Miranda
If he suspected her of spying, she hadn’t a clue what she’d do.
Her last article had caused a stir – she’d included a titbit about Philip’s lunches and weekends away – and the palace was looking for the leak.
Sinclair was an astute man, and he might even wonder if she was the notorious J.
Marshall. Then her palace job would be over.
How careless she’d been, not thinking of the risks.
Also on her mind was another conundrum.
What would Sinclair say or do about what had passed between them?
She blanched as she thought of their almost kissing.
It was an image she had reimagined countless times throughout the night, each time with varying degrees of complete mortification, annoyance with herself for putting so much on the line, all underlaid with a despicable exhilaration: How might it have felt to actually kiss him?
This was quickly pushed aside. Physical attraction was a base, pointless exercise.
She was infuriated with her body for being so treacherous as to even be tempted by someone other than Jack.
Yet, she deliberated, if Sinclair was indeed attracted to her, wouldn’t he be more likely to think her innocent?
A little romancing might be needed to throw him off the scent.
As she forced her thoughts back to her work, she barely noticed Sinclair’s arrival, spotting him in the corner of her eye as he walked straight to his desk, not even stopping to say hello.
So ready had she been with excuses as to why she was inside the minister’s boardroom that she hadn’t anticipated that he might not immediately seek her out. And so she sat, studiously trying to appear absorbed in her own work while not reading a word.
That is, until a reprise came from an unlikely source.
A few of the junior civil servants were gathered, as usual, discussing some plan or other, and when one of them used an incredibly mild curse word, Hilda’s voice rang clearly through the room. ‘With language like that, perhaps you’d be better off working for the London sewerage.’
Covering her mouth to stop herself from laughing, Miranda looked across to one of the men, who had let out a guffaw of mirth, making everyone want to laugh all the more.
And it was then, as she looked across the room, that her eyes met Sinclair’s, just briefly, their acknowledgement of the hilarity subduing quickly as the connection transformed into something else, something more unsure.
But then the spell between her and Sinclair seemed to break, the connection between them gone as they both shook themselves and refocused on their work.
And yet, after that, when she found her eyes straying over to him, he looked up, too, as if sensing her gaze.
In the middle of the morning, they both were in a meeting with Villiers, who was as arrogant yet useless as ever. Miranda found herself exchanging glances with Sinclair as Villiers proclaimed, ‘I have been working night and day, single-handedly organizing these stands.’
And then later in the day, as she passed Sinclair in the corridor, he brushed his hand next to hers so lightly it was impossible to know if it had been on purpose.
It wasn’t until evening, her table lamp throwing a cone of light onto her desk, that the last people in the office packed their things for the night, leaving them alone.
At first, Sinclair kept working, and she did likewise, determined to let him come to her first.
He could, however, have been thinking the same thing, as it was almost an hour before he began to clear his desk, quietly closing his briefcase and walking to the door.
For a moment, she panicked that he was going to leave without saying a word.
And when he glanced around at her, she didn’t have time to look away, pretend she wasn’t watching.
There was a flicker of a smile on his face as he whispered, ‘Are you coming?’
Something in the simplicity of this statement, the coy confidence, made her rise to her feet. Jokingly, she replied, ‘I thought you’d never ask.’
‘I wasn’t sure if you’d be interested,’ he mused while he waited for her to fetch her coat. ‘I wondered if you were only available for meetings trapped inside the minister’s office.’
She laughed as casually as she could. ‘An error on my part. Villiers never gives me the details I need, so I have to creep around and get them myself. I thought I could pop in and out without anyone seeing.’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘You could have been in serious trouble if you were caught, especially with the rumours of someone talking to the press.’
Quickly, she averted her eyes. ‘Thank you for keeping quiet in that stupid closet. I’d imagine that special favours like that would be below your rank.’ She tried to laugh it off.
A frown flickered across his features, and she remembered how much he had put on the line, too – his Rome posting would depend on good behaviour.
But then he smiled. ‘It was worth it, just to see you squirm with the fear of being caught. I never thought I’d see you lose your composure, but underneath all that bravado, you’re just as human as the rest of us, aren’t you?’
With a touch of laughter, his eyes met hers, and she followed him to the door.
