“No, it’s not.” There was color here with the brightly painted shops and hotels, and peace. The buildings might be weathered and old but they hadn’t been bombed out. If she were on the island under different circumstances, she’d see it as the paradise it was, but she wasn’t. Amelia rolled down the window and drew in deep breaths of the tangy sea air. She was about to give the performance of her life, pretending to be thrilled to see Wallis and with no hard feelings about what had happened in Paris. She had to pretend she knew nothing about what they or their associates were up to while always being on the lookout for evidence of their scheming. She hoped she was up to the challenge. She had to be. Robert and Miss Bright were counting on her.
Their progress up Bay Street was slow, and Corporal Sawyer was forced to stop numerous times to let the horse-drawn fringe carriages ferrying tourists in their linen traveling clothes pass. Policemen in white jackets and black trousers stood under umbrellas in the middle of the street directing the steady stream of traffic. One policeman held up his hand to stop two local women balancing baskets of vegetables on their heads from stepping out from between the cars parked along the busy sidewalk. American tourists visited the saloons, restaurants, and hotels lining the street while locals loaded and unloaded trucks or sold postcards and shell trinkets. The color, warmth, and activity were so different from the somber gray and destruction of London, one could almost forget there was a war. Almost. War was why she was here.
She said a little prayer for the women she’d trained with. They were going behind enemy lines in France and Belgium to undermine the Nazis. If they were discovered, they’d be shot or worse. Amelia had been sent to a tropical paradise and would be shipped home if she was found out, or so she’d told herself in the middle of the night when worry had kept her up. If Wallis was willing to collude with the Nazis in the destruction of a country to capture a crown, there was no telling what she or her friends might do if they discovered a traitor in their midst.
Corporal Sawyer turned off Bay Street onto George Street and drove up the hill past brightly colored pink, green, and turquoise balcony houses and wide, spreading trees. Flashes of red bougainvillea and other bright flowers she didn’t recognize bloomed in window boxes and along fences. A marble Christopher Columbus stood guard over the massive staircase leading up the hill to the Governor-General’s residence with its grand view of Nassau.
Corporal Sawyer guided the Duke’s Crosley station wagon through the brick and iron gates of Government House, where the Royal Bahamas Police Force guards in their crisp white uniforms stood at attention. The Union Jack rolled with the sea breeze over the top of the pink-walled and white-trimmed classical building dotted with green hurricane shutters. They crossed the courtyard and pulled to a stop in the shade of the front portico.
“You’re finally here.” Wallis flew out of the massive oak front door with the Duke’s Order of the Garter insignia etched in gold on the glass. She clasped Amelia in a large hug, her gardenia perfume encircling the two of them. “I was so worried when you didn’t turn up in Lisbon. Thank heaven you’re safe.”
“I was worried about you too.” Amelia slowly wrapped her arms around Wallis, surprised and torn by the effusive greeting. This wasn’t the prim and proper Duke’s wife but the cousin she remembered from Wakefield Manor. For all her sins, Wallis had genuinely missed her. It made Amelia’s head spin from more than the heat. Her cousin was welcoming her back as an innocent, and she was here to stab her in the back. Wallis deserved it. She was a traitor who’d been willing to leave Amelia imprisoned by the Nazis when it had served her plans.
Amelia stepped out of her grasp, determined not to fall for Wallis’s silver-tongued lies and false concern again. “The French newspapers said you and the Duke went missing in Spain and were captured by the Italians. What happened?”
Wallis escorted her into the house, the hem of her stylish blue and red polka-dotted dress fluttering against her slim legs as they walked. She wore her more subdued sapphire set, the one that had been in the Paris safe. At least it had reached her and Amelia’s escapades hadn’t been entirely for nothing. “It was dreadful traipsing across France, sleeping out in the open or in flea-infested hotels. I thought we’d be fine when we reached Spain but it was nothing but problems there too. They shooed us out of Madrid because the French government in exile thought we’d get them bombed to pieces so we had to drag on to Lisbon. It was worse than fleeing Paris, worse than this awful place. It’s been a mess without you, there isn’t anyone who can organize my life the way you can.”
They crossed the wide foyer as the four Bahamian footmen carried Amelia’s things and Wallis’s packages from Saks Fifth Avenue and Bergdorf Goodman up the Grand Staircase under Mr. Hale’s watchful eye.
“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?”
