A ROYAL PAIN by Rhys Bowen

Another hilarious mystery featuring penniless aristocrat Lady Georgie, “a feisty new heroine to delight a legion of Anglophile readers” (Jacqueline Winspear).

The Queen of England has concocted a plan in which Georgie is to entertain a Bavarian princess— and conveniently place her in the playboy Prince’s path, in the hopes that he might finally marry.

But queens never take money into account. Georgie has very little, which is why she moonlights as a maid-in-disguise. She must draw up plans: clean house to make it look like a palace; have Granddad and her neighbor pretend to be the domestic staff; un-teach Princess Hanni the English she’s culled from American gangster movies; cure said Princess of her embarrassing shoplifting habit; and keep an eye on her at parties. Then there’s the worrying matter of the body in the bookshop and Hanni’s unwitting involvement with the Communist Party. It’s enough to drive a girl crazy...

Read an excerpt below, or listen to an excerpt on Much Ado About Books!

REVIEWS

“Adds another winner to Bowen's accomplishments” ~ Kirkus, May 2008

“Enchanting…Fans will welcome the return of this spunky heroine.” ~ Publishers Weekly

The alarm clock woke me this morning at the ungodly hour of eight. One of my nanny’s favorite sayings was “early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.” My father did both and look what happened to him. He died, penniless, at forty nine.

In my experience there are only two good reasons to rise with the dawn: one is to go hunting and the other to catch the Flying Scotsman from Edinburgh to London. I was about to do neither. It wasn’t the hunting season and I was already in London.

I suppose I should introduce myself before I go any further: I am Victoria Georgiana Charlotte Eugenie of Glen Garry and Rannoch, known to my friends as Georgie. I am of the House of Windsor, second cousin to King George V, thirty fourth in line to the throne, and at this moment I was stony broke.

It was clearly going to be one of those English summer days that makes one think of strawberries and cream, croquet and tea on the lawn. Even in Central London birds were chirping madly. The sun was sparkling from the windows across the square. And what did I have before me?

‘Oh golly,” I exclaimed as I suddenly remembered the reason for the alarm clock and leaped into action. I was expected at a residence on Park Lane. I washed, dressed smartly and went downstairs to make some tea and toast. You can see how wonderfully domesticated I’d become in three short months

I have managed so far servantless and frankly, I’m jolly proud of myself. The kettle boiled. I made my tea, slathered Cooper’s Oxford marmalade on my toast and brushed away the crumbs hastily as I put on my coat. It was going to be too warm for any kind of jacket, but I couldn’t risk anyone seeing what I was wearing as I walked through Belgravia—the frightfully upper crust part of London just south of Hyde Park where our town home is situated.

A chauffeur waiting beside a Rolls saluted smartly to me as I passed. I held my coat tightly around me. I crossed Belgrave Square, walked up Grosvenor Cresent and paused to look longingly at the leafy expanse of Hyde Park before I braved the traffic across Hyde Park Corner. I heard the clip-clop of hooves and a pair of riders came out of Rotten Row. The girl was riding a splendid grey and was smartly turned out in black bowler and well cut hacking jacket. I looked at her enviously. Had I stayed home in Scotland that could have been me. Then I noticed other people loitering on the corner. Not so well turned out, these men. They carried signs or sandwich boards: I need a job. Will work for food. Not afraid of hard work.

I had grown up sheltered from the harsh realities of the real world. Now I was coming face to face with them on a daily basis. There was a depression going on and people were lining up for bread and soup. I wished that I had the funds to help them, but essentially I was in the same boat as most of them.

Then a policeman blew his whistle, traffic stopped and I sprinted across the street to Park Avenue. Number Fifty-nine was fairly modest by Park Lane standards--a typical Georgian London House of the smart set. Instead of going up to the front door, I went gingerly down the dark steps to the servants area and located the key under a flower pot. I let myself into a dreadful dingy hallway in which the smell of cabbage still lingered.

All right, so now you know my dreadful secret. I’ve been earning money by cleaning people’s houses. I don’t do any proper heavy cleaning. No scrubbing of floors or, heaven forbid, lavatory bowls. I wouldn’t have a clue where to begin. I undertake to open up the London homes for those who have been away at their country estates. It involves whisking off dust sheets, making beds, sweeping and dusting. That much I can do without breaking anything too often.

