Page 43

Another silence fell.

“I wish we’d been able to write more.” Mab tried not to sound accusatory. Overseas post was spotty, and telephone calls cost a fortune—Francis had sent a telegram when he’d arrived in Washington, but there had only been postcards afterward. It had been difficult not to wonder if he was regretting his offer. If he’d come back wondering what he’d been thinking when he folded that big ruby into her hand . . . “I can’t believe it’s been nearly three months!” she said brightly.

“Two months, one week, and four days,” he said, and the knot of anxiety in Mab’s stomach eased. If a man was counting the days, it wasn’t because he was looking to take his ring back.

“How was Washington?”

“Not much I can tell you, I’m afraid. Busy. Cold. Too many Americans. Your work?”

“Not much I can tell you, I’m afraid. Busy. Hot. Too many machines.”

Another exchange of smiles, a visible sense of wondering if they should join hands or kiss again, or . . . Surely we’ll learn to talk to each other, Mab thought, once we’re married. Once they could do their not talking in a bed. Mab wished they could get on with that side of things now—his tie was rumpled, and something in her was rising, wanting to yank it off . . .

Give away nothing for free, the steely voice in the back of her mind said. The voice that had held her upright when Geoffrey Irving and his friends left her on the side of the street. Give away nothing for free. Even at the eleventh hour.

By this time the others had squirmed through the celebratory crowd. Introductions were made, Osla embellished the story of their departure—“Beth was an absolute brick!”—and Philip went off to order Bollinger and came back with brimming coupes. Beth slugged hers with surprising speed.

“Steady on—” he said as she swallowed the second glass before he’d half refilled it.

“I just told my mother she was a Sunday school bully,” Beth said.

“Drink up.” He refilled her glass before turning to Francis. “You’re a lucky man, Mr. Gray. When’s the happy day?”

Francis looked at Mab, one of those quiet glances with something burning behind it. “I’m leaving London again day after tomorrow,” he said. “No time to arrange a proper wedding and honeymoon until I get back. Three more weeks—”

“Or there’s the registry office,” Mab heard herself saying. “What about tomorrow?”

“MR. GIBBS,” OSLA SAID, descending on the hall porter with a ravishing smile. “My friend is getting married tomorrow, and she is going to need a slap-up wedding party. Can you help me?”

“Yes, Miss Kendall,” he replied, not batting an eyelash.

“Good. Bollinger, enough to get all London kippered, and the best wedding breakfast rationing will allow. How many eggs can you get your hands on? Foie gras? What about beluga? Put it on my mother’s bill. I’m also going to need the room number of every guest currently staying in this hotel with a daughter aged . . .” Osla looked back at Mab. “How old is Lucy?”

“Nearly six.” Mab choked, helpless with laughter.

“Between the ages of five and seven,” Osla finished to Gibbs. “Please send notes to all their parents, and beg emergency morning loan of their daughter’s best frock. I will be by at nine sharp tomorrow morning to inspect the selection.”

“I’m not sure I—”

“Don’t let me down, Mr. Gibbs.” Osla pressed a wad of bills into his hand and turned, hands on hips, a general surveying the troops. “Francis, I’m sending you home so your bride can get her beauty sleep. Come back at eleven tomorrow, in your best suit, with rings and whatever bits of paper one needs for a marriage license. Philip, if you can collect Mab’s mother and sister tomorrow morning at nine, and deliver them to Cyclax round the corner, where we’ll get our faces done. Your mother’s address, Mab?”

Mab, giggling, gave it. Mum is going to faint, being chauffeured to my wedding by a prince!

“Right,” Philip grinned, clearly thinking it the best lark in the world to use up his precious petrol coupons in a mad dash across London for a Shoreditch mother of the bride. Mab’s urge to distrust him melted. “Come on, old man.” The prince clapped Francis on the shoulder. “I’ll drop you home tonight. I might know a chap who can grease the wheels at the registry office . . .”

