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myself look respectable in fifteen minutes flat. Then I was sitting in the backseat of the royal Daimler being whisked toward the palace. It wasn’t really a great distance from Belgrave Square down Constitution Hill and I had walked it on previous occasions. However, today I was most grateful for the car because the fog had turned again to a nasty November rain. One does not meet the queen looking like a drowned rat.
    As I looked out through rain-streaked windows at the bleak world beyond I had time to wonder about the implications of this summons and I began to worry. The queen of England was a busy woman. She was always out opening hospitals, touring schools and entertaining visiting ambassadors. So if she made time to bring a young cousin to lunch, it had to be something important.
    I don’t know why I always expect a visit to Buckingham Palace to signal doom. Because it so often did, I suppose. I remembered the visiting princess foisted on me by my royal kin. I remembered the instruction to spy on the Prince of Wales’s unsuitable woman, Mrs. Simpson. My heart was beating rather fast by the time the car drove between the wrought-iron gates of the palace, received a salute from the guards on duty and crossed the parade ground, under the arch to the inner courtyard.
    A footman leaped out to open the car door for me.
    “Good morning, my lady. This way, please,” he said and led the way up the steps at a good pace. I followed, being extra careful as my legs have been known to disobey me in moments of extreme stress.
    You’d have thought that someone who was second cousin to King George V would find a visit to Buckingham Palace to be old hat, but I have to admit that I was always overawed as I walked up those grand staircases and along the hallways lined with statues and mirrors. In truth I felt like a child who has stumbled into a fairy tale by mistake. I had been brought up in a castle myself, but Castle Rannoch could not have been more different. It was dour stone, spare and cold, its walls hung with shields and banners from past battles. This was royalty at its grandest, designed to impress foreigners and those of lesser rank.
    I was taken up the grand staircase this time, not whisked along back corridors. We came out in the area between the music and throne rooms where receptions are held. I wondered if this was to be a formal occasion until the footman kept going all the way to the end of the hall. He opened a closed door for me, leading to the family’s private apartments. I found I was holding my breath until I couldn’t hold it any longer when finally a door was opened and I was shown into a pleasant, ordinary sitting room. This lacked the grandeur of the state rooms and was where the royal couple relaxed on the rare occasions they weren’t working. At least it probably meant that I wasn’t going to have to face strangers at luncheon, which was a relief.
    “Lady Georgiana, ma’am,” the footman said, then he bowed and backed out of the royal presence. I hadn’t noticed the queen at first because she was standing at the window, gazing out at the gardens. She turned to me and extended a hand.
    “Georgiana, my dear. How good of you to come at such short notice.”
    As if one refused a queen. They no longer chopped off heads but one obeyed nonetheless.
    “It’s very good to see you, ma’am,” I said, crossing the room to take her hand, curtsy and kiss her cheek—a maneuver that required exquisite timing, which I hadn’t yet mastered and always resulted in a bumped nose.
    She looked back at the window. “The gardens look so bleak at this time of year, don’t they? And what horrible weather we’ve been having. First fog and now rain. The king has been in a bad humor about being cooped up for so long. His doctor forbade him to go out during the fog, you know. With his delicate lungs he couldn’t be exposed to the soot in the air.”
    “I quite agree, ma’am. I went out in the fog earlier this week