Marrying Up

by Wendy Holden

  And now this, which of course was not funny at all.

  The King made no reply to her offer. He looked utterly crestfallen. Which was of course only to be expected. Would he ever recover? Astrid wondered miserably. Would their marriage?

  But perhaps it was better that they should part. Especially if for Engelbert to look at her from now on was to be reminded that she had once loved someone else. Even if the someone had been before her marriage to him; someone, in addition, no longer alive.

  Astrid sighed. Only now, it seemed, did she realise what her marriage actually meant to her. What her husband meant to her.

  Engelbert might be pig-headed and stubborn, blinkered and impatient, but she had been by his side for twenty-five years. She knew what a good man he was. This afternoon, for example, following the revelations about ‘Lady’ Alexa, he had not raged and stamped, as she might have expected. He had simply gathered the royal family together and taken them all back inside the chateau. Doors had been closed. No comments had been issued. He had been supremely and impressively in charge.

  However much she mourned her first love, it was her second love that mattered now, Astrid knew. But was it too late to convince him of that?

  After what seemed an eternity, Engelbert looked up. His face, turned to hers, seemed to have aged a decade. To her horror, the Queen saw his tired eyes fill suddenly with tears. His head plunged into his hands. The royal shoulders began to heave. Engelbert was weeping.

  Gingerly she put her arms about him, fearful that he would hurl them off in fury. The King wept on.

  ‘What did you say?’ she whispered, catching some unintelligible words. It sounded like ‘leave’.

  She swallowed. So he did, after all, want her to go. She could not blame him; it was the risk she had run. She must live with the consequences of her actions. She raised her chin and stood up, slowly detaching her hands from him.

  The King raised his head. ‘I’m so relieved,’ he hiccupped.

  ‘Relieved?’ Astrid was electrified. Was she hearing correctly?

  The royal red eyes fixed on hers. ‘I thought that when you said Max was another man’s child, you were going to tell me his father was Stonker Shropshire. I think I could bear anything but that.’

  ‘Oh Engelbert!’ Astrid was back beside him in a second. ‘Why ever would you think that?’

  The King was gazing at the carpet. His plump shoulders in their grey suit heaved in a mighty sigh. ‘I’ve never quite felt I was worthy of you.’

  ‘Not worthy of me?’ the Queen exclaimed. ‘Oh my darling!’

  As she drew him into her arms again, he clutched her hard and looked up into her anxious face. ‘I’m sorry about Max’s father,’ he said softly. ‘That must have been very difficult.’

  Astrid kissed the top of his well-combed head. She felt she would burst with love and relief. ‘It’s over now, darling. All over.’

  Chapter 64

  It was a beautiful soft summer evening with pink-orange light stippling the rocky sweep of hills visible from Max’s room. The soft glow slanted through the windows and lit the carved and gilded posts of the bed.

  There was a knock at the door; Maxim looked up as his mother came in. She had a piece of white paper in her hand.

  ‘I’ll come straight to the point,’ Astrid said.

  ‘Do.’ Maxim could barely lift his eyes. He could not imagine what fresh hell was next, nor was he interested. The fracas with ‘Lady’ Alexa outside the chateau had been both undignified and ridiculous. But he was some distance beyond caring. No doubt his mother was coming to advise him that yet another potential bride had been dug up somewhere. The whole circus would start all over again.

  ‘You’re going to be very shocked,’ his mother warned.

  The Prince shrugged. He didn’t think so. Especially after this afternoon. No doubt his mother meant it was unexpected that they had found someone else so soon. But nothing would surprise him any more.

  ‘Prepare yourself,’ Astrid said, over the thundering of her own heart.

  Max looked up impatiently. ‘I thought you were going to come straight to the point.’

  ‘I will. Maxim, I’ve done a DNA test at the labs.’ The Queen took a deep breath. ‘My darling, you’re not royal.’

  Maxim was completely still. He could feel the news exploding slowly within him. Not royal. Not royal. He knew at once that it was true.

