“A queen usually does,” Amelia mumbled as she wrote a note about arranging the meetings.
The deafening quiet made Amelia stop writing and look up.
Wallis’s stare sent a chill racing up Amelia’s spine. “Is everything all right?”
Amelia caught her mistake, and felt her cheeks burn with a flush. “Y-ye-yes. Why?”
“You’re different since you’ve returned, almost the way you were those first weeks in France, except far better organized and capable of doing your job, and a touch more surly.”
“I’m sorry.” Amelia closed the notepad and slid the pencil in the holder. “Paris was hard, not knowing what was going to happen to me, unable to contact you or get help from the British, who were utterly useless there and in London, which was an awful city,” she lied, using her training to maintain Wallis’s confidence by sympathizing with her dislike of Britain. “The Americans were the only ones who helped me. They gave me a job and somewhere safe to stay during the Blitz but it was terrifying to go to bed not knowing if I’d survive the night, then wake up every morning to fire, hurt and killed people, and London destroyed.”
“They deserve it for what they did to me. A whole country against one lone woman.”
“That’s too harsh.”
“No, it’s not. You saw what happened to me.” Wallis narrowed her eyes at Amelia as if she were a back-talking maid.
“You’re right, it wasn’t fair what they did to you.” Amelia struggled to look humbled, Wallis’s callousness grating. Wallis didn’t care a whit about what Amelia had been through or the millions of suffering people. All she cared about was her ambition and revenge.
“That’s a very interesting necklace. I don’t remember you having it before.” Wallis approached and slid her fingers under the bonne chance charm and raised it to examine it. Her nails brushing Amelia’s skin made it crawl but she forced herself not to flinch or pull back. “Where did you get it?”
“Susan Harper, a friend of mine from the American Embassy in Paris, gave it to me. She said it’s for luck.” Amelia drew on memories of when she’d believed in Wallis to hide her disgust. Everything had to appear as it had been before, with nothing wrong, no secrets, no betrayals, nothing.
“An Embassy friend?”
“We were stuck in London together, but because of you I got passage out before she did.”
Wallis settled the pendant back against the boatneck top of Amelia’s striped pencil dress. “David and I are sailing with Axel this afternoon. See to it the car is ready for us at four. Also, schedule the nurse meeting at the clinic. As you are aware, colored people are discouraged from making social and business calls at Government House. It’s the way of things here, Miss Jones should have known better. Please remind her.”
She’d do no such thing. “His Royal Highness is here to represent everyone and they need his help and leadership, not restrictions.”
“David sees no reason to risk a future, better government position by causing trouble in this one. Bahamians can work here but not make social or business calls, otherwise we’ll have no end of people traipsing in and out of here with every problem and petition they have and we’ll never have a moment’s peace. That goes for the white people too or I’ll have to invite all the assemblymen’s wives to every tea, dinner party, and official reception. What a bore. What passes for society here is slim pickings already. I won’t make it worse.” Wallis strode off to her closet to change.
Amelia had to hold her notebook tight to keep from lobbing it at the back of Wallis’s perfectly rolled and pinned coiffure. The nerve of that woman, looking down on anyone after everything she’d done and was still doing.
I shouldn’t have been surly. She had to behave as if everything was the way it had been before. Judging by Wallis’s cold scrutiny, Amelia hadn’t been pretending as well as she thought. Or maybe Wallis is as jumpy as I am. Given what Wallis was embroiled in, Amelia wasn’t surprised, but it was Amelia’s fault Wallis had noticed something was off. Wallis already believed half the staff were spying on her; Amelia couldn’t give her any reason to question her or she’d never discover anything about what she was up to.
Speaking of which. Amelia glanced at the desk to see if there was anything interesting lying on top but it was clean as a whistle. If she had to guess, anything worth seeing was locked in the top drawer. Wallis had been writing to someone when Amelia had interrupted her, she usually was, but the number of personal letters Amelia mailed wasn’t equal to the number Wallis wrote. It could be because the censors refused to grant Wallis an exception for her correspondence but Amelia doubted it. Wallis was so desperate for word from her friends, she’d risk a civil servant in some stuffy postal office seeing her letters in order to write to them. However, something more important was getting by somehow, Amelia was sure of it.
Mr. Hale’s steady footsteps muffled by the hallway runner sounded outside the door and Amelia beat an orderly and refined retreat. She couldn’t risk him catching her lingering or snooping around Wallis’s room. She’d done everything she could over the past few weeks to appear as innocent and trustworthy as possible, despite regularly searching Wallis’s room for evidence. It wasn’t easy, especially with Mr. Hale and Mademoiselle Moulichon always hovering around. Amelia had no idea what they were up to but she wouldn’t put it past them to be searching through her things as much as she was searching Wallis’s. Amelia didn’t trust anyone in Government House, especially not the Bedaux’s former employees.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Nassau, December 1940
“David, I was telling Axel about the wonderful dinner we had with King Carol at the Ritz. What did you think of His Majesty?” Wallis asked when the Duke swayed up to Wallis and Mr. Wenner-Gren. They mingled on the terrace of Star Acres, Lady Williams-Taylor’s Hog Island estate. Strings of white lights decorated the palm trees beside the riser where Blind Blake Alphonso Higgs and his band from the Royal Victoria Hotel played goombay songs and jazzy versions of Christmas carols. Lights from the house and torches set up along the back terrace illuminated the white foam waves breaking on the beach; the contrast between the winter season and the tropical weather was jarring but Amelia loved it. She wished Robert were here to enjoy it with her, but like her, he was somewhere working to help end this awful war. “Wasn’t he a charming man?”
