by Wendy Holden
‘I’m sorry, Mummy.’ The Crown Prince lowered his dirty dark head to hers. ‘I got delayed. I was helping Etienne with a cow case and—’
‘Cow case?’ Astrid echoed.
‘I couldn’t not go.’ His eyes searched hers, pleading for understanding. ‘The animal was in pain. It was just mastitis, quite simple really—’
‘But your clothes!’ Astrid gasped in horror. Filth caked the formerly polished gold butons, and there were various slimes of unimaginable origin on the epaulettes. Max’s shoes, previously gleaming with a mirror-like brilliance, were now covered, along with his trouser bottoms, with something brown, squishy and evil-smelling. His hands were smeared with mud – or worse – and his fingernails were black.
‘The problem is, dairy cows tend to fire from behind without warning . . .’ Max was saying apologetically.
Engelbert was apoplectic. It was an insult to the crown, the throne, the armed services and everything else he could think of. And most especially to himself. He ground his teeth within his jaw.
But he was the King. He must not reveal his feelings. If he affected not to notice the mess, it followed that no one else could either. He cleared his throat and turned to the guest as if nothing had happened. ‘Countess, may I have the, ahem, pleasure of presenting my, ahem, son . . .’
He looked around him. Where was she? The ice blonde with the glum expression was nowhere to be seen. Engelbert glared at the Lord Chamberlain. ‘Well?’
The Lord Chamberlain had been a senior soldier; he did not baulk in the face of bad news. ‘She’s gone, Your Majesty,’ he confessed, jerking his head erect and meeting the monarch’s eye with his own unflinching orb. ‘Made rather a hasty exit. Don’t think she appreciated the smell.’
The King slapped his forehead in exasperation. ‘Damn it. Damn it!’ He turned furiously to his son. ‘Six o’clock,’ he snapped. ‘In my office. I think we’d better have another talk.’
Back to square one, Hippolyte thought dolefully as he scuttled back to his own office and sought protection behind the bastion of his desk. It was large and ornate, with bulging sides and gold handles, festooned with inlay and topped with gold-tooled green leather to which his fleshy arms tended to stick in hot weather like this.
He had taken his jacket off in concession to the boiling heat and it hung on the back of the antique dining chair before his desk. He stared, unseeing, at the smart Parisian label. What now? the private secretary wondered in terror. What could he do?
The small gold ormolu carriage clock on the mantelpiece had been a gift from the monarch to mark his tenth year at the Palace, and it was at this that Monsieur Hippolyte now glanced. It was only eleven in the morning. A depressingly long way from cocktail time.
On the small bar in the corner, rows of cut-crystal tumblers winked invitingly from behind a small decorative rail. Behind them were stoppered decanters of gin and whisky. In seven hours’ time, a footman bringing a small silver ice bucket would rap at the oak double doors. Then Hippolyte would take the silver tongs and the sliced lemon and pour himself a stiff one. Then another.
But Monsieur Hippolyte could not wait until then. He desperately wanted a drink now. He needed one, and if he didn’t have one he’d be down at Madame Whiplash’s later, and he absolutely had to stop that. If he didn’t, eventually it would reach the ears of the King. Perhaps it would anyway. Perhaps it had . . .
Seized by a sudden hysterical panic, Hippolyte staggered to his feet and lurched towards the bar.
‘There is another possibility, you know,’ Astrid said that night as she sat at her dressing table, brushing her pale blond hair over her shoulders.
‘There is?’ Engelbert groaned from the great four-poster where even two large double brandies had been unable to soothe the agitation of the day. The interview with Max had been inconclusive. Even though he had been the one doing all the talking – or shouting – Engelbert had a feeling he had not won the argument.
Astrid replaced the silver-backed hairbrush on the gilt and walnut dressing table. ‘I was talking to Stonker Shropshire this afternoon,’ she remarked neutrally.
Beneath the linen sheets, the King stiffened, as always when Stonker Shropshire was mentioned. That smooth-tongued English bastard. ‘What did he say?’ he growled.
‘You know he has a daughter, Tara?’
‘Ye-es,’ Engelbert said carefully. Desperate though he was for his son to marry, he drew the line at any offspring of Stonker Shropshire’s. The thought of the urbane British aristocrat swanking around Sedona, dominating events and attracting all available attention, was too hideous to contemplate. The King hoped Astrid was not about to suggest that the two families unite. His fear that they might have already was never far from the surface these days as his wife got ever more testy and withdrawn.
