The Secret Years Read online

  Her grooming was faultless, her eyebrows elegantly arched, her lovely eyes and lips made up to perfection. The shot was only of her head and shoulders, but she was wearing a beautiful fur and pearls and there was a tantalising glimpse of her evening dress, which looked very sophisticated with dark leaves embroidered dramatically onto a sheer background.

  ‘Wow,’ Lucy whispered, deeply fascinated. ‘Who are you?’

  She could feel her heart beating faster as she turned the photo over, hoping to find a clue on the back. A message was handwritten in black ink.

  To Dearest Harry,

  Remember me, won’t you?

  Love,

  George

  3

  The procession of motor vehicles crept at a snail’s pace down the Mall towards Buckingham Palace. Impatiently, the Honourable Georgina Lenton sat stiffly beside her aunt in the back of her father’s Rolls Royce and desperately tried to ignore the curious crowds lining the footpath.

  The onlookers were all in good spirits, peering in through the windows, waving and blowing kisses, but despite their goodwill, Georgina didn’t enjoy being stared at. She just wished she could reach the palace gates quickly and have the ordeal of being presented at court over and done with.

  For weeks she’d been standing around, going blue with cold, while fussy dressmakers fiddled with pins. She’d also suffered dance classes, learning how to do the dreaded curtsey with a curtain fastened to her shoulders in lieu of the train she wore now.

  ‘Left foot behind and keep your back perfectly straight,’ Miss Betty of the Vacani School of Dancing had instructed, over and over. ‘Now sink and rise in one smooth and fluid motion.’

  Georgina had borne the classes stoically, and she had to admit she rather liked the results of her dressmaker’s efforts, especially this evening’s gown – an off-the-shoulder, fairytale affair in white silk with a full skirt and a sweet little black net rose sewn at the waist. Now, however, Georgina faced not only this evening’s trial of making her appearance before the King and Queen, which brought the immediate fear of wobbling in the curtsey or tripping on her train, but also the whole frenetic, bothersome season that stretched out in front of her.

  The long summer months would be filled with night after night of parties and balls, a prospect that might have been enjoyable if the primary objective of these parties hadn’t been ‘meeting the right people’. Decoded, this meant that Georgina’s parents expected her to charm as many eligible and preferably titled young gentlemen as possible, and to bag one of them as her husband.

  The pressure started as soon as her family arrived in London and moved into their house in Mayfair. Her mother, Lady Lavinia Lenton, had set to work immediately, giving and attending luncheons with the express purpose of exchanging lists of marriageable candidates with the other debutantes’ mothers.

  Georgina found the whole business embarrassing and tedious, not all that different from a livestock sale, although in this case, the stock in question comprised a mob of pretty girls with fashionably arched brows, languid eyes and bee-stung lips.

  Unfortunately, her parents had never asked her if she wanted to do the season. They’d more or less assumed that she was dying to enter society and they would have been appalled if she’d told them she would prefer to stay quietly on her father’s country estate in Cornwall, spending her days in comfortable kilts and jerseys, or her riding habit.

  ‘Chin up, my darling,’ said Georgina’s aunt, Lady Cora Harlow. Looking utterly splendid in a glittering diamond tiara and earrings, she turned to Georgina and gave her an encouraging smile. ‘It won’t be long before we’re in the forecourt and away from these crowds. Then we can have a sandwich and a cup of soup from the thermos.’

  Georgina shivered, cold, despite her fur wrap and the hot water bottle she was hugging under her lap rug. This year, the presentation of debutantes had been shifted from May to chilly March to accommodate the King and Queen’s plans to travel to America. This March night was freezing and she would be grateful for something hot to drink.

  ‘You look as miserable as I was for my coming out,’ her aunt said next and Georgina stared at her in surprise. Then she dropped her gaze, embarrassed that her negative feelings had been so easy to read, but also a little shocked that Lady Cora would say such a thing.

  Georgina had been brought up to keep her emotions well hidden. A stiff upper lip was expected in her family’s circles, and no matter how much she disliked this evening’s ordeal, she would never dream of complaining. Besides, she couldn’t possibly complain after all the money Mummy had spent on her.

