’ve noticed that having one centered between us smacks of an official interrogation after a while. And because sometimes they come with a friend or a relative for moral support, and we’ve made them wait in the hallway, or I end up sitting on my unstable desk, which is like roller skating during an earthquake.”

  “And your legs distract the gentlemen,” added Gwen.

  “Precisely,” said Iris. “So, four chairs, and a new filing cabinet. Desk lamps. Another fan. A second telephone line, with some form of intercom system connecting it with the first. We’d need to paint.”

  “A rug would be nice,” said Gwen. “I wonder if there are any I could filch from the attic at home. Yes, I’m beginning to see that we’d have to come up with the funding for all of that, not to mention the security deposit on the additional office. And you’ve forgotten the key element.”

  “A secretary,” said Iris. “Secretary slash receptionist slash clerk. Our very first employee. We may become employers, Gwen. How very capitalist of us! Do we have enough to make this expansion?”

  “We do not,” said Gwen. “We may have it in a few months if things keep going at the present rate. Six more wedding bounties would give us enough. If only…”

  She paused and sighed.

  “What?” asked Iris.

  “If only I could pry control of my estate away from that irritating guardian of mine,” said Gwen. “I could invest in our business.”

  “Have you approached him about it?” asked Iris.

  “I still need the final approval from Dr. Milford declaring me capable of managing my life without a straitjacket.”

  “How’s that working out?”

  “He wants me to get through two more months of therapy to make certain that I’m stable.”

  “Then don’t sit on my desk,” advised Iris. “Shall we get back to work?”

  “I suppose,” Gwen said. “Iris, is it wrong that I am experiencing lustful feelings towards this desk?”

  “I am not one to judge,” said Iris. “I’ve had a few interesting encounters involving desks. Not with the actual desks themselves, mind you, but they make my short list of favourite pieces of furniture.”

  “How would you rank t
hem?”

  “Hmm. Third. No, fourth. I forgot about the ottoman. That was a precarious but ultimately very rewarding experience.”

  “You short girls are so versatile.”

  “There have to be some compensating factors. Gwen, stop playing with that drawer or I will call Dr. Milford myself.”

  Gwen guiltily slid it closed and stood.

  “Goodbye, Cecil,” she whispered, giving it a pat.

  “You’ve already named the desk?”

  “I’ve already named all the drawers.”

  “Dear God.”

  They left the office of Cooper and Lyons and locked it behind them, then stood side by side on the stairwell, peering out the grimy window.

  “Mr. MacPherson says they have two new tenants coming into the second storey,” said Gwen.

  “The third is still completely vacant,” said Iris. “We’re the only tenants up here, but I sense that things may be picking up. And I hear they’re breaking ground on the new building next door. I feel we should grab that office while the grabbing’s good.”

  “We could go back to the bank for another loan,” said Gwen.

  “We had to go to, what, fifteen different banks the first time? None of them took the idea of a marriage bureau seriously.”

  “Until we saw Mr. Lastings. He liked us. And we’ve been prompt with our payments.”

  “We’ve only been in business for five months,” Iris pointed out.

  “Precisely. And it’s taking off. Well, rumbling down the runway. Picking up speed. Gaining lift, or whatever the term is.”

  “No airplane metaphors, please,” shuddered Iris.

  “Sorry. So, assume we’re paying double to the bank, double to the building, and a secretary—”

  “We can’t manage it yet. Let’s hope for Cupid’s arrows to work their wonders soon. Back to work, partner.”

  Their present desks had once provided a sense of ambition and optimism. Now they seemed shabby and resentful, as if they knew that the women they had faithfully served had found something better and they would soon become a distant memory.