The Golden Hour
From the New York Times bestselling author: a dazzling WWII epic spanning London, New York and the Bahamas and the most infamous couple of the age, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor The Bahamas, 1941. Newly-widowed Lulu Randolph arrives in Nassau to investigate the Governor and his wife for a New York society magazine whose readers have an insatiable appetite for news of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, that glamorous couple whose love affair nearly brought the British monarchy to its knees five years earlier. But beneath the glitter of Wallis and Edward’s marriage lies an ugly – and even treasonous – reality. In the middle of it all stands Benedict Thorpe: a handsome scientist of tremendous charm and murky national loyalties. When Nassau’s wealthiest man is murdered in one of the most notorious cases of the century, Lulu embarks on a journey to discover the truth behind the crime. The stories of two unforgettable women thread together in this extraordinary epic of sacrifice, human love and human courage, set against a shocking true crime… and the rise and fall of a legendary royal couple.
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Beatriz Williams
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London, SE1 9GF
First published in the UK by HarperCollinsPublishers 2019
Copyright © Beatriz Williams
Cover design by Ellie Game @HarperCollinsPublishers 2019
Cover photographs © Lee Avison/Arcangel Images (woman and foreground), Shutterstock.com (trees, hedges and background)
Beatriz Williams asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008380274
Ebook Edition © August 2019 ISBN: 9780008380281
Version: 2019-08-06
To women and men everywhere who live with depression.
You are loved. You are needed. The night will pass.
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
PART I
Lulu: December 1943 (London)
Lulu: June 1941 (The Bahamas)
Elfriede: July 1900 (Switzerland)
Lulu: July 1941 (The Bahamas)
Elfriede: August 1900 (Switzerland)
Lulu: July 1941 (The Bahamas)
Elfriede: September 1900 (Switzerland)
Lulu: July 1941 (The Bahamas)
PART II
Lulu: December 1943 (London)
Elfriede: October 1900 (Germany)
Lulu: December 1941 (The Bahamas)
Elfriede: November 1900 (Germany)
Lulu: December 1941 (The Bahamas)
PART III
Lulu: December 1943 (London)
Elfriede: June 1905 (Florida)
Lulu: June 1942 (The Bahamas)
Elfriede: July 1905 (Florida)
Lulu: June 1942 (The Bahamas)
Elfriede: August 1905 (Berlin)
PART IV
Lulu: December 1943 (Scotland)
Lulu: July 1943 (The Bahamas)
Elfriede: June 1916 (Scotland)
Lulu: July 1943 (The Bahamas)
Elfriede: August 1916 (Scotland)
Lulu: December 1943 (Scotland)
Lulu: July 1943 (The Bahamas)
Lulu: December 1943 (Scotland)
PART V
Lulu: November 1943 (The Bahamas)
PART VI
Ursula: January 1944 (Germany)
Lulu: March 1944 (Switzerland)
Elfriede: March 1944 (Switzerland)
Epilogue. Lulu: June 1951 (RMS Queen Mary, At Sea)
Historical Note
Acknowledgments
Keep Reading …
About the Author
Also by Beatriz Williams
About the Publisher
In August 1940, the Duke of Windsor is appointed governor of the Bahamas by his brother, George VI, on the recommendation of Winston Churchill.
While the former king feels the appointment is beneath his station, he accepts, in the expectation that loyal service in this colonial outpost will lead to more prestigious assignments in the future.
But despite an exemplary public record of governorship for the duration of the Second World War, and the energetic support of the Duchess of Windsor as the governor’s wife, the duke is never again asked to serve his country in an official capacity.
IN THE FOYER of the Basil Hotel in Cadogan Gardens, atop the tea-colored wallpaper, a sign advises guests that blackout hours will be observed strictly. Another sign reminds us that enemy ears are listening. The wallpaper’s crowded with tiny orange flowers that seem to have started out life as pink, and they put me in mind of a story I once read about a woman who stares at the wallpaper in her room until she goes batty. Although that wallpaper was yellow, as I recall, so I may have some time to go.
I consult my watch. Three twenty-two.
Outside the windows, the air’s darkening fast. Some combination of coal smoke and December fog and the early hour at which the sun goes down at this latitude, as if the wallpaper and the signboards and the piles of rubble across the street aren’t enough to make you melancholy. I check the watch again—three twenty-three, impossible—and my gaze happens to catch that of the desk clerk. He’s examining me over the top of a rickety pair of reading glasses, because he hasn’t liked the look of me from the beginning. Why should he? A woman shows up at your London hotel in the middle of December, the middle of wartime, tanned skin, American accent, unmistakable scent of the foreign about her. She pays for her room in advance and carries only a small suitcase. Now she’s awaiting some no-good rendezvous, right in the middle of your dank, shabby, respectable foyer, and you ought to telephone the authorities, just to be on the safe side. In fact, you probably
