My heart began to sink. I could see what was coming as clearly as if it had floodlights, warning sirens and one of those moose-scooping things you see on the front of American trains.
‘In fact,’ Granny went on, reaching for the copy of OK!, ‘he’s in here.’ She flicked through it, until she reached the back pages. ‘Look, he was at a ghastly nouveau party and attacked a poor stout girl with a chocolate fountain.’
‘That was my friend Tiggy,’ I said faintly.
Granny looked up. ‘Was it? Oh, dear. Well, that’s the sort of shenanigans Nicky gets up to. Trashing hotels, exposing himself at charity balls, that type of overgrown-schoolboy nonsense. The boy’s nearly thirty! He runs with a dreadful crowd of Euro-trash Hoorays, he’s bringing shame and scandal on his entire family, and he hasn’t had a suitable girlfriend in his life.’
‘Isn’t that the point of being rich?’
‘Of course not. Besides, there’s a bit more to it than that.’
I was surprised to realise that Granny was genuinely uptight. The magazine was trembling in her tense grip, and her usually creaseless brow wrinkled with distress.
Alexander must be a very good old friend indeed, I thought. Granny was terribly loyal – one thing I was pleased to say I had inherited.
‘Which is?’ I asked.
Granny sighed. ‘Well, I should really let Alexander explain it properly, but, in a nutshell, the family have been offered a marvellous chance to fulfil Alexander’s great dream, but only if they play ball with the tourism people, who want some kind of Disney-fied royal family.
I started to say that I wasn’t exactly well-placed to advise on ideal family PR, but Granny hadn’t finished.
‘However,’ she went on, ‘they obviously can’t do that while the idiot grandson and heir is turning up at parties dressed as a Palestinian suicide bomber.’
Her voice had risen to a high quiver, and she took a sip of tea to calm down. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘But Alex is such a gentleman, and I’m furious about the way Nicky is turning his name into some kind of byword for drunken tomfoolery.’
‘And you think I can do something about it . . . How?’ I asked gently. ‘I’d love to help, but I’m afraid I’m not very effective against that sort of professional cad type. I mean, Orlando von Borsch ran rings round me for years, remember? And he was just a stuffed-olive heir, not a prince.’
‘Well, princes aren’t what they used to be.’ Granny sighed deeply and passed me the magazine. ‘And I don’t think he’s a cad,’ she said. ‘I think he’s just a very silly boy who’s been allowed to play the fool for too long. It’s not only women who get away with murder because they’re pretty, you know.’
I looked more closely at the pictures, and, despite myself, my heart skipped. Prince Nicolas looked more like a rock star than a prince. Quite a saucy rock star too. One with several Ferraris in his garage and an ex-wife in every major marina.
‘That’s him?’ I asked, pointing, just to check.
She nodded.
‘Wow. Well, I see what you mean.’ Nicolas was exactly the sort of man who used to make me forget myself entirely. Brown-eyed, ski-tanned and with swimmer’s shoulders and narrow hips, he was twinkling away at the camera with his arms round two equally tanned leggy lovelies, exuding the exact amount of charm to sweep a girl off her slingbacks but stop just short of smarm. His red silk shirt was open a button too far, revealing a flash of dark chest hair, but instead of looking sleazy, he merely looked as if he’d been having too good a time to notice. Ditto his artfully dishevelled thick brown hair, which probably took longer to style than mine did. His only flaw was that the leggy lovelies were just a smidge taller than him in their Louboutins, and he seemed to know it.
If his grandfather had looked like that when he was younger, then no wonder Granny still had a soft spot for him.
I put the magazine on the table with some relief. There really wasn’t anything I could do here: Nicky wouldn’t give a girl like me the time of day.
‘Granny, you know I’d do anything to make you happy,’ I said, ‘but surely a stern talking-to from you would have more effect?’ I paused, as she began to prepare her innocent face. ‘Oh, no. No. You’ve already said I will, haven’t you? Oh, Granny!’
‘Oh, Melissa!’ she replied winningly. ‘Just a meeting?’
‘To say what?’ I protested.
‘That no nice girl will look him in the eye if he carries on tipping people into chocolate fountains!’