  She knew she should be grateful. Her sister, Alice, had been the perfect daughter when she’d come out last year. While Georgina was being ‘finished’ in Paris, living with a family who had helped her to polish up her French, Alice had adored every minute of the season, especially her own coming out dance, and she’d collected a string of impressive beaus.

  The beaus were impressive on paper, at least, with pots of money and a pleasing array of titles, but Georgina had met most of these chaps and she thought they were rather lacklustre in the flesh. Rather pale and unexciting and dull. Nevertheless, Alice had dutifully fallen in love and there was soon to be an engagement announcement. Their mother was incredibly pleased.

  Now, Georgina was expected to follow her sister’s excellent example.

  ‘You weren’t really miserable, were you?’ she asked her aunt. Lady Cora couldn’t have had a miserable season. With her sparkling dark eyes and glossy brown hair, she always looked lovely, and so elegant and poised, with an air of serene enjoyment. And she never had any problem with making polite or interesting conversation.

  It was for these very reasons that Lady Lenton had asked Cora to stand in as Georgina’s sponsor, given that the rules wouldn’t allow the same sponsor to appear in court two years in a row.

  Admittedly, Georgina didn’t know her aunt particularly well, even though she was her father’s sister. Cora had married Lord Harlow’s son, Edward, and the two of them had taken off soon after their wedding to run a plantation in the South Pacific. Even though Uncle Edward had recently inherited his father’s title and estate, he and Cora still spent most of their time on the other side of the world.

  So, although her aunt was charming and an appropriately respectable, titled Englishwoman, she also carried a slight aura of mystique and, for Georgina, an air of the exotic.

  Watching Georgina now, Lady Cora smiled again. ‘I don’t suppose I was miserable exactly, but I was certainly bored. Like you, I was brought up in the country and that’s such a different lifestyle, isn’t it?’

  ‘Completely,’ Georgina agreed. ‘And so much more fun.’

  ‘Your father and I had so much freedom when we were young,’ Cora added warmly. ‘We practically ran wild, riding our ponies everywhere and climbing enormous pine trees, exploring the riverbanks, making friends with the shepherds.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Georgina knew exactly what her aunt meant. Her childhood had been very similar. In fact, until she was ten, her very best friend had been their gamekeeper’s son and she’d adored him. His name was Rob and Georgina had convinced him to call her George. Together they’d had so many adventures. Rob had taught her how to tickle trout and find a badger’s sett.

  ‘When I came to London,’ Lady Cora went on, ‘I was bored to death – until I met Teddy, of course.’

  ‘So you met Uncle Edward during the season? At a party?’

  Cora smiled, looking past the crowds into the distance, as if she was captured by a very pleasant memory. ‘Teddy wasn’t really making much of an effort on the party circuit. He certainly wasn’t dancing. It hadn’t been long since he’d lost his arm.’

  It had happened in the war, Georgina remembered. ‘In Belgium, wasn’t it?’

  Lady Cora nodded. ‘Yes, at the Somme.’ With a little shudder, she pulled the collar of her ermine coat higher under her chin till there was only a hint of the peacock blue satin gown beneath. �
�Dear heaven,’ she said. ‘I’m so disappointed in Neville Chamberlain telling us now that his appeasement hasn’t worked. I’m still praying that we’re not about to have another despicable war.’

  Georgina fervently hoped so, too, although Monsieur Reynard, the father of the family she’d stayed with in Paris, was convinced that another war with Germany was imminent.

  ‘Anyway, I met Teddy at Cynthia Kingsley’s dance in Belgravia,’ Lady Cora said, continuing her story. ‘I wandered outside to get some fresh air and more or less bumped into him lurking in the shadows. He was hiding behind a Corinthian column, trying to light a cigarette, but the poor boy was still getting used to only having one arm and he was in all sorts of bother dealing with the match.’

  ‘So you lit his cigarette for him,’ supplied Georgina, leaning forward and smiling broadly at the thought. ‘How jolly romantic.’

