Page 109 of The Love Letter

Given she felt she now had nothing to lose, Joanna spent an hour wandering aimlessly around Leicester Square and the Trocadero, increasingly annoyed with the tourists getting in her way. Alec was already on a stool when she arrived in the crowded bar.

‘Glass of wine?’

‘Yup,’ she nodded, pulling up the bar stool next to him.

‘Hear it’s not been a good day.’

‘Nope.’

‘Marian told me that you refused to try and get an interview with Zoe Harrison. You could have used it as leverage to come back to me.’

‘It would have been a pointless exercise, Alec. Zoe probably thinks I was the one who spilt the beans in the first place and would prefer to pose semi-naked for theNews of the Screwsrather than talk to me.’

‘Shit!’ Alec’s mouth dropped open. ‘You knew about her and the Prince?’

‘Yes. She’d told me all about it. Thanks.’ Joanna took a slug of her wine. ‘In quite some detail, I might add.’

‘Jesus,’ Alec groaned. ‘So, you could have broken the story?’

‘Oh yes. And now I wish I bloody well had, as I seem to have got the blame.’

‘Christ, Jo! You’re going to have to toughen up. Breaking a story like that could have given your career a lifetime boost.’

‘Do you think I don’t know that?! I spent most of last night thinking that maybe this game isn’t for me, because I don’t have the necessary lack of moral fibre. I seem to have this awful, unjournalistic quality of being able to keep a secret.’ She finished off her glass of wine. ‘Can I have another?’

‘Well, at least you’re beginning to drink like a hack.’ Alec signalled to the barman. ‘C’mon, you’ll cheer up after the news I’ve got for you.’

‘Am I being reinstated?’

‘No.’

Joanna slumped forwards and rested her head on her arms. ‘Then nothing you say can cheer me up.’

‘Even if I was to tell you I’ve found out some juicy info on your little old lady?’ Alec lit up a Rothman’s.

‘Nope. I’ve given up on that one. That letter’s ruined my entire life. I’ve had enough.’

‘Fine.’ He took a drag of his cigarette. ‘Then I won’t tell you I’m pretty sure I know who she was. That, just before she arrived in England, she’d been living in France for the past sixty years.’

‘I still don’t want to know.’

‘Or that James Harrison managed to purchase his house in Welbeck Street outright in 1928. It was owned by a senior politician who had been in Lloyd George’s cabinet prior to that. Seems strange a penniless actor could afford a grand house like that, doesn’t it? Unless, of course, he’d just come into a large sum of money.’

‘Sorry, Alec, I’m still not there.’

‘So finally, I won’t tell you that there was a Rose Alice Fitzgerald working as a lady-in-waiting in a certain royal household in the 1920s.’

Joanna gaped at him. ‘Sod it! Let’s get a bottle.’

The two of them adjourned to a corner table, and Alec told her what he had discovered.

‘So what you’re saying is that my little old lady, Rose, and James Harrison, aka Michael O’Connell, were in cahoots, blackmailing someone in the royal household?’ she said.

‘It’s what I’ve surmised, yes. And I think the letter that she sent you was actually a love letter from Rose herself to James, aka Michael – or, in the letter, “Siam” – which had nothing whatsoever to do with the real plot.’

‘So why does Rose talk about not being able to see James in the letter?’

‘Because the Honourable Rose Fitzgerald was a lady-in-waiting. She came from an upper-crust Scottish family. I hardly think a penniless Irish actor would have made a good match for her. I’m sure they had to keep their liaison secret.’