Prince in Disguise

by Stephanie Kate Strohm

  Wanker. English over here was a whole different language.

  In a matter of minutes, we arrived downtown. Fortunately, the Atholl Arms was the first building we encountered. Jamie flung open the rustic wooden door with dramatic flair and ducked inside. Ducking too, I followed.

  Inside, everything was decidedly peachy. And floral. Directly in front of us was a large wooden front desk with rows of keys behind it and a curved staircase bedecked with evergreen boughs, big red bows, and twinkling Christmas lights. So the Atholl Arms was a hotel, then. To the left was a pub, the faint sounds of a televised sporting event humming softly in the background, and to the right a flickering fireplace and the overstuffed couches in the lobby beckoned temptingly.

  “Your strongest pot of PG Tips, posthaste, Tilly!” Jamie bellowed, causing the woman behind the front desk to jump out of her seat and drop the thick paperback from her hands.

  “I don’t know what PG Tips is, but I probably don’t like it,” I mumbled, staring longingly at the plush maroon couch. My beverage preferences tended to fall pretty squarely in the Snapple family.

  “Goodness, Jamie, she’s nearly blue.” The woman bustled out from behind the counter, revealing a festive cardigan and an ankle-length skirt that clashed merrily with her frosted blond hair and vibrant eye shadow.

  “It was nothing of my doing, madam!” Idly, I wondered how they knew each other, if Jamie wasn’t from here, but suddenly I felt like I was being drowned by waves of tiredness, sleepy in the warmth, and was more than happy to let them steer me toward the couch in front of the fire, narrowly avoiding a collision with a fat Christmas tree tucked into a corner of the lobby. “I was the gallant rescuer, I assure you,” Jamie continued as they sat me down. “If it weren’t for me, she’d most definitely be frozen solid.”

  “She is, nearly,” Tilly clucked.

  I sank into the couch. It was even plusher than it had looked. Really, it had surpassed plushy and gone right on to squashy. Bliss. “One pot of tea, then. Or maybe that isn’t strong enough. Should I bring the brandy snifter?”

  “I wouldn’t, if I were you. She’s American. They can be positively puritanical about spirits.”

  “American?” I could hear a smile in the soft burr of Tilly’s accent. “Goodness, Jamie. Gotten yourself into a Buccaneers situation, have you?”

  “Hardly, Tilly,” he said. “Not all Americans have come crashing out of Edith Wharton novels.”

  As Tilly chuckled softly, my last thought, before my eyes closed, was that I wasn’t nearly well-read enough for this kind of banter.

  “Dylan, wake up.”

  “Just five more minutes, Mom.”

  “Seriously, Dylan, you’ve got to get up. Or you’ll never be able to fall asleep tonight.”

  “Don’t care.” I burrowed deeper under the blankets. The sheets were soft, but something was scratching my cheek. I pushed it off. Where was Teddy? I felt around for him but came up empty.

  “Dylan.” Something shook me. “Get up. Now. Or the jet lag will ruin you from here to next Tuesday.”

  Jet lag…jet lag…Scotland! I wasn’t at home in my bed at all, and Teddy was still packed. Whose bed was I in? I sat bolt upright as my eyes flew open.

  “Good gravy, Dylan, you nearly knocked me unconscious!” Mom yelped as she sprang off the side of the bed.

  “Thank goodness for those Piloxing reflexes.” I drew the scratchy plaid blanket closer to my chin and snuggled back down into a horizontal position. It was decidedly chilly outside the bed’s environs.

  “If you’re awake enough to mock core-based cardio fusion exercises, then you’re plenty awake. Up, please.”

  Grumbling, I complied and hoisted myself up to my elbows. The effort was nearly Herculean.

  “Where am I?” I looked around the room, past the glistening mahogany of the four-poster bed frame to see a matching wooden dressing table with a mirror and a giant armoire. The walls were deep green and covered in paintings of horses. Horses jumping, horses standing majestically, horses frolicking with hounds. This bedroom was designed for a My Little Pony fan with a penchant for plaid.

  “This is Dunyvaig Castle. Ronan’s family estate.” Mom walked back toward the bed and smoothed the top blanket, her Pandora bracelets gently tinkling as they slid together. I looked out the small window, set between navy plaid curtains in a wall that was definitely stone, to see a foggy expanse of graying fields that instantly brought to mind the word “moors.”

