A Royal Affair Read online

  Iris slid into her chair and rested her chin on her elbows for a moment. Her desk creaked, and she pulled back immediately and glared at it.

  “Someone’s coming up the stairs,” said Gwen.

  “Miss Oona Travis, I assume,” said Iris, checking her watch. “She’s early. Always a good sign. You take the lead on this one. I’m still getting my hearing back from the last one.”

  They both busied themselves with paperwork to avoid the appearance of idly waiting for their next customer. Gwen glanced up with her best smile. Then it became real as she saw a woman standing in the doorway.

  “Patience!” she exclaimed. “What a lovely surprise!”

  “Hallo, darling,” said the woman, coming in to receive a kiss on the cheek.

  “Iris, meet my cousin Patience Matheson,” said Gwen. “Lady Matheson, I should say.”

  “How do you do?” said Iris, coming around the desk to shake her hand.

  Lady Matheson appeared to be in her late thirties, which meant that she was probably ten years older than that, guessed Iris, basing her assessment on the expertise and expense invested in the makeup and coiffure. She was dressed in a light blue linen suit with three ropes of perfectly white, perfectly matched pearls around her neck; the strands joined at a lovely ruby pendant surrounded by white diamonds.

  “What on earth brought you here?” asked Gwen.

  “I came to see you in your new enterprise,” said Lady Matheson, looking around. “Well. Remarkable, I must say. I never thought I would see you doing this sort of thing.”

  “No one did,” said Gwen. “Not even me. It goes to show you how unpredictable life can be.”

  “We’ve all had more than our share of unpredictability,” agreed Lady Matheson. “In fact, my being here must fall into that category.”

  “We weren’t expecting you, certainly,” said Gwen. “Not that I’m not delighted to see you. It’s been some time. Iris, Patience is—Well, I’m not quite sure how to describe it. She’s not exactly a lady-in-waiting—”

  “Oh, heaven forbid!” said Lady Matheson, giving an exaggerated shudder.

  “But she works for the Queen in some capacity.”

  “Do you?” said Iris. “I’ve always found the phrase ‘in some capacity’ both wonderfully vague and intentionally concealing.”

  “How so?” asked Lady Matheson with a smile as she sat down in the guest chair.

  “It’s boring enough to fend off further questions while hinting at areas of occupation too mundane to warrant any interest. People, as a result, have the idea that you do something without knowing what it is, or even thinking it’s something that it isn’t.”

  “You’re the one who went to Cambridge, aren’t you?” observed Lady Matheson.

  “Yes.”

  “So you think you’re smarter than most people.”

  “Just the ones who went to Oxford.”

  “Lovely!” Lady Matheson laughed. “I must repeat that one to—Well, I have an Oxford friend or two, of course.”

  “Patience, it is wonderful to see you,” said Gwen. “But we do have a client coming in.”

  “I could handle the interview if you want to have a cousins’ reunion,” offered Iris.

  “That won’t be necessary,” said Lady Matheson. “I am Miss Oona Travis, your eleven thirty.”

  “What?” exclaimed Gwen.

  “I am also Miss Catherine Prescott, your twelve o’clock,” said Lady Matheson. “That gives us a full hour together. I know that you have the only occupied office on this level, and that the one below us is entirely vacant, but I would like to ask you to close and lock your door, if you don’t mind.”

  They stared at her, then at each other. Iris shrugged and got up.

  “That’s ten pounds down the drain,” she muttered as she walked to the door.

  She stepped out into the hall and peered down the stairwell. There was a man in a brown three-piece suit on the third-storey landing, nonchalantly smoking a cigarette. He looked up at her, gave a quick two-fingered salute, then resumed his pose, watching the stairs below him.

  Iris returned to The Right Sort and closed and locked the door behind her.

  “Brown three-piece suit, brown shoes, five ten, black hair, clean-shaven, well-built, mid-thirties,” she said as she retook her seat. “Yours?”

  “Mine,” said Lady Matheson.

  “Armed?”

  “Possibly. I’ve never asked.”

  “Does he have a name?”

