I laughed but I noticed that Princess Beatrice hardly smiled. “I’m going to have a word with that boy,” she said. “The Prince of Wales, I mean. It’s about time he learned that duty and family come before anything. He has been born to a great heritage. If Mama saw the way he was carrying on now, she’d turn in her grave. And Papa—he’d give the boy a horsewhipping and tell him to buck up or else, wouldn’t he, Louise?”

“I expect he would. But times have changed, Bea. There has been a great war. Young people ask themselves if anything really matters, because life is so precarious, don’t they, Georgiana?”

“Maybe those who remember the war. I was too young and things certainly matter to me.”

“You’re a good girl.” She nodded. “A credit to the family. Our mother would have approved.”

I had been looking around me. “This is an interesting room, Great-Aunt Louise,” I said. “Are those sculptures modern or from classical times?”

She gave a delightful peal of laughter at this. “Not modern by your standards. I did them as a young woman.”

“You are a sculptress? They are wonderful.”

She nodded in appreciation. “I did have a certain talent. I had to give it up. It requires too much strength to chisel away at marble. Do you have artistic talents?”

“None at all; in fact I’m not sure I have any talents,” I said.

“You should never sell yourself short,” she said. “Young women are brought up to prize modesty. I think one should shout one’s abilities from the mountaintops.”

She looked at my face and laughed. “My mother approved of my sculpting, but not of my views. I have always been a great champion of women. I championed the suffrage movement, you know, and I had a woman doctor for years before it became fashionable.”

When I looked surprised Princess Beatrice added, “She had to keep it from dear Mama, of course. She would never have approved.”

“You young people are so lucky,” Princess Louise said wistfully. “In our day a girl was never allowed out unchaperoned, was she, Bea? A match was made for her. No career was possible for a girl of good family.”

“It’s not much easier these days to find a career,” I said. “Too many unemployed men.”

“Ah yes,” she said. “I see men sleeping in the park when I go for my early morning walk. It distresses me. Such a sad time for so many. But let us not dwell on sad things. You are here to celebrate a wedding in the family.”

A gust of wind moaned down the chimney, sending sparks and soot out into the room. I remembered what I had seen that afternoon.

“Tell me,” I said, “is the palace haunted?”