Lucie’s face had only truly come alive when she talked of Scotland, and the work she had done to train agents to work with the Resistance. The Queen knew several women who had lived extraordinary lives in the war, at all levels of society. Many of them continued to do so, in one way or another, taking what they had learned and applying it in charities, schools, hospitals and military units. It had changed their lives; they had an energy that sparkled. By contrast, she could see that the return to life as a ‘lovely ornament’ had done Lucie no good at all. Perhaps it didn’t help that her loving husband was unfaithful. Meanwhile, it must have cut her to the quick to have found out what happened to her sister Marianne. She had become hollowed out by boredom and grief.
Those wartime experiences were still inside her, though. Lucie was a woman who could escape from a murder scene without leaving a trace, and without really trying. Luck had played its part; she might so easily have been spotted going into the mews, or escaping through the Boltons later, but she wasn’t.
However, her luck was running out. If the Queen could work out her part in the murders from the tiara, perhaps Inspector Darbishire would get there one day. Lucie never had an alibi to speak of – he had simply never asked.
‘Was there any other way . . . ?’ the Queen asked.
‘To stop the man who was murdering my sister? No. If I’d hesitated for one second, he’d have killed us both.’
‘The police might understand, you know. It was self-defence, of a sort.’
‘They wouldn’t,’ Lucie said decisively. ‘It never ends well when a woman kills a man. But I understand – my time is up. Thank you.’
‘Thank you for what?’
‘For warning me.’
Was that what this was? A warning? The Queen hadn’t thought of it that way – more as a prelude to the inevitable consequences. But perhaps Lucie was right.
She stood up and Lucie did too.
‘I’m so very sorry about your sister. Both your sisters.’
They faced each other, and Lucie noted that the Queen was not calling for help. She smiled.
‘And now I really must get ready,’ the Queen said, apologetically.
‘You’ve missed your bath.
‘I’ll manage,’ the Queen assured her.
Lucie hesitated.
‘I don’t think we’ll see each other downstairs.’
‘No, I doubt we will. Goodbye, Lucie.’
The other woman dropped into a deep curtsey, just as Bobo bustled into the room, making anxious noises about ‘The time! The dress! The hair! Your bath, Lilibet! Oh!’
‘Goodbye, ma’am.’
She let herself out.
The ball seemed to go by in the blink of an eye. Everyone loved the Queen’s dress, which combined a slim, sequinned column made of cellophane lace with a wide tulle fantail that swept behind her with a reassuring swish. Many people commented. Even some of the men, which was almost unheard of.
It took a while for the Queen to get the image out of her head of what Lucie must have gone through that night in Chelsea. But the champagne helped, and so did the Queen’s sense of duty, which demanded that she pay close attention to everyone she met, and laugh whenever a joke was attempted, and laugh loudly if it was attempted by the Governor of New York.
A very good band played very good jazz, and Philip had a brief dance with her, wearing his much-admired, very British, stiff bow tie. New Yorkers certainly knew how to party. By the end, she was sorry they couldn’t stay all night. Like Cinderella, she had to leave by midnight – although this Cinderella ran to the plane with her prince beside her, the skirts of her ballgown caught by the runway’s Krieg lights as they floated in the wind.
