Masked Ball at Broxley Manor
HER ROYAL SPYNESS
A ROYAL PAIN
ROYAL FLUSH
ROYAL BLOOD
NAUGHTY IN NICE
THE TWELVE CLUES OF CHRISTMAS
EVANS ABOVE
EVAN HELP US
EVANLY CHOIRS
EVAN AND ELLE
EVAN CAN WAIT
EVANS TO BETSY
EVAN ONLY KNOWS
EVAN’S GATE
EVAN BLESSED
MASKED BALL AT BROXLEY MANOR
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
MASKED BALL AT BROXLEY MANOR
A Berkley Prime Crime Special / published by arrangement with the author
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Berkley Prime Crime Special edition / October 2012
Copyright © 2012 by Janet Quin-Harkin.
Excerpt from
Cover photos:
Cover design by Rita Frangie.
All rights reserved.
A story featuring Lady Georgiana before she became Her Royal Spyness . . .
Rannoch House
Belgrave Square, London W.1
October 1929
“Two letters have just come in the post for Georgiana!” My sister-in-law Fig sounded amazed, and a trifle annoyed too, as she took the envelopes from the silver salver the butler was holding. “And they look as if they might be invitations.”
We had been drinking coffee in the morning room of our London house—the easiest room to keep warm on a bleak October day. My brother—Hamish Albert Henry, Duke of Rannoch, usually known as Binky, had been reading the newspaper. I was curled on the window seat, looking out at the gardens in Belgrave Square, watching nannies pushing impressive prams and elderly colonels walking dogs and wondering what on earth I was going to do with myself all day. My brother, Binky, looked up from the
I tried not to cross the room too eagerly to take the letters from her outstretched hand. Invitations had been few and far between recently. It was the end of my season. I had been presented at court (and nearly catapulted onto Their Majesties by mistake when I’d caught my heel in the train of my gown). I had been to balls, to Ascot, and done all the things a deb with severely limited funds could do. But I hadn’t found the man of my dreams. In fact I hadn’t even received one proposal—not from a halfway decent sort of chap anyway. At nineteen I feared I was destined to become an old maid.
I perched on the window seat and opened the first envelope, conscious of Fig’s and Binky’s eyes on me.
“It
Fig’s jaw dropped in a most unladylike manor. “Broxley? Isn’t that the home of Lord Merriman?”
I glanced at the invitation and nodded. “That’s right. It says ‘Lord and Lady Merriman invite you.’”
“How on earth do you know Lord Merriman?” Fig sounded positively vexed now.
“I don’t. Never met the Merrimans.”
“Then why would they invite you of all people to a ball? They only mix with beautiful people.”
“Oh, Georgie’s not too bad,” Binky said, making my self-esteem sink even lower. “Maybe not beautiful but she’s a healthy-looking kind of girl.”
“I didn’t mean that,” Fig said. “Really, Binky, you are so clueless. I meant the smart set. You know, the Prince of Wales and his chums. Nobody like Georgie.”
“She is the Prince of Wales’s cousin, old bean,” Binky reminded her. It was always a sore spot to my sister- in-law that Binky and I were related to the royals and she wasn’t.
“Yes, but she doesn’t move in the same circles, does she? Monte Carlo and yachts on the Med and that kind of thing.”
“I have no idea why I was invited,” I said.
“Maybe they’ve invited all of this year’s debutantes,” Fig said, obviously trying to come up with an answer that would satisfy her. If I were just one of a crowd she could handle it. “Although I’ve never heard of anyone celebrating Halloween with a ball,” she added with a sniff.
“Lady Merriman is American, remember,” Binky put in. “They make a big thing of it over there.”
“Pagan feast, isn’t it? One step away from devil worship.” She took a long sip from her coffee cup.
“Steady on, old fruit. That’s a bit thick,” Binky said. “I’m sure it will be a fun and respectable ball and Georgie will have a wonderful time. She may even meet a chap, you never know.”
“She’s had all season to meet a chap,” Fig said coldly. She turned her reptilian gaze back to me. “So who is the other invitation from?”
I was about to open it when I noticed the royal crest embossed into the envelope. “I think it comes from the palace,” I said. I tore open the envelope with unseemly haste. “It does. ‘Their Majesties request the presence of Lady Georgiana Rannoch at a reception in honor of Prince Rupert and Prince Otto of Prussia.’”
“A reception? At Buck House? In honor of a couple of Prussian princes?” Fig’s voice had risen dangerously now.
“The war is long over, old bean,” Binky said. “Forgive and forget and all that, you know. And the kaiser is our cousin, after all. So that makes two second or third cousins, doesn’t it? I expect it’s a little family do.”
“Then why is Georgie invited to a little family do when we aren’t?” Fig was positively glaring at me now with
