Dedication
To Grandmaster Floyd Burk and my Trad Am Karate family for the friendship, strength, and peace you’ve given me through training
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Praise for The Windsor Conspiracy
Also by Georgie Blalock
Copyright
About the Publisher
Chapter One
Château de Candé, France, May 12, 1937
“Since the beginning of the service, Her Majesty, the Queen, has been sitting in the Chair of Estate. Now she moves forward for her anointing.” The BBC radio announcer’s voice crackled over the wireless and echoed off the oak-paneled walls and old books of the Château de Candé library. Heavy rain ran down the windows and obscured the view of the sprawling château grounds, adding to the room’s heavy chill. “The Queen kneels at the altar. The Archbishop will pour the holy oil upon the crown of her head. He will put the Queen’s ring on the fourth finger of her right hand.”
Wallis Simpson tightened her fingers into a fist beneath her chin, and the nineteen-carat square-cut-emerald engagement ring from the Duke of Windsor glinted in the lamplight. Wallis stared stone-faced at the large Zenith radio but Amelia caught the slight deepening of the small creases at the corners of her mouth and the tightness in her already severe jaw. Amelia could practically hear her cousin thinking, That should have been me.
“Mrs. Simpson, Monsieur Mainbocher has arrived for your fitting,” Mr. Hale, the Bedaux’s English butler, announced in a baritone voice worthy of a radio announcer contract.
“Not now,” the Duke of Windsor snapped, worrying his triple-band pinkie ring.
Fern Bedaux flinched, and Mr. Edward Metcalf and his wife exchanged a quick glance. Even Detto, Prisie, and Pookie, the Duke and Wallis’s cairn terriers, kept to the hearthrug instead of his lap. The Duke’s brother and sister-in-law were being crowned in Westminster Abbey instead of him and Wallis.
“The Archbishop brings the crown from the altar and sets it upon the Queen’s head,” the BBC announcer continued.
Aunt Bessie, one side of her aged face slack from a stroke a few years ago, caught Amelia’s eyes and nodded at Mr. Hale.
Amelia jumped to her feet and hurried through the adjoining salon de musique. She nodded to the maids polishing the herringbone wood floor in preparation for the upcoming nuptials between the ex-king of England and the woman he’d given up his throne to marry.