  She could so easily imagine it. There was still something strikingly attractive about Uncle Teddy. He wasn’t merely tall and slim and suntanned, he was also confident, charming and gracious. There was usually a hint of amusement in his eyes, too, as if he regularly saw the funny side of life and, despite his missing arm, or perhaps because of it, he carried an added air of adventure about him.

  ‘Meeting Teddy was very romantic, actually.’ Lady Cora’s dark eyes shone. ‘Straight out of a fairytale. One of those moments when you look into a man’s eyes and just know —’ She stopped as the Rolls Royce suddenly turned. ‘Oh, good, we’re going in at last.’

  Georgina swallowed and sat up straighter as they drove through the tall iron gates and into the forecourt of Buckingham Palace. And now, for the first time since the procession had begun, she felt nervous. She glanced again at her aunt, who looked so beautiful and glamorous and relaxed, not fussing or frowning the way her mother would have been.

  I want to be like you.

  The thought was a mere impulse, but almost immediately Georgina reached a decision. She would not let this season wear her down and she would not end it with an engagement ring on her finger – unless she found a man who completely swept her away.

  Yes, she was prepared to flirt with the young men and to ‘play the game’ through the summer, but she was not going to marry simply to please her parents.

  She supposed it was foolishly romantic, but she wanted an experience like Cora and Teddy’s. She wanted to look into a man’s eyes and to know.

  4

  Another hour crawled by while the debutantes and their sponsors stood around, chatting and waiting in the forecourt. Fortunately, the tedium didn’t quite quell the buzz of excitement among the girls, most of whom Georgina had met at the dancing school and at various afternoon teas hosted by their mothers.

  The debutantes looked beautiful, like exotic moths, with their fur wraps over white, cream or palest pink gowns and teamed with elbow-length gloves of the finest white kid. Each girl also held a floral bouquet, and wore the requisite headdress made from three white ostrich feathers while keeping her train carefully looped over her left arm.

  Georgina’s train had been made from her mother’s wedding veil and her sister Alice had worn it the year before.

  ‘Let’s hope it brings you good luck, just as it did for Alice and me,’ her mother had said as she’d watched Hettie, Georgina’s maid, carefully pin the train in place and then hide the pins beneath a pretty pearl headband.

  Georgina had smiled dutifully at this not-so-subtle reminder that she was expected to secure a rich husband by the end of the summer. Looking around now at the other girls, she wondered if they felt burdened by the same weight of maternal expectation. They didn’t seem bothered. Most of them looked as if they just wanted to have a jolly good time.

  And yet . . . there was a competitive undertone to the evening that was hard to ignore and Georgina was relieved to see her oldest and best friend, Primrose Cavendish, finally arrive in the courtyard. The Cavendish and Lenton families both owned estates in Cornwall. In fact they were practically neighbours and the girls had shared a governess for several years.

  This evening, however, Primrose was almost unrecognisable.

  ‘My goodness, you look so grown up and glamorous,’ Georgina told her as they kissed.

  Primrose’s hair, normally a mass of wild, glossy brown curls, had been magically tamed for the evening into the latest style of smooth, dramatic waves.

  Primrose merely laughed and rolled her eyes. ‘It’s all thanks to tons and tons of hair lacquer. I only hope it holds till I’m out of the Throne Room.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure it will. You look wonderful.’

  ‘Are you nervous?’ asked Primrose.

  ‘A bit. What about you?’

  ‘Not really. I can’t afford to be.’ Primrose shot a glance back at the Bentley she’d arrived in. ‘My mother’s being nervous for both of us.’

  ‘Oh.’ Georgina gave her friend a smile of sympathy and thought again how lucky she was to have the calming company of Lady Cora.

  It was ages before a court official arrived to invite them inside. Then there was an excited fluttering of debutantes as they once again paired with their mothers and sponsors.

  ‘So, here we go,’ said Lady Cora, with an encouraging wink. ‘Not too long now before it’s all over and you can enjoy a well-earned supper and some fun.’

  Georgina had never been inside the palace, so she couldn’t hold back a gasp of surprise when she saw the grandeur. She was used to stately homes and to glamorous London hotels, but the red and gold sumptuousness was far grander than anything she’d ever seen before.

