by Kate Johnson
Of course, when the press had learned about this, they’d run stories ranging from how beauty school was for girls too stupid to get any real training, to how Eliza was depriving a hard-working professional make-up artist of income.
“The lesson is, you can’t bloody win,” Drina had said, and loyally insisted on Eliza doing her make-up before big events.
Eliza looked at the mess of clothes all over her bed. Tomtom the cat had already made a nest out of them. Oh God, what if Xavier was allergic to cats? Or dogs? There were loads of both milling around the place. Or horses, because it was impossible to truly get rid of every trace.
She sank down on the bed. She barely knew anything about him. She knew he was kind and brave and smart, which were good qualities, and she knew he was a police officer with a dangerous job, and he was originally from Puerto Rico and his father had died in a shooting and… well, that was about it.
Her hand slid to her stomach, which hadn’t noticeably changed shape. Maybe she was wrong about this whole thing, but she doubted it. The period that had always been regular as clockwork was now five weeks overdue. She’d been horribly sick with no provocation, and suddenly found she couldn’t stand the smell of shellfish. She also kept bursting into tears for no reason, although her mother kept murmuring that it would take a while to get over the shock of her ordeal, and did she want to see the therapist again?
Her phone buzzed, and she looked up. Xavier had sent her a selfie of himself on the London Underground. Her text app read it out in its familiar robotic voice. “Look, I’m in a James Bond film!”
She smiled. She’d seen that film, and it hadn’t ended well for the Underground. She was about to text this back when her phone buzzed again.
“What’s a West Cornwall Pasty?”
The app pronounced it pasty, as in the shade of her skin after two months back in England, and she had to listen a couple more times before she said out loud, “Oh, a Cornish pastie!”
“Meat and vegetables in pastry,” she dictated. “Try it. It’s nice.”
Xavier sent an emoji of an uncertain-looking face.
She laughed, because this was obviously some kind of adventure to him. He’d admitted, when he called with his flight details, that he’d never been to Europe before. She wondered if she’d be able to take him to London and show him the sights, maybe even get Granny to let him into the Palace—
Her smile fell. Granny. The Palace. Heaven help her, if she really was pregnant she might be asking for Granny’s permission to marry a lot sooner than she’d ever expected. Not to mention how Xavier might feel about it.
Anxiety swirled in her stomach. Eliza tried to breathe deeply, failed, and got up to rush to the bathroom again.
Chapter Eight
Everything in England seemed incredibly small.
Xavier assumed things in London were made on a bigger scale, but all he’d seen of the capital was under the ground. He’d eaten the weird meat pastry thing Eliza had told him to try, found the right train on the second attempt, and even managed to change trains at a town he had no idea how to pronounce. The letters ‘wich’ in a place name seemed to be said a different way each time, and the less said about the pronunciation of ‘Norfolk’ the better.
It all would have been a damn sight easier if he could drive, but he still hadn’t been cleared to and besides, he didn’t know if his head would be in the right space to negotiate the British obsession with roundabouts.
The train stations were tiny, pretty things with flower baskets, like something out of Thomas the Tank Engine. He got off at one which had a name so Miss Marplish he half expected it to be a joke on the behalf of the villagers, but which, given the context of the other names on his map, appeared to be entirely serious.
He stood on the platform, sheltered from the non-existent sun by a fret-worked wooden roof, and stared at the station sign. “Great Wigglethorpe-by-the-Marsh,” he read out loud. “Okay, but Little Snoring is a made up name, right?”
There was no one around to respond. Xavier strongly suspected his was the only train to pass through that day. He shrugged, shouldered his bag and walked out into Great Wigglethorpe-by-the-Marsh. There wasn’t a parking lot so much as a bit of tarmac with a ‘no waiting’ sign, and the only vehicle in it was a battered khaki truck which looked like it had survived World War Two.
“Mr Rivera?” said the man leaning against it. He was in jeans and muddy boots. “My name is Janusz. Her Highness has sent me for you.”