  “But…the Atholl Arms…”

  “TRC sent a van down to get you. One of the groomsmen called. They tried to wake you, but you wouldn’t get up. They had to carry you into the van.”

  Huh. That sounded vaguely familiar, but the memory was so fuzzy it was almost like I’d watched it happen to someone else on TV. I was happy I had finally warmed up but disturbed that I was so easy to kidnap.

  “What time is it?” I asked groggily. My view out the window wasn’t giving me any clues. I certainly couldn’t see the sun outside. The weather could only be described as “gray.”

  “Nine. You slept right through dinner.”

  “Oh. Huh. That’s a first.”

  “I know.” She smiled, her eyes crinkling in a way I knew she hated, but I loved. The faint lines around her eyes made her look more like Mom, and less like the Newscaster Barbie the rest of Tupelo saw every morning. “Luckily, you’re still in time for breakfast. But you’ve only got half an hour.”

  “Then what are we waiting for?!” I leaped out of bed, nearly hissing in pain as my feet hit the ice-cold floor. I hopped toward my suitcase, ferreting around until I found my thickest pair of socks, which happened to be printed with penguins wearing scarves—an old Christmas present from Meemaw. “You’d think a prince would be able to splurge on the heating bill a little bit,” I muttered as I pulled on the penguins.

  “If you so much as whisper a hint that you are cold anywhere near Ronan’s family—” Mom’s tone had turned as icy as the floor.

  “Jeez, Mom, I’m not that rude—”

  “I will tell TRC you want your own spin-off,” she finished. Sometimes it was easy to see where Dusty got her iron will from. Except Mom was way craftier than her eldest daughter. Dusty’s threats all tended to be of the brute force variety, but Mom could come up with the kind of twisted things that would make a Disney villain shake in his animated boots. And even though I was pretty sure it was an idle threat, I could still feel cold sweat beading on my brow at the thought of it. “Swear to God, Dyl. You’ll be locked into a reality series ’til you turn eighteen. This place probably costs a fortune to heat, and it is none of our concern.”

  “Mom, enough with the Machiavellian treatment! I’ll suffer in silence! Swear.”

  “That’s my girl. Now, are you going to change out of those grody jeans?”

  And that’s my mom. Always concerned with my wardrobe. I looked down and realized I was wearing my same outfit from yesterday, which I guess was less disturbing than if an unknown someone had changed me into pajamas. Even if I didn’t smell particularly pleasant. I pulled a clean pair of jeans out of my suitcase.

  “An equally grody pair of jeans. Perfect,” Mom said under her breath. Ignoring her, I pulled out a long-sleeved tee and a hoodie. I promised I wouldn’t say it was cold, not that I wouldn’t dress for the cold. “Meet me outside when you’re ready, Dyl. You’ll never find the dining room on your own.”

  Jeez. How big was this place, anyway? Mom shut the door neatly, the engraved silver handle rattling slightly behind her.

  What I had assumed was a closet turned out to be a private bathroom. At least this would be a plus for the next few weeks, I mused as I grabbed my toothbrush in an attempt to un-disgust myself. No sharing a bathroom. I could pee whenever I wanted. No more waiting while Dusty took forever doing her makeup and curling her hair and waxing her eyebrows and executing the rest of her endless beauty regime. Although I kept forgetting—Dusty didn’t live with us anymore. Soon enough, she wouldn’
t even live in America anymore. So I guess her forty-minute-long showers weren’t really any of my concern. Looking in the porthole-size gilt mirror hanging over the round porcelain sink—contrary to Mom’s beliefs, I have some standards when it comes to personal appearance—I piled all my hair up into a weird bun thing and secured the front with a stretchy headband I found jammed inside my jeans pocket.

  “You’re ready? This is dressed for breakfast?” Mom asked skeptically as I joined her in the hallway, shutting my bedroom door behind me.

  “It’s not sweatpants.”

  “Really setting the bar high there, kiddo.” Mom sighed. As always, she was impeccably turned out, even at nine in the morning. Although, since she usually had to be at the studio before dawn, nine was late for Mom. She smoothed her wrinkle-free slacks, her perfectly highlighted blond bob swinging against her collarbones.

  “That’s a punchy color.” I eyed her sweater set as it burned my retinas.