‘Tara’s engaged to Lord Kensington,’ the Queen continued, much to her husband’s relief.
‘Oh. Pity.’ The King tried to sound sincere.
‘But Stonker tells me she has a very pretty friend.’ Astrid shook her hair and leant forward to rub in a blob of night cream. ‘Well connected, single, very beautiful and apparently perfect for our purposes.’
‘Titled?’ demanded the King.
‘Yes.’
‘Beautiful?’
‘Very.’
‘Rich? She’s got to be rich. No point otherwise.’
‘Very rich.’
‘Who?’ demanded Engelbert excitedly.
Astrid took a deep breath. ‘She’s English. She’s young. And yes, before you ask, she’s almost certainly capable of child-bearing, but of course it’s a bit difficult to check that sort of thing these days . . .’
‘Name?’ demanded the King, waving all this aside impatiently.
‘Her name,’ the Queen said, ‘is Lady Florence Trevorigus-Whyske-Cleethorpe.’
Chapter 36
After the disaster of the auction, having extracted from Alexa a promise that she would henceforth do exactly as instructed, Barney was soon busily plotting their rise upwards again.
They were both in Barney’s sitting room, which was shaking under the force of Richmond’s bass speaker from above. Alexa was attempting for the umpteenth time to get the Highcastle mud off her suede boots.
Barney was sitting in his Brideshead dressing gown, his Montblanc pen poised over a copy of Tatler, which he was cross-referencing with his well-thumbed copy of Burke’s Peerage. He looked the picture of calm contentment as he perused a piece Alexa had read yesterday; a glowing account of an aristocratic birthday party held on Cap Ferrat. The photographs of the ornate belle époque villa with its jasmine-scented and palm-shaded gardens and enormous underlit swimming pool, and the elegant guests who had converged on it for the celebrations, had sent bitterness convulsing through her.
Ed Whyske was, after all, poised to inherit just such a place; had everything gone according to plan, she herself would have been standing, as the hostess in the pictures was standing, in an expensively simple white column dress at the top of a graceful sweep of stairs.
‘You’re frowning,’ Barney chided, looking up suddenly. ‘Remember that your face is your fortune.’
Alexa did her best to smooth out her agitated features with her fingertips. ‘I’m just a bit worried about what happens next,’ she grumbled.
Barney put down his magazine, put his fingertips together and smiled. ‘Obvious, I would have thought,’ he said.
It wasn’t obvious to Alexa.
Barney raised the magazine and waved it at her. ‘The South of France. The Riviera.’
‘The Riviera?’
‘Can’t imagine why I didn’t think of it before!’ Barney rose to his slipper-clad feet. ‘We might be finished – for the moment – in London—’
‘More than London,’ Alexa put in resentfully. ‘We’re finished all over the bloody country. Not to mention the whole of cyberspace since you-know-who texted the whole of Burke’s Peerage about us.’
Barney smiled serenely. ‘All the mo
re reason to temporarily remove ourselves. There are no end of avenues to explore in the South.’ He raised his plump pink fingers and began counting them off. ‘The yacht crowd in Saint-Tropez and Cap Ferrat, for a start. The Hotel du Cap crowd in Antibes, the Palace crowd in Monaco. So cheer up, my dear!’ He caught Alexa by the hands and pulled her up. ‘We just get ourselves down there, and something’s absolutely bound to come up.’
‘But how do we get ourselves down there?’ Alexa demanded. ‘We don’t have any money. We can’t possibly afford to go.’
Barney rubbed his chin. ‘I suppose there is that,’ he admitted. ‘But something will turn up.’
He was, Alexa thought, like a gold-digging Mr Micawber.
They slumped into doleful contemplation for some minutes, during which the deep bass boom of Richmond’s reggae continued to shake the house. Alexa, staring glumly at her muddy boots, willed herself not to hear it. But it was difficult when your very fillings were rattling.
The letterbox in the hall crashed, heralding the arrival of the post.
Quick as a flash, Barney was on his velvet-slippered feet. It was amazing, Alexa thought as the purple silk blur shot past her, how quickly he could move when he wanted to.