Eliza had said she’d send someone. He’d been expecting… well, maybe not a limo or a luxury SUV, but something as little less like a farm vehicle. Suspicious to the core, Xavier held up a finger, and called Eliza. “Hi. Who did you send to pick me up?”
“Janusz. Is he not there? He’ll be in the Landie.”
“The what?”
“The Land Rover. A green… um, like a Jeep.”
Yeah, that was it. A really old, pre-war Jeep. Jeez. “Oh, he’s here. With his… farm vehicle.”
She laughed, but he could hear the nervousness. “Trust me, you’ll be grateful for it when you get to Deeping’s Ford. I’ll see you soon.”
He still had no idea what she was talking about. This whole place seemed invented to confuse visitors.
He got in the ‘Landie’ and it bounced away. The damaged muscles of his shoulder protested.
The roads here were super narrow and lined with little cottages made of flint that had not so much as a sidewalk between them and the road. Parking seemed to be part of an extreme sport, mostly designed to cause maximum disruption to traffic. No wonder all the cars here were the size of children’s toys. In parts, the road narrowed to only one car width, and drivers had to simply take it in turns, waving cheerfully as other vehicles careened past, a hairs-breadth from an ancient cottage.
“This is chaos,” he said to Janusz, who looked surprised.
“No, this is quiet. You should see it when it’s pick-up time at the school.” He calmly drove the comparatively large Land Rover through a gap being shared by oncoming traffic.
Xavier really hoped he didn’t end up moving to England and becoming a cop here. The traffic policing must be a nightmare.
The car abruptly left the village for a narrow lane lined with trees. The whole country—or at least the parts he’d seen from the train—was covered with a blanket of green, leafy and pastoral like a painting. The road was so narrow that if a car had come the other way, he was sure Janusz would have hit it, but even when they approached a small river flowing across the road his driver didn’t slow down. Xavier began to wonder if he was being driven to his own assassination.
Right about then, the car stopped at a gatehouse discreetly marked Brakefield Hall and Xavier was patted down and handed over his suitcase to be searched. At least someone has decent security. He could see nothing of the house beyond the trees, and there were little cameras all over the place.
He was allowed back in, and the car bounced off along a long, long drive, which might have been a road really, lined with trees that offered glimpses of gentle parkland. He thought he saw a deer looking back at him through one gap, and there were definitely cows.
Then the car rounded a copse of trees and they came into view of a lake, sparkling in a sudden burst of sunshine, and a long sweep of lawn topped by some hedges cut into fancy maze-like knots. The road curved over an ornamental bridge and led up to a—Jesus Christ, was that a castle?
“Here, we have arrived,” said Janusz, somewhat unnecessarily, as Xavier stared out of the window at Brakefield Hall. It was perfectly symmetrical, red brick and castellated. Was that a word? Encastled. Castlised. Whatever. The thing had turrets.
The car crunched to a halt in front of a door roughly the size of his mother’s house, and Janusz got out to fetch Xavier’s case. Xavier followed slowly, craning his neck to look up at the turrets, which rose twenty feet above the top floor.
He half expected to see archers up there. In chainmail.
&nbs
p; This place could not be real.
Xavier had spent half the journey convincing himself he was being played for a fool, again, and the other half wondering why an actual princess would pick someone like him, an immigrant cop, to dupe. She wasn’t Marisol, panicked and desperate for security.
He looked up at the house and nearly laughed out loud. Anyone who lived here was the very opposite of desperate.
Then the massive door opened and Eliza burst out, her face wreathed in smiles, and he smiled back. Damn, it was good to see her, blonde and healthy and not on the other side of a TV screen.
She had on some kind of woollen sweater dress that revealed nothing of her condition—if there even is a condition, said his cop brain—and her hair was loose, falling over one side of her face. She ran towards him, then stopped, and hesitated, her gaze going to Janusz the driver.