  “Possibly. I’ve never asked.”

  “Patience, what on earth is going on?” asked Gwen.

  “Ten pounds, you said?” Lady Matheson asked, ignoring her and looking at Iris. “What does that get one?”

  “In the cases of our now mythical female customers, our efforts to find them a suitable husband,” said Iris, sitting behind her desk.

  “How does that fee work out per hour?”

  “It varies,” said Iris. “We’re up to nine weddings now.”

  “And several promising relationships,” added Gwen.

  “I see,” said Lady Matheson.

  She reached into her bag and pulled out her purse.

  “For your lost time,” she said, placing two five-pound notes on Iris’s desk.

  “Oh, Patience,” protested Gwen. “We can’t possibly—”

  “Yes, we can,” said Iris firmly, taking the notes and stuffing them into her top drawer.

  “But Iris—”

  “Think of Cecil and all the other little mouths to feed,” said Iris.

  “Fair point,” conceded Gwen.

  “I thought your son’s name was Ronnie,” said Lady Matheson.

  “It’s a private joke,” said Gwen.

  “All right, you have our time and attention,” said Iris. “Let’s talk. I take it you’re not here to find a husband.”

  “No, I’ve got one already,” said Lady Matheson. “He’s out in the country somewhere, I’m not sure which place. Probably in Scotland, blasting birdshot into unarmed pheasants.”

  “While you get to suffer through the London summer with us,” said Gwen.

  “I will be joining the royal family when they go to Balmoral,” said Lady Matheson. “Might even bump into Lord Matheson if he’s not too careful, but I have an errand or two to run before I do. I was having tea with Emily Bascombe on Monday and your names came up.”

  “Oh, how is Em?” asked Gwen. “We heard she’s in the family way.”

  “Glowing and voracious,” said Lady Matheson. “She mentioned that the two of you met at her wedding.”

  “Essentially,” said Iris. “That was when we became friends.”

  “She takes indirect credit for your decision to start up this odd little business. She told me that you, dear cousin, were responsible for bringing her and George together.”

  “I planted some seeds that took root and bloomed quite nicely,” said Gwen.

  “And that you, Iris—may I call you Iris?”

  “Certainly.”

  “That you did some digging into George’s background at Emily’s request.”

  “There were some rumours that needed debunking,” said Iris. “I was able to make some satisfactory enquiries.”

  “And you both put your talents to use in solving the La Salle murder. We were all quite abuzz about that.”

  “Have you brought us another murder to solve?” asked Iris.

  “Oh, dear,” Gwen sighed. “I’m still not over the first one.”

  “No, no.” Lady Matheson laughed. “This is more in your line. But before I go any further, I need to ask for your assurances that everything we discuss from this point on will be absolutely confidential.”

  “Of course,” said Gwen immediately.

  “Hold on a tick,” said Iris. “You do understand that we are not legally entitled to make those assurances.”

  “But Iris—” began Gwen.

  “Gwen, you remember how well our protests of client confidentiality went over wi
th Detective Superintendent Parham when he came barging in here with his bully boys. Lady Matheson, if you are here to discuss any criminal matters—”

  “I am not,” said Lady Matheson. “At least, not yet.”

  “Ominously put,” said Iris. “Do you expect them to become criminal?”

  “I would doubt it highly, but I cannot say to a degree of absolute certainty that they won’t. But if that does turn out to be the case, you have my word that you may then bring that information to the proper authorities.”

  “Meaning the CID,” said Iris.

  “Meaning the proper authorities,” said Lady Matheson.

  “So it may involve matters not involving the CID,” said Iris. “Are we talking about international affairs?”

  “At the moment, we aren’t talking about anything, and I won’t subject myself to further interrogation until I have Miss Sparks’s agreement,” said Lady Matheson, a huffy tone creeping into her voice.

  Gwen was looking at her carefully.

  “This involves the Queen in some way, doesn’t it?” she asked quietly.

  “Miss Sparks, do I have your word?” asked Lady Matheson. “I am asking on behalf of Queen and country.”

