Chapter 78

Your Royal Highness. ”

Dimly, Osla was aware of Giles’s bowing, the other guests’ fluttering through the private drawing room where they had all been ushered. Osla had no idea who the others were; she kept thinking of them as the camouflage. Especially as she made the appropriate half curtsy and straightened, taking in the smoke-blue dress, the string of pearls, the serene shield of a face. . . and the steady blue eyes, level with Osla’s own.

“How do you do, ” murmured Princess Elizabeth.

Osla had a flash of memory, running to meet Philip at the train station, face tilted up toward his, realizing she’d forgotten how blue his eyes were. They will have beautiful blue-eyed children.

“Delighted to meet you, Miss Kendall. ” Pert, pretty Princess Margaret in buttercream yellow, giving a bold glance up and down the dress Osla’s mother had brought back from Paris: ribbed silk in deep lavender, a huge skirt, a wide sash with impressionist flower swirls like a band of Monet’s water lilies about the waist. “Smart frock. Dior? ”

Just be chummy, Osla reminded herself, as everyone was ushered to a table glittering with silver gilt and crystal, and she and Princess Elizabeth sank down opposite each other in a mutual billow of crinoline and unblinking gazes. That’s what this whole luncheon is about. Someone in the palace had clearly had enough of those scandal-rag tidbits about Philip’s former girlfriend and decided on a little preemptive strategy: Osla and her fiancé, cozy with the princesses over lunch, everyone friends, then a nice mention in the papers the next day. Osla couldn’t decide if she wanted to laugh or rage at the bally timing of it all. On one hand, she’d rather have eaten nails than choke down an elaborate lunch with her traitorous fiancé and anyone, let alone her former boyfriend’s royal wife-to-be. On the other hand, Giles would think any stiffness on Osla’s part was Buckingham Palace jitters and not because she’d rumbled his game.

“And if he’s at the palace, he’s not thinking about Beth, ” Mab had pointed out. “Watch him, Os. If he seems worried. . . ”

He didn’t—he looked utterly chuffed to be here at Buck Place, and Osla felt cautiously optimistic that Beth’s guess was right: he hadn’t been notified of her escape. “You look smashing, ” he whispered into Osla’s ear as the first course was served. “How’d I get so lucky bagging a filly like you? ”

Because you took a dead set at me when I’d have said yes to the bloody postman, Osla thought. She’d been giving his seemingly casual proposal a great deal of thought since learning what her fiancé really was. He might have had a First from Cambridge, but Giles didn’t run in the crowds she did. . . crowds he’d been very eager to enter. Social climber, Osla thought, giving Giles her biggest smile over the turtle soup. I was never a friend to you, just a rung in the ladder. She was very glad Philip wasn’t at lunch today. Unlike her fiancé from hell, he’d have twigged her real mood in two seconds flat. Not just her anger, but what lay underneath it: a shiver of fear, to be sitting beside a man who would have a woman lobotomized because she wouldn’t give him what he wanted. A man capable of anything. A man she was engaged to marry.

The future queen took her first spoonful from the shallow Coalport dish, and everyone followed suit. “I hope I may present my personal felicitations for your upcoming marriage, ma’am, ” Osla said, taking the bull by the horns. “I wish you every happiness. ”

A faint softening in the future queen’s eyes. “Thank you. ”

“Such a fuss over one day, ” Princess Margaret said airily. “Quite makes me want to run off to the registry office when my time comes. I don’t think Philip would be averse either. He’s always been one for informality, Miss Kendall—but of course, you know that. I shan’t tell you the childhood nickname he had for me; it’s quite unflattering. ” A gleam in Princess Margaret’s eye. “What did he nickname you? ”

Osla would rather have been strapped to a rack than say that Philip had once called her princess. Giles saved her by launching on a self-deprecating story about school nicknames. A few of the other men laughed; Princess Elizabeth addressed an elderly lady at her side. Turtle soup was replaced by roast partridge and potatoes. Princess Elizabeth came back to Osla with a polite comment about the weather; Osla replied and took a different bull by the horns. “The newspaper coverage of the wedding has been quite unrelenting. It must be a relief to know the scrutiny will return to its usual level soon. ”

I’m not here to throw a spanner in your wedding plans, she wanted to say, preferably embroidered on a banner in three-foot letters. Can I skip dessert and go home? I’ve got a traitor to collar, and he’s sitting here blithering on about his school days!

One of the other ladies was asking Giles if there was a date set for their wedding. “June, ” he said with a smile, pressing his knee to Osla’s under the table. Osla wished she could jab her silver-gilt dessert fork into his leg. “We’ll be quite unfashionable, with the new fashion for winter weddings, ma’am. ” An ingratiating smile to the future queen; Osla distinctly saw Princess Elizabeth’s jaw tighten as she yawned without so much as parting her lips. You had to respect a woman who could yawn with her mouth closed.