Sinclair tapped a folder he had tucked under one arm. ‘I have to deliver some papers to one of the state rooms for the morning, if you’d like to come with me?’
Interested to see more of the palace, she agreed, and soon they were slipping into a grand room housing a long, polished mahogany table, gold glinting from ornate coving and gilded furniture.
As Sinclair began to lay documents before each chair, Miranda gazed up at a portrait of the first Queen Elizabeth, looking young yet shrewd as she clasped a golden orb and a sceptre.
‘Do you see the crown she’s wearing?’ Sinclair had joined her.
‘That’s the St Edward’s Crown, used by Edward the Confessor in 1048.
They remodelled it in 1661, which will be the one our Queen Elizabeth will wear.
’ Then he added as an aside, ‘Although she won’t have it on for long periods; it weighs five pounds. ’
‘Ouch,’ Miranda muttered.
‘The queen’s been borrowing it to practise wearing it around the palace. After the service, they’ll change to the Imperial State Crown, a kind of everyday crown at only three pounds.’
‘You don’t think someone might try to steal one of them?’ she asked. A missing crown would make a great headline. ‘It would be worth good money if you melt it down, not to mention the chaos at the coronation. Can you even have a coronation without a crown?’
‘The security is too tight. In any case, it could be replaced with one of the other crowns if need be. The monarchy owns dozens of the things.’
Miranda smiled. ‘You could become a tour guide if you ever lost your diplomatic job.’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘I don’t intend to lose my job.’
She hadn’t met anyone before who could manage a conversation so skilfully. Where she was headstrong and opinionated, he was considered and measured. And she realized how little she knew about him, how much he kept hidden.
‘They’ll use the same golden orb and sceptre at the queen’s coronation, too.’ Sinclair pointed at the portrait. ‘They’re hundreds of years old. It’s part of what will make Elizabeth into a real monarch.’
‘But don’t you think it’s ludicrous, giving her a selection of symbolic medieval finery and calling her a queen?’
‘That’s its beauty, that it doesn’t make sense.
’ Sinclair smiled. ‘A century ago, The Economist’s editor, a man called Bagehot, said that the monarchy’s mystery is what keeps it going.
’ Sinclair fixed his eyes on the portrait as he recalled the quotation.
‘He said, “Don’t let in the daylight upon the magic,” meaning that we have to keep up the illusion, use mystical and symbolic objects to make it look like some kind of spiritual ordination from God. ’
‘Isn’t that cheating, using tricks to make people believe?’
He shrugged. ‘I suppose so, but the queen has to do a good job these days, too. A century ago it was easy to pull the wool over people’s eyes, but now the monarchy has to work hard and show that it’s worth it.’
‘Or they could face a revolution.’
Sinclair nodded. ‘That’s why Philip’s so keen to keep the monarchy trim and hardworking. His family were ousted from Greece when he was a baby, and he wouldn’t want a repeat of that.’
The thought crossed her mind that perhaps she’d been too quick to judge Philip in her article – well, J. Marshall’s article.
They went down the back stairs, headed to the staff door and then out onto the street.
‘Do you think they have a good marriage, the queen and Philip?’
‘By all accounts it was a love match. The queen’s been head over heels for him since she first set eyes on him aged thirteen. Fortuitously, he happened to be royalty, too.’
‘Did Elizabeth have to marry a prince?’
‘Well, her father married a British aristocrat, so not necessarily a prince. It made things easy, I suppose. They’re distantly related, which must be a little odd, both of them great-great grandchildren of Queen Victoria.’
‘How curious! But it must have been a big decision for him, to marry a woman who would be queen. He knew he’d have to play second fiddle, give up his life for the crown. And what does he get in return?’
‘Not a great deal,’ he said thoughtfully.
‘He hates living in the palace, never being able to get away from his wife’s family and advisors.
The servants drive him mad – recently he began a footman training programme to bring them into the twentieth century.
He must truly love her, not to mention his children, to put up with it.
But I suppose he never had much of a family life, with his own scattered across Europe.
Here with Elizabeth, this is his family, his home. ’
The thought lingered inside Miranda’s mind. Is love where we find our home?