“She can’t possibly expect that you’ll go on supporting her. You’ve done your duty and more. The girl has had her season, hasn’t she?” (People like Lady Wormwood pronounced the word “gell”). “Why isn’t she married? She’s not bad looking. She has royal connections. You’d have thought someone would have taken her off your hands by now.”

“She’s already turned down Prince Siegfried of Romania,” Fig said. “I don’t think she has any idea about duty. The queen was really angling for that match. They are Hollenzollern-Sigmaringens, you know. Related to the queen’s family. And Siegfried was a charming young man, too. But she turned him down.”

“What on earth is she waiting for—a king?” Lady Wormwood asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “It’s not as if she’s next in line to the throne, is it?”

This was true. I had been thirty-fourth until Adelaide was born. Now I had been relegated to thirty-fifth.

Fig lowered her voice. “Between ourselves, she’s mooning after some disreputable chap called Darcy O’Mara. Absolutely rotten sort.”

“O’Mara? Son of Lord Kilhenny?”

“That’s the one. Their family is in a worse state than ours. One gathers his father has had to sell off the family seat and the racing stables to cover his debts. So there are no prospects in that quarter. This O’Mara chap has no fortune and no career. He’ll never be able to support a wife.”

“Well, she wouldn’t be allowed to marry him anyway, would she?” Lady Wormwood’s voice echoed around the great hall. “They are a Catholic family. As a member of the line of succession she’d be barred from marrying a Catholic.”

I took an involuntary step back, knocking into the suit of armor and just managing to grab the mace before it clattered to the floor. I knew that the royal family was not allowed by British law to marry a Catholic, but surely that didn’t apply to me. It wasn’t as if I’d ever find myself queen, unless a particularly virulent epidemic hit or invaders wiped out numbers one through thirty-four. Not that Darcy had asked me to marry him. In fact, we did not even fit the traditional concept of sweethearts. When I was with him it was bliss, but most of the time I didn’t even know where he was. I certainly didn’t know how he earned his living. He appeared to be another young man-about-town, spending his days in idle pursuits like most peers’ sons, but I suspected he was also employed by the British government as some kind of spy. I had questioned him on several occasions but he remained enigmatically mum. When I last heard from him he was on his way to Argentina. I felt a lump come into my throat.

“The girl needs taking in hand, Hilda.” Lady Wormwood’s voice boomed again. “Make it quite clear to her that she is expected to do her duty like everyone else. None of us mooned around waiting for an unsuitable chap, did we? We married whom we were told to and got on with it. Such a stupid notion that one marries for love.”