“A June wedding! ” Princess Margaret knocked back her wine. “Too, too original! ”

Some mention was made of Princess Elizabeth’s wartime service, and Osla fell gratefully on the change of subject as the partridge was replaced by fluffy crepes doused in apricot jam. “I understand you were with the ATS during the last year of the war, ma’am. What a lark, working with engines and automobiles. ”

“I enjoyed it. ” A spark lit the princess’s blue eyes. “You can do a lot if you’re properly trained. ”

“Yes, you can, ” Osla said, thinking of Hut 4.

Princess Elizabeth tilted her head. “Did you serve, Miss Kendall? ”

“I did, ma’am. ” Biting into a crepe. “I would have been thoroughly ashamed not to do my part. ”

“Not one of the women’s branches, I believe? ”

“I wish I could say more, ma’am”—swallowing her crepe—“but I’m afraid your superiors would disapprove. ”

The future queen looked startled. Osla smiled sweetly. Mark the occasion: the very first time I ever enjoyed BP’s song-and-dance of secrecy: over lunch at a very different BP.

Princess Margaret had another glass of wine in hand when luncheon broke up, and she drew Osla to the window as if to point out the gardens. “I’m the one who wanted to invite you, you know. Lilibet wasn’t keen at all. ” Her eyes glittered with mischief. “Come on, spill. What’s Philip like when you get him. . . alone? ”

Osla blinked, innocent. Princess Elizabeth glanced over at them, then went back to nodding as Giles told her yet another story.

“Maybe Philip’s no great shakes, considering you’ve moved on. ” Margaret looked at Giles. “Your fiancé ’s rather nice. ”

“He’s a crashing bore. ” Strange how a traitor could also be a real yawner.

The princess laughed. “So ditch him! One understands the need for a wedding date, but afterward—”

“I quite agree, ” Osla said.

Margaret grinned. “You aren’t so milk and water as you seem! I didn’t think you could be. Philip hates dishrags. ”

“He will be very happy with your sister, I’m sure. ”

“If other people don’t muck it up for him. . . Mummy wasn’t keen. ” Margaret scrutinized Osla. “Look, you know him. Is he up for this? Can he do it? ”

Osla remembered her own words to Philip, that last meeting in Euston station: Do you think you’re built for that, playing Albert to her Victoria? I don’t think you are. The look on his face afterward. . . looking at Margaret now, Osla realized she could complicate Philip’s entry to this family quite efficiently, with just a few drips of poison. “You can trust him, ” Osla said. “He’s not perfect, and you shouldn’t expect it. But he’s nearly an orphan—like me—and family is everything to people like us. ”

“What about country? ” Margaret asked, arch. “Mummy called him ‘the Hun, ’ you know. ”

“In his own words, he’s near committed murder on behalf of the British Empire. ” Smiling at Margaret’s startled expression. “Perhaps someday, if he really trusts you, he’ll tell you about his experiences at Matapan. ”

Family was everything, Osla thought. And maybe—yearning to get back to Courns Wood—she had more family than she thought.

“THAT WENT SWIMMINGLY! ” Giles was gleeful as they were ushered out. “I can already see tomorrow’s write-up: The princesses lunched privately with special friends, including Mr. Giles Talbot and his fiancé e, Miss Osla Kendall. . . ”

Osla dug in her handbag for her gloves, hoping Giles wouldn’t want to take her out for a night of cocktails. Oh, God, if he tried to wheedle her between his sheets she was going to absolutely heave.

“Excuse me, Miss Kendall. ” A footman caught up to them halfway down the burnished hall outside, bowing. “If you will come back with me? Your gloves. . . ”

But there were no gloves when Osla left Giles and returned to the drawing room. Only Philip, standing hands in pockets by the window.

“Hullo, ” he said with a crooked smile.

Her stomach was suddenly in ropes. “Hullo. ” She wasn’t entirely sure what to call him: he’d be elevated to a dukedom on the morning of his wedding but hadn’t received that title yet; he’d renounced Greek citizenship to marry England’s princess, so he was no longer Philip of Greece.

Philip nodded the footman out, motioning for the door to be left cracked. A private meeting, then, Osla thought, but not private. “I wanted a hello, since I couldn’t join you at lunch. How was it? ”

“I’m sure you’ve been filled in. ” Something told Osla Philip had already spoken to his fiancé e. “I hope no one thinks I had anything to do with those scandal-rag pieces. ”

“I know you, Os. Never your style. ”

They gazed at each other. Philip looked strange out of uniform, his bright hair no longer picking up the glint of gold braid but shining over a civilian suit. His eyes landed on her emerald ring. “I thought you hated green. ”

She did. Since the Café de Paris bombing, after which her nightmares were studded by flashes of her blood-drenched green gown. Ozma of Oz. . . we’ll get you back to the Emerald City, right as rain. “I’ve learned to tolerate it, ” Osla said. “Like a lot of other things. ”

“Margaret thinks your fiancé ’s a prat. ”

“Margaret talks too much. ”

“She also relayed what you said about me. ” Pause. “Thank you. You could have said a good deal to her. . . it would have made its way to her sister and— Well, you could have made things difficult between my fiancé e and me. I wouldn’t even have blamed you, considering how things ended. ”

An ocean of words hovered visibly at his lips. I didn’t behave as I should have, perhaps. Or I let myself care more than I should have, and you were hurt. It all remained unsaid. Philip was more contained than Osla remembered: the future consort, already weighing every remark. She felt a moment’s regret for the boisterous wartime lieutenant who laughed and spoke on quicksilver impulse.

