Every newssheet from The Globe and Mail and the Prager Zeitung to The National Enquirer covered the long table, or lay strewn over the carpet. Every commemorative edition from Royalty and People to Hello Canada, open at 'The Kiss'. A 5000 piece jigsaw puzzle, fortunately still sealed in its box, teetered on top of the pile. What a mess!

I looked up from the smiling pictures of H.R.H. Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and his Duchess to the scowling Wilhelm Gottreich etcetera, hereditary King of Bohemia.

"Why him?" Wilhelm stabbed a thick forefinger into William's face. "We're both thirty years old. Both princes. We have the same Christian name. Tell me why he could marry a common woman and I could not?"

"Because times changed, Sir," I replied civilly. I've met three governors-general, five lieutenant-governors [with RCMP bodyguards], two mayors, eight Baker Street urchins and the shade of A. Conan Doyle. I refused to be intimidated by a non-reigning royal, even if he was six-six, wore fur in summer and had 'the chest and limbs of a Hercules'.

The king glowered at me and muttered something unintelligible and unprintable in German or Czech.

"Not that much," he then said. "His mother was the daughter of an earl. His grandfather was a prince of Greece."

"An impoverished prince."

"Did not matter. He was a prince and so eligible for a queen-to-be. Heirs to thrones do not marry misters and misses."

"Then he was brave enough to break the tradition," I retorted, then bit my lip.

The king blinked and flushed. He pointed his finger at my nose, and then curled it with the others into a fist.

I kept my chin up and held my eyes on his. He's on my turf, and I'm near the door.

Slowly, Wilhelm lowered his fist, and then sank into a chair. "Women I do not harm," he muttered.

"Irene said you would harm her. That's why she kept the picture."

"Irene knew I would do all things to prevent scandal. But so had she a hot temper and steel will. She demanded I make her queen."

He looked down at the mound of magazines. "This Katherine looks like her," he mused aloud. "Brunette, like her. Vibrant expression. Slim and pliant as a reed, but as unbreakable." He finger-stroked Kate's picture. "Ja. Her expression is like Irene's. Irene spoke what she thought and did what she spoke. William is brave to marry such a woman, and also fortunate. She could be his strength when he is King, as George VI's wife was to him. And it appears she pleases the people."

He looked from the mound of magazines to me. "I long for Irene even now. You think me a coward and a cad because I did not marry the woman I loved. But what could I have done? Marry my lover? An opera singer, from a republic without a nobility?" He tossed the magazine my way. "Look at them, waving their flags. Shouting their approval of this wedding between their royal heir and a no-one. Did they for their King Edward? In my time, they would have brandished revolvers and ropes to force me from my realm for lèse-majesté to the sacred duties expected of kings. The English courtiers forced King Edward VIII to abdicate because he was stubborn enough to want a parvenu divorceé." He smiled. "I knew Wallis. We ex-kings meet at resorts like lodge-brothers meet at conventions. She was like Irene too – American and strong-willed."

"But not beautiful."

"But she was brunette. Now they want this pretty commoner." He looked down at the picture of Prince William and his bride, so happy to be wedded, and he swallowed hard.

"Would you have done the same, if you had another chance?" I asked softly.

"Ja. Nein. I do not know. I wanted to give Irene this," he said, holding up another magazine. "The ceremony in the Cathedral. The coronation at my side. I loved her, but she was not on my exalted level."

"Perhaps she was on a higher level, Sir."

He laughed. "Nein. She was an adventuress. I mean no insult. I admire her for staking her worth so high as my throne. What a queen she would have made! A republican actress queen!"

The laugh sounded hollow to me.