“Oh what the hell,” she said, and suddenly he was being hugged.
She didn’t smell of coconuts any more, but she did smell good. And she felt good, too, her body solid and strong against his. Xavier hugged her back with his good arm, and as he looked down at her face he could remember how it had felt to kiss that pouty pink lip of hers.
She looked back up at him, and her sunny smile faded somewhat into a breathless kind of heat. Oh yes. She remembered it too.
“I will take your bag in, sir,” said Janusz, and Xavier reluctantly stepped back from Eliza.
“He’s in the blue room in the South wing,” Eliza called, and got a grunt in reply.
She looked Xavier over, and smiled again, this time more genuinely.
“It is so good to see you,” she said. “I’ve been going mad here. How was your journey?” she added, as if remembering her manners.
“Good.” Weird. Boring. Confusing. “It takes a long time to get anywhere in England,” he confided, and Eliza snorted.
“You just spoke a mouthful there. How is your…” she waved at his sling.
“Fine. Good, actually. I’ve been doing physical therapy.” He tore his gaze from her to look back at the Tudor monstrosity she apparently called home. Nope, no better. He wondered if it had its own zip code.
“Strengthen the arm muscles. Work on the nerve damage,” he added vaguely, the same answer he’d been giving people for months.
Eliza began up the wide steps to the big door, which gaped darkly, like a mouth. She tugged on the sleeves of her sweater to cover her hands and glanced back at him. He realised her hair covered the injured side of her face, and her outfit concealed pretty much every other bit of her skin.
Yeah. ‘Flaunting’.
“Will it recover fully?” she asked. “Your arm? I was looking into nerve damage and the like but it was all rather complex and I got somewhat lost.”
“It should do,” Xavier told her, as she led him into a marble entryway with a flight of richly carpeted stairs leading upwards, and an intricately vaulted ceiling with a chandelier. “If I do the PT I’ve… been… told…”
Holy shit. Xavier halted at the top of the stairs, and forgot how words worked.
The marble entryway had been just a sort of lobby, the stairs leading up to a huge, wide landing lined with oil paintings and flocked wallpaper and velvet hangings. From it, a truly grand staircase rose, curved and wide enough for a dozen people, with thick polished mahogany handrails and trimmings that looked like real gold—and probably were.
The hallway was the size of a ballroom, tiled in dizzying black and white. The doors were about five feet wide and topped with ornate plaster arches. Every now and then an antique chair or table or marble bust broke up the endless stretch of opulence. A clock ticked, echoing loudly in the huge space.
A fat tabby cat sat nonchalantly on one of the ancient-looking velvet chairs, licking its paws and ignoring them both.
“Well, good,” said Eliza, apparently unfazed by his reaction. “I’m glad. You’re looking well,” she said, a blushed a little, bringing him back down to Earth. This place was huge, and it looked like a museum, but Eliza lived here, and she was—he’d been trying to tell people—a normal person. Wasn’t she?
“Now. Would you like to see your room, rest a little, or have a tour of the place?”
I’d like to talk to you about the thing I came three thousand miles for, Xavier wanted to say, but as he tried to work out how to say it, footsteps clacked closer and Eliza’s eyes went wide, and she smoothed down her sweater.
“Mummy,” she said, as a set of doors opened and a slim, elegant woman in her fifties came in.
Xavier glanced at Eliza for her cue. Should he greet the princess? She was the princess, wasn’t she? Well, a princess, because Eliza was also one, confusingly. At any rate, Eliza said nothing for the hour or so it took for her mother to cross the vast expanse of hallway to them.
Then she smiled politely and said, “Your Highness. May I present Detective Xavier Rivera. Xavier, my mother, Henrietta, the Princess Royal.”
She called her own mother Your Highness. Should he bow? He should bow. Maybe a kind of nod? Shit, he should have looked this up!
“Your Highness,” he said, and she gave him an appraising look before offering her hand to shake.