“You look well. ” Philip studied her. “I’d like to see you happy, too. Is Giles Talbot the one to do that? ”

“I don’t think you’re quite entitled to an opinion on my future husband, ” she said evenly.

“That’s fair. ”

“Don’t think I’m eating my heart out, Philip. ” The twinges of regret could ache sometimes, even now, but Osla’s heart was no longer in smithereens. It wasn’t heartache now, it was. . . “What pains me, ” she said slowly, finding her way, “is that I’ve never quite been allowed to leave you behind. When can I be Osla Kendall again, not Prince Philip’s old girlfriend? ” She answered her own question. “I know it will happen eventually. You’ll become our future queen’s husband, there will be little blue-eyed princes and princesses, and I’ll have a husband and children of my own, and people will forget. I just wish it would come sooner—the day my name becomes mine again, not just something to remind people of someone more important. ”

His mouth quirked. “I might know something about how that feels. ”

He might, at that. He’d chosen a woman who outranked him, who always would. If you’d married me, Osla thought, you’d be a naval lieutenant—maybe a captain by now—free to sail the world, and I’d always be the prince’s wife. You’ll marry her, and you’ll probably never sail into battle again, and you’ll always be the queen’s husband.

“You can do it, you know, ” Osla said. “What I said at the train station, that you could never play Albert to Princess Elizabeth’s Victoria—you can do it, Philip. I know you can. She’ll need someone like you, and so does England—someone who doesn’t take loyalty for granted. ” Unlike Giles, who had been born into the nation Philip had chosen and fought for, yet had thrown his loyalty away.

“Thank you, ” he said simply. “She. . . makes me happy. ”

“I’m glad you found your place in the world, then. ”

“What’s your place, Os? ”

“I’m going to be the wittiest, most successful satirist at the Tatler, ” Osla said. “With a syndicated column before I’m thirty. ” She said it flippantly but realized it was exactly what she wanted. Maybe she hadn’t let herself realize that, because it seemed like wanting the moon. . . But Osla decided right now that she was getting a column, and it was going to be a ripping good column, too.

“Shall I ring someone at the Tatler? ” Philip asked. “I could put in a word for you. ”

“No, I’m going to get it for myself, ” Osla decided. As soon as she’d wrapped up this business of catching a traitor, that is.

“I look forward to reading your work. ” Philip hesitated. “Friends, Os? I don’t want to lose you. ”

“You won’t. ”

“Then take this. ” Holding out a slip of paper. “My private line here at the palace. ”

“Is a bit of Mayfair crumpet like me allowed to ring a duke at Buck Place? ” Osla gibed.

“You’re no Mayfair crumpet, and you know it. ” Philip hesitated. “Maybe you can’t tell me, but I know you did more during the war than type reports. ”

That knocked Osla for a wicket. “What? ”

“People who have been to war, suffered for it in some way. . . you see the marks. The damage. I knew fellows who couldn’t stand loud noises after Matapan, fellows who got the tremors after we were dive-bombed in the Mediterranean. I don’t know what you did, Os—I didn’t think about it much at the time—but afterward, when I looked back, I realized. . . well, from the pattern of your flinches, it can’t have just been typing. ” Slanting a brow. “Though you were very good at selling it that way. ”

Osla stared at him, nearly breathless.

“Tell me one thing, ” Philip said. “Whatever it was, were you good at it? ”

“I was blinking great at it, ” she said.

“There you are. So no more ‘silly deb’ business, eh? ”

She grinned. “As the royal consort, you might get permission to find out what I did. Possibly. Ask MI-5. ”

“I will. ” Philip checked the time. “I’ve got to go. Look, don’t be afraid to ring if you ever need anything. One of my people will answer it, day or night. ”

“You have people now? ” she teased. He grinned back, coming to kiss her cheek, and she smelled an unfamiliar cologne. “Good to see you, Philip. ”

When Osla was escorted back to Giles, waiting between a mirror and a hideous mid-Victorian still-life, he was good humored. “You were gone an awfully long time for a pair of gloves, kitten. Should I be jealous? ”

She beamed at Giles, disarming him before she dumped the goods on him. “You’re the one who’s been tipping off the scandal rags about me, aren’t you? ” A shot in the dark, but a reasonable one.

He had the grace to looked chagrined. “Just once or twice. The things journos pay for tips. . . ”

Excellent, Osla thought. She could row with him all the way back to Knightsbridge, and he’d be far too busy scrambling for apologies to even think about inviting her out to cocktails, or, God forbid, to bed. Far too busy to think about Beth, either. “You utter rotter, Giles Talbot! ” Osla shouted, working up some tears as she stamped down the endless palace hall. That shiver of fear his presence gave her subsided in a wash of relief. She could get out of his sight and back to Beth, Mab, and Courns Wood by nightfall. Back to the people who mattered.

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