Murder Most Royal

She never forgave her cousin Ralph for casting her out of Ladybridge when her brother died and he inherited instead. Though what else he was supposed to do, God knows.’

‘Couldn’t she have lived on the estate somewhere?’ one of the younger princesses asked.

The Queen shot her husband a look.

‘What kind of person was he?’ Camilla wanted to know.

‘Ned? Wayward,’ Charles said with some disdain.

‘Headstrong,’ added Philip.

‘They’re saying he was a visionary in the servants’ hall,’ Sophie Wessex suggested, which caused all heads to look at her.

‘That’s what Mrs Maddox was telling me. He’d started this new project to turn Abbottswood into a nature refuge. He was planning to make it a centre for endangered species.’

‘Oh?’ Philip said, frowning. ‘I hadn’t heard.’

‘It was a recent thing. Mrs Maddox sounded quite excited. As I say, I think she’s a fan.’

Beatrice, sitting across the table from the Queen, looked confused. ‘If he lived quite close, how come Eugenie and I never met him?’

‘Or me?’ Harry agreed.

‘We rather lost touch over the years,’ the Queen said vaguely.

‘Ha!’ Philip said. ‘You mean, he dropped us like a hot potato.’

‘He grew up as Little Lord Fauntleroy at Ladybridge, then, after he and Georgina got chucked out, he went off to Greece, had an ersatz epiphany and came back a bloody communist. He saw us as fuddy-duddies. Too straight down the line for his bohemian tastes. He loved your great-aunt Margaret. We preferred Ralph’s son Hugh. Dull but stable. You know Hugh.

Dresses like a scarecrow, farms sheep and writes about John Donne. It was Lee, his wife, we were particularly fond of, mind you. Very attractive blonde from Yorkshire. Green-fingered girl. She died in the summer. Much too young.’

‘My age,’ Charles observed, swilling his claret around his glass before finishing it in a gulp and gesturing for a refill. ‘We shared a birthday. We always used to send each other a basket of hyacinths.’ He looked wistful. ‘Ned introduced her to Hugh, I think.

Thank God she didn’t end up with him.’

‘Didn’t you say Ned tried to go out with you, Mummy?’ Peter Phillips asked Anne.

‘Gosh!’ Beatrice was impressed.

‘Mind you, he settled down eventually,’ Anne said. ‘The last time I saw him was at a country fair a couple of years ago, looking at vegan dog food.’

‘I heard his disappearance might be to do with drugs,’ Eugenie suggested. ‘That was on the news, too.’

‘Well, it wouldn’t be him taking them,’ Anne said firmly.