It is a job sometimes fraught with danger. The houses I work in are owned by people of my social set. I’d die of mortification if I bumped into a fellow debutante or, even worse, dance partner, while I’m on my hands and knees in a little white cap. So far only my best friend Belinda Warburton-Stoke and an unreliable rogue called Darcy O’Mara know about my secret. And the least said about him, the better.

At the last second I remembered to retrieve my maid’s cap from my coat pocket and jammed it over my unruly hair. Maids are never seen without their caps. I pushed open the baize door that led to the main part of the house and barreled into a great pile of luggage, which promptly fell over with a crash. Who on earth thought of piling luggage against the door to the servant’s quarters? Before I could pick up the strewn suitcases there was a shout and an elderly woman dressed head to toe in black appeared from the nearest doorway, waving a stick at me, An awful thought struck me that I had mistaken the number, or written it down wrongly and I was in the wrong house.

“What is happening?” she demanded in French. She glanced at my outfit. “Vous etes la bonne?” This meant “are you the maid,” and was rather a strange way to greet a servant in London, where most servants have trouble with proper English, let alone French. Fortunately I was educated in Switzerland and my French is quite good. I replied that I was, indeed the maid, sent to open up the house by the domestic service, and I had been told that the occupants would not arrive until the next day.

“We came early,” she said, still in French. “Jean Claude drove us from Biaritz to Paris in the motor car and we caught overnight train.”

“Jean Claude is the Marquis de Chambourie,” she said. “He is also a racing driver. We made the trip to Paris in six hours.” Then she realized she was talking to a housemaid. “How is it that you speak passable French for an Englishperson?” she asked.

I was tempted to say that I spoke jolly good French, but I mumbled something about traveling abroad with the family on the Cote D’Azure.

“Fraternizing with French sailors, I shouldn’t be surprised,” she muttered.

“I, my dear young woman, am the dowager Countess Sophia of Lichtenstein,” she said “My maid is attempting to make a bedroom ready for me,” she continued with a wave of her hand up the stairs. “My housekeeper and the rest of my staff will arrive tomorrow by train as planned. Jean Claude drives a two seater motor car. My maid had to perch on the luggage. I understand it was most disagreeable for her.” She paused to scowl at me. “And it is most disagreeable for me to have nowhere to sit.”

I wasn’t quite sure of the protocol of the court of Lichtenstein and how one addressed a dowager countess of that land, but I’ve discovered when in doubt guess upward. “I’m sorry, your highness, but I was told to come today. Had I known that you had a relative who was a racing driver, I would have prepared the house yesterday.” I tried not to grin as I said this.

She frowned at me, trying to ascertain whether I was being cheeky or not, I suspect. “Hmmph,” was all she could manage.

“I will remove the covers from a comfortable chair for your highness,” I said, going through into a large dark drawing room and whisking the cover off an armchair, sending a cloud of dust into the air. “Then I will make ready your bedroom first. I am sure the crossing was tiring and you need a rest.”

“I will see what can be done,” I said, bowed and backed out of the room. Then I grabbed my cleaning supplies and climbed the stairs. After I had dusted and swept the floor under the maid’s critical eye we made the bed with so many quilts that it looked suitable for the Princess and the Pea.

As I came down the final flight of stairs I could hear voices coming from the drawing room. I hadn’t realized that yet another person was in the house. I hesitated at the top of the flight of stairs. At that moment I heard a man’s voice saying, in heavily accented English, “Don’t worry, Aunt. Allow me to assist you. I shall personally aid in the transportation of your luggage to your room.” And a young man came out of the room. He was slim, pale, with ultra-upright carriage. His hair was almost white-blond and slicked straight back, giving him a ghostly, skull-like appearance—Hamlet come to life. The expression on his face was utterly supercilious—as if he had detected a nasty smell under his nose, and he pursed his large cod-like lips as he talked. I had recognized him instantly, of course. It was none other than Prince Siegfried, better known as Fish-face—the man everyone expected me to marry.

It took me a moment to react. I was rooted to the spot with horror and couldn’t seem to make my body obey me when my brain was commanding me to run. Siegfried bent and picked up a hat box and a ridiculously small train case and started up the stairs with them.

