“The house is stunning.” A portrait of Wallis hung over the fireplace in the formal stateroom, overlooking furniture that was far more restrained than in Paris. Everything was simple lines and bright, printed fabrics that melded with the tropical surroundings. A few well-placed antiques, including the abdication desk, added to the regal feel, with the massive gold-framed mirror in the entrance hall the single nod to Wallis’s usually extravagant tastes.
“It was an absolute mess when we arrived. We had to fight tooth and nail to make it habitable. His Majesty’s Government didn’t believe it needed work until a piece of the ceiling almost killed me, assuming it was an accident. One can never tell these days. I’m sure Sir Walter would like to see the end of me. He complained every time we asked for money, telling us the funds would be better spent on Spitfires. What rot. They might as well set the money on fire for all the chance Britain has of winning anything. At least spending it here means they get something for it. Maybe when Cookie ends up living here, she’ll thank me for sprucing it up.” Wallis locked eyes with a footman who had the bad luck to pause at the top of the stairs. “You can tell that to Buckingham Palace.”
He didn’t stop to ask what she meant but hurried to place a small crate in a room down the high-ceilinged central hall.
“Careful what you say.” Wallis lowered her voice as other footmen strode past to collect more packages. “There are spies everywhere. I don’t know who they are but I know they’re here.”
Amelia swallowed past the knot in her throat. If Wallis suspected the staff of harboring spies, she’d have to work extra hard to cover her tracks. It was already difficult pretending to be happy to be here while knowing about Wallis and how she’d betrayed her. She was going to put everything she’d learned in Bournemouth about concealing her true feelings to use. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
Wallis led her into a bedroom on the second floor. “This is where you’ll sleep.”
Tall windows stood open to allow in the breeze and stunning views of Nassau. The turquoise-blue waters of the harbor between Nassau and nearby Hog Island sparkled in the sunlight. The roofs of the balcony houses lining the streets poked up between the tops of palm trees and rubber trees except for the square spire of Christ Church Cathedral and the wide British Colonial Hotel towering over the bayside streets. The room’s veranda overlooked the massive back garden with its straight main path. The outbuildings along the periphery were nearly hidden by coconut palms and other plants and trees she didn’t recognize. The sound of shovels and rakes carried up from where the Bahamian staff trimmed the potted plants and trees on the terrace below. “It’s beautiful.”
“Don’t let the palm trees and beaches fool you. This is nothing but the 1940s version of Elba,” Wallis complained.
“You mean St. Helena.”
“Does it matter? It’s still an exile.”
“There are worse places to be exiled.”
“You won’t say that when you’re sweating through your summer dresses. The war needs to hurry up and end so we can leave before the heat returns. I don’t intend to be here for long.”
Amelia wondered how long she’d be here. They’d never discussed the length of her mission, simply that she’d see it through.
“Did you finish that letter to the press?” The Duke leaned on Amelia’s desk in her downstairs office, the smell of whiskey on his breath too heavy for this early in the morning.
“Yes, Your Royal Highness. I’ll send it out at once.” Amelia rolled the mimeograph paper out of the typewriter and looked over the memo directing the American press to address Wallis as Your Royal Highness instead of Your Grace. With the trade embargoes, poverty issues, and arguments with the Bay Street Boys, the elite island businessmen who refused to give up one iota of their power over Nassau, one would think the Governor-General would have more to worry about than his wife’s title, but he didn’t. Some things never changed.
“Good girl.” He winked at her, and wobbled a bit as he straightened up. “Mr. Phillips, come along, we have the airfield lease and the oil imports to discuss. Tedious business.” The Duke staggered out of the office.
“Doesn’t he have The Bahamas Economic Commission meeting?” Amelia asked Mr. Phillips.
“Good luck reminding him of that. Too boring to bother, he says,” Mr. Phillips complained as he gathered up his files. He occupied the desk across from hers in the small downstairs office they shared near the back of the house. Even from here, the views of the garden out the windows were stunning. “I’ll be surprised if he discusses the airfield or oil with me. He’ll probably talk my ear off about golf and then what’ll I tell the officials? I can’t say he’s too drunk to bother, can I?”
“Has it been that bad?”
“Yes.” The new equerry was far more candid in his opinion of the Duke than Mr. Forwood had been.
“I’ll mention it to the Duchess.” Wallis was the only one with any influence over the Duke and everyone knew it.
Ever since her arrival, Amelia, Wallis, and the Duke had fallen into their old routines as if no time had passed. The humid air and beautiful vistas lulled everyone into believing everything was right in the world, as did the mundane tasks of Wallis’s new position, but it wasn’t. Amelia had yet to meet her contact, going about her days as she had in Paris but always on the lookout for something dubious. Other than the Duke and Duchess’s regular sailings with Mr. Wenner-Gren, she’d seen and heard nothing suspicious. There were no hidden notes or telegrams, only the usual letters to friends that Amelia steamed open before sending. They were all about how bored and lonely Wallis was here, how there was no real society and begging her friends to visit. There was no hint of the stolen intelligence or treason that Robert had shown her in Paris. If Wallis was sending someone information it wasn’t through the post. Whatever Wallis was up to, she hid it well.
