She stood up shakily, and felt a weary anger rise in her. She was suddenly determined. From now on, she was going to concentrate on getting George better and enjoying life on her own terms.

Damn the lot of them.

Chapter Sixty-Five

Rubislaw Den South, Aberdeen, September 1950

‘Isn’t it lovely?’ Marion walked through the large hall of her new home. ‘So much space to stretch out in. What do you think, Mother?’

‘I don’t understand why you haven’t bought somewhere closer to me.’ Maggie was peeved. ‘There’s a hundred miles between here and Dunfermline.’

‘But I am back in Scotland,’ said Marion. ‘I thought you’d be pleased.’

Maggie walked from the hall, with its impressive staircase, into one of the four reception rooms which overlooked the large front garden. Through the window she could see George walking Robert through ‘the grounds’, as he had started to call them.

Her mother ran a critical hand over the windowsill. ‘Very dusty.’

‘It’s been empty for a while.’

‘And too close to the road.’ Maggie sniffed. ‘Although we all know why you chose it – a stone’s throw from Balmoral.’

Marion baulked. ‘No, it has nothing to do with that. I just happen to like this area and so does George. The fresh air up here will do him good.’

‘So you won’t be waving at the bottom of the drive when the royal cars come through then?’

‘Why on earth would I do that?’ Marion swallowed the perennial irritation that came with any contact with her mother.

At that moment, a large removals van turned into the drive. ‘Ah, here they are.’

Moving from the compact Nott Cott to this grand Victorian granite bungalow was a salve for her heart and dignity. Yes, she, Crawfie the governess, could afford to buy a splendid home of her own.

Leaving London behind her had been heart-wrenching, but necessary. Her old friends and colleagues had shunned her, just as Tommy had predicted. Her neighbours at Kensington Palace and friends from Buckingham Palace were afraid to speak to her in case they were accused by association. Even Bobo had not returned her telephone calls or replied to her letters. The stench of the traitor clung to her and George like ivy.

There was nothing else to do but leave London with as much dignity as she could and return to Scotland.

The Little Princesses had been published and become an overnight sensation in America. The Goulds added another half a million new subscribers to the Ladies’ Home Journal magazine, which ran excerpts from the book to drive phenomenal sales. Fifteen million readers lapped it up in the US alone. Its success and the positive interest it created around the British royal family meant that there were no objections to publishing it in the UK.

The popularity of the King, Queen and Princesses had never been higher.

Mr and Mrs Gould were even invited to a Royal Garden Party in Buckingham Palace Gardens. When Marion had read that in the newspapers, with an accompanying photograph of the Goulds shaking hands with the royal family, she had run into the garden and thrown up.