“Aunt Bessie didn’t tell me things were quite so dire.”

“I’m paying down the bill with my earnings, but if I have to return to America, it means I’ll be away.” She didn’t have the courage to mention she might need to borrow money for the fare. She was too busy trying to read Wallis’s reaction, to determine if this was the end of her employment or if things would simply carry on as usual.

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“Between the press, the title, the wedding, and Germany, I didn’t want to bother you with my troubles too.” She didn’t dare say she’d been afraid of being shipped off on the first boat to America if Wallis thought Amelia and her debts weren’t worth the risk. She should have had more faith in her cousin but after all the people who’d already abandoned or betrayed her, it was hard to trust even her.

“I hate to pry into your affairs, but how much do you owe?”

“Four thousand dollars.”

“Good heavens.” Wallis laid a hand on her chest, her engagement ring clinking against the jeweled flamingo brooch on the lapel of her blue suit with the yellow belt. “You’ll never pay it off on your salary.”

“I know.” It hung over her like a sword every time she wired half her pay to America while her savings stagnated and her future dwindled under the debt. “I’ve paid off some of it but this new suit threatens to raise it again.”

“You should have come to me sooner.”

“I’ve been fighting everything alone for so long, it’s hard to ask for help. I always think I can figure it out on my own.”

“Not anymore. I want to help you, the way you’ve helped me. You deserve it for putting up with me. I’ll discuss it with David. There has to be something we can do to ease the burden that bastard husband left you with.”

“Please don’t. It’s my problem to deal with. You don’t need to get involved.”

“Nonsense, and if you’re ever in trouble again, I want you to tell me at once.”

“I will.” Theodore was wrong. I can count on Wallis and I should have trusted her. Wallis had understood and was going to help her. She had no idea what Wallis or the Duke could do, but if they could get discounts on antiques and hotels, perhaps the power of their names and titles might work some miracle on her behalf.

“Good. A woman must make her own life, and I’d hate for you to be like me, past forty and finally finding it after too many difficulties and disappointments. Despite everything I’ve been through, I’ve never gone under, even when people tried to push me, and you won’t either. We’ll put our heads together and come up with some respectable method for you to make your way in this world.”

“I did have one idea. I’ve thought of opening my own secretarial agency and placing young women in good positions with society ladies.”

“What a wonderful idea, especially with all the old biddies in Europe. Finding employers will be like shooting fish in a barrel and give good women somewhere more illustrious to work than an insurance agent’s office.” A determined fire lit Wallis’s eyes and it caught hold inside Amelia.

“I hope so.”

“Hope will get you nowhere. Doing something will. I’ll speak with my friends and put the word out. We’ll build a list of potential employers and have you set up in no time. Not too soon, of course, because I’d be lost without you. Now, let’s get back to these tables before the Duke and I have to leave for the races. I need time to decide which broach and bracelet I’m going to wear with my new cream suit.”

Amelia followed her around the rest of the antiques, almost too giddy to concentrate on what was going or staying. If Wallis helped Amelia with the same determination she employed when tracking down the perfect foyer table, Amelia would soon be one step closer to building a life and future of her own.

July 1938, Château de la Croë, South of France

Amelia dug through the morning post, stopping at a letter from Robert. She usually left personal correspondence to the end of the day but she couldn’t resist opening his. They’d been writing to each other ever since she’d left Paris, their conversations in the post similar to the ones they’d enjoyed over coffee. He told her about the goings-on at the Embassy and she told him about dining with Maurice Chevalier and Marlene Dietrich and antique hunting with Wallis in Nice. This time, his letter wasn’t full of gossip but the news that Mr. Carlton, the Embassy attorney, had arranged for Amelia to respond in writing to the prosecutor’s questions instead of appearing in America. The Embassy attorney had also argued against her being included in the suit but the prosecutor hadn’t made a decision yet. It left Amelia with some hope that at least one of her problems might soon be resolved. She had no idea how to thank him but she knew where to start.

