“Hello there. How do you like Italy?” Lizzy said.
“It was bollocks. I’ve left him and I’m back in the city. Hoping to get some girls together but they seem to have fled to the counties.”
Within seconds Lizzy had decided she was well enough to go out with friends without making an outrageous spectacle. It would be a sort of litmus test to see if she was steadier and more responsible yet.
“Sorry to hear it. Want to have a meet up tonight? I’ve been in for far too long.” Lizzy said, brightening a bit at the reprieve from her self-imposed seclusion.
“Yes! God, it’s been forever! Let’s doll up and go to one of the new clubs. I don’t even know what they are. You choose.”
“I like Lemon Yellow. It’s in Mayfair.”
“Meet you in three hours?”
“Yes, let’s do!” Lizzy said.
She drove to the club, had the devil of a time parking, and was half an hour late. Marianna didn’t answer texts, which probably meant she was already inside where it was too loud to hear her phone. She dipped her Prada shades just enough that the bouncer could identify her and unhook a velvet rope to let her past the queue outside. Once she was in the crush, she scored a cocktail and located Marianna who, fresh off her annulment, seemed to have already found solace in a new man.
Within minutes, a gorgeous man sidled up to their table and offered Lizzy a drink. Lizzy felt a surge of embarrassment, suddenly aware that this had been a stupid idea. After days indoors and on her own, she felt exposed, watched. She took a long breath and made herself manage a rictus friendly smile.
“Your accent sounds familiar. Where are you from?” She said.
“I’m Amondi. From Mombasa.”
“Ah, I went to Kenya last spring.”
“Safari?”
“Humane safari, photos only. It was a tremendous experience. My boyfriend—my ex-boyfriend took me there.”
“Did the animals frighten him?”
“No, I think I did frightened him though.” She said.
“Care to dance?”
She smiled at him sadly and told him she was going to call it a night. Marianna was already back on the dance floor and couldn’t object to her early departure. She felt wrong being there, being flirted with. As she settled her tab at the bar, a man approached her.
“Always good to meet the local royalty, princess.”
She turned to see Max Linport, an American racing driver who’d been making the rounds in Europe of late. Americans always sighted royals; she thought ruefully and shook his hand.
“Could I buy you a drink?” He said.
“No thank you. I’m finished for the night.”
“It’s early! I wouldn’t mind seeing those pretty tattoos you showed in that magazine.”
“Thanks, but I’ll have to pass.” She said, trying not to wince at the memory of those pictures.
“Smile.” Max said.
Before she knew it, he’d produced a selfie stick and mashed his face up against hers to snap a photo. She forced a broad smile and wished him the best of Britain.
“Aw, I’m just passing through. I’ll tag you in this.”
“Thanks.” She said.
After she’d managed to get out of her tight parking space, only bumping one car in the process, Lizzy realized that photo would show up on her Twitter feed. It meant that Phillip would see her out partying with an American racer. It made her desperate to find Phillip and explain. I wasn’t with him, she’d say. He just took a picture. He probably had no interest in what she did or with whom.
She rang her father’s social secretary and asked if her parents had any time the following morning to meet with her as she was back in town. She was given a stern lecture and an appointment at nine. She set her alarm but she didn’t sleep. Instead, she went over what she wanted to say, the points she intended to make. She missed Phillip, yearned to ask his advice since he had his own rather troublesome set of parents whose ambitions for him were often at cross purposes with what he wanted.
She chose carefully, a gray suit and a low heel, hair pinned up rather than her usual ponytail or messy bun. When she arrived at the palace, she was ushered in to her father’s office. Lizzy clutched her folder and stood behind one of the guest chairs, awaiting her father the king. He charged in and took his seat behind a massive desk, looking for all the world like a headmaster about to expel a recalcitrant charge.
“Hello, sir.” She said.
“I have a quarter of an hour, Eliza, what do you want? Apart from the opportunity to explain why you’ve disobeyed me yet again.”
