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.
Amelia stopped in the dark paneled dining room and drew in a deep breath. This is my job now.
She sighed then stepped into the château entryway. “Good morning, Monsieur Mainbocher. Mrs. Simpson is occupied at present but will be with you shortly. If you’ll follow me, I’ll escort you to her dressing room.”
“And you are?” The American-born couturier stared down his aquiline nose at Amelia. His two chic assistants affected the same arrogant air. Even the one carrying the garment bag with Wallis’s wedding dress eyed Amelia as if she were one of the contemptible throng of press crowding the château gates.
“Amelia Bradford,” she whispered, then cleared her throat and spoke up. “Mrs. Simpson’s new private secretary.” She didn’t mention she was also Wallis’s third cousin. Her plain brown wool skirt and jacket already made her look like a poor relation. “If you’ll follow me?”
“Of course.” He motioned for her to lead the way.
“Whatever is she wearing?” the assistant in the tailored gray suit asked her companion in French as Amelia led them down the narrow Norman stone hallway with its wood-beam ceiling and up the spiral stone staircase to the second floor.
“Something she found in the bottom of an old trunk,” the other woman sneered.
Amelia understood them perfectly. She’d excelled in French at Oldfields, baffling her mother, who’d wondered what she’d do with an education.
If Mother could see me now she’d be shocked, Amelia mused, assuming her mother could muster enough interest in her youngest child to care. Mother had barely noticed her before Father’s death. Afterward, Amelia had been little more than an unwanted and embarrassing nuisance.
“Taisez-vous,” Monsieur Mainbocher commanded when they reached the second floor, and the assistants stopped their snide remarks. He smoothed his thick, pomaded hair away from his severe side part, offering Amelia a touch more respect as he encouraged her to continue. “Mademoiselle?”
“Madame, if you please, I am a widow,” Amelia replied in perfectly accented French.
The assistants’ cheeks went red. Monsieur Mainbocher didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow.
“When I’m finished making a marvel out of Mrs. Simpson, I’ll do wonders for you,” he offered in French.
“That’s very kind of you, monsieur,” she replied in French, neither refusing nor accepting his offer. She didn’t have the money for a new wardrobe, especially not one by the famous designer. “Here we are.”
Amelia opened the door to the Bedaux’s private suite. Mr. and Mrs. Bedaux, the owners of Château de Candé, were hosting the Duke and Wallis’s wedding and Mrs. Bedaux had been kind enough to move to another room so Wallis could use hers. Amelia led the designer and his assistants through the small foyer and into the elaborate closet. It was larger than most of the servants’ garret bedrooms, with pale green walls, built-in drawers with crystal knobs, and lighted cabinets with glass doors.
Down a short passage, just past the shoe closet, was Mr. Bedaux’s dark paneled study, where Amelia and Aunt Bessie stayed, Aunt Bessie in the bed, Amelia on a trundle beside her. Mr. Bedaux was on a business trip to Germany and Amelia worked at his desk; at least, that’s where she sat while she tried to figure out how to deal with Wallis’s accounts, receipts, and the travel itineraries for the London florist, organist, milliner, and everyone else involved in the wedding.
The assistants, with their perfectly coiffed hair and manicured nails, carefully removed the pale blue dress from the garment bag and hung it on a gilded hook between the windows.
“It’s beautiful.” Amelia fingered the silk crepe skirt, wondering what her wedding dress might have looked like if things had been different. She’d married Jackson in her traveling suit at the First Presbyterian Church wedding chapel in Elkton, Maryland. She’d worried every second of the five-minute ceremony about her stepfather bursting in to stop them but it’d gone off without a hitch.
Amelia opened her fingers and let the fabric fall back into place. I should’ve listened to Theodore. It would’ve saved her a lot of heartache and trouble.
“I call the color Wallis blue,” Monsieur Mainbocher announced in English. “I had the silk custom dyed to match the shade of her eyes. They’re the most stunning I’ve ever seen.”
“Then you can’t have seen very many if you think so.” Wallis’s clipped tone with its odd mix of British and Southern accent carried over them as she swept in. Pookie, Prisie, and Detto followed obediently behind and settled on the rug near the heating grate. Wallis extended her hand to Monsieur Mainbocher, who raised it to his lips. His assistants curtseyed to Wallis as if she were the Queen while Aunt Bessie quietly joined Amelia. “I’m glad you’re here. I couldn’t endure another moment of that Fat Scottish Cook muttering her vows in that insipid voice of hers. It’s like nails on a chalkboard.”
Wallis stepped behind the screen in the corner and changed from her navy-blue-and-white wool suit into the wedding dress. “It galls me to think she’s gathering all the glory while I’m relegated to this French backwater.”
“You’d outshine the woman even if you wore a potato sack.” Monsieur Mainbocher took Wallis’s hand when she emerged from behind the screen and helped her onto the stool in front of the window. “You don’t need a crown to be a queen.”
“But I need a king and I don’t have one.”
Everyone went stiff.
“Wallis, you have something better than a king. You have true love,” Aunt Bessie proclaimed.
“Of course, and I’m deliriously happy.” Wallis glared at the two assistants, who busied themselves marking the flared skirt and fitted waist with pins and tape measures.
When Monsieur Mainbocher was satisfied that everything was hemmed, nipped, and tucked to perfection, Wallis changed and rang for Mr. Hale to escort the couturier and his assistants out of the room.
“Wallis, you must be more discreet around outsiders,” Aunt Bessie warned as she and Amelia followed Wallis into her bedroom. “Those pretentious shopgirls might repeat what you said to the press.”
“If they do, they’ll be blackballed from ever working in Paris again, and they know it. That should keep their thin lips sealed.” Wallis strode to the pink marble fireplace mantel and straightened the gilded clock a maid had moved while dusting. The room was painted a rich butter color set off by white boiserie and a suite of Louis XVI furniture. The dogs hopped on the bed and settled into the fluffy, pale cream comforter. “Besides, I can’t keep up this façade every moment of my life.”
