The Lacquer Lady by F. Tennyson JESSE - 1981

The book is set in the 1880's in the gem city of Mandalay during the last years of the opulent, decaying Kingdom of Burma. Into the Royal Palace, with its whispering gardens, its elaborate ritual, its savage violence, its intrigue, comes Fanny Moroni, the yough daughter of a ne'er do well British merchant and a Burmese woman. Pretty, vain, impertinent, and brave - just back from a dull boarding school in Brighton - Fanny becomes the favorite of the Burmese queen Supayalat.