“I’ve developed a business plan for a project I am undertaking at Pembroke this year. I wanted to give you the consideration of prior notice and let you look over the prospectus if you wish.”
“You’re starting a project on your own now? Edible fashion, is it? Or perhaps you’ve devised a lipstick that reduces the carb content of your food? What have you decided to contribute to civilization at this late date?”
Lizzy pressed her lips together and laid the folder on his desk. He flipped through it, giving it a cursory glance.
“You have horses. You’ve no need of more and I have no intention of funding your little idea.”
“I didn’t expect you to. I’m applying for a physio course. Nothing scandalous.”
“If you expect congratulations on this effort after your unladylike behavior has caused the family grave embarrassment, and your mother more than one sleepless night, you’re doomed to disappointment. If you plan to remain in London, you may attend the hospital awards dinner tomorrow night to accept a plaque in honor of the family’s contributions. Wear something your stylist selects and make certain it covers all of your tattoos.”
“If you skim the budget sheet, I’ve accounted for all anticipated expenses and allocated funding.”
“If you’ve discovered how to pay for something yourself, it would be the first time, and only a couple of decades later than I would have preferred.” He said.
“I had hoped you’d be pleased for me, Father.” She said, chin up.
“You have no idea how much I’d like to be pleased for you. I know you think I’m hard on you. I am, in truth.” He said, taking off his reading glasses. “When we had the two older boys, I’d told your mother I’d always wanted a daughter. A little girl to spoil, to wear ribbons and think I was her hero.”
“So now you wish you’d stopped at the heir and the spare?”
“I am not a monster, Eliza. I have reason to be thankful for each of my children. My point was that what we receive is not often what we wished for. I have an eldest daughter who seems determined to make life more difficult for herself. It’s been a strain on me your entire life, watching you butt your head against anything that smacked of expectations.”
“I know I’ve been dreadful. For once I do know it. I’m—“ She sank into a chair and dropped her voice. “I’m taking my medication again. It was stupid of me to stop it and to cause so much grief. It’s done me a service though. I finally did something bad enough that it snapped me out of my arrogance and I hope to be a deal better from here on. I’m terribly sorry, most particularly because you’re ill and instead of being a comfort I’ve been—“
“Eliza, that is the rub of being a parent. You have infinite capacity to forgive, and infinite capacity to grieve every time your child stumbles.”
“I am so sorry.” She said, a catch in her voice. She fought back against the tears clogging her throat. She’d promised herself to be serious and calm, no histrionics, but it was hard to blink back tears when she saw the raw disappointment in her father’s expression. “I’ll go to the hospital awards. I’ll work on my physio training and I’ll keep out of sight.”
“If you can manage it, it will be a major change for you.”
“It’s time and past for a major change, isn’t it.” She said.
“Well past time.” He agreed. “What is the terrible thing you’ve done? Although person
ally, I think I had rather not know it, I’ll need to advise Smithpeters for damage control.”
“It’s nothing public, nothing where I expose what a complete arse I can make of myself—I’ve done that often enough though. It’s much more private. I’ve made—I’ve made Phillip Rhys-Cooper love me.”
Lizzy looked down at her hands, blinking rapidly, swallowing hard. It was impossibly hard just to say his name, to admit it.
“Is that so bad?”
“It’s the worst. I’ve taken the kindest, best of men and bent him to my will and destroyed him.”
“Do you think him so feeble that you’ve destroyed him? If he is, then he is not perhaps the best of men after all.”
“Never say he isn’t! He was so fine and patient, and he defended me when Magnus was being horrid at the music benefit and went round to the silliest parties with me and made me take an interest in the environment and want to do bigger, more difficult things myself—“
“You did him a deal of good in the by-election with your charade. He’s not entirely selfless.”
“You don’t understand. I had to coax him into letting me help. He never would have traded on his closeness to the family. He’s far too honorable for that. Far too honorable for the likes of me.” She said hotly.