He was a snake. Amelia kept her opinion of the former Romanian king to herself as she stood on the periphery of their conversation, careful to remain bland-faced.
“He was quite the visionary.” The Duke drained his martini. “He could have done much more for the Romanian people if his ungrateful government hadn’t run him out again.” The Duke motioned to a footman for another drink. In September, King Carol had been forced off the throne and had fled to Mexico City with Madame Lupescu and, if the rumors were true, a good chunk of Romania’s treasury.
“With his ambition, I’m sure he’ll land on his feet.” Wallis trilled her fingers on her champagne glass.
“He already has. He and General Maximino Camacho, the brother of Mexico’s president, are involved in Mexican oil drilling,” Mr. Wenner-Gren said, almost confirming the rumors about the King and the treasury. “If the Lend-Lease Act passes, importing Mexican oil to fuel military ships and planes crossing the Atlantic will bring in much needed revenue to The Bahamas.”
“You mean your Bank of The Bahamas. You have more of Herr Goering’s money in there than yours.” The Duke chuckled into his martini.
“Darling, you know those rumors are nonsense,” Wallis insisted through a tight smile. “Axel runs the bank on behalf of The Bahamas. If it thrives then the country thrives. Think of what he’s already done for the workers who built his deepwater harbor.”
“The harbor is awfully large for the Southern Cross,” the Duke said. “And you have enough fuel there for a whole fleet. What do you do with it all?”
“One has to be prepared in the event of a hurricane,” Axel answered, and Amelia looked at her satin shoes, pretending not to listen. “I don’t want to be caught unawares and not be able to move Southern Cross if a storm whips up.”
The bank and the unusual size of the deepwater harbor and the Mexican oil supplies could be nothing or they could be something important. Mr. Wenner-Gren was familiar with Nazis but he didn’t goose-step around the island with a swastika on his armband. Amelia suspected that he, like Wallis, was more interested in exploiting the opportunities the Germans offered than he was a true believer. Either way, he was up to no good.
“Darling, listen, he’s playing our song.” The Duke tapped his foot as Blind Blake and his band launched into “Love, Love Alone,” his song about His Royal Highness’s abdication. “Shall we dance?”
“Oh, I just love this little ditty,” Wallis said through gritted teeth, not nearly as flattered by the tune as the Duke, but she took his hand and allowed him to lead her onto the dance floor.
Amelia fell back to the periphery of the party as she always did at these events. She wore her silk Schiaparelli, the light dress the most appropriate for the warm Bahamian fall. She’d been reunited with her things when she’d arrived but the designer clothes didn’t delight her like they used to. She didn’t feel successful in them but owned lock, stock, and barrel by Wallis. She’d sent the heavy winter ones, along with the more impractical and expensive accessories, to Aunt Bessie for safekeeping. That lark in Paris had almost robbed her of everything she’d need for her future. She wouldn’t make that mistake again.
Eugenie slid up to her. “I hear you’re finally getting someone up at the red light district to take their duties seriously.”
“The red light district?”
“That’s what the locals call Government House because of Her Grace’s history with men.”
Amelia hid her laugh behind her hand. Meeting up with Eugenie had been one of the highlights of returning to Wallis’s service. The two of them usually stood together at parties or met at the British Colonial Hotel to exchange gossip over tea. Eugenie knew more about The Bahamas and the people, both the socialites and the business owners, than anyone else. She always knew which Assemblymen spent more time on Booze Avenue, as the locals called Bay Street, than in the House of Assembly, and who of note was coming in on the next Pan American flight from Miami. Amelia used most of the gossip to keep Wallis informed and to stay in her good graces, just like in Paris. “What else do they say?”
“That Her Grace is the real governor of The Bahamas because His Royal Highness consults her on everything.”
“Well, he made his bed, they both did.”
“I’ll say. Want to take a break? There’s a little room where we can kick off our heels for a while, and someone there I’d like you to meet.”
With the Windsors dancing, she was free for a bit. “Lead the way.”
Eugenie led Amelia into the house, through the crush of people mingling beneath large potted palms and whirling fans. They wove their way down the curving hall to a room so far from the terrace they could barely hear the band or guests. Eugenie ushered her into a book-filled office and Amelia stopped dead.
Lady Williams-Taylor stood in front of a Honduran mahogany bookshelf in a gorgeous Mainbocher black silk gown with a lovely pale pink rose pinned beneath her diamond brooch.
“You’re my contact?” It didn’t seem possible.
“I am.” She held out her hands and bowed like an actress at the end of a play. “I can’t tell you what a pleasure it is to have you here to help me, and we need help fast.”
“But the portrait of Hitler?”
“All part of the show. It has to be convincing, doesn’t it, Eugenie?”