I suppose if I had been capable of rational thought I could merely have dropped to my hands and knees and pretended to be sweeping. Aristocrats pay no attention to working domestics. But the sight of him had completely unnerved me. I turned and ran.

I raced up the second flight of stairs as Siegfried came up the first with remarkable agility. I opened a door at the rear of the landing and ran inside, shutting the door after me as quietly as possible. It was a back bedroom, one from which we had taken the extra quilts.

I heard Siegfried’s footfalls on the landing. “This is the bedroom she has chosen?” I heard him saying. “No, no. This will not do at all..”

And to my horror I heard the footsteps coming in my direction. I looked around the room. There was literally nowhere to hide.

I heard a door open close by. “No,no. Too impossibly ugly,” I heard him say.

I rushed to the window and opened it. It was a long drop to the small garden below, but there was a drainpipe beside the window and a small tree that could be reached about ten feet down. I didn’t wait a second longer. I hoisted myself out of the window and grabbed onto the drainpipe. It felt sturdy enough and I started to climb down. Thank heavens for my education at finishing school in Switzerland. The one useful thing I had learned to do was to climb down drainpipes in order to meet ski instructors at the local tavern.

The maid’s uniform was tight and cumbersome. I heard Siegfried’s voice, loud and clear in the room above. “Mein Gott, no,no, no. This place is a disaster. Not even a garden to speak of.”

I heard the voice come across to the window. My hands somehow slipped from the drainpipe and I fell. I felt branches scratching my face as I tumbled into the tree, uttering a loud squeak. I clutched the nearest branch and held on for dear life. I waited until the voice died away then lowered myself down to the ground, sprinted through the side gate, grabbed my coat from the servant’s hallway and fled. I would have to telephone the countess and tell her that unfortunately the young maid I sent to the house had suddenly been taken ill.

I had only gone a few yards down Park Lane when somebody called my name. For an awful moment I thought Siegfried might have been looking out of a window and recognized me, but then I realized that he wouldn’t be calling me Georgie. Only my friends called me that.

I turned around and there was my best friend Belinda Warburton-Stoke rushing toward me, arms open wide.

“Darling, it is you,” she said, embracing me in a cloud of expensive French perfume. “It’s been simply ages. I’ve missed you terribly.”

Belinda is completely different from me in every way. I’m tall, reddish-blondish with freckles. She’s petite, dark haired, big brown eyes, sophisticated, elegant and very naughty. I shouldn’t have been glad to see her, but I was.

“My dear, if you were invited for two weeks on a yacht and the yacht was owned by a divine Frenchman, would you have refused?”

“Divine but strange,” she said. “I thought he had invited me because, you know, he fancied me. Well, it turned out that he’d also invited not only his wife but his mistress and he dutifully visited alternate cabins on alternate nights. I was left to play gin rummy with his twelve year old daughter.”

“But darling Georgie,” she was now staring at me, “what have you been doing to yourself?’

“Wrestling with a lion in the jungle?” she eyed me doubtfully. “Darling, you have a wicked scratch down one cheek and leaves in your hair. Or was it a wild roll in the hay in the park? Do tell, I’m mad with curiosity.”

I started to laugh. “Nothing of the kind. I was earning my daily crust in the usual way, only the new occupants turned up a day early and one of them was none other than the dreaded Prince Siegfried.”

“Fish-face in person? How utterly frightful. What did he say when he saw you garbed as a maid? And more to the point, what did you say to him?”

“He didn’t see me,” I said. “I fled and had to climb down from an upstairs window. Hence the scratches and the leaves in my hair. I fell into a tree. All in all a very trying morning.”

“My poor sweet Georgie—what an ordeal You need cheering up. I know, let’s go and have lunch somewhere. Now where should we go? The Dorchester would do at a pinch, I suppose. There is no point in going to eat where one can’t be seen by the right people. I suppose it will have to be the Savoy. At least one can be sure of getting decent food there—“

“Just a moment, Belinda.” I cut her off in mid sentence. “I am still cleaning houses for a pittance. I simply couldn’t afford the kind of place you’re thinking of.”

“My treat, darling,” she said waving a turquoise gloved hand expansively. “That yacht did put into Monte Carlo for a night or two and you know how good I am at the tables. What’s more, I’ve made a sale—someone has actually bought one of my creations, for cash.”

