I went to set the book back down where I’d found it, and saw that it had been sitting atop a torn corner of paper.

NOT UNTIL THE END OF MY DAYS, it read.

“Do you know what this is about?” I asked Nick, showing it to him.

He shook his head. “Sounds like a juicy feud, but I haven’t heard any stories about that.”

“It could be a love note,” I reasoned.

“I’ve not heard any stories about her being in love with anyone, either.”

I rubbed the scrap with my thumb. “So these are her secrets. How soapy,” I said. “I love it.”

He sidled up to me and slid his arms around my waist. “It is very romantic in here.”

“You know, this little den means our house actually has twenty-seven rooms.” I turned to face him and locked my hands around his neck. “It’s going to take us a while to mark our territory. We’d better get started.”

He dipped his head to kiss me. “It’s the middle of the day,” he said, even as he drew me down to the cushioned floor. “What would Georgina say?”

“She had a den of secrets,” I murmured. “I think she’d approve.”

CHAPTER SIX

She sounds like she’s being a total cow.”

“Lacey. You’re talking about the Queen,” my mother said.

“Sorry. A right royal cow,” Lacey amended.

My mother snickered. “Much better.”

“You guys are terrible influences,” I said. “I love it.”

This three-way Skype session was the closest to being in the same room that Mom, Lacey, and I had managed since the wedding, and it was good to see their faces, even if they were squeezed into halves of my laptop screen and Lacey’s internet connection was spotty. And I’d already said more to my sister and my mother—each on different continents—than I had to my grandmother-in-law, who’d summoned me to her chambers twice more over the last week for more time spent in rigorous quietude. The only use of my voice was with Marta, who was habitually fiddling on her iPhone in her daughter’s sitting room, and either sharing internet gossip or dropping tidbits about Eleanor.

“Did you happen to notice the pocket watch?” she’d asked earlier this week. Eleanor had been wearing one around her neck. “Dates from the 1900s. Made in Coventry.” Her lip twitched, and I knew why: Being sent to Coventry was a British expression for being iced out. It turned out Eleanor was speaking to me. Through her accessories.

To my family, I said, “She at least let me sit down. Or, more accurately, Marta told me Eleanor didn’t care for my hovering, and that she said I would get huge ankles if I didn’t find a chair.”

Lacey whistled. “She’s cankle-baiting you. Her evil runs deep.”

“Don’t let her get to you,” Mom said, topping off her coffee with some cream.

“Says the woman who yelled at the Queen in her own home,” Lacey said.

“Do as I say, not as I do,” Mom said airily. “How are the elephants, dear?”