I fixed her with a square look. ‘Granny, he’s not in the market for a nice girl. Anyway,’ I went on, ‘Jonathan would go nuts. After that business in New York with Godric Ponsonby, I promised I’d scale back on the hands-on male stuff, as far as I could. Concentrate more on the lifestyle side of things.’
‘But that’s your favourite part of your job!’ exclaimed Granny, putting down her teacup in dismay. ‘Fixing up men!’
‘Jonathan and I drew up a contract. He agreed to cut down on the overtime, and I agreed not to take on clients who really need a therapist, not a secretary. We’re going to get married,’ I said, raising my voice above her tuts. ‘I never said I’d do this job for ever.’
But even as I said it, my eye returned of its own accord to the gleaming vision of Prince Nicky and his open-necked shirt. He had the sort of come-to-bed-you-sexy-lady eyes that didn’t just follow you round the room from the magazine, they winked at you.
‘Melissa,’ said Granny seriously, ‘do you do everything Jonathan tells you to? And I thought I was old-fashioned.’
I squirmed a little, trying to fight my own curiosity. Oh, what harm would it do to meet him? I was engaged to the most gorgeous man in the EU. If I did have tea with this fool, he’d no doubt show his true colours before the sandwiches were replenished. Granny would probably end up throwing the contents of the milk jug over him and the matter would be dropped faster than a hot scone.
With impeccable timing, Granny unleashed her most irresistible smile, the one that had allowed her to take advantage of London society for fifty years. ‘Darling,’ she said, ‘you’re a chip off the old block. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t like to have tea with a prince?’
When I paused, struggling with the terrible, familiar sensation that I was being played like a cheap fiddle, she added, ‘Two princes, come to that.’
And with that, I’m afraid to say, I was sunk.
4
I drove back to the office, my head buzzing with contradictory thoughts, and even though I’d been out for only an hour and a half, the answering machine was stuffed with calls. Top of the pile was one Dilys Lady Blennerhesket.
‘Hello, darling, so lovely to see you just now. Just to let you know I’ve spoken to Alexander and he’d be absolutely delighted to take us both out for dinner tomorrow night, if you’re around. Obviously, by that I mean do cancel whatever you have on, won’t you?’ she went on, at the exact same moment that I started to bridle about having prior engagements. ‘He’s going to make Nicolas come along, since he’s in London at the moment, and you can see what you’re up against. I mean,’ she added quickly, ‘you can see what he’s like. Seven for cocktails at the Blue Bar, then dinner at Petrus. That OK? Lovely! Speak to you later!’
I checked the time of the message again. Exactly two minutes after I’d left her at Claridge’s. Hmm. Either she’d made a very quick call to Alexander, or the whole thing had been set up in advance.
‘Hello, Honey, it’s Angus Deering. I need to learn how to make a shelf, very quickly. Stupidly told this new girl I’d done lots of carpentry at school, now she wants me to assemble the whole effing IKEA range in her flat. Call me back? Cheers.’
I scribbled a note. I’d found a terribly good handyman who frequently gave crash courses to my less spacially aware bachelors. He also fixed their attempts while the guilty party was out at work, if necessary.
‘Um, hello, I need to speak to Honey about the nail-biting cure for my son?’
I flipped open th
e engagement diary and jotted the details down on a Post-it note. My patented Hard as Nails nail treatment was one of my most popular services, but it was quite time-consuming, involving, as it did, fourteen randomly spaced calls a day to the nail-biter. I was thinking of farming it out to Allegra, who positively enjoyed shouting at people.
I deleted the messages, and was going through the post when the phone rang.
‘Mel?’ said a familiar voice, above the clatter of a busy office. ‘Can you do me a favour?’
‘Hello, Gabi!’ I said, putting the envelopes down and turning on the coffee machine. This wouldn’t be a quick call.
Gabi was my best friend, and she worked at the estate agency whose Paris branch Jonathan managed. She had an ear for gossip, an eye for a bargain and a nose for sticking into other people’s business. She was also funny, generous and loyal: the very best mate I’d ever had, even if her dark petiteness made me look like the Jolly Green Giant next to her.
