Read Online Queen of Hearts (Royal Spyness Mysteries) by Rhys Bowen - Free Book Online

scent of your real purpose.”
    “Brilliant,” Mummy said. “Yes, if he asks more questions, Georgie, say that I’m accompanying my old friend Stella Brightwell to Hollywood and leave it at that.”

    B Y THE END of the day we had sailed through the squall, the sea had calmed, and the evening was bright and clear. It seemed there was to be a costume ball on our third night at sea and the talk around the ship was on what everyone was going to wear. There was even a costume hire set up in one of the onboard shops.
    “What do you think, Georgie? What should we go as?”
    I shrugged. “It seems rather silly to go when we’ve nobody to dance with.”
    “Don’t be such a fuddy-duddy,” she said. “Really, your great-grandmother comes out in you too often. It’s fun to dress up and I’m sure someone will ask you to dance.”
    “Do you plan to hire a costume or invent something then?” I asked. “I haven’t brought anything suitable with me, unless we wrap our sheets around us and go as vestal virgins.”
    “
You
could go as a vestal virgin,” Mummy said. “But that really would stretch my acting abilities. Besides, nobody goes in make-do outfits. They either bring them along or rent them on board. We’ll go down and see what they have before all the best ones have been snapped up. I remember leaving it too late once and having to go as a cavewoman. Not my style at all.”
    I followed her down to the room behind the purser’s office that was now full of racks of clothing. We spent a good hour browsing through the outfits, Mummy fighting off other women for any costume she thought she might want. In the end she settled for Cleopatra. She tried to persuade me to be a mermaid, but I certainly wasn’t going to wear two little shells across my front. I also rejected the merry milkmaid with far too much cleavage.
    “Come on, darling. You’re being difficult,” she said.
    “I could be a nun, I suppose,” I said, holding up a black-and-white habit.
    “Darling, no daughter of mine is going to be seen as a nun. You are hopelessly stuffy. Really I do wish that Darcy had ravished you the first time you met.”
    “He did try,” I replied, blushing as I remembered that and other times that we had come very close to “doing it,” but something had always intervened. “And I’m not actually against the idea. It’s just there has never been a good time and place.”
    “There’s always Brighton, darling. There’s always a way if you want it badly enough. Now put down that nun’s costume. I simply forbid it. Here, try on the black cat. It looks rather fun.” Mummy held it out. “And you do have lovely long legs to show off.”
    So I agreed, reluctantly. At least nobody would recognize me with a black nose and whiskers. When we came down to dinner at the captain’s table the ball was the main topic of conversation.
    “We’re dressing the divine Juan as a cowboy. So sexy. All the women will swoon,” Stella said. “How about everyone else?”
    “We brought our costumes with us,” Sir Digby said. “My wife is a dab hand with her needle and we always win first prize at the local garden fete. Don’t we, old thing? But we’re not telling you what we’re going as. It’s a surprise.”
    “I don’t bother with such childish amusements,” Mrs. Simpson said. “I have enough dressing up in real life.”
    “Pretending to be queen, maybe,” Mummy mouthed across to me. I almost choked into my lobster bisque. Everyone was chatting merrily, apart from Princess Promila, who seemed subdued and withdrawn.
    “Will you be coming to the ball, Your Highness?” I asked.
    She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
    She answered the rest of my questions in monosyllables and I wondered if she had felt seasick earlier in the day and was still recovering.
    “So tell me, honey,” Mrs. Simpson said to me when the other side of the table was involved in a discussion about the future of the Talkies, “what are you going