Millie gasped as the children were swept along on a tide of fabulously dressed guests into the state dining room.

‘I wonder where we’re sitting,’ Jacinta said, surveying the long table dotted with beautifully written place cards.

A footman intercepted the group and guided them to their seats.

‘You’re here, Alice-Miranda,’ Sep said, pointing to a spot at the table. He looked at the names to the right and left of her place setting. ‘Oh, that’s strange. I thought Millie would be next to you but it says Caprice is.’

Caprice smirked at Millie. ‘You must be on the other side.’

Alice-Miranda had Caprice and Lucas on either side of her, with Sep next to Lucas, while Jacinta, Sloane and Millie were sitting opposite. Edgar and Louis sat across from each other, with one of them next to Caprice and the other beside Millie.

Sloane went to pull out her chair and sit down when a footman swooped in behind her and pushed it back in towards the table, almost jamming her arm in the process.

‘Excuse me!’ Sloane glared at the man.

‘Wouldn’t you prefer to wait for Her Majesty like everyone else?’ The man’s syrupy voice was sickly sweet.

Sloane looked around and realised that everyone was standing behind their chair, waiting, as Queen Georgiana proceeded to the head of the table on Lord Adams’s arm. ‘Oops,’ she said sheepishly.

‘Peasant,’ Louis said under his breath.

Millie turned and looked at the lad. ‘If you had any manners you’d teach us the right things to do instead of being so hoity-toity.’

‘Why would I want to teach you anything?’ Louis hissed. ‘You don’t belong here.’

Millie glared at the boy and wrinkled her lip.

‘Oooh, you’re so scary,’ Louis scoffed.

Millie huffed and turned her back to the insufferable lad.

Alice-Miranda’s parents were further along the table, sitting opposite Charlotte and Lawrence, and Ambrosia Headlington-Bear was quite a way down, beside a gentleman with just about the most frightful comb-over the children had ever seen.

Queen Georgiana took her place at the head of the table and waited until Lord Adams found his seat halfway down the room, next to his wife. Once everyone was in place, Her Majesty gave a nod and, suddenly, what seemed like an army of attendants stepped forward to help everyone into their seats.

Millie noticed Bunyan staring at them from his spot behind Marjorie Plunkett. She nudged Jacinta. ‘Why is he looking at us?’ she asked.

Jacinta looked over at the man, who quickly turned away.

Alice-Miranda glanced up from the other side of the table, where she had been counting the cutlery and wondering just how many courses there were going to be at dinner. ‘What are you looking so worried about, Millie?’ she asked quietly.

Millie nodded her head towards Bunyan, who was staring in their direction again. ‘He gives me the creeps.’

‘He works here – it’s his job to be attentive,’ Alice-Miranda reasoned. Though, the child had a strange feeling about Mr Bunyan too. She couldn’t say exactly what, but there was something odd about him and the way he kept popping up all over the place. His bald head and youthful face didn’t seem to tally either. Alice-Miranda wondered if perhaps he was a fan of extreme wrinkle treatments, given the smoothness of his complexion.

A flourish of trumpets silenced the chatting guests. Thornton Thripp, who was sitting at the end of the table to Queen Georgiana’s right, stood up. ‘Good evening, Your Majesty and honoured guests. Before we begin our first course I would like to propose a toast.’ He raised his glass. ‘Long live the Queen.’

The rest of the guests were on their feet in a flash, raising their glasses towards Aunty Gee. ‘Long live the Queen!’ they chorused.

Alice-Miranda noticed that Freddy, who was sitting directly to the Queen’s left, had barely moved his lips.

Millie had seen it too. ‘Doesn’t look like Freddy’s that keen for his mother to live quite so long,’ she whispered, a little louder than she’d anticipated as the diners sat back down.

‘That’s our father you’re talking about,’ Louis snapped.

Millie turned and glared at the boy. ‘Well, he could be a bit more enthusiastic about celebrating his mother’s achievement.’

‘Why? Grandmama should stop hogging the throne and let Daddy have a turn. If she doesn’t do it soon, he won’t have that long until it will be one of us,’ Louis said.

Braxton Balfour noticed Frank Bunyan lingering behind the children. ‘For heaven’s sake, make yourself useful,’ Braxton hissed.

Startled, Bunyan looked around and snatched up a silver pitcher from the sideboard behind him.

‘Don’t just stand there with it!’ Braxton wondered where on earth the man had done his training. He didn’t seem to have a clue. Braxton watched for a moment as the new butler leaned in to refill the children’s glasses.

‘What do you mean “one of you”?’ Millie asked. ‘Don’t you have five older sisters?’

‘The boys are first in line,’ Louis said. ‘Everyone knows that.’

‘Wow, I thought we’d come out of the Dark Ages,’ Millie said. ‘Aunty Gee should –’

‘What are you doing, you numbskull?’ Louis squawked. Bunyan had just overfilled the lad’s glass and poured water all over the table.

