The duchess rested one hand on her hip and tilted her head. So far as I could tell, that Christmas tree could have modeled for the Saturday Evening Post, but then it wasn’t my job to present the world with a picture-perfect picture of life inside Government House, was it? It wasn’t my job to create that kind of fiction for a living. Not anymore, at least.

I knew better than to say anything. Let her enjoy the exercise of petty power, after all. It cost you nothing and meant the world to her. She told the footman to move it an inch thataway, then thisaway. Preezie nibbled at her ankles. She held up her finger at last and said, “There. Thank you, Brown. That will be all. You may send in the maid to clean up the mess.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said the footman. He dusted off the needles and hurried out, and the duchess began a slow, deliberate turn to face me. To my surprise, she was smiling.

“Mrs. Thorpe. How good of you to stop by. I was going to send for you. We were only back from the States last night.”

“Yes, I heard.”

She leaned her head to one side, regarding me as she had regarded the spruce tree. “I read your column, Mrs. Thorpe.”

“Did you, now? I’m flattered you found the time, what with all the Christmas shopping.”

“Of course I found the time. We’ve been very important to each other, haven’t we? Of course I found the time to read this column of yours.” She lifted her finger and waved it back and forth, the way you might scold a naughty child. “Not your best work, Mrs. Thorpe. Not at all.”

“No?”

“I don’t know how that scoundrel de Marigny wormed his way into your affections—I can only guess—but really, I was embarrassed for you. To say nothing of all those dreadful insinuations.”

“I’m sorry about those. I would’ve been delighted to accuse outright, but I don’t want to get killed, like everybody else.”

“I beg your pardon?”

The face she presented me was thoroughly shocked, and I had no doubt of its sincerity. Women like Wallis never, for a single moment, imagine themselves really guilty of anything. Each action is perfectly defensible, each enemy perfectly vile and deserving of whatever fate casts his way.

“Never mind,” I said. “That’s not why I came.”

“I don’t understand you.”

“I came to discuss my husband. To be frank, I’ve been concerned, since I hadn’t heard a thing from him since the morning we learned poor Sir Harry was murdered.”

“The day you were married,” she said.

“Yes. And eleven days ago I learned that instead of flying back to London under the care of the Royal Air Force, he was captured by German agents that very morning, on his way to Windsor Field.”

“No!”