We’d had to call ahead to see if Eleanor was even at the palace, and her equerry Murray must have alerted her to a strain in Nick’s tone because we walked into a very careful presentation indeed. The Queen was at her dressing table, wearing a quaint tweed skirt and a blouse under a woolen pink cardigan, tucking the last of her hair into some curlers. No jewels in sight, not even secretly meaningful ones. I knew how Eleanor’s mind worked: She was trying to look as gentle and grandmotherly as possible. She had to be concerned.

“We need the room,” Nick said curtly to Murray, who was hovering nervously by Eleanor’s side. “Now.” He cleared his throat. “Please.”

“Nicholas, my word, what an entrance,” Eleanor said from her velvet stool, the very place I had sat when—several years ago—she’d more or less conned me into giving up my American citizenship. I wondered how many other cons Eleanor had run in this room.

Murray looked from Nick to the Queen, clearly unsure of his next move.

Eleanor patted her curlers. “I suppose you may go, Murray,” she said.

When the door shut behind him, she turned to us and folded her hands in her lap, making a bit of a show of arranging her right one with her left, as if reminding us she was mortal. And perhaps to convince us that she was weak.

“This is a strange surprise,” she said pleasantly. “And Frederick, back from the land of the windmills. What a treat.”

“You might not think that when you find out why I’m here,” he said, glancing from me to Nick and back to me again, before taking the letter out of Nick’s white-knuckled hand, and stepping toward her.

And we watched as Eleanor read the truth of her life—the other side of it, from the point of view of the two people who were supposed to love her the most, but who had loved each other more. The Queen rarely looked like anything other than the picture of self-control, but I could see the cracks begin to open.

“My, my,” she managed. “Georgina’s fantasies were even more elaborate than I imagined. I did tell you, Rebecca, that she was trouble.”

“This letter is from him,” I said.

“An elaborate forgery,” Eleanor said. “She never did anything by halves. It’s sad, really.”

Nick shook his head. “I cannot believe,” he said, his voice vibrating with anger, “that we came to you in good faith and you’re still bullshitting us.”

“Nicholas! I simply won’t stand for that language,” she said haughtily, her chin high and strong. “Frankly, I’m offended that you would believe the scheming of a sad and jealous—”

“The letter isn’t all we found,” Freddie said.

Eleanor’s features sharpened. “Oh?”

“There were photographs,” he said, turning beet red. “Intimate ones.”