‘Listen, are you around this evening?’ she went on. ‘I need you to cast your expert eye over my wedding plans!’
Gabi almost sang the phrase ‘my wedding plans!’
From the initial ideas I’d heard so far, it was going to be the sort of occasion when entire roads were closed off and helicopters were involved. Even though the Big Day was sixteen long months away, Gabi had already visited every major venue in north London. I’d stayed out of it as long as I could but clearly that political immunity was now about to end.
‘I’ve had to sack that wedding planner I was telling you about,’ she added. ‘She said that doves were very last year. I mean, hello? Has she been to any weddings recently? Everyone has doves!’ She paused. ‘I’m thinking about pigeons, you know, to put like a London spin on it. Do you reckon you can clean pigeons?’
I reached for the biscuit barrel. Although I had a massive diamond engagement ring, Jonathan and I hadn’t set a date for our own wedding yet. Just thinking about trying to organise it at the same time as Gabi’s gave me hot flushes and, in any case, Jonathan wanted to ‘get things straight’ in Paris first. What with moving and work and Jonathan’s insane diary, we’d barely even begun to discuss it, to be honest.
‘Do you want to come over to ours for some supper?’ I suggested. If Nelson was within earshot, it might just keep Gabi within the bounds of reality. ‘I should be finished here about six, and Nelson’ll be back from his wine class by eight-ish.’
‘As long as Nelson’s cooking,’ said Gabi cheerfully. ‘Actually, I need to ask him about getting some goats for the ceremony.’ I heard her clicking again. ‘Nelson . . . goats . . .’ she mumbled.
‘Riiiiight,’ I said, then spotted a note in my own diary. ‘Oh, actually, Gabi, I should warn you – Roger’s coming round for a trial-run manicure.’
Gabi made an affectionate gagging sound. Even people who loved Nelson’s friend Roger were not oblivious to his hygiene shortcomings. There was a good reason that a strapping six-foot sailing expert with a private income and a full head of hair was still more single than Cliff Richard. Not that that was the whole problem.
It’s difficult to describe Roger Trumpet to anyone who hasn’t met him, but put it like this: if Nelson was a Labrador, and Jonathan was a very well-bred Irish setter, then Roger was like the oldest and gloomiest of my mother’s basset hounds. Adorable on birthday cards, less so at parties where he’d been known to clear the room in under twenty minutes, just by drinking a bottle of wine in a particularly baleful manner. He also usually smelled like he’d recently rolled in something untoward.
I was terribly fond of him, though, as was Nelson. Roger was, after all, the raw material on which I’d honed every homme-improving skill I had. Not, sadly, that I’d wrought much long-term effect.
‘I hope he’s paying you,’ said Gabi disapprovingly. ‘You want to watch out, people taking advantage of you left, right and centre. Are you still on for sourcing those “Save the Day” cards, by the way?’
Honestly. Virtually everyone I knew liked to haul themselves up to the moral high ground before asking for favours themselves.
‘Absolutely, yes, Mrs Lumley, we’ll have those keys round to you by courier this afternoon!’ said Gabi abruptly, which I assumed meant that her boss, Hughie, had rolled in from his long lunch, so we left the conversation there and I went back to the post, exhausted.
The one intriguing handwritten envelope amongst the bills turned out to be from my office landlord, Peter, a retired violin teacher who lived in Stow-on-the-Wold. He didn’t see why he should spend his remaining years at the mercy of central heating, he wrote, and so the time had come to sell up and buy the little house in Sicily that he’d escaped to in his head during the thirty years of listening to children scraping away at ‘Frère Jacques’.
Oh, how nice, I thought automatically, then realised with a start that this might mean it wasn’t just Peter packing his bags for pastures new.
I reached for a second chocolate biscuit.
Peter wrote that he hoped the sale of the flat he’d bought in Pimlico for five thousand pounds all those years ago might now be able to fund that dream, but rather than turf me out on my ear, he wanted to give me first chance to buy it. If I was interested, I should get in touch with the estate agents who’d brokered the original letting agreement when he moved out a few years ago, but that I should do so within a month, before he opened it up to everyone else.