“I’m afraid it’s worse than you thought, Eliza.”
“Oh, God. What’s he done? Has he withdrawn from the by-elections? Has he gone to America after that foolish girl who left him, who, admittedly, is better than I am, but was dreadful to him?”
“Even more dire. He’s made you love him.”
“Oh, I know that. What’s that to the purpose? It isn’t as if it would ever work out, since he’s about twenty years ahead of me in maturity. I’m doing a physio course and trying to keep on my medicine. I can scarcely take care of myself. What sort of wife would I be for a minister of Parliament? With my wicked past and my tattoos and my chemical imbalance.”
“Wife?” The king said, amusement tugging at the corners of his somber mouth.
“Shit. I didn’t mean wife. I meant girlfriend or—or person. I’m a disaster and there’s nothing for it but to spare him the endless melodrama of my trying to get my life together at last.”
“Have you thought to ask Phillip what he wants?”
“I’ll leave off contacting him. It’s better, I know. Doing the right thing is meant to be its own reward, with karma and what have you. I expect that’s why it hurts like the very devil. Forgive me for rambling on in this silly fashion, Dad. Tell me how you’re feeling.”
With that, Eliza Margaret Penelope sat and listened for a quarter of an hour instead of dominating the conversation. She hadn’t got the approval she went to the palace for, but she had had a real discussion with her father She felt unreasonably proud of herself as she rode home. She listened to her voicemail and found that Nene was back in the city and planning a girls’ night for those who hadn’t been able to go to her dirty thirty.
“Since you absconded so early, I thought to include you. Jamie’s intended will be there and I thought it would do Jamie-James a bit of good if we got Astrid used to the smart set. We’re meeting at the Delta Cross at ten.”
Lizzy swallowed hard and messaged Smithpeters to ask the palace’s opinion of her making an appearance with Nene and Astrid at a club. The swift reply was favorable. She knew the queen had a hand in that, because she and Inga wished so much for their children to marry. She had always encouraged Lizzy to befriend the clever and serious Astrid. Astrid, she thought suddenly, might be good for Jamie the way Phillip had been good for her, steadying and fiercely loyal.
The other messages were from friends, mostly wanting the goss on the Magnus article. Nothing from Phillip. Because, why would there be? She looked gloomily at her phone, at the picture she’d snapped of him having his tattoo of the acorn. He hadn’t even wanted it, she knew, had just done it to support her, because he really meant for that crown on her shoulder to stand for something. Now she had booked an appointment to have it lasered off. It would hurt, but she didn’t care. She wanted it to hurt.
Lizzy phoned her stylist and explained the awards dinner and how she needed a gown that covered her entire left side and a ‘temporary spot’ below her left collarbone. She would have a choice of dresses by mid-afternoon. She researched the event she was attending. She scanned the hospital site for information on the new children’s wing. She saw that the family’s award was for their work in raising awareness of childhood cancers which was really down to Jamie who did a great deal of polo matches for his patronages. She felt a fraud, picking up his award. Never mind that Jamie was probably three drinks in by now, with a blond on either side of him.
She sent her applications for the physio course and messaged her business manager about how best to select a contractor for the work on the stables and which agency to use to staff the facility. A package arrived for her, a little white box with no card. She mused that it must have passed inspection or she’d have never been permitted to open it because it might be anthrax or an incendiary device. She lifted the lid and inside it was a little acorn carved out of wood, delicate in its texture and detail. A slip of paper, handwritten. From your Pembroke boy. She held the small acorn in her hand and gritted her teeth, taking quick breaths until the desire to weep had passed. She couldn’t call him. Couldn’t thank him or ask what in hell he meant by sending her an acorn to remind her of him and of their time together. She tucked it, box and all, in her handbag to deal with later.