She picked up the telephone and dialed the Chancery. “Susan, it’s Amelia. I’m sending something special to Robert and Mr. Carlton. Can you make sure they’re delivered to their offices the minute they arrive?”

“Sure thing. Are they expensive?”

“Yes, but the salesman always gives me a discount because of how much Windsor business I send his way.”

“I told you that’d win him over. Can you get me a box of those exquisite chocolates you sent to Lisa from that little chocolatier, and at a discount?”

“I’ll ring them as soon as we’re off.”

“Thanks, you’re a gem.”

Amelia called the chocolatier, and once that was done, gathered up the recent invitations and her notepad and left the small gatehouse where she and Mr. Forwood worked. There wasn’t enough room inside the château for her and him to have an office. Amelia enjoyed the short walk with the stunning view of the ocean between the tall pines. The Duke’s yellow and black Duchy of Cornwall flag fluttered in the breeze on the flagpole at the top of the château. Amelia waved to him where he stood on his study balcony watching the yachts sail past Cap d’Antibes. He’d decorated the study to resemble a boat and christened it the Belvedere after his beloved home in England, the one he hadn’t seen in two years and wasn’t likely to visit anytime soon. Decorating it had amused him for a good part of the summer, giving Wallis a much-needed break from his cloying attention.

Amelia walked into the château and nodded to the footmen in their light gray summer uniforms. The Duke had designed the footmen’s attire, with light wool for summer and red wool with gold collars, cuffs, and buttons for the winter. More than one person had remarked on their similarity to the Buckingham Palace footmen’s uniforms, including the tailor Amelia had hired to sew them. Amelia stopped at the dining room door and looked at the painting of the Duke as a young man riding a horse. Beneath it stood the mahogany abdication desk with the red morocco-leather dispatch box on top.

The Duke’s past had as much hold over him as Wallis’s and Amelia’s did over them.

Amelia continued through the house and out onto the back terrace. Wallis lounged in one of the wicker chairs, reading a Paris newspaper and shielded from the sun by curtains and a tall, rounded colonnade. It was hot but not miserably so and without the humidity that used to make Baltimore summers unbearable.

“The French are embarrassing themselves by fawning all over the Fat Scottish Cook. The way they’re carrying on, you’d think no one had ever worn white before.” Wallis handed Amelia the newspaper and motioned to a nearby wicker chair. Amelia looked at the pictures of the King and Queen at the Élysée Palace with President Lebrun. The Queen, dressed in white for mourning for her recently deceased mother, appeared chic in her long dress and coat. The article was in raptures over her and her fashionable new wardrobe.

“Imagine her getting all the attention while I’m banished here.” Wallis stroked Pookie, who lay draped over her lap.

“It isn’t too shabby a place for a banishment.” The bright blue Mediterranean sparkled in the distance and Amelia could hear the waves crashing against the cliffs and the small bathing area at the end of the long walk. Wallis wore her Nile-green swimsuit with a white and red polka-dotted wrap skirt and a matching hair scarf.

“It isn’t Buckingham Palace either. Oh, I can dress it up to the nines and everyone who stomps through here curtseys and calls me Your Royal Highness, but I’m not a queen.”

“Do you want to be one?”

“Of course not, but after the support I’ve given the French fashion industry, you’d think they’d fete me with a state visit. Oh, they put me on the best-dressed lists and flatter me when they want my business, but I’ll never be more than an ex-king’s wife.” Wallis lowered her white-rimmed sunglasses over her eyes and continued to pet Pookie. A quiet moment passed with the seagulls calling to one another from the beach before Wallis spoke again. “Sometimes, I wish Herr Hitler would start a war and bomb Britain into oblivion. I’d love to see the fat queen and her imbecile husband knocked off their gilded thrones the way they pushed David off of his, the two of them forced to wander in ignominious exile. If I thought there was some way I could make it happen, I’d do it.”