She linked arms with me and we started to walk back up Park Lane. “Well, you remember the purple dress--the one I tried to sell that awful Mrs. Simpson because I thought it looked like an American’s idea of royalty?”

“Of course,” I said, blushing at the fiasco of my brief modeling career. I had been called upon to model that dress and…well, never mind.

“Well, darling, I met another American lady at Crockfords—yes, I admit it, gambling again, I’m afraid—and I told her I was an up and coming couturier, and I designed for royalty and she came to my studio and she bought the dress, just like that. She even paid for it on the spot and--“ She broke off as a front door opened and a man came out, pausing at the top of the steps with a look of utter disdain on his face..

It was too late. He looked in our direction as he came down the front steps. “Ah, Lady Georgiana. We meet again. What a pleasant surprise.” His face didn’t indicate that the surprise was in any way pleasant, but he did bow slightly.

I grabbed at my coat and held it tightly around me so that the maid’s uniform didn’t show. I was horribly conscious of the scratch on my cheek and my hair in disarray. I must have looked a fright. Not that I wanted Siegfried to find me attractive, but I do have my pride!

“Your highness.” I nodded regally. “May I present my friend Belinda Warburton-Stoke?”

“I believe we have had the pleasure before,” he said, although the words didn’t convey the same undertones as with most young men who had met Belinda. “In Switzerland, I believe.”

“Of course,” Belinda said. “How do you do, your highness. Are you visiting London for long?”

“My aunt has just arrived from the Continent, so of course I had to pay the required visit, although the house she has rented—what a disaster. Not fit for a dog.”

“I shall endure it somehow,” he said, his expression suggesting that he was about to spend the night in the dungeons of the Tower of London. “And where are you ladies off to?”

I dug my fingers into her forearm. I knew this was her idea of having fun. It certainly wasn’t mine. I decided to play a trump card.

“How kind of you, your highness. We have so much to talk about. Have you been out riding recently--since your unfortunate accident, I mean?” I asked sweetly.

I saw a spasm of annoyance cross his face. “Ah,” he said. “I have just remembered that I promised to meet a fellow at his club. So sorry. Another time maybe?” He clicked his heels together in that strangely European gesture, and jerked his head in a bow. “I bid you adieu. Lady Georgiana. Miss Warburton-Stoke.” And he marched down Park Lane as quickly as his booted feet would carry him.

I stepped into the gloom of the front hall and noticed a letter lying on the mat. I picked it up expectantly. Post was a rarity as hardly anybody knew I was in London. Then I saw what it was and almost dropped it. From the palace. Hand delivered.

I went cold all over. From her majesty’s private secretary. Her Majesty hopes that you will be able to take tea with her tomorrow, June 7^th. She apologizes for the short notice but a matter of some urgency has arisen.

My first thought, of course, was that Siegfried had recognized the maid’s uniform and had promptly visited the palace to tell them the awful truth. I’d be sent to the country and… Wait a minute, I said out loud. She might be Queen of England and Empress of India and all that, but she can’t force me to do anything I don’t want to. This isn’t the middle ages. I’m trying to make my way in the world at a difficult time. She should be proud of my enterprise.

When I was dressing to go to tea at the palace, I wasn’t feeling quite as brave any more. Her majesty was a formidable woman. It was a warm day and I was rather red in the face by the time I had reached the top of Constitution Hill. Luckily I didn’t have to face the grand staircase with its red carpet and statues, but was taken up a simple back stair to an office that looked as if it could have been any London solicitors. Here her majesty’s secretary was waiting for me. “Ah, Lady Georgiana. Please come with me. Her majesty in awaiting you in her private sitting room.” He seemed quite cheerful, jolly even. But then maybe she hadn’t disclosed to him why she had summoned me.

Thank heavens we’re not Catholic, I thought. At least they can’t lock me away in a convent until a suitable groom is found. That made me freeze halfway down the hall. What if I was ushered into the sitting room only to find Prince Siegfried and a priest awaiting me?

I took a deep breath and stepped inside. The queen was seated in a Chippendale armchair in front of a low table. Although she was no longer young, her complexion was flawless and smooth, with no sign of wrinkles. .

Tea was already laid, including a delicious array of cakes on a silver and glass two tiered cake stand. Her majesty held out a hand to me. “Ah Georgiana, my dear. How good of you to come.”