“Detective,” she said, and Xavier finally understood the adjective ‘plummy’. It sounded like she had a mouthful of them. “Welcome to Brakefield. My daughter has spoken extensively of your bravery and kindness. I cannot tell you how grateful we are for her safe return to us.”
“I was just doing my job,” Xavier said, for the millionth time.
“No, you weren’t. Your job, as I understand it, was to get that ship into US waters so the crew could be arrested. Your job did not involve freeing a hostage.”
“What was I supposed to do, leave her?”
“Many would,” said the Princess Royal. She had eyes like sapphires, hard and blue. Her complexion was pale and extremely well taken-care of, and if he hadn’t known her age he’d have pitched it at ten years younger. Her clothes were casual but immaculately tailored.
She made him feel like a redneck straight off the boat.
“But you did not, and because of your brave actions Eliza is safe and well. And for that you will always, always have our gratitude.”
“Well,” he said awkwardly, “you’re welcome. Your Highness.”
“Now. I know how debilitating jet-lag can be. Would you like to see your room? We eat supper at seven.” She turned as if expecting an aide to be there, or perhaps to call a butler.
Eliza said, “I’ll show him. I invited him, after all.”
“Yes.” Another very assessing look. Xavier had been sized up by less terrifying alligators. “How long will you be staying, Detective?”
“Uh.” He hadn’t worked that out yet. His ticket was one-way. At the border control he’d lied through his teeth he’d be there for a week, on holiday. “I don’t know yet, Your Highness.”
“Well,” she said. “You’re most welcome anyway. Now do excuse me, I have a great deal of correspondence to deal with.”
She nodded at them both and went back the way she’d come, leaving Xavier again with the distinct feeling he should be bowing.
“See, she’s not so scary,” said Eliza breezily. “Come on. I’ll show you to your room.”
“Is it normal for princesses to show guests to their rooms?” Xavier asked, as he followed her towards the elaborately curved staircase.
“Next time I visit one, I’ll ask,” she said, and Xavier supposed he deserved that.
The staircase wound up a good twenty feet, the walls and ceilings elaborately decorated with relief plasterwork painted in shades of cream and gold. The upright parts of the handrail were either painted gold or made solidly of the stuff, and they bowed outwards as if to give more room to the ten or twenty or fifty people he reckoned could have used the stairs at any given time.
“It’s called a crinoline stair,” Eliza said, noticing his reaction. She mimed flouncing a large, wide skirt. “So ladies with hoop skirts didn’t k
nock each other over like frilly skittles.”
“You, uh, you wear a lot of hoop skirts?” asked Xavier, trying to picture her as Scarlett O’Hara.
“Only when they match my tiara,” she said with a smile, and Xavier got the feeling this wouldn’t be the first time he had no idea if she was joking.
The upstairs landing was as ornate as the downstairs one, with a bewildering number of large, heavily framed doors leading from it. Eliza took him to one of them, but instead of opening into a bedroom it was another hallway, or maybe an ante-chamber, or a guard room or something. Maybe a second whole house. Maybe another level of the Matrix.
Xavier had spent over a year undercover, infiltrating the Lopez gang. He’d set up elaborate counter-actions against druglords. He’d once taken down a man trying to shoot the Governor of Florida, whilst said Governor was hosting a black tie reception at the State Capitol. He’d always figured there was no situation he couldn’t adapt to if he tried.
He appeared to have just found it.
His cop eyes noted small security cameras in every corner. Several times, they passed someone neatly dressed, who nodded politely to them both. Xavier knew security staff when he saw them, and this house was crawling with them.
Another set of stairs led up, and then Eliza took him into a room with sloped ceilings, a comfortable sofa and a TV. Compared to the insane grandeur of the public areas of the house, it looked almost cosy.
“This is your sitting room,” she said. “I can’t promise you’ll have absolute privacy, because the staff will come in to clean and tidy, but they should wait until you’re not in the room and they will always knock. And this is your bedroom,” she added, pushing open another panelled door.