  You’re not royal. He could feel his brain actually seizing on the words, examining them and probing their meaning. He realised that, instinctively, he had known all along. It explained so much. The way he had never felt allegiance to crown and ceremony the way the rest of the family did. The fact that he looked so different from Giacomo and his father. The almost psychotic reluctance he had always felt to take up his royal duties.

  His mother had laid her hand over his. She was explaining gently something about an old boyfriend of hers. Maxim wanted her to stop. He wanted to know, of course, but not now. There was not time. There was other business, much more pressing business.

  Where did he start?

  Over a booming heart, he gathered his thoughts. A wedding. The throne. Surely he could avoid them both now. He could not inherit the throne if he wasn’t royal, nor did he need to be married . . .

  ‘Quite a lot to take in, I know,’ the Queen was saying. She was looking into his face. She looked, he saw, worried.

  Maxim smiled at her. Why was she worried? He leapt to his feet and hugged her.

  Her face, as he released her, was a mixture of relief and surprise. ‘So you don’t mind?’ Astrid asked slowly.

  ‘Mind?’ He beamed at her. ‘Why should I mind? You’re still my mother, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, but your father. He’s not . . .’

  ‘That doesn’t matter either. He’s still my father. But even better – I don’t have to be King!’ He hugged his mother again. ‘I don’t have to marry!’ He felt as if something had detached itself from his shoulders and was floating up, up and away. He felt light. Free.

  ‘I can go back to England!’ he exclaimed.

  There was no time to lose. It was finished with Polly, of course, there was no hope there. But he could return to his studies. That would be something. Not everything, but something. Slowly, he could rebuild his life.

  He rushed to a wardrobe, dragged out a bag and began throwing a motley collection of objects into it. Odd shoes, magazines, a scrunched-up jumper.

  ‘Wait, though,’ Astrid advised, hurrying forward to take out the odd shoes. ‘There’s no rush.’

  ‘But there is a rush. There’s a plane at ten o’clock from Nice.’ He knew when every flight to London left and had never seen the last one of the day lift into the sky from the airport up the coast without wishing he was on it.

  ‘What – you’re going now? This minute?’ That her son’s first instinct was to escape was rather hurtful; in vain did Astrid remind herself that everything she had done recently was to make this moment possible.

  After Max had left for the airport, Engelbert, pleading a headache, had retired to bed. The stress of recent days, and especially this day, had taken its toll.

  And not just that, the Queen knew. Engelbert was still worried about Sedona’s future. No royal engagement and wedding meant no publicity bonanza and, consequently, no surge in investment and business. After all the drama, he was back to square one.

  Astrid, walking slowly back up the castle drive after waving her son off, wished she had the answer. She was grateful to Engelbert, humbled by his generosity, guilty about the many times she had considered him arrogant and pompous. That, after the revelations, his love for Max had not diminished one whit was one of the many reasons she appreciated him more than ever. Engelbert was a prince among men, even if he did happen to be a king.

  He had suggested that, in order to protect the Queen’s privacy, Max retain the title of Prince but none of the obligations. As far as the outside world was concerned – and most of those in the chat
eau as well – Max had, with the full blessing of his parents, effectively resigned his claim to the throne in order to pursue his veterinary career. What business was it of anyone else who his father was? the King had demanded. They would get round the issue by simply transferring the title of Crown Prince to Giacomo.

  After the tumult of recent days and weeks, the Queen felt calm stealing through her soul as she arrived at the castle door. Drifting round her nostrils came the sharp, warm scent of the lavender borders; the sky above was full of clouds blushing with the final lingering kiss of a sun evidently reluctant to say its farewells.

  Of course, the final part of the jigsaw would be for Max to find someone he loved. Then, Astrid thought, she could finally relax. She smiled as she closed the door behind her. Did one ever really relax as a mother? Wasn’t that luxury forever surrendered from the moment you first held your child?

  Chapter 65

  Kicking her heels for two days in Nice had been the last thing Polly wanted to do. But since the airline had been unable to find her a seat straight away, there had been no alternative. That it was a night flight back seemed particularly depressing; the last of the day. The end of the line, in every sense, she thought glumly as, finally, she pushed through the revolving airport door.