  “It’s called coral, Dylan.” She fiddled with the diamond stud in her ear. “A little color won’t kill you.”

  Too late I realized I was wearing jeans, a navy hoodie, and a blue long-sleeved shirt. I probably looked like a sloppy Smurf. Oh well. It’s not like I was trying to impress anyone here.

  “Blue’s a color,” I said defensively.

  “It’s not the only color,” she countered.

  Mom abruptly started walking down the hallway. As I followed, I worried about ever finding my room again. Just like in a hotel, the hall was lined with identical doors. Every so often a painting of some imposing-looking dude in an old-fashioned suit or—surprise—more horses broke up the monotony of hunter-green walls and dark wooden doors. Eventually, we arrived at a wide, curving staircase and descended two flights, emerging into a grand entryway. But before I could really take in the floor-to-ceiling velvet curtains and the huge roaring fireplace, Mom barreled down the hall and hung a left into a formal dining room.

  Ah, breakfast. The greatest meal of the day. Except snacks. Although, by definition, snacks are not meals. So breakfast it is.

  Mom went to join a group of strangers sitting around the long dining table, leaving me to get my breakfast on. Eagerly, I approached the buffet set out on the sideboard, watching steam curl gently into the air off the silver chafing dishes. Was this just for the show? Or was a breakfast buffet standard prince operation every morning? Because if so, for the first time, I could kind of see the appeal.

  I picked up a china plate, surprised at its warmth. Nice touch. From a wicker basket lined with linen, I selected two slices of perfectly square white bread and popped them into the gleaming toaster, making a face at my reflection. Warmed plate clutched in my hot little hand, it was time to get down to business. Eggs—yes. I scooped up two fried eggs, then two more, careful not to burst the fat yellow yolks. Sausage—why not? I was usually more of a bacon girl, but those links looked damn tasty. And then…it got weird. Mushrooms? Tomatoes? Beans? These weren’t breakfast foods! And right at the end was the strangest thing of all, a little black hockey puck with weird bits in it. I poked at it experimentally with the tongs. No idea.

  “Well, if it isn’t the Little Match Girl.”

  “Excuse me?” Jamie. Of course. He of the endless literary allusions and the freakish blue eyes of a husky. I wondered if he’d been the one who carried me into the van. Probably not. He looked kind of twiggy. Although it was hard to tell with the enormous, ancient-looking Fair Isle sweater replete with moth holes he was sporting. The sole body part I could see was a large hand with narrow fingers holding a glass of orange juice. Clearly, I wasn’t the only one who’d gotten the memo on bundling up.

  The toaster dinged. Deftly, he scooped up the browned slices and deposited them onto my plate, adjacent to the eggs.

  “Little Match Girl? Because you were frozen? The Hans Christian Andersen story?”

  “Yeah, I got the reference.” I returned to poking the puck. It was proving to be distressingly resistant to my attempts to pierce it. Like an actual hockey puck would be. “Not really my favorite story. Kind of a downer.”

  “Unlike that heartwarming, not-at-all-depressing Hans Christian Andersen classic, ‘The Little Mermaid.’”

  “It’s heartwarming when it involves singing crabs. Say what you will about Walt Disney, that man knew how to jazz up a real bummer of a story.”

  “I feel quite confident that Walt Disney had long since shuffled off this mortal coil before the time Sebastian sang his first note.”

  “Yeah, well, they cryogenically froze him. So he probably still has storyboard input and stuff.” Poke, poke, poke. What was this black disc? Animal? Vegetable? Mineral? I couldn’t get any sense of its texture.

  “That’s black pudding, you know.”

  “It’s pudding?!” Of all the things I had theorized the puck to be, pudding wasn’t one of them. “How can it be pudding? It’s not at all jiggly. It’s just sitting there, completely retaining its shape without a cup. That’s not natural. And what flavor is that? Please don’t tell me it’s dark chocolate.”

  Jamie choked on a sip of orange juice, spluttering madly. “Good God, woman, it’s not a sweet pudding!” he exclaimed.

  “Oh.” Okay. So it was like a savory pudding. I’d seen chef-y stuff like that on Food Network. Like Parmesan puddings and snap-pea flans and other Iron Chef situations. “So what’s it made out of, then?”

  “Hmm…meat. Blood. Gristly bits.”

