Good. You should come see them.
I will. Busy diary this week.
After lunch, Daffy met Lucy on the path outside the servants’ hall. They followed it out the front gate and down to Centre Street.
The day possessed a healing sun, coaxing the life from nature’s long winter sleep. In a month, the walkway from the palace to the street would be lined with the white blooms of the dogwood trees.
“Let’s try the shops in Old Hamlet.” Daffy tugged on her gloves as they walked. “If we can’t find anything, we can cross over to New Hamlet. But those gowns will be so modern. I want something timeless and unique.”
“How about this? Shop Vintage.” Lucy held up the map on her phone, revealing the image of a storefront. “Can’t get a more generic name than Shop Vintage, but maybe they have something special.”
“Let’s hope they do.”
Their heels clicked against the cobblestone as they crossed to the other side. “Daff, can I ask you something?”
“Sure.” Daffy’s phone chimed with an incoming text. From Leslie Ann. She’d sent a picture of the queen in a stunning blue gown with a romantic, flowing skirt, a deep V in the back, and wide, gauzy straps.
Daffy stopped walking. The dress. The one the queen caught her wearing all those years ago. Her fingers trembled slightly as she enlarged the photo to inspect the layers of chiffon and organza that composed the skirt and fitted bodice.
“What are you looking at?” Lucy angled forward to see Daffy’s screen. “Now that’s a beautiful gown. Let’s find one likethatone for theUnknown Bride?”
A second image pinged in. Another shot of the beautiful princess who grew up to be a queen. She wore the same winning smile as her handsome second born. Daffy could almost feel the joy, the happiness as the then-princess walked toward the photographer, her hand locked with a man off camera.
Leslie Ann, what are you up to?
Where’d you find this?
My secret source. Do you know this dress? Is it part of the RT?
What secret source? No, not part of RT. I’ve not seen it.
“Do you think the queen still has that dress?” Lucy raised Daffy’s phone for a better look. “The skirt looks like it’s filled with starlight.”
“I don’t know—” Images from that day in the queen’s dressing room burst from Daffy’s locked memories.
She’d hidden there during a game of hide-n-seek with the princes. This blue gown was on the floor. She’d tried it on. And got caught. Then banned.
LA, where’d you get this photo?
An old royal reporter. But that’s all I’m saying. This is the Q’s twenty-first birthday. I want this dress! But seriously, do you know it?
No. Not at all.
So, Daffy had tried on the gown from the queen’s twenty-first. She’d never known. Was that why she was so angry? Did she spoil her memories? Did the dress relate to happier, carefree times? The queen’s youth? Of first love? Of a life before her father dropped dead of a heart attack making her a queen at thirty-three. Of a time when she was simply the young mother of princes not the mother of a nation.
Daffy read Leslie Ann’s next text.
So you’ve never seen this gown?
No. Who’s the queen with?
My source says a friend. Thanks for the help.
Why are you asking? Where’d you get this picture? Are you working on a story?
Gotta run. Miss ya! Xo
Daffy sighed and stared between the aged shops toward North Sea Channel.Leslie Ann, you promised.