  She had spent the last forty-eight hours resolutely not thinking about Max. She had distracted herself with the English newspapers, tried to people-watch, stared at pictures in art galleries, trailed round gloomy palace museums, looked unseeingly at clothes, trained her eyes on the sea; most of all she had walked, walked and walked, as if the motion and the intensity of it could give her some relief.

  Whenever she had felt a thought about him coming, she had headed it off. She had blocked him, dodged him, ignored him, refused him. But still his image bobbed at the edge of her brain, demanding admittance. So far, he had not succeeded.

  But now, out of the corner of her eye, as she passed a news stand, Polly caught sight of a familiar face. He was not, Polly promised herself, striding past the news stand determinedly, going to force his way in now. Whatever the article was about, she did not care. The couture wedding dress, the celebrity chef, the famous guests, she wanted to know nothing about them. Nothing. She could not care less. Really.

  On the other hand, what did it matter? She was flying away from him tonight, escaping from the whole sorry mess. She need never hear his name again. She allowed herself one last glance. The headline stopped her dead in her tracks.

  PRINCE CANCELS WEDDING

  Dropping her bag on the concourse, Polly dashed across to the shop. Within a minute she had the paper in her hands. Words leapt out at her. Mistake . . . impostor . . .

  Allison Donald . . . renounced throne . . . returning to England . . . Allison Donald! Polly shook her head. It was too incredible for words. She sank down on her bag, stunned.

  It was at that moment that Max rushed into the airport for the last plane to London, and saw her.

  Chapter 66

  ‘I was promised a royal wedding,’ stated Lady Annabel, sitting opposite the private secretary’s desk and fixing him with a gimlet eye.

  A gimlet eye, indeed, was more or less all Hippolyte could see, the rest of Lady Annabel’s face, apart from her bright-pink-lipsticked lips, being covered with bandages. With world press attention in mind she had, it seemed, decided on a little last-minute plastic surgery, calculating that it would be healed in time for the moment her daughter went up the aisle behind the new Crown Princess.

  Except that that, of course, would not now be happening.

  ‘I was promised a royal wedding,’ Lady Annabel repeated. ‘And now, as it appears that promise cannot be honoured, I’d like to ask you what you intend to do about it.’

  ‘Do about it?’ Hippolyte echoed helplessly. What the hell was he supposed to do about it? Was it his fault that the prospective royal bride had turned out to be an impostor?

  ‘Well someone has to gather up the reins,’ Lady Annabel informed him sharply. ‘Astrid and Engelbert are all over the place, they can’t seem to make any decisions. It’s up to you and me . . .’ and here Lady Annabel fixed him with her glare again, ‘to sort this mess out.’

  A mess, the press secretary mused, was certainly one way of putting it. Not only was there no longer a royal bride, there was no royal bridegroom either. Maxim had resigned his claim to the throne and had waltzed off to England to neuter cats, or whatever vets did. No wonder the King and Queen were shut up in their apartment, not speaking to anyone.

  As the eerie bandaged face trained its baleful gaze on him, Hippolyte felt he knew exactly what it was like to be hunted. Was it a coincidence that a leopardskin print wrap dress comprised the rest of her ladyship’s attire? Lady Annabel’s face in its normal state was frightening enough. But this white mask with glittering eyes was like some nightmare from a Greek tragedy.

  ‘Well, you’d better do something,’ the mask said briskly. ‘Otherwise it’s curtains for Sedona. So far as I understand it, they need a wedding to save the monarchy. Just think about what’s going to be lost. All those visitors. All that money that would have come into the country . . .’

  He was sweating, Hippolyte knew. Two separate tides of warm darkness were seeping from under his arms across his chest and would soon meet in the middle. Their progress was speeded by the knowledge that Lady Annabel was right. She had identified the main issues with a clarity that would be admirable were it not so horrific and inconvenient.

  He tried to arrange his thoughts, but they remained in utter disarray. ‘It’s a disaster,’ he moaned, his sweating face in his damp hands. ‘The publicity is ruinous.’