  The proportions were impressive. The carpets and gilt-framed paintings were positively enormous, the ornate ceiling so very, very high, and the chandeliers huge and glittering. Ahead of the girls, a red-carpeted staircase, lined by Yeomen of the Guard, led to the next gallery and, somewhere beyond, the Throne Room. All of it was breathtakingly beautiful and splendid.

  The scent of lilies and carnations drifted on the night air as a footman in a white powdered wig stepped forward to receive their wraps. From above floated the strains of music from a military band. Every detail combined into an atmosphere so dazzling, it was impossible to resist its spell.

  Georgina sent up a silent prayer. Please don’t let me trip or make a fool of myself.

  The debutantes ascended the stairs with due pomp and ceremony and were seated in the White Drawing Room, the last staging post before the Throne Room.

  Excitement was building, building . . .

  Until Primrose Cavendish let out a cry of pure panic.

  ‘Oh, good heavens, no, I can’t find my card. I – Oh, help. I’ve lost it.’

  There was a collective gasp of horror from the girls and sponsors seated near her. The Card of Command was absolutely vital for admittance to the Throne Room. One simply couldn’t enter without it.

  Poor Primrose’s mother let out an agonised moan. ‘You can’t be presented if you’ve lost it,’ she wailed.

  ‘I know, I know, but it’s not here! It’s gone.’ Primrose had scrambled to her feet. Her big brown eyes were already filling with tears as she frantically searched under the gold chair where she’d been seated, then in the posy she carried, in the folds of her train. ‘It’s not here,’ she cried again, her voice high-pitched and desperate with panic. ‘It’s not anywhere. It’s simply vanished.’

  Georgina’s stomach was hollow. This was most debutantes’ worst nightmare. So much importance was placed on this upper-class rite of passage, and they’d endured such a huge build-up to this night with all the fuss about gowns and all the planning of parties and balls. To miss out on the presentation at this point was unthinkable.

  Primrose’s mother, the Honourable Hermione Cavendish, a nervy woman at the best of times, now gave another moan and looked deathly pale, as if she was on the very verge of fainting.

  ‘Did you definitely bring the card with you?’ Georgina asked Primrose.

  ‘Yes, yes, I know I had it with me when we were out in the
forecourt.’

  ‘Then you must have dropped it. Perhaps it slipped from your hand when you were taking off your wrap.’

  Primrose gave her a grateful, if watery, smile. ‘Yes, that might be what happened. But gosh, how can I possibly get it back now?’

  ‘We’ll ask one of the staff to search for it,’ said Lady Cora calmly, while Hermione Cavendish sobbed and whimpered into a lace handkerchief.

  Georgina looked at the empty rows at the front of the room. The chairs’ occupants had already been presented. Now that the official ceremony had actually begun, matters were proceeding rather swiftly and smoothly, and the staff appeared to be occupied elsewhere, or were busy at the door to the Throne Room.

  As Georgina had been with Primrose for most of the evening, she felt a measure of responsibility.

  There was no time to spare.

  ‘It will probably be quicker if I slip downstairs,’ she said. After all, Primrose was too shaken to think straight and her mother was in no state to do anything but cry.

  Already on her feet, Georgina set her own card and bouquet of pink and cream roses on her chair. ‘I’ll be back in a blink.’

  ‘Georgina, darling, I don’t think —’ her Aunt Cora began, but Georgina didn’t stay to hear the rest. Ignoring the shocked stares of the other debutantes and their mothers, she hurried out of the drawing room and, holding her train in one hand, her skirt in the other, she rushed unceremoniously down the long, grand staircase.

  When a yeoman stepped forward with a forbidding frown, she told him quickly, ‘Primrose Cavendish has lost her card, and we’ve got to find it.’ With that, she hurried past him, praying that she didn’t trip and break her neck.

  ‘Have you seen a card?’ she called to the footmen as she reached the bottom of the staircase. ‘A Card of Command for Primrose Cavendish?’ But her heart sank as the men looked at her with puzzled frowns and shook their heads.

  Slightly breathless from her downstairs dash, she scanned the red and gold carpets covering most of the reception hall’s floor area. Surely a pink card would stand out if it had fallen?