  “Blood?!”

  “Yes, blood.” He laughed. “You should see your face, Dylan. It’s just another part of the animal, isn’t it?” Fair point. “Black pudding isn’t truly a pudding at all. It’s a sausage. And besides, we need our blood. We’re all vampires here,” he added conspiratorially.

  “That wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest.” I returned the tongs to the little plate they’d been sitting on. Definitely no black pudding for me. “We’re in a castle, there’s no sun in sight, and I have yet to see anyone with a tan. This is practically a vampire nest.”

  “Dilly!”

  “Well, that’s definitely not a vampire,” I muttered as my orange Amazon of a sister charged into the room, camera crew following not so subtly behind her as she waved her arms in my direction.

  “Don’t be so sure,” Jamie murmured in my ear. “I’m fairly certain that jaundiced glow had nothing whatsoever to do with the sun.”

  “She’s usually better at toning it down,” I muttered between clenched teeth, fake grin plastered to my face. Dusty was a sunless-tanning addict, but she usually had it down to a relatively natural-looking art form. She hadn’t even been this orange for the Miss America pageant, and I’d thought that had been the zenith of fake everything. “Either she overdid it for the cameras, or you ghouls are just making her look darker in comparison.”

  Cameras. Or, in this case, camera. There it was, resting innocently atop some crew member’s shoulder, its evil eye threatening to suck me into its black hole.

  “Ignore it, ignore it,” I whispered meditatively. Or attempted-meditatively. “Just pretend it’s not there.”

  Jamie looked at me curiously. Right. Must remember to be more discreet when muttering to self like a complete nutjob. If I shifted slightly to the right, Dusty’s well-volumized hair blocked the camera. Hmm. Heaven always insisted that Dusty’s hair was actually a weave—maybe she was right after all. I didn’t think a human head could naturally produce that much hair. Honestly, just looking at the massive effort Dusty put into her appearance exhausted me. What was the point of gluing and spraying yourself with all that fake stuff? Who had time for that?

  Well, whatever. If I couldn’t see the camera, I could pretend it didn’t exist. I would do what I had to do to survive. And be able to reap the benefits of free breakfast buffets. Natch.

  “There’s my girl!” A masculine roar threatened to burst my eardrums.

  Before Dusty could make her way to me, she was intercepted by a big bearded blur of a Scotsman. I hadn’t eve
n noticed Ronan sitting at the table. But when buffets are involved, I am easily distracted. Ronan tossed Dusty into the air, spun her around, and then dipped her low to the floor, kissing her loudly. No wonder TRC ate the two of them up. They were ridiculous.

  “You missed breakfast, darling.” He kissed her again. “Fancy a banger?”

  “Ronan!” Dusty shrieked, swatting at him as she disentangled herself from his arms. “Naughty.”

  Jamie mime-retched neatly into his orange juice. Man, I was definitely not fortified enough to handle the two of them. I bit savagely into my toast. There was only so much ooey-gooey lovebirding one could take. Especially on an empty stomach.

  “And look who’s here, finally!” Ronan slapped me on the back so hard a halfway-masticated morsel of toast flew into the air. I prayed no one noticed. Oh God, did anyone notice? Maybe the lighting was dim enough in here to make half-chewed toast invisible to the naked eye. “Make it in all right, then, Dylan?”

  “Yuppers.” Did I really just say “yuppers”? Oh God. Yuppers, I did. They were definitely going to show that, too. What if it became my catchphrase? What if TRC sold mugs with “Yuppers” printed on them? Would I be known as the Yuppers girl, forever? Why did this camera have to be here, ruining everything? I missed the days when I could be an idiot in private, without my every blurt recorded for posterity and digitally transmitted into millions of homes across America. I heard a faint snicker. “Are you laughing back there?”

  “Yuppers,” Jamie replied. Grrrrr.

  “Dylan,” Ronan said, suddenly serious, “as well ye know, I’m an only child.” Were we having some kind of serious family bonding moment here? I shuffled back and forth, feeling incredibly awkward. And then as the awkward cherry on top of the sundae, I banged my knee against the sideboard. I hissed in pain as Ronan kept talking. “I’d always thought, though, it would be fun to have a little sibling. And now, thanks to Dusty, I do!” He grinned. “Or I will, at any rate.”