‘I am terribly sorry, Sir.’ Bunyan grabbed a napkin and began to mop up the mess.

Braxton Balfour had heard the commotion from further down the table and charged back to see what the matter was. He glared at the man.

‘Here, Master Louis, let me clear that up,’ Braxton said. ‘Go,’ he barked at Bunyan. Braxton cleared the spill as quickly as he could, aware that he was long overdue to be back downstairs.

Meanwhile, in the kitchens, Her Majesty’s head chef wiped his brow and cursed Venetia Baldini’s selection of cheese soufflés for entree. He knew they would have to be timed to perfection and he’d been counting on Venetia to oversee that particularly tricky part of the evening meal. It was just an added complication as they were serving wild mushroom soup first for the appetiser.

Vincent Langley looked at his watch, his right eyelid twitching madly. ‘Are we ready?’ he yelled.

‘Almost, sir,’ the head chef shouted from the other side of the kitchen.

‘Hurry up, man. Thripp’s already made a toast.’ Langley pressed the earpiece further into his ear. A useful addition to the palace gadgetry, the earpiece and microphone were to enable him to keep track of what was happening upstairs and down during large dinners like the one they were hosting tonight. Trouble was, he still hadn’t decided who to trust as his man on the ground in the dining room.

At the last function they had held, Braxton Balfour had done a near-perfect job and it had been noted by Her Majesty. Vincent couldn’t risk having him feted in that way again. Tonight Vincent had given the duty to the new chap, Bunyan, who he hoped would live up to the task.

Braxton Balfour ran into the room and quickly slipped into line, hoping that Langley hadn’t noticed his absence. In an operation requiring military precision, a long line of waiters (which included footmen, butlers and just about anyone else who worked in the house) stood at attention as the chefs plated up wild mushroom soup. Her Majesty had long ago made the decision that, while her staff could have principal roles, they had to possess skills across a range of activities. The royal budget needed trimming and she wasn’t about to put her countrymen offside with unnecessary extravagances.

The head chef gave the nod of approval. ‘That’s it, Langley!’

‘Right, off you go,’ Vincent Langley barked. The waiters dived in and each filled their tray with bowls. ‘And I shouldn’t have to tell you how important it is that you to stay in order. I don’t want Mrs Marmalade complaining about getting Lady Luttrell’s gluten-free, taste-free, low-fat alternative again, do I?’

There was a mumbling of ‘no, sir’ along the line as the young men marched towards the dining room. After a fiasco at the last dinner, none of the staff wanted to be on the sharp end of Mrs Marmalade’s tongue.

The production line of waiters made their way through the vast network of kitchens, towards a door positioned right below the end of the state dining room. Guests often marvelled at the swiftness with which meals were served. Most never realised it was due to the extraordinary planning of previous monarchs. Some said that the kitchens had been extended back in Queen Georgiana’s great-great-great grandfather’s time because he couldn’t abide cold peas.

Just as the group was about to enter the dining room, the line came to an abrupt halt.

‘What’s going on up there?’ Vincent Langley hissed into his earpiece. He was poised to serve Her Majesty’s own soup and Thornton Thripp’s as well.

‘Fly, sir,’ a voice called back.

‘What fly? Where?’ Vincent Langley sputtered.

‘Kamikaze pilot, sir,’ the young man replied.

‘Oh, good heavens.’ Vincent Langley stepped out of the line and charged as quickly as he dared to the young waiter, trying not to slop any of the soup as he went.

The fellow lowered the dish so that his boss could see. ‘I think he’s doing backstroke, sir.’

‘How on earth do we have a fly down here? In all the years I’ve been at Evesbury I don’t ever remember having flies in the palace kitchens,’ Langley fumed. ‘Well, you can’t serve that, can you?’

The young waiter suppressed a cough. ‘It’s for Prince Freddy, sir.’

Braxton Balfour, who was standing a little further down the line, had to stop himself from shaking with laughter and spilling soup all over the place.

‘I don’t care who it’s for! You will not be serving fly-infested soup on my watch!’ Langley roared so loudly Balfour felt his hair ruffle. ‘Now, get back there and replace those bowls!’

‘Yes, sir.’ The young waiter scurried away like a mouse on the balls of his feet.

Unfortunately, Frank Bunyan, who was in charge of the invisible door at the end of the dining room, hadn’t realised there was a problem down below. He opened the panel, having heard something of a commotion on the other side. He could see that Queen Georgiana had already devoured her first bread roll and was beginning to look quite impatient. ‘Hurry up, Her Majesty is getting a bit tetchy,’ he whispered to the first lad in the line.

The young man hesitated, then charged through the door towards his assigned area.

Vincent Langley realised all too late that the group was on the move. ‘No, no, no, you’ll be out of order!’ he squealed.

He frantically did the calculations in his head, trying to work out how he could rescue the impending soup disaster. Little did he know that things were about to go from bad to much, much worse.