Murder Most Royal

‘Yes?’

His own face burned with suppressed curiosity. Of course he wanted to know what was inside, and why she wanted it so badly. He couldn’t ask her outright about private letters from her own family, but he was clearly hoping she’d tell him anyway. There was a brief stand-off, while neither spoke. Eventually, he gave in.

‘That will be all, I take it,’ he said.

‘Thank you, Simon,’ she repeated firmly.

He shut the door behind him and she pulled the letters out.

There were about three dozen in all. Her mother had been a prolific letter writer, with many friends in Norfolk who eagerly wrote back.

It did not take long, however, to winkle out the ones from Ladybridge Hall. They were all on the same thick cream paper, embossed with the family crest and the address in blue. Georgina’s had looked the same, the Queen remembered, but her signature had taken up half the page. These were all signed ‘Lee’, in a much smaller hand.

It was disappointing that none of her mother’s letters to the baroness were in the bundle.

The Queen Mother’s writing style was warm and witty, very true to her character, and seemed to bring her back to life whenever one read it. However, there were seven letters from Lee to the queen, which was more than one could have hoped for. The bundle had come with a note from the archivist saying she always did her best to put the contents in chronological order, but it wasn’t always possible, given that so many of them weren’t dated. This proved to be true of Lee, who had a maddening habit of giving the month and day at the top of each one, but not the year.

At least her handwriting was legible. It was rounded and uneven, with curly ‘y’s and a long strike through the ‘t’ that reminded the Queen of Anne’s letters from school, in the same blue ink, but it was steady, with decent spacing, and not difficult to scan. The Queen was looking for the strong, confident ‘V’ for Valentine. Lee spoke a lot about Flora, who was learning to ride. She asked questions about the weather in Balmoral, made endless suggestions for roses and wrote several pages about a trip to the Chelsea Flower Show.

She was planning a trip to America to talk to various gardening societies about her work at Ladybridge. And then, in the fifth letter, there was this:

I’m not sure Hugh will ever speak to Valentine again.

The Queen sat up straighter. She went back to the beginning. The letter began,

I write this from the priest hole.