“In a sense. One of them died.” Cilla peered at the table. “Go with the Sunshine Martinet.”

We spent the rest of the afternoon chuckling at paint names, designating bedrooms for my mother and Lacey for when they came to stay, and agreeing that Nick and I should overhaul our own room last so that we could move into suitably modernized guest quarters while it was being put together. With a squeeze and a promise to make dinner plans for the four of us soon, I saw Cilla off at the front door with a happy smile. But as her little car disappeared past the clock tower, her absence hit me sharply, and I realized what I felt was homesickness. Even though I was, technically, at home. I felt so much like myself with Cilla—the Bex Porter of old, a person I knew well, and whose goals and dreams and agenda were not dictated by anyone but herself.

So I called in another old friend: Margot.

I’d made it out of the palace gates once, and it was only my own skittishness that put an end to the mischief. Maybe Margot could go even farther. Her wig and her mole and her retro sunglasses and frumpy taste might be my ticket out of the lavish prison in which I’d found myself, so I boldly signed off on some paint colors and then dug out Margot’s hair for some restorative fluffing. There was so much I wanted to do—the Magritte exhibit at the Tate Modern, a stroll through Apsley House to ogle all the Duke of Wellington’s expensive stuff, which appealed now that I was living in the home of another person who never threw anything out—but I knew I needed my first attempt to be something simpler. Very basic, very uncool, very much a place where nobody would give me a second glance.

I needed a McDonald’s.

Once, when we first started dating, Nick had shown me a door in his and Freddie’s quarters that connected to the Kensington Palace museum. Emma used to sneak the kids in there at night and they’d explore; he’d never taken me through it, but I knew it would put me out somewhere near the downstairs public bathrooms. I waited until Freddie’s car left his apartment the next morning, and I let myself into Nick’s old place with my key. The passage was just off a little-used billiard room at the far end of the flat, looking like nothing more than a bookcase. Nick had told me that pulling out Martin Chuzzlewit and Jackie Collins’s Lucky would reveal it, so I ran my finger over the shelves until I found them both, took a deep breath, and slid them toward me. I heard a click, and saw a subtle release. Success.