  Thanks to that bastard Snort. He had clearly made a killing from photographs of the former Lady Alexa boarding a tour bus from Wolverhampton in the company of both her parents. The only positive thing was that Barney van Hoosier seemed to have disappeared without trace.

  Emitting a puppy-like whimper, the private secretary stared at Lady Annabel through his plump fingers. ‘What can we do?’ he whispered brokenly. Somehow, the entire future of the monarchy, as well as that of the economy and relations with most of the rest of the world, rested in his hands. It was not what he had signed up for. Back in those wonderful long-ago days when he had joined as a junior private attaché, the delivery of the royal post was about the extent of his duties.

  The mask was nonchalantly inspecting its nails. ‘I have a plan,’ it said casually, ‘in case you are interested.’

  It occurred to Hippolyte now that this was the entire reason she was here. Of course she had a plan. Was Lady Annabel the sort to throw herself pathetically across his desk and beg him to help her? Or was it more likely that, having devised the solution in every detail, she required his assistance in putting it into action? He did not like Lady Annabel, Hippolyte decided, but he admired her.

  ‘What’s your plan?’ he asked her.

  ‘Everyone loves a royal wedding, Monsieur Hippolyte,’ Lady Annabel announced. ‘And it’s up to you and me to provide them with one.’

  ‘You and me . . .?’ The private secretary fell back in his chair, disappointed. She had said she had a plan, but they were back where they started.

  The mask leant forward. ‘Monsieur Hippolyte. There can still be a wedding. There can still be a bride and bridegroom.’

  ‘There can?’ Hippolyte wasn’t following.

  The bandages nodded so vigorously it made the private secretary wince. Didn’t it hurt? He watched the magenta lips moving.

  ‘Yes. Florrie can marry Giacomo.’

  Hippolyte’s head abruptly emptied of all thought. Into this silence and vacancy, something appeared. It was small at first, and the press secretary struggled to make it out. Then it got larger, and shinier, until it seemed to fill the whole of his mind with its glow. It was the answer. Lady Annabel’s suggestion would save everything.

  ‘Giacomo!’ gasped Hippolyte. ‘His Royal Highness Prince Giacomo?’

  ‘Crown Prince Giacomo, as
he is now, of course. And why not?’ the mask challenged. ‘He and Florrie get on enormously well. Possibly better than enormously . . .’

  Hippolyte could only stare ecstatically at the bandaged face before him. The Greek allusion had been right. Lady Annabel was an oracle, no less. The fount of all wisdom.

  ‘The wedding’s what matters, and the princess,’ the oracle was explaining. ‘Sedona’s too tinpot for anyone to give two hoots about which prince it is.’

  Hippolyte bridled at the tinpot, but decided to let it drop. There were bigger issues at stake.

  ‘But . . . but . . .’ His mouth was opening and closing. ‘What will Their Majesties . . . the King and Queen say?’

  The mask stood up and put both slender brown hands on its leopard-print hips.

  ‘That, my dear Hippolyte,’ it pronounced, ‘I leave to you.’

  Chapter 67

  Queen Astrid was resting in her room when the white-and-gold door opened abruptly and in stalked Lady Annabel. Her features were set with an expression that betrayed, even from fifty feet away, a determination that brooked no opposition.

  A few paces behind her came Hippolyte. He looked worried; he had clearly tried, in vain, to stop Florrie’s mother’s sudden apperance.

  ‘Lady Annabel.’ The Queen rose calmly from her chair. ‘To what do I owe this pleasure?’

  Lady Annabel, resplendent in a tight-fitting turquoise silk suit which set off her shining chestnut bob, strode forward, her high-heeled sandals stabbing the cream carpet. Her air, as she came right up to Astrid, was excessively businesslike.

  The swelling on her face was calming down now, the Queen saw. She observed with interest the fact that Lady Annabel’s visage had apparently retained its deep mahogany tan, even under the bandages. Perhaps, after sufficient exposure to sun or sunbed, it just stayed that colour.