BROWN’S HOTEL GAVE Mummy the sort of welcome she expected.

“Welcome back, Your Grace,” the doorman said.

“Welcome back, Your Grace,” the snooty young man at the reception desk cooed, bowing to her. “We have champagne on ice, waiting for you.”

I followed Mummy up the stairs, feeling horribly self-conscious about my now-crumpled cotton dress. She had a lovely room on the first floor with French windows looking onto Albemarle Street. I had wondered why she always chose Brown’s instead of the Ritz or Claridge’s, but now I understood why she stayed here. They conveniently forgot that she was no longer “Your Grace” but Mrs. Homer Clegg, if my memory served me correctly. And soon she’d be Frau von Strohheim. I wondered how Brown’s would take to that?

I had been given a small but charming room facing away from the street. I was just realizing that I had nothing to wear for dinner when Queenie arrived, red-faced and panting.

“Some bloke’s bringing up your trunk,” she said. “I had a bleeding awful time getting the bloody thing off the train by myself. Do you think I could find a ruddy porter? No, I blinking well couldn’t. I had to leave the guard with the luggage and go looking for one. ‘Now don’t you let anyone nick that,’ I told him and the ruddy man wanted a tip when I came back. The cheek of it. ‘I’ll have you know that these here bags belong to someone what’s a cousin of the king,’ I told him. ‘You should consider it an honor to look after them.’”

“Queenie, please hurry up and unpack,” I interrupted this flow. “I have to go down to dinner soon and I’ve nothing to wear.”

“Where am I supposed to have me dinner, then?” she asked, opening the trunk and flinging garments onto the bed. “I ain’t half hungry after all that traipsing around.”

“I’ll ask Mummy’s maid where the servants dine,” I said. “I think I’ll wear the red one. We’ve been in mourning too long at Kingsdowne. I need cheering up.”

And as I said this I realized I was cheering up. A shopping spree with Mummy tomorrow and then a luxury liner across the Atlantic. What more could a girl want?

Chapter 3

AT BROWN’S HOTEL

STILL JULY 9

Things are certainly looking up for G. Rannoch these days. Brown’s and a spending spree with Mummy and then a transatlantic crossing. Golly.

The red evening dress was rather the worse for Queenie’s packing and I saw Mummy’s face when I went into her room to go down to dinner. “Whoever told you that red was your color, darling?” she demanded. “Don’t you possess any decent clothing?”