My latest novel, The Last Dance of the Debutante, is out now in Canada and will release to the rest of the world on January 4th! To celebrate, I’m releasing an exclusive excerpt from the book.
Lily stood and followed the stream of girls, her heart pounding as she reached the door of the Ball Supper Room. Just steps away, she knew Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh sat, waiting patiently as every debutante that day made her curtsy. All at once, everything she’d been taught since she’d left school to prepare to come out fled from her mind. She might have been petrified if it had not been for a stronger, baser knowledge that to freeze now would be to show weakness. Weakness that a roomful of girls all jostling and striving would surely scent.
When she reached the door where Lieutenant Colonel Terence Nugent, the lord chamberlain, stood, she held her “To Be Presented” card out.
“Thank you, Miss Nicholls,” the lord chamberlain said, reading her name from the card.
She dipped her head, preparing herself. A hand fell on her elbow. She looked behind her to find Leana, beautiful and glowing under the light of the thousands of crystals hanging from the chandeliers above.
“Good luck,” said Leana.
“And to you,” Lily whispered.
Turning back, Lily waited for the lord chamberlain’s signal. Then she began to walk.
Her eyes fixed on the figure of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, who sat high on a dais, their thrones topped by a brilliant red canopy. They looked every bit the handsome couple she’d seen in newspapers and on the television at Aunt Angelica’s home: her dignified and regal, him handsome and perhaps a touch roguish. Slightly to the side sat Princess Margaret, impossibly glamorous as she looked on with a cool expression.
“Miss Lillian Nicholls,” she heard her name announced.
Lily took a deep breath and stopped in front of the Queen on the little white dot on the carpet Madame Vacani had promised her would be there. Careful to keep her gloved hands to her sides and her heel out of her skirts as they pooled to the floor, she dropped into her curtsy. Down, down she sank, her eyes cast slightly low in obeisance. Her left knee locked behind her right and—miracle of miracles—she managed to make her sweeping curtsy without a wobble.
Delicately Lily rose, took three steps, and repeated her curtsy to the Duke of Edinburgh. This time she chanced a flicker of a glance up at the Queen and her husband. They sat, polite expressions frozen on royal faces.
Lily forced herself to walk with the same controlled grace that she’d exhibited when she entered the ballroom. But when she reached the open door and was at last out of the royal presence, she placed a steadying hand on her pounding heart. The ceremony had lasted only a moment, but it contained in it an eternity in which every possible thing could go wrong. Still, Lillian Nicholls had survived, and now she was out in the world.
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