Chapter 5
It was four o'clock when the dilapidated little two-seater stopped with a sound of crunching¹ gravel².
A girl got out of it - a small slender creature with a mop of dark hair. She ran up the steps and
tugged³ at the bell. A few minutes later she was being ushered⁴ into the long stately drawing-room,
and an ecclesiastical butler was saying with the proper mournful intonation⁵, "Miss de Bellefort."
"Linnet!"
"Jackie!"
Windlesham stood a little aside, watching sympathetically as this fiery⁶ little creature flung herself
open-armed upon Linnet.
"Lord Windlesham - Miss de Bellefort - my best friend."
A pretty child, he thought - not really pretty but decidedly attractive, with her dark curly hair and
her enormous eyes. He murmured a few tactful nothings and then managed unobtrusively to leave
the two friends together.
Jacqueline pounced⁷ - in a fashion that Linnet remembered as being characteristic of her.
"Windlesham? Windlesham? That's the man the papers always say you're going to marry! Are you,
Linnet? Are you?"
Linnet murmured, "Perhaps."
"Darling - I'm so glad! He looks nice."
"Oh, don't make up your mind about it - I haven't made up my own mind yet."
"Of course not! Queens always proceed with due deliberation to the choosing of a consort⁸!"
"Don't be ridiculous, Jackie."
"But you are a queen, Linnet! You always were. Sa Majesté, la reine Linette. Linette la blonde!
And I - I'm the Queen's confidante! The trusted Maid of Honour."
"What nonsense you talk, Jackie darling! Where have you been all this time? You just disappear.
And you never write."

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