The stylist sent over two dresses. The short white one was right out because of a massive fabric flower affixed to the left shoulder. So it had to be the second dress, a nude and pink ombre confection with a frothy long skirt, sheer fabric tucked and folded across the bodice and drawn across the left shoulder, a scattering of silver sparkles obscuring the shadow of the crown on her shoulder. She messaged the stylist to have it picked up and altered and then sent a text to her mother that she was attending the awards and wanted the Argyle tiara. It suited her dress, she claimed. It’s mine, is what she didn’t say.
She gave herself one small concession. She would text Phillip Rhys-Cooper one last time. It was to give Phillip the apology she owed him anyhow. She took out the wooden acorn and held it for courage. She typed and deleted three attempts, growing increasingly upset with each sentence.
“I’m so sorry that I was not the answer for you. I was selfish and I hurt you. I miss you greatly.”
The screen lit up with his answer.
“I was hoping you’d say you missed me.”
“I’ll never see the ancestral barrel now. You won’t have to hear which sort of sheep you’re driving past. Only don’t think that this is down to you. Amanda was a slag, not your fault. I’m mental, not your fault. I only hope you can pull a better class of girl next round.”
“I have it on authority you come from the best of families.”
“Do put this behind you, Phillip. You’ve better things waiting for you and I can’t stand the thought of you feeling badly because of me.”
“May I phone you?”
“No. Please.”
“How are you fixed for tonight?”
“Out with the girls and Jamie’s possible future bride.” “Tomorrow?”
“Charity do, getting an award for the family.”
“The day after?”
“Please, Phillip. I shouldn’t have messaged.”
“You should always message. And call. And knock at my door.”
“I’m sorry.” She replied and shut her phone off.
When it was time to ready for the evening out with Nene, Marianna and Astrid, she opted for a black miniskirt, a silver crop top that would shimmer under the club lights and showed a sliver of the vine tattoo. She met Nene and Astrid, who had been pointed out by the king and queen as an eminently suitable choice for Jamie, who was overdue to settle down and wed a princess for Wales. With the monarchy on shaky ground, with her father’s state of health so uncertain
, the crown needed all the good notice it could get, and a union with such a fine upstanding girl was the best sort of rumor.
“That dishy Kenyan tried to get your private number from me at Lemon Yellow.” Marianna said by way of a greeting.
“I hope you didn’t give it to him.”
“I know better than that by now, I hope.”
“Girls, my party was fabulous but it’s good to be back in civilization. Let’s have a pitcher of white sangria for a start and give me all the goss!” Nene said.
They clustered around a high table in the busy club. Lizzy picked a shred of basil out of her drink with distaste. She wiped her damp hand on a cocktail napkin and tried to follow the outrageous tale of Nene’s virtual orgy of a dirty thirty bash. When Nene cued up photos on her phone, “Strictly NSFW, you know, not for the likes of Instagram,” Lizzy thought to check her mobile and found it still turned off. She’d missed a call from Phillip. She winced and put the phone away. It was better that she didn’t talk with him. She’d only beg him to let her come back; she’d only be selfish and hurt him more. When she wasn’t so sad, when she was stronger, she could see him, speak to him as a matter of course when their paths crossed, as they would do at, potentially, Jamie’s hypothetical wedding.
No matter how energetically she laughed along with her friends, Lizzy was distracted by the call she’d missed. When Nene suggested they move on to another club, Lizzy claimed she needed her beauty sleep for the public appearance on the morrow and got a taxi.
There he was. Parked outside the back entrance of Kensington Palace. Parked just slightly crooked, the way he had the first night he had dropped her off. The guards must know he was there, must have questioned him already, and probably had warned him to leave off and call her in the morning. He waited, steadfast. She went and knocked on his driver’s side window and he rolled it down.
“Any chance you’re here to see me?” She said.
“Yes, actually, I’ve quite a good speech prepared. It works better if I’m standing. Back up.” He said.
He pocketed the keys and got out of the car. She was standing so close that he scarcely had room to slide out the door.
The Princess Royal (Royal Romances Book 2) Page 12