Cover

BERKLEY PRIME CRIME TITLES BY RHYS BOWEN

Royal Spyness Mysteries

HER ROYAL SPYNESS

A ROYAL PAIN

ROYAL FLUSH

ROYAL BLOOD

NAUGHTY IN NICE

THE TWELVE CLUES OF CHRISTMAS

HEIRS AND GRACES

QUEEN OF HEARTS

MALICE AT THE PALACE

CROWNED AND DANGEROUS

Constable Evans Mysteries

EVANS ABOVE

EVAN HELP US

EVANLY CHOIRS

EVAN AND ELLE

EVAN CAN WAIT

EVANS TO BETSY

EVAN ONLY KNOWS

EVAN’S GATE

EVAN BLESSED

Anthologies

A ROYAL THREESOME

Specials

MASKED BALL AT BROXLEY MANOR

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my dear friend Barbara Peters,
owner of the Poisoned Pen bookstore in Scottsdale and champion of all things mystery. Thank you, Barbara, for your help, encouragement, friendship and lunches at the wine bar!

Thanks also to my wonderful team of agents, Meg Ruley and Christina Hogrebe, and to Jackie Cantor and Danielle Dill and all at Berkley and Penguin.
You are the best.

As always, thank you to John for his brutal editing!

Chapter 1

DARKEST NIGHT, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 1934

In an Armstrong Siddeley motorcar with the Honorable Darcy O’Mara, heading northward.

No idea where we are going, but Darcy is beside me so that’s all right.

I was in a motorcar, sitting beside Darcy, and we were driving northward, out of London. He had whisked me away earlier that day, after we had both attended Princess Marina’s wedding to the Duke of Kent. I first thought I was being taken for a romantic dinner. Then, as we left the streets of London behind, I began to suspect it may not be a dinner we were going to but a hotel in a naughty place like Brighton. But we were heading north, not south, and I couldn’t think of any naughty places to the north of London. Surely nobody goes to the industrial grime of the Midlands to be naughty? I suppose in a way I was relieved. Much as I wanted to spend the night with Darcy, and heaven knows we had waited long enough, there was also that element of worry about the consequences.

Darcy was being enigmatic, driving with a rather smug grin on his face and not answering my questions. Eventually I told myself that we were probably going to a house party somewhere in the country, given by one of his numerous friends, which would be quite an acceptable thing to do, if not as exciting as a night at a hotel in Brighton, signed in as Mr. and Mrs. Smith. But as the lights of London vanished and we were driving into complete darkness I couldn’t stand it a minute longer.

“Darcy, where on earth are we going?” I demanded.

He was still staring straight ahead of him into the night. “Gretna Green,” he replied.

“Gretna Green? Are you serious?” The words came out as squeaks. “But that’s in Scotland. And it’s where people go when—”

“When they elope to get married. Quite right.”