“It was very kind of you to invite me, ma’am.” I attempted the usual mixture of curtsey and kiss on the cheek and managed it this time without bumping my nose.

The queen poured the tea herself. “And do help yourself to something to eat.”

“After you, ma’am,” I said dutifully, knowing full well that protocol demands that the guest only eats what the queen eats. Last time she had chosen one slice of brown bread.

“I really don’t think I’m hungry today,” she said, making my spirits fall even further. Did she realize what torture it was to sit and stare at strawberry tarts and éclairs and not be able to eat one?

I was about to say that I wasn’t hungry either, when she leaned forward. “On second thoughts, those éclairs do look delicious, don’t they? We’ll forget about our figures for once, shall we?”

She was in a good mood. Why, I wondered. Was this a goodbye tea before she announced some awful fate for me?

“How have you been faring since I saw you last, Georgiana?” she asked, fixing me with that powerful stare.

I had been trying hard to take a bite of éclair without getting any cream on my upper lip. “Well, thank you, ma’am.”

“So you stayed in London. You didn’t go to the country after all, or home to Scotland.”

“It’s always good to be busy,” she said. “However, I do hope that there is more tp your life than luncheons at the Savoy.”

“At this time of crisis there is so much that needs to be done,” she went on. “A young woman like yourself, as yet unencumbered with husband and children, could do so much good and set such a fine example. Helping out in soup kitchens, giving advice on sanitary conditions to mothers and babies in the East End. All worthy causes, Georgiana. All worth devoting time and energy.”

This wasn’t going to be too bad then, I thought. She clearly expects me to stay in London if she’s suggesting I help mothers and babies in the East End.

“We’ll put that suggestion to one side for now,” Her Majesty said, taking a sip of china tea, “because I am hoping to enlist you as a co-conspirator in a little plan I am devising.”

She gave me her frank stare, her clear, blue eyes holding mine for a long moment.

“I am desperately worried about my son, Georgiana. This American woman. From what I hear his fascination for her shows no sigh of abating. She has her claws into him and she is not going to let go. Of course at the moment the question of marriage cannot arise, because she is married to someone else, poor fool. But should she divorce him—well, you see what a predicament that would be.”

“You say never allowed, but should he be king, who could stop him? He is then the titular head of the church. Henry VIII rewrote the rules to suit himself, didn’t he?”

“I’m sure you’re worrying needlessly, ma’am. The Prince of Wales might enjoy the playboy life at this moment but when he becomes king, he’ll remember his duty to his country.”

She reached across and patted my hand. “I do hope you are right, Georgiana. But I can’t sit idly by and do nothing to save my son from ruin and our family from disgrace. It is time he married properly, and to a young woman who can give him children of the proper pedigree. A forty year old American simply won’t do. To this end, I’ve come up with a little scheme.”

She leaned closer to me, although we were the only two people in the room. “They have a daughter, Hannelore. A beauty by all reports. She is eighteen years old and has just left the convent where she has been educated for the past ten years. Should she have a chance to meet my son, what man could fail to be attracted to an eighteen year old virginal beauty? Surely she would make him forget about the Simpson woman and return to the path of duty.”

“Let me explain my little scheme, Georgiana. If David felt that he was being forced to meet Princess Hannelore, he would dig in his heels. He has always been stubborn, ever since he was a little boy, you know. But should he glimpse her, across the room, should it be hinted that she is promised to someone else—a lesser princeling—well, you know how much men enjoy the chase. So I’ve written to her parents and invited her to come to England—to bring her out into society and improve her English. And I have decided that she shouldn’t stay with us at the palace.” She looked up at me with that piercing stare. “I’ve decided she should stay with you.”

“Me?” It was lucky I hadn’t been sipping tea at the time. I should have spluttered all over the Chippendale. As it was, it came out as a squeak and I forgot to add the word ma’am.

“What could be more pleasant for a young girl than to stay with someone her own age and of suitable rank? As you say, you mingle with friends. You dine at the Savoy. She will have a lovely time doing what young people do. Then at the right intervals, we’ll make sure that she attends the same functions as my son.”

She went on talking easily. The blood was pounding through my head as I tried to come up with the words to say that there was no way I could entertain a young lady of royal blood in a house with no servants in which I was living on baked beans.

“I may count on you, mayn’t I, Georgiana?” she asked. “For the good of England?”

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