Murder Most Royal

’ She glared. ‘Ma’am.’

The Queen didn’t mind the girl’s attitude and was glad there weren’t any eager courtiers around to leap, unnecessarily, to her defence. In fact, she admired Ivy’s spirit, and her unguarded honesty. It was vanishingly rare for her to be challenged in this way by one of her subjects, or indeed anyone other than Philip in a bad mood, or Anne in a very bad one.

‘Did you know Ned St Cyr?’ she asked, not in the spirit of enquiry this time, but out of curiosity. ‘You sound as though you have a lot in common.

‘Yeah, I did,’ Ivy said. ‘Auntie Judy introduced me. She thought I might like to work on the rewilding thing.’

Ivy rolled her eyes with frustration. ‘I was going to, after my exams. It’s like literally the last chance we’ve got to save the planet. The way it’s going, it’s dying. Mr St Cyr was fighting for the future. If he’d carried on, people would’ve been coming from all over the world to see what he was up to.’

The Queen watched the girl’s expression transform as she spoke.

‘You describe it quite compellingly,’ she admitted.

Ivy shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter now. Someone else’ll take over. The land will be smothered in pesticides and the poor soil’ll be forced to produce bad food until it’s nothing but dust.’

This was not a thought the Queen wished to linger on. She always liked to find hope if she possibly could.

‘Perhaps you should be a professional rewilder,’ she suggested.

Instantly, the surliness was back. ‘You need land for that . . . ma’am. Like yours.’

‘Landowners need managers and experts to advise them.’

The Queen looked across at her, head down, striding forward. ‘I don’t doubt you will.’

They were nearly back at the house.

‘Thank you for joining me. That was very interesting,’ the Queen told her.

‘No worries, ma’am,’ Ivy said, with a lopsided grin. ‘Thanks for looking out for my brother. You won’t regret it.’

This ‘ma’am’ had come naturally, the Queen noticed.

On her way inside, she encountered Philip returning from a visit of his own to friends in the Fens. They paused together in the entrance to the saloon, where the jockey’s weighing scales still stood that had once been used to ensure guests of her great-grandfather were suitably well fed.