“I didn’t call anyone.”
“Don’t be difficult, Amelia, tell him what you were up to and why,” Wallis insisted. “I want to know too. I expect this from the local footmen and maids but not you.”
“I don’t know what he’s talking about.”
“One of my men heard you on the line. He doesn’t speak English but he heard you speaking with another woman.”
“How does he know it was me? It could’ve been any of your guests calling for their car or their stockbroker in New York.”
“See, it’s nothing,” Wallis assured, as eager to stay in his good graces as she was to return to the party.
“It isn’t nothing. Mrs. Montague is a spy.”
“Nonsense.” Wallis laughed but it faded as fast as it came.
“That’s ridiculous. I’m nobody. No one would be interested in me and what I have to say.”
“You’re Her Royal Highness’s cousin and close to her. I have contacts in very high places, people who owe me for all I’ve done for them. They wired me this afternoon of your friends in the American Embassy, and that you weren’t delayed in London but trained there and were sent to Her Royal Highness to spy on her and report back to the U.S. and British intelligence services.”
“No one wants to hear about shopping and golf.” Amelia tried to look bored with the conversation, as if it were all too ridiculous to believe.
“You informed the Colonial Office of Her Royal Highness’s correspondence and had it stopped; you were also there when we discussed King Carol and his Mexican oil interests, ones that have recently come under heavy scrutiny by the State Department.”
Wallis stared in horror at Amelia as if she were a jigsaw puzzle and the pieces were putting themselves together. “You’re the one who went through my desk drawer. I knew someone had been in it the moment I opened it. After everything I’ve done for you, how could you betray me like this? I raised you from a penniless nobody to somebody and this is how you repay me.”
“You believe this warmonger who’s bought your friendship over your cousin, the person who’s stood beside you for the last three years?” She wasn’t about to admit anything.
“Who did you call and what did you tell them?” Mr. Wenner-Gren towered over her, bending and menacing with his white hair and piercing eyes. She knew he was capable of underhanded things but until this moment she hadn’t thought he was dangerous. She was wrong.
“I didn’t call anyone.”
“You’ll tell me one way or another.” He brought his hand down across her face and she saw stars as she stumbled to the floor, her head ringing from the blow.
Wallis bit hard on her knuckles but didn’t stop him as he marched up to Amelia again. She tasted salty blood on her tongue and scooted away from him, worried he’d kick her with his pointed and polished dress shoes.
“I said tell me.” He grabbed her by the arms and pulled her to her feet, his fingers digging into her skin.
Wallis said nothing but continued to watch, willing to let her be manhandled by this traitor to maintain his favor, influence, money, and power. That was all Wallis wanted, all she’d ever cared about, and she wouldn’t allow anyone, not Ernest, Mary Raffray, Alice Gordon, the Duke, not anyone she’d ever known, to get in the way of it.
Terror ripped through Amelia as much as the pain in her arms. Wallis would let him kill her if she thought it might gain her the crown.
He drew back his hand and Amelia braced for another blow when an explosion and a flash of flames from the harbor tore through the room. He let go of her and she crumpled to the floor, her ears ringing from his strike, but she heard the Spitfire engines as they roared over Shangri-La. The rat tat tat of machine-gun fire crackled through the night as the Spitfires strafed the submarine.
“We’re under attack,” Wallis screeched, as another explosion just over the dunes lit up the night sky. She turned this way and that, not knowing what to do or where to run.
One of Wenner-Gren’s men banged on the door and called to him in Swedish.
Axel removed the key from his pocket and unlocked the door. The man said something to him in Swedish and he turned to Wallis. “The house is safe. They’re attacking the harbor.”
“You don’t know that. They could change their minds at any minute and kill us all,” Wallis screeched.
“Stay with her. I’ll be back and we’ll get to the bottom of this.”
He followed his man out, leaving Wallis and Amelia alone as another explosion lit up the harbor and the room.
“I won’t stay here to be bombed to bits.” Wallis hurried past Amelia, who grabbed the silk hem of her dress, nearly tripping her. “Let go of me.”
“How dare you run, you traitor.”
“Let go!” Wallis pulled at her silk skirt but Amelia held on tight.
“You’re selfish, you’ve always been, but you won’t get the crown, do you hear me, you won’t get it.”
“Let go!” Wallis yanked so hard the dress ripped as it came free of Amelia’s tight grip. “Axel can deal with you.”
Wallis grabbed the key out of the lock and left, closing and locking the door behind her.
Amelia pulled herself off the floor, clasping the back of a chair to steady herself before she staggered to the window. Three fighter planes crisscrossed the sky above Shangri-La, and the guests scattered in terror across the sunken garden. One plane flew so low past the window, Amelia could see the pilot against the flames, and then smoke rising from the deepwater harbor.
I have to get out of here. Wallis wasn’t going to help her, and if Axel and his men came back, she’d end up at the bottom of the ocean or worse. She opened a window but iron grates blocked any chance of escape. She pushed on them but they wouldn’t budge. She searched for a latch or something that might open them but she couldn’t find anything. Amelia snatched a bronze dolphin statue off the dresser and raised it over her head, about to hit the iron, when the door clicked open behind her. She whirled around, gripping the dolphin tight, determined to fight, when Barin stepped in.
“Quick, before the planes leave and there aren’t any more distractions.”
Amelia dropped the statue and hurried after Barin out of the room. They crept along the hallway, stopping every now and then when a voice yelling in Swedish sounded too close.
Gunshots thundered in the chaos and Amelia and Barin ducked down out of sight of the windows then crept up to peek through them. Axel’s men were firing at the planes. The rest were heading to the harbor to fight the flames, dodging the guests scrambling to reach their cars.
“If we can get in the crowd, we can sneak you past his men.” Barin led her through the now empty kitchen and out a side door and around the house. They pressed against the shadow of a palm tree when Axel’s men hurried by carrying fire hose coils over their shoulders.