Mr. Hale entered the room, the Duke having pulled enough strings to keep him from being conscripted. “Mrs. Montague, a Miss Alice Jones would like to speak to you on behalf of the Infant Welfare Clinic.”
“Send her in.”
Mr. Hale paused. “Mrs. Montague, might I remind you that colored people are discouraged from calling at Government House?”
“I said, send her in,” Amelia firmly insisted, refusing to follow that awful rule.
With a curt nod he escorted Miss Jones in then left to probably grumble to Wallis about this breach in their so-called etiquette.
A colored woman in a crisp white nurse’s uniform approached with polite determination.
Amelia came around the desk to shake her hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. What can I do for you today?”
“I’m the sister in charge of the Infant Welfare Clinic. Our nurses attend to the poorest mothers and infants and we can’t make rounds to the outlying area without proper transportation. I’ve come to personally petition Her Royal Highness to help us. We’re in desperate need of a car.”
“I’ll speak to her on your behalf and arrange a meeting for you to discuss it.”
“Will you or are you putting me off the way she has the last three times I’ve come here?”
Oh dear. Wallis was making her usual friends and enemies everywhere she went. Amelia was tempted to let Wallis stew in her failure, but she couldn’t turn away someone working to improve Bahamians’ lives. Nassau benefited from the tourists, but the poverty in the areas south of Government House in Over the Hill and Grant’s Town was heartbreaking. It was even worse in the Out Islands. She’d visited those with the Duke and Wallis and seen firsthand the poor Bahamians scraping out a hard living harvesting sponges and growing what they could in the loamy soil. Wallis could fall on her face somewhere else. “I’m sure Her Royal Highness didn’t mean to overlook you. She’s been without a private secretary for some time. Now that I’m here, I’ll see she meets with you, and put in a good word for you and your cause.”
“You seem like a woman who can get things done.”
“So do you. Please don’t hesitate to let me know if there’s anything else I can do for you.” Amelia took Miss Jones’s information then called for Mr. Hale to see her out.
She climbed the stairs to Wallis’s room for their regular morning meeting. It was across the hall from the Duke’s with a large bedroom, study, and screened veranda with stunning views of Nassau and the ocean.
“Has my dry cleaning arrived from New York?” Wallis asked the moment Amelia entered. She sat at a rectangular bentwood writing desk, her cashier’s desk still in France, her expression as stern as the judge who’d passed sentence on Jackson.
“It’ll arrive tomorrow. The plane was delayed by a storm.” The Bahamian sun and the tropical breezes scented by plumerias made it easy to forget the cold weather creeping into New York, London, and Paris. Amelia felt sorry for the people of London and Paris who’d have to endure the coming winter in bombed-out houses or with the Nazis stealing their food and heating oil.
“It’d better get here soon or I won’t have a thing to wear to Lady Williams-Taylor’s party.” Wallis capped her fountain pen and slid whatever she was writing into the desk’s top drawer and locked it.
“Wouldn’t it be easier to send your clothes to someone on the island instead of all the way to New York? It’d save time, hassle, and money and would help the local economy, build some goodwill for you and the Duke.” Miss Jones wasn’t the only visitor who’d grumbled about the Duke and Wallis not attending to their duties. Mrs. Solomon, the white chairman of the Bahamian Red Cross, had called yesterday to complain about Wallis not taking up her position as their head, one reserved for the Governor-General’s wife, and how it was delaying their war aid efforts.
“I’ll build goodwill with something other than my wardrobe. There isn’t anyone here who can clean it properly, and with the Fat Scottish Cook making sure we can’t leave Elba without royal permission, I have to make my clothes last. I want to look like a proper Governor-General’s wife.”
“Speaking of which, Miss Alice Jones, the nurse from the Infant Welfare Clinic, visited to request a meeting with you.”
Wallis frowned. “Yes, Mr. Hale told me she was here.”
Amelia ignored this. “The clinic is in need of a car. Mrs. Solomon from the Red Cross called again too. They need your assistance arranging care package transportation.”
“All the local horrors do is pester me for help with this or that.” Wallis was surly today, her delayed dry cleaning elevated to a national crisis.
“That’s because everyone knows you’re the one who gets things done.”
“A dubious honor.”
“An advantageous one. The press ignored your Red Cross work in France but they can’t ignore you here. The Governor-General is the King’s representative, making you something of a Queen. Imagine how regal you’d look coming to the aid of mothers and infants. It’d change the way people see you. Cookie would hate that.”
“She would, wouldn’t she?” Wallis trilled her fingers on her desk while she mulled over the idea. If logic couldn’t work with Wallis, then flattery usually did. “All right, arrange the meeting and figure out what she needs and how I can give it to her. Contact the Red Cross woman and do the same and make sure the press knows about it. You’re right, I’m all but a queen here. I suppose I have to take some interest in my people.”