  “I served the King during the war,” said Iris. “I suppose I ought to extend the courtesy to his missus. You have my word, under the condition that the moment things turn sour, it is no longer binding upon me.”

  “Done,” said Lady Matheson. “And I anticipate that all of this legal-ish verbiage will turn out be quite unnecessary. Now, to the matter. We would like the two of you to vet someone, much as you did with George Bascombe.”

  “That sounds easy enough,” said Gwen.

  “Why us?” asked Iris. “Surely you have people at the Palace who can do that sort of thing.”

  “This is a matter of particular delicacy,” said Lady Matheson. “We’d rather not have it known internally, given how gossip flies about, nor do we want the subject of the vetting to get wind of it. We don’t want a word of it anywhere near the press. It’s probably nothing, but we need to make sure that it’s nothing and that it stays nothing.”

  “The ‘we’ in that sentence?” asked Iris. “Is it the same ‘we’ as in, ‘We were all quite abuzz,’ or a different ‘we’?”

  “Myself, one other person working directly under me—and the Queen,” said Lady Matheson.

  “Oh, my,” breathed Iris.

  “Patience,” said Gwen. “Are you asking us to vet Prince Philip?”

  CHAPTER 2

  “What do you know about him?” asked Lady Matheson.

  “Mostly what’s in the newspapers,” said Gwen. “There was quite a stir after that photo of the two of them gazing adoringly at each other at Lord Brabourne’s wedding.”

  “Wasn’t Brabourne in the running for the princess’s hand?” asked Iris.

  “I cannot comment on that,” said Lady Matheson. “But yes, things recently seem to have taken a certain momentum towards Philip. Lilibet’s had a crush on him since she was thirteen—”

  “Thirteen?” exclaimed Gwen.

  “Oh yes, when he was a pretty boy of eighteen,” continued Lady Matheson. “She kept his picture on her mantelpiece throughout the war.”

  “Adolescence versus a Royal Naval uniform,” said Gwen. “The poor girl never stood a chance.”

  “There is still the matter of parental approval.”

  “Yes, and no ordinary parental approval,” said Iris. “It’s not exactly, ‘Dad! Mum! Meet the boyfriend! We’re in love! We’re getting married!’ I imagine that a great deal of negotiating must take place.”

  “You have no idea,” said Lady Matheson. “It would be difficult enough if she were merely the princess, but she is also the heir apparent. The entire course of British history runs through her bloodlines. What else do you know?”

  “He’s a Greek prince,” said Iris. “Which is to say, not really Greek at all, and they don’t have a monarch at the moment, so it’s not much of a title. He must be a cousin to her somehow—they all are, what’s left of them, aren’t they?”

  “The princess and he are cousins on both sides,” said Lady Matheson. “He’s descended from Queen Victoria through his mother.”

  “Princess Alice,” remembered Gwen.

  “Exactly. Princess Alice even lived with Queen Victoria towards the end of her reign.”

  “Imagine that,” said Gwen. “One keeps forgetting that there are people alive who knew her. It’s like meeting people from fairy tales.”

  “How far down the line is he from the nonexistent Greek crown?” asked Iris.

  “Fourth or fifth, I think,” said Lady Matheson. “Not close enough to unite the thrones, should the Greeks choose to retain the monarchy.”

  “Right,” said Iris. “What exactly is it that concerns you about him? He’s royal, he’s educated, he’s tall and dashing, and he serves in the King’s navy. Is he a fortune-hunter? A womaniser? What’s the flaw? Citizenship?”

  “Is it his family?” asked Gwen.

  “The family is not all what we’d want for in-laws,” admitted Lady Matheson. “His father’s dead. His mother was in various sanatoria for years—”

  “If that’s a problem, then it is one that I share with her,” said Gwen quietly. “You should know that before we embark upon this expedition.”

  “Your sojourn was a completely understandable reaction to the loss of your husband,” said Lady Matheson, softening for a moment for the first time since she had come in. “We knew about it, of course. We don’t hold it against you.”