“You don’t really mean that. War would be awful.”

“I know, I’m simply tired of people like Sir Walter telling us where we can and cannot go and kicking around Europe like the rest of the useless aristocrats. You can’t throw a stone without hitting one.” Wallis settled back against the chaise and stared at the ocean. “I really thought I was someone when David first noticed me. I knew what I was doing was wrong, especially to Ernest, and Aunt Bessie told me enough times, but after years of being nobody, I had respect, influential friends, everything it meant to be the woman behind the King. Then it all went to hell in a handbasket.” A seagull glided over the long lawn leading down to the ocean before flying out to sea. “Enough bellyaching. What’s on the agenda for today?”

Amelia went over the daily business, most of which involved the soon-to-be-arriving furniture from Wallis’s last excursion to the Nice antique shops. “I also have news about my American legal case. The attorneys have agreed for me to give evidence via letter instead of traveling to America.”

“That is good news. Better news would be you not being involved at all.”

Amelia stiffened at the snarky tone Wallis usually reserved for the Duke when she chipped at him about the abdication. It ruffled Amelia’s feathers but she’d mastered rule number five, to never look churlish, and held her bright smile. “Mr. Carlton is hopeful they’ll drop me from the suit once they see there’s nothing to get from me.”

“Good.” She set Pookie on the ground and he trotted into the house. “Speaking of money, how’d you like to do some work for Syrie Maugham while David and I are on our cruise? Her regular secretary is off nursing a sick mother and since you won’t have much else to do while we’re gone, you can assist her and make a little something on the side. Katherine Rogers needs you too.”

“I’d be glad to help them.” Both the Maughams and the Rogerses lived nearby so she wouldn’t have to travel far. She could use the extra money, experience, and connections and it meant Wallis was keeping good on her promise to help her.

Wallis swung her feet down onto the marble. “Then I’ll phone them this afternoon.”

Amelia spent the rest of the summer dividing her time among Wallis, Syrie Maugham, and Katherine Rogers. Amelia assisted Syrie with her husband’s fan mail and book schedules and helped Katherine organize the aid station she and her husband ran for poor farmers. The women had very different styles, with Syrie and Katherine far more relaxed than Wallis, but they both appreciated the order Amelia brought to their endeavors and were generous with payments and tips at the end of Amelia’s service. Being at the Maughams’ villa also gave Amelia the chance to use the many passages from Mr. Maugham’s works that she’d memorized for Wallis.

The summer wasn’t all work and flattering writers’ egos. There were walks along the Saint-Tropez seaside, visits to the Monte Carlo casinos, and free afternoons swimming in the pool or the sea. During a shopping trip in Nice, Amelia found an antique silver tie tack with bonne chance engraved on it. She sent it to Robert to wish him luck during his travel with Ambassador Bullitt to Italy to join Prime Minister Chamberlain in trying to woo Il Duce away from Herr Hitler. She missed his regular letters but hoped the statesmen were successful in weakening Germany’s growing influence. Ending the threat of war would mean ending the threat to her time in Europe with Wallis and Robert and her new life.

Toward the end of summer, when most of the trunks had been sent ahead to Boulevard Suchet and their tickets on the Blue Train to Paris were booked, they spent an afternoon aboard the Rogerses’ yacht Gulzar. Amelia sat in the back soaking in the late afternoon sun, deepening the tan that’d browned her Paris pallor. The subtle vibration from the schooner’s motor radiated through her and the sea spray sprinkled her exposed arms and legs and dotted her sunglasses. At midship, the Rogerses lounged with their guests beneath a large canopy. The Duke stood behind the bar mixing the Wallis cocktail, going through generous amounts of Cointreau, peppermint, gin, soda, and lemon juice while jaunty French tunes drifted out of the wireless. Across the water, the white walls of Château de la Croë were just visible above the cliff.