“Yes, I’m afraid so,” she said.

“Were they?” asked one from the other couch. “What for?”

“Solved a murder, didn’t you?” said the first. “The Yard had the wrong man practically dancing on the gallows.”

“It wasn’t quite that dramatic,” said Gwen.

“You’re a detective, then?” asked the one-armed man.

“Not at all,” said Gwen. “We run a marriage bureau.”

“And you’re not going to solicit anyone for business in here,” said the receptionist sternly. “Now please hush. Have some consideration for your fellow patients.”

The room fell quiet, but the one-armed man winked at her before going back to turning the pages of a magazine on his lap.

She looked, as she always did, for the magazine with the princess on the cover, but it must have been buried in a different pile. She found the April issue of Woman’s Own, which had an amusing cover illustration of a young man with a shock of unruly hair sitting in a chair, looking down with an expression of appalling dismay at a beautiful baby girl in his arms. Whether the dismay was caused by her wetting herself or his contemplation of life as a father, it was difficult to say. The two causes produced identical expressions, in her experience.

Except for Ronnie, she remembered. He embraced fatherhood, including its messier aspects, with joy and frequent glee. Even with their nanny hovering at his elbow, he insisted on making a ritual of changing Little Ronnie’s nappies, nuzzling the baby’s belly, making him squeal with delight.

He would have loved to see what his son had become now, she thought sadly. They would be out in the park, playing cricket—

Good Lord, she thought. Who will teach him cricket? She must get on that straightaway.

Prince Philip must play. He went to an English boarding school for a while. He never had much time with his father, as far as she could tell, and now his father was dead. She wondered how that had affected him.

Let’s see, she thought. He was born in Corfu in June 1921, so …

June 1921. Seven years after the last daughter.

She thought about that, then pulled her notebook from her bag and started to write.

She became so enmeshed that she didn’t even notice Iris had come back out of the office until Iris was standing directly in front of her. Gwen looked up at her friend’s face. She saw no discernible change in expression, but there was something behind her eyes that made Gwen want to reach out and clutch her hand in sympathy.

She didn’t, however. Not in front of the lads.

“Done?” she asked.

“For now,” said Iris.

“Drinks and cake?”

“Just cake, I think,” said Iris.

Gwen looked at her in shock.

Iris grinned, then turned and walked out the door, Gwen scrambling after.

CHAPTER 7

Gwen held back her questions until the waiter was out of hearing range. Between the two women rested a pair of plates, each holding a rectangular piece of sponge cake, its cross-section a four-square checkerboard of pink and yellow, bordered with apricot jam, encased in marzipan.