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could make neither head nor tail of what the arrangement of them meant.
    “Ah, you must let me do a reading for ye, Mrs. Harper,” Brown said. “The cards are marvelous at telling the future.”
    “Oh, they are indeed,” the queen said. “Mr. Brown has assured us on more than one occasion that our dear Prince Albert is quite content and is watching over us.”
    “I see.” Was Mr. Brown’s smile an expression of pleasure at the queen’s compliment, or a self-satisfied smirk? “I should be honored to attend to Your Majesty in whatever capacity you wish, but your telegram indicated that you had a matter of great importance to discuss.”
    “Yes, of course, of course. Mr. Brown, we will need you after tea to discuss our evening plans.”
    Taking his cue, Mr. Brown rose and bowed to the queen. He gave Violet a curt nod and left. The queen’s eyes followed his retreating figure until the door clicked behind him. Victoria turned her attention back to Violet.
    “We need to speak with you regarding a funeral.”
    “Has someone in the royal family died? I heard no gossip—I mean talk—of it in Brighton, nor on the train.”
    “No, Mrs. Harper, our children are all well. It is a funeral of someone whose death, both sudden and most shattering, is of particular . . . interest . . . to us.”
    Please let this not be another funeral I will have to discuss incessantly to the end of my days.
    “Of particular interest?”
    “Yes. It has come to our attention that Anthony Fairmont, the Viscount Raybourn, has just died. Perhaps a suicide, but quite possibly murdered, at his townhome in Mayfair.”
    “How dreadful! Has the culprit been caught?”
    A childhood memory pushed forward. Arthur Sinclair had once been the estate manager for a Lord Raybourn. He’d moved Violet and her mother into a cottage on the property in Sussex, serving Lord Raybourn for about two years until he obtained a more lucrative—and less strenuous—position managing some of the East India Company’s accounts. Violet remembered a secret friendship with one of Lord Raybourn’s children. Secret, for a friendship—however innocent—between a viscount’s younger son and the estate manager’s daughter was impermissible.
    A flood of recollections flashed through her mind. Splashing through ponds to collect toads, climbing up trees to serve as lookout as the master’s son played at being a highwayman and “robbed” one of the family’s hounds, and, in a particularly exuberant moment, wandering into the kitchens for a loaf of rye and a piece of trout before stealing off to their secret location in a grove of oaks and attempting to turn their catch into five thousand loaves and fishes. How disappointed they’d been when it didn’t work.
    Was her father’s employer the same Lord Raybourn the queen spoke of now?
    “No one has been arrested yet. Lord Raybourn is—was—very important to our kingdom and we are deeply saddened by his passing. We have decided to provide undertaking services on behalf of the family. As such, we have decided to engage you to attend to Lord Raybourn. We will look to you to comfort family members arriving from Sussex.”
    Violet’s mind whirled. This was surely the Lord Raybourn she remembered. She tried to focus on what the queen was saying. “I’m not sure I understand, Your Majesty. You are providing burial assistance rather than, say, a spray of flowers or a wreath?”
    “Yes.”
    “Instead of giving a gift of gloves to the funeral attendees?”
    “Yes, Mrs. Harper.”
    In all of her days in the funeral business, no aristocrat had ever given a grieving family of fellow aristocrats the gift of a funeral. Now the queen planned to do so? For what reason? Was the Raybourn family so impoverished that they couldn’t afford it? And why was she summoning Violet for it? She had a thousand more questions, none of which could be asked.
    “I see. I’ve a friend in London I can stay with while I make the arrangements