That estate agent was, naturally, Dean & Daniels. You’d think that would put me at an advantage, what with my fiancé being the biggest fromage in their European operation, but having worked with estate agents myself, I knew that wasn’t necessarily the case. And the asking price would be jaw-dropping. Peter had been renting it to me at a very generous price for the past year or so, and even if a new owner let me stay, it’d be at about three times the amount I was paying now.
I put the letter down thoughtfully. It would be a really good idea to buy the office, not least because it would mean I’d be bringing something to my marriage to Jonathan. He had so much money, and property in New York, whereas I had only my business, and though he was always going on about how much he admired my entrepreneurial skills, I knew he’d be amazed if I could pull off a little property deal of my own.
Plus, if there was one thing Mummy had taught me it’s that a girl needs a flight fund – a little something up her sleeve in case of emergency. Not that I saw any emergencies in the future with Jonathan, but one never knew.
I pulled out my calculator and started doing some sums.
At six, I packed off my last client, a simple consultation about furnishing a bachelor flat so that it wouldn’t remain a bachelor flat for too long. Once Simon was safely loping down Elizabeth Street, with a shopping list for Heals, I slipped thankfully out of my pencil skirt and back into my own comfy trousers, and drove home through the London drizzle, parking neatly in the half-space next to Nelson’s scooter.
Nelson was still out at his wine class, but he hadn’t risked letting me tackle supper. Instead, he’d left a note on the kitchen table instructing me – rather bossily – about which freezer dish to put in the oven and for how long, and what wine I should open and when.
Nelson really would make someone a splendid wife, I thought, scraping unsalted butter onto the shepherd’s pie topping, as directed in the accompanying diagram. While Roger’s tramp-like gloom explained his single state, Nelson was a whole other kettle of fish. It seemed absolutely incomprehensible that such an attractive, capable, baggage-free man should still be single at his age.
I reminded myself to ask subtly how the blind date had gone on Friday. Jossy was only the fourth in what I intended to be a long line of potentials. If Nelson was going to be fussy, he’d picked the right address book.
Jonathan would be home now, I reckoned, kicking off my shoes and arranging myself on the sofa. I pictured where he might be in the apartment as the French ringing tone blared in my ear.
The apartment, on the fourth floor of an atmos
pheric old building in the Marais district, was exactly what I dreamed a Paris apartment would be, from the long windows with the little flower-filled balcony looking out over the narrow street below, to the clanking elevator with the concertina doors, and the crackly buzzer system downstairs. Being Jonathan, he’d insisted on all mod cons as well as period ambience, so it had wi-fi and integrated stereo and all sorts of other high-tech gadgets slightly at odds with the original cast-iron fireplace and wooden floors.
There was a click, as my call was transferred, then another ringing tone, then a clipped woman’s voice said, ‘Allo?’
My heart sank. It was Solange, Jonathan’s new French PA. He’d always had frightfully competent robo-secretaries, but Solange was all that, and immaculately dressed. She was one of those skinny, manicured women who really suit navy blue. I’d met her in person only once, but my attempts to charm her, as one ex-PA to another, had fallen sur stony terre.
‘Allo, Solange!’ I said, screwing up my forehead in concentration. ‘C’est Melissa! Um, Jonathan – est-il là? Um, s’il vous plaît?’
‘Yes, he is here,’ she said, in perfect English. ‘Had you forgotten about his committee meeting this evening?’
‘Ah, oui, sorry,’ I said. It had slipped my mind. Jonathan was always getting on to committees. ‘Is he in it now?’ I added, having run out of French.
‘Yes.’
‘Oh.’
Short cross-channel silence.
‘Oh, well,’ I said brightly. ‘Perhaps you could tell him I called? I’ll ring again later. When he’s home.’
‘Very well,’ said Solange.
‘Um, do you have . . . any idea when that would be?’
‘Around half past eight.’ There was a definite note of reluctance in Solange’s voice. She really was the most discreet secretary in the world, I marvelled. Maybe I should encourage my father to poach her for his own office. Heaven knew, he needed someone super-discreet.
‘Well, thanks so much!’ I said, trying to sound friendly. ‘Hope you’re not stuck in the office for too much longer!’
Little Lady Agency and The Prince Page 6