He came back a man transformed. His round pink face was suffused with triumph. He commenced dancing round the room with delight; gambolling over the grubby grey carpet, silk dressing gown billowing out behind him. A terrible fear clutched at Alexa – had he been invited to something she hadn’t? An event of resounding brilliance and exclusivity, at which he would be socially rehabilitated, while she remained at home in the dingy flat?
Her mind raced with hideous possibilities. Was it an invitation to dine and sleep at Highgrove? August at Balmoral? She couldn’t see any large white envelope in his hand – his haul seemed to be mostly supermarket flyers. But perhaps the precious card was in his pocket.
‘Has someone asked you somewhere?’ she demanded, eyes blazing.
Barney stopped gambolling like a young gazelle. ‘Asked me somewhere? Not as such. Actually, that’s not quite true.’ He waved the papers he was clutching. ‘The Cooperative Society has very generously invited me to come and avail myself of their two-for-one Lambrusco promotion and large discounts on tinned lager and frozen chips.’
‘So why are you looking so pleased?’ Alexa felt her rigid spine relaxing against the hard back of the chair.
He pulled a white envelope from the fistful of flyers. ‘I’ve received a cheque this morning.’
‘Cheque!’
‘Not a huge one, admittedly, but certainly enough to take us to Cannes and, if we’re careful, keep us down there for a couple of months.’
‘Who was the cheque from?’ Alexa was curious. They had discussed their parlous finances only yesterday; he had not mentioned any imminent payment.
‘Oh, a newspaper.’ Barney gave a dismissive toss of the head. ‘A little story I was helping them with.’
Something flashed in Alexa’s brain. There had been, all over the front of one of yesterday’s papers, a story about an MP caught in a gay fetish bar. Had Barney, who she knew occasionally went to such places, sold the secret to the highest bidder? That would certainly explain his sudden enthusiasm for getting out of London.
He was looking at her, his small blue eyes gleaming. ‘Come on!’ he urged. ‘The playground of the rich awaits!’
Chapter 37
On Barney’s instructions, Alexa went to Jermyn Street for their travel essentials. Cigars from Davidoff were, he stated, a crucial piece of kit; an air of wealth being naturally associated with the pungent air around a hand-rolled Cuban. Of Alexa’s kit he made no mention; paper Davidoff bag in hand, she stood morosely in front of Floris, debating whether or not to splash out on a travel set. Turning away, she almost collided with a beautiful willowy blonde in skinny jeans, talking loudly into a mobile.
The voice was unmistakable. As was the long, lustrous hair, lit up like a white flame in the sun streaming down the narrow street. Her face was almost entirely hidden by vast black sunglasses; she was instantly recognisable nonetheless. ‘Florrie!’ gasped Alexa.
More beautiful than ever. And yet, it seemed, still single. According to the diary pages Alexa followed so avidly, Florrie drifted from glamorous party to eligible bachelor apparently insensible to the possibilities. The only comfort the marginalised Alexa could draw from these accounts of hectic popularity and manifold social opportunities was the certainty that Lady Annabel would be as frustrated as she was. Albeit for different reasons.
Florrie, still exclaiming into her mobile, did not appear to see her.
‘Florrie!’ Alexa repeated, grasping her by the arm.
Florrie looked at her in horror. ‘Omigod, Camilla, some fucking beggar’s bloody trying to assault me . . . Oh, it’s you, Lexie.’
She shoved the mobile into a large pink leather bag studded with diamanté hearts. ‘Hey! Last I heard you were trying your luck with Fatty Wharte-Hogge.’
Embarrassment flooded Alexa. ‘We’re just good friends,’ she muttered.
‘That’s not what he’s saying.’ Florrie giggled. ‘According to him, you—’
‘How’ve you been?’ Alexa interrupted forcefully. ‘How’s the job with the MP going?’
‘Did you know they’re calling you Heirfix?’ Florrie had pushed up her sunglasses. Her blue-violet eyes were wide and amused.
‘You must know all about Westminster now.’ Alexa stuck doggedly to her subject. ‘Corridors of power and all that,’ she added, almost wistfully.
‘So boring.’ Florrie pulled a face. ‘All those dreary constituents ringing up, moaning about their fuel bills. I told one of them that if he was so hard up he should sell some property or shares. He went ballistic!’ Her eyes were wide with indignation. ‘Told me that he didn’t have property or shares, which is rubbish, obviously. Everyone does.’