“Excellent. We convene here at eleven tomorrow, and you slackards will not be late! Say goodbye to your fiancé, Mab, you and I have a closet to raid.” Grabbing the bottle of Bollinger and three glasses, Osla headed for the stairs. Beth followed with Boots, and after a hasty kiss to Francis, Mab floated along behind, still laughing. “My mother’s suite,” Osla said, waving them into the opulent set of rooms, with its massive bed, the bathroom with its huge tub and shining mirrors. “You can borrow it for your wedding, you and Francis—Mr. Gibbs can find Beth and me another bunk.”

“All right,” Mab said immediately. She’d been prepared for a wedding night in Francis’s bachelor digs before he left London and she departed for Bletchley, but my God, did she want a night of luxury if it was on offer. Not just because she’d never stayed in a sumptuous hotel, but because surely it would be easier to get to know a brand-new, all-but-silent husband when you were surrounded by satin sheets and champagne in ice buckets . . . Mab swigged from her coupe, feeling the first surge of wedding nerves. She was a bride. She was getting married tomorrow. To a man she’d only met six times . . .

“Beth, keep the fizz topped.” Osla yanked open her mother’s wardrobe and began flinging dresses around. “Now: a scrummy frock that will pass as a wedding gown . . .”

“Your mother’s going to know if I raid her rack of Hartnells!” Mab yelped.

“She’ll never miss one, and you are not getting married in your blue curtain liner, Scarlett O’Hara.” Osla held up a dress: long sleeved, tight waisted, cream satin pleats cascading from the waist in devastating knife-edge folds. “This one.”

Mab coveted that dress more than air. “I can’t . . .”

Osla paid absolutely no attention, bless her. “It won’t hit the ground on you, since Mamma’s much shorter, so we’ll hem it to the knee. Knee-length is better for a day wedding, anyway. Now, for Beth . . . we’ll be your bridesmaids, of course. This smoke-blue chiffon would look scrumptious with some sashing . . .”

“This has been a very strange night,” Beth said, sitting on the bed drinking straight from the champagne bottle. She looked tipsy and tired, but a smile hovered at the corners of her lips. “A very strange night,” she repeated, looking at Boots ensconced on the nearest down pillow, snoring.

Osla raised her glass, beautiful alabaster face flushed pink. “To Mrs. Gray.”

“And to you, Os.” Mab lifted her own glass. “And Beth—” She wanted to say something about what they meant, the two of them. How she’d never in her life had such friends. But she didn’t have the words to explain how much she felt, so she just raised her champagne, throat choked. “To Bletchley Park.”

Ten Days Until the Royal Wedding

November 10, 1947

Chapter 30

Osla could feel the waiter of Bettys tearoom hovering, irritated that the woman in the scarlet New Look coat and smart black toque hadn’t ordered yet. Osla kept watch through the floor-to-ceiling windows for Mab’s tall figure hurrying across the square but couldn’t stop looking at the shop sign. Bettys. The lack of apostrophe was driving her potty. Why couldn’t people punctuate properly, for God’s sake?

And suddenly Mab was standing in the doorway, dressed in the latest go: huge-skirted midnight-blue coat, tiny sapphire-blue hat tilted over one eye at an insolent angle, black pearls at her ears and throat. Her gaze crossed the room to Osla with the force of a rifle shot. Take the high road if she pulls out her claws, Osla told herself, gazing back without smiling. Stick to the matter at hand.

“Tea?” The waiter sprang forward as Mab rustled through the nest of little tables and elegantly dressed women, and sank down at the table Osla had chosen—a secluded nook against a window, where no one would be able to hear their conversation if they whispered.

“A pot of Earl Grey,” Mab said, as Osla said, “Scones, please.” The waiter whisked off, and Mab arched those scimitar eyebrows. “Scones? I thought you’d be watching your figure for the royal wedding.”

So much for the high road or the matter at hand.

“Such a thumping bore,” Osla said airily. “Can’t believe I have to dig out Mamma’s diamonds just to park myself in that old stone heap with a stunning view of a column and absolutely nothing else.”

Mab tugged off her ink-blue gloves. “You’re in the papers even this far north. The scandal rags, anyway. So much speculation about whether a certain dark-haired Canadian beauty would attend Prince Philip’s stag party.”