Gone with the Windsors

Book excerpt: The scandalous divorcée who led the besotted Prince of Wales to abdicate his throne first appears in the fictional diary of Maybell Brumby as her schoolmate Bessie, a charity girl with pretensions and good cheekbones. "I'm Wallis," she snarls, "and if you call me anything else you're going to be sorry." One social climber swiftly recognizes another. When life's whimsical currents toss these two gilt-edged gold diggers together again as adults, history will change its course. Maybell is the wealthy, friskily young widow of a Baltimore bore, eager to break into London society. Wallis has jettisoned husband number one and is looking for the escape hatch from husband number two; impoverished as ever, she's armed only with that terrific bone structure, a few erotic tricks she's picked up in the Far East, and the determination to land the most eligible bachelor in the world. And now, to help her on her quest, she has her old chum Maybell, along with her inexhaustible trust fund and her useful inability to recognize the deft touch of a born con artist. Trailing a cloud of Worth perfume and an ermine stole, missing the point of every conversation, the deliciously dim Maybell witnesses the courtship of the twentieth century and the scandal that rocked a monarchy—recording all in her diary. As light as a meringue, as fizzy as a freshly popped bottle of champagne, Gone with the Windsors is a supremely clever entertainment.