  “So the Queen knows I was away,” said Gwen. “It wasn’t meant to be common knowledge.”

  “We are not common people,” said Lady Matheson. “The Queen is quite cognisant of the sacrifices made by the families of our fallen men. You are held in a place of honour.”

  “Thank you,” said Gwen.

  “Fallen men—and women,” said Iris.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You said fallen men,” said Iris. “Women died for the country as well.”

  “Yes, of course. I didn’t mean to—”

  “Although the phrase ‘fallen women’ has come to mean something else entirely,” said Iris. “We should fix that.”

  “I’ll leave that campaign to you,” said Lady Matheson. “In any case, getting back to Philip, throw in the fact that his sisters all married Germans, a couple of whom were quite active with the Nazis, and there are any number of reasons why his candidacy is on thin ice.”

  “So we may be treated to the spectacle of the future Queen of England sobbing in her royal four-poster because the boy she loves is not good enough for the country she’s going to rule,” said Iris.

  “Hopefully, love will find a way,” said Lady Matheson. “But there is also this.” She reached into her bag and pulled out a manila folder.

  “We screen her mail, of course,” she said, placing it on Iris’s desk. “Oh, gloves on, if you don’t mind.”

  “It’s summer,” said Iris. “We don’t wear them at the office.”

  “I have some,” said Gwen, opening her bag and retrieving a pair. She slid them on, picked up the folder, and opened it carefully. There was a single piece of stationery inside, its top edge torn off. There were traces of black powder on it.

  “You had it dusted for fingerprints,” observed Iris.

  “Of course.”

  The letter was handwritten in a crude, barely legible scrawl. Gwen held it up to the window for a moment.

  “The stationery is from Smythson’s,” she said. “I recognise the watermark. Bespoke, no doubt, which is why the top was torn off.”

  “Naturally,” said Lady Matheson.

  “What does it say?” asked Iris.

  “‘Princess,’” Gwen read aloud. “‘I have what Talbot found in Corfu. I know what he knew. Ask Alice if she wants them back. There will be a price.’”

  “What was in Corfu?” asked Iris.

  “Philip’s family, once
upon a time,” said Lady Matheson. “They still have a villa there. Mon Repos, they call it.”

  “Continuing the theme of ‘not Greek at all,’” commented Iris. “Lady Matheson, this sounds like a police matter already.”

  “Not yet,” said Lady Matheson. “If the information is real and troubling, and if the terms are not unreasonable, we may prefer to handle it privately.”

  “You’ve done that before, haven’t you?” asked Iris.

  “If I had, would I be talking about it?”

  “Not at all. What about Talbot? Who was he, where does he come into the story, what could he have had in his possession?”

  “The problem with my asking these questions internally is that they lead to other people asking why I’m asking questions,” said Lady Matheson. “I have given you what I have given you, and that is all I can give you.”

  “You want this done, but you don’t want to help us do it?” asked Gwen.

  “Correct.”

  “Because you want deniability at your end,” said Iris.

  “Exactly.”

  “You are going to compensate us for our efforts, aren’t you?” said Iris.

  “What do you charge for this sort of thing?” asked Lady Matheson.

  “It depends on expenses. What if we have to travel to Corfu?”

  “Oh dear,” said Gwen. “I don’t know if I have the right wardrobe for Corfu in July.”

  “The envelope was postmarked at the London Central Post Office,” said Lady Matheson. “I doubt that plane tickets will be needed.”

  “We get forty pounds when a marriage results from our efforts,” said Iris. “But that’s the price for common people, isn’t it?”

  “And you are not common people, are you?” added Gwen.

  “No, we are not,” said Lady Matheson, smiling. “What surcharge will you be imposing for God’s representatives in England?”

  “How soon do you need results?” asked Iris.

  “The sooner, the better. We anticipate that the prince may propose at Balmoral.”

  “Shall we say—” Iris began, then glanced at Gwen, who nodded slightly. “Eighty pounds? Plus expenses?”

  “Reasonable expenses,” said Lady Matheson, reaching for her purse again. “No investigating Greek island beaches.”