“It must have been terribly trying for you,” I said. “And as for poor Binky . . .”

“Binky?” she shrieked. “Binky is lying up there being fussed over by Nanny and Mrs. MacTavish. All he has is a mangled ankle. I have Americans.”

“Chin up. It can’t be for too much longer,” I said. “Nobody stays in Scotland for more than a week or so.”

“By the end of a week or so we shall be destitute,” she said, her voice dangerously near to tears. “Eaten out of house and home, literally. I’ll have to take in paying guests to make ends meet. Binky will have to sell of the rest of the family silver.”

I put out a tentative hand and rested it over hers. I believe it was the first time I had willingly touched her. “Don’t worry, Fig. We’ll think of something,” I said.

She looked up at me and beamed. “I knew I could rely on you, Georgiana. I am so glad you’re here.”

Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Castle Rannoch
August 17
Late.

As we emerged from Binky’s den and came down the corridor to the great hall, a noisy party was coming out of the drawing room, at the far end of the opposite hallway.

“And so I said to him, ‘You simply don’t have the equipment, honey,’ and he said, ‘I’ve got a bloody great big one, and what’s more, when it’s revved up, it goes like a ramrod.’ He thought we were still talking about the boat.”

There was a roar of laughter. Even though they were still a good distance away and bathed in shadow, I recognized the speaker before I could get a good look at her. It was, of course, the dreaded American woman, Mrs. Wallis Simpson. As she came closer I noticed that she was looking rather thin, angular and masculine in a metallic pewter-gray evening dress and matching metallic helmet. And old. She was definitely beginning to look her age, I thought with satisfaction.

“Wallis, honey, you are shameless.” The speaker was an older woman, dressed in sober black. She was statuesque in build and towered over Mrs. Simpson, but she carried herself well with a regal air, rather like a larger version of Queen Mary. “How you can tell tales like that in public I don’t know. Thank heavens Rudi is not still alive to hear.”

“Oh, don’t come the countess with me, Merion,” Wallis Simpson said. “I remember you when you were plain old Miss Webster, remember? You took me for root beer floats at Mr. Hinkle’s soda fountain in Baltimore when I was just a toddler, and you flirted with that young guy behind the counter!”

“Who is that?” I murmured to Fig, indicating the older woman.

“Oh, she’s the Countess Von Sauer.”

“I thought you said they were all Americans.”