Alexa felt heartened by the fact that Florrie, even after all that had happened, still seemed relaxed in her company. Might it be possible to claw back some of her old ground?
‘Glass of champagne?’ she suggested.
‘Omigod, yes! I could do with some hair of the dog. There’s the Ritz just up there.’
Alexa had been thinking more of a small downstairs wine bar. But Florrie, in her silver sequinned flip-flops, was already striding ahead along the sunny pavement. She hurried to keep up.
‘So no weekends at Chequers with the Prime Minister, then?’
‘God, yes. All so dreary,’ Florrie groaned. ‘Politics is hopeless socially. You never meet anybody interesting.’
They were at the doors of the Ritz now, Florrie striding into the gilded, glittering interior with the familiarity of an owner. Alexa, struggling through the revolving door, saw her pass the gilded cherubs and cream-painted pillars and make straight for the corridor that led to the restaurant. ‘Don’t we want the bar?’ she gasped, hurrying after her. She forced herself not to panic; Florrie might only be looking for the loo.
‘I’m starving,’ Florrie declared, not slackening her pace until she reached the restaurant door. ‘Table for two, please,’ she barked at the attendant waitress.
Helplessly, Alexa followed Florrie and the uniformed flunkey across the thick pink carpet to a central table beneath the richly decorated ceiling. ‘Boring old place,’ Florrie hissed in a stage whisper over her shoulder to Alexa. ‘Daddy brings me here whenever he really wants to tell me off about something. Still, it’s close, so it will have to do.’
Two waiters simultaneously pulled out the oval-backed chairs; another, meanwhile, shimmered over with two large menus. Who would be paying for this lunch? Alexa wondered worriedly. She tried to push the thought from her mind and use the situation to her advantage. She was with Florrie, after all. And there could be other influential people here.
The room was hushed and, as it was early, largely empty. A pile of old dowagers in one corner, Alexa saw; some businessmen in another, glancing appreciatively at Florrie, who
was, as always, oblivious to admiration.
‘À la carte for me, I think,’ Florrie declared happily, closing the menu. Alexa’s was still open in her hands. She had taken one frightened look at the prices and was now staring hard at the ceiling, which, ironically given her circumstances, depicted a fantastical sylvan paradise.
She forced herself to look on the bright side; Florrie might be intending to pay. There was, after all, a first time for everything. And there were more important things to think about, such as regaining her old position with Florrie.
Even so, as the wine waiter shimmered up, proffering a vast padded menu, Alexa’s insides twisted with terror.
‘Oh, we don’t need to look at that,’ Florrie assured him gaily. Alexa’s heart soared upwards. Was she detoxing? Had her preferences switched to tap water?
‘Just bring us a bottle of champagne, there’s a darling.’ Florrie gave the waiter a winning smile.
Alexa swallowed. Another waiter came up. ‘You are ready to order, mademoiselle?’ His attention was all on Florrie.
She flashed him a smile of devastating charm. ‘I’ll start with the foie gras and then perhaps the lobster?’
Alexa was starting to feel sweaty with panic. She had seen the price of the lobster and it had left her shellshocked. Shellfish-shocked.
‘A very good choice, mademoiselle,’ the waiter assured Florrie smoothly. A pair of warm brown eyes now met Alexa’s terrified ones. ‘And for you, mademoiselle?’
Part of her was surprised he used the term; she had, Alexa imagined, aged several decades in the last few minutes. ‘Soup, please,’ she muttered.
‘Just the one course, mademoiselle?’
‘Yes. Thanks.’
The champagne arrived and was opened. Alexa’s glass sat full and untouched on the tablecloth while Florrie, sipping away merrily, described her other recent adventures in the world of paid employment. Relentlessly, into her companion’s hot and rushing ears, she happily listed squandered opportunities Alexa would have killed for.
The job at the upmarket concierge service, for one. This, Alexa learnt between Florrie’s mouthfuls of foie gras, bit the dust after Florrie arranged discreet dinners for a wealthy executive and his mistress and the executive’s wife and her toyboy in the same sought-after London restaurant on the same night and at adjacent tables. As Florrie began on the lobster, Alexa was appraised of the sojourn in a smart London estate agent that had ended after Florrie had confused the prices while updating the website. The result had been a mini-meltdown in the international property market.