Eleanor read the entire Times. When she finished it, she folded it and laid it on her bed tray. Then she picked up The Guardian and raised it to her face without ever looking at me. Occasionally, she emitted a light mmph of interest, but nothing that could be interpreted as speaking to me.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. Eleanor lowered the newspaper and stared straight ahead with a look of supreme irritation until I turned it off. When her head vanished behind the paper again, I began glancing around the room. I’d seen the picture beside her bed of her late husband Henry, the Duke of Cleveland, but the mantel was littered with other snaps I hadn’t noticed before. One was Richard at his investiture as Prince of Wales, standing between Eleanor and Marta, whose garish feathered hat was the color of a yellow highlighter. The most interesting one looked as if it had been snapped aboard the royal yacht sometime in the late ’70s—Eleanor and her three children, in sunglasses, smiling. I wondered who took the photo. I wondered what had made them so happy. And I couldn’t ask.

Eleanor heaved a weighty sigh and cast aside The Guardian in favor of the Daily Mail. She glanced at the front-page story about Freddie and pulled it closer with an overly obvious show of interest. When she finished that one, she turned to the International Herald Tribune. And so it went. The ticking clock on her mantel chimed. My balance wavered, and the balls of my feet complained—I hadn’t worn heels since the wedding—so I shifted my weight back and forth and tried not to lock my knees. This was either a punishment or a power play. Probably both. And although I was dying to sit down, there was something admirably petty about the Queen calling me into her bedroom specifically to ignore me.

My savior arrived in the form of a nurse rolling a cart covered in medical paraphernalia. She dipped into a low curtsy.

“Good morning, Olivia,” Eleanor said.

“Good morning, Your Majesty. It’s time for me to take your vital signs.” Olivia turned to me with an apologetic smile. “Good morning, Your Royal Highness.”

“Rebecca was just leaving,” Eleanor said.

I did not miss that this wasn’t explicitly spoken to me. With a dip of my aching knees, I speed-staggered out of Eleanor’s chambers without our having exchanged a single word.

In the sitting room, Marta was laughing.

“Does she do that to people often?” I asked.

Marta looked puzzled, then turned her phone toward me. “Orange Is the New Black,” she said. “American prison looks amusing. Have you been?”

“Not yet,” I said.

“Don’t give up hope,” Marta said. “Life is long. I’m proof.”

I excused myself and collapsed into an antique chair in the hallway. Nick had apparently been very busy on his own cell while mine was off.

You’re lucky to miss this

Dick just said how much harm we could have done to Scotland through our “book lies” wtf