The butler was elderly, English and intimidating. His glassy eyes swept her discreetly from head to foot, seeing and assessing while appearing, with the knack only butlers and royalty have, of keeping their subject discreetly out of focus. He allowed himself a well-judged sniff of disdain in response to her yellow print cotton frock. The three-year-old straw hat elicited a twitch of the left corner of his mouth. Without her card, she guessed she would have been instantly sent round to the tradesmen’s entrance where an interview for would-be parlour maids might be on offer from the housekeeper. The butler studied the card she gave him and could find no reason to object to it. Nor to the accent in which she spoke the lines Sandilands had prepared her to deliver.
‘Good morning, Foxton. I’m here to see Her Highness. I believe Commander Sandilands has made an appointment.’
‘Yes, indeed he has, miss. You are expected. If you will follow me? The ladies are still in the morning room.’
She padded after him through a spacious marble-tiled hallway and down a corridor hung with paintings of a quality that risked distracting her. She took a deep breath as he opened a door and announced her. ‘Miss Wentworth of White Hall to see you, Your Highness.’ With a butler’s tongue-in-cheek tact, he had managed in two syllables to turn the formidable police headquarters into a genteel grand house.
‘Miss Wentworth! I’m delighted you could come — and so swiftly after the recent events. I’m told you bring news of the prince.’ The princess was smiling a welcome. Her voice was a throaty rumble but her English was perfect and, Lily guessed, her first language. She turned to the two young women who were sitting at a table covered in piles of envelopes, notes and cards. They got up eagerly and came forward in age order. They were both in their early twenties and both had dark hair and eyes, but Lily didn’t think they were sisters. The older one had a dreamy, rounded face and an easy smile; the other had a quizzical stare and a mouth that seemed ready to laugh.
‘Eirene, Sasha, may I present Lily Wentworth who was our guest last night? You may remember seeing her in the company of His Royal Highness. And she is, among many things, the cousin of Sandilands who visited the other day. Miss Wentworth, you will observe, comes to us under cover … Is that the right term?’ Her eye lingered meaningfully on Lily’s yellow print washing frock and slightly battered hat, and her two companions laughed nervously.
Lily lowered her voice to a conspiratorial tone and murmured: ‘It’s a Sunday. Maid’s Day Off. I blend in with the promenaders.’ In her imagination she heard her father splutter his outrage as her grandfather, with a dry rustle of bones, turned in his grave. With a rebellious flourish, she took off her hat and shook out her hair.
‘Ah! Now I remember! It’s the girl in the green dress,’ murmured Eirene. ‘The wonderful dancer! We all said … didn’t we, Sasha?’
The two younger Russians were wearing heavily embroidered silk kaftans, ankle length and unconstricting. They seemed to have been dealing with correspondence, so Lily gathered they were both resident in the house. Family or friends and clearly going nowhere for the moment. Their presence in the room was inconvenient.
Formal introductions were completed. The ladies seemed intrigued and pleasantly scandalized to be in the presence of a working woman and a woman policeman at that.