by Liz Fielding
“Ally Parker,” she said.
“Thank you ...” The woman’s voice was soft, her English faintly accented. “I don’t know what you said to Fredrik but thank you.”
“Signora Nero?”
“Claudia, please.”
“How was he?” she asked.
“It was difficult,” she admitted. “For both of us. We had not spoken for so long. It will take time ...” She gave a little sob. “If I’d known what he’d seen I would have tried to explain that there was nothing left of his father. Only a shell kept alive by machines. Otto knew the risks he took and he’d made a living will.”
“Did you show him?”
“Yes, but I should have talked to Fredrik about what was going to happen. I thought he was too young to understand. I thought it would be simpler ... I did not have the courage.”
“No one knows how to handle something like this, Claudia. Was there no one there to support you?”
“Otto’s parents were old and would not have understood. My family live in Italy. Alessandro wanted to be there but it did not seem appropriate.”
Alessandro? That was her youngest son’s name ...
“Signor Nero?” she queried.
“He was Otto’s best friend. They were climbing together when he fell. There was nothing he could have done, but he still felt responsible.”
So his mother hadn’t just remarried, she’d married the man who was with her husband when he fell. No wonder people assumed that was the reason Fredrik couldn’t forgive her. She was sure that Claudia Nero was a lovely woman, but there was, perhaps, something a little shaky in her judgement.
“It will get better, Claudia,” she assured her. “Give it time.”
“Will you come and see me, Ally?”
Oh, good grief. Not without talking to Fredrik first. “I’m fully booked until after lunch and I’m not sure what the palace have planned, Claudia. Can I call you?”
“Of course.”
Ally tapped on Hope’s door and the moment it was opened she was enveloped in a huge hug. “I’ve hardly had a moment to talk to you. Last night was an endless round of Jonas’s uncles, aunts and cousins come to inspect me.”
“Did you pass?”
“Who knows,” she said. “You’d think I was marrying the entire royal family.” She shrugged. “I suppose I am. But forget them. How are you coping with the desperately dour Count? I tried to talk Princess Anna out of pairing him up with you. You’re going to be stuck with him here and at the wedding and you’ll be bored to death.”
“I promise you I haven’t been bored one moment in his company and he’s taking me somewhere down by the harbour for lunch. Do you think these will put a smile on his face?” she asked, waggling a toe of her pink polka dot sandal.
Hope laughed. “He’d be made of wood if they didn’t.”
“He’s definitely not made of wood.”
“Oh?” Hope’s eyes widened. “Tell me more.”
Ally gave her a blow-by-blow description of their first meeting until they were both laughing but then Hope’s smiled faded and she seemed to be somewhere else entirely.
“Are you okay, Hope?”
“What? Oh, yes ... It’s just that all this is a bit much.” She made a gesture that took in the palace and everything in it but before Ally could push it she said, “Let’s have a look at your ideas for the diary.”
“Okay. Do you want the good news or the bad news?”
“What’s the bad news?”
“It’s going to be called Becoming a Princess.”
Hope groaned. “I don’t want to be a wretched princess. You’ve met Anna ...”
“One, Anna is the Crown Princess and has a lot on her shoulders. Two, the title is commercial. It does what it says on the tin and it will sell like hotcakes.”
Hope sighed. “I trust your judgement, Al, and if we’re going to do this we have to go for it whole-heartedly. So what’s the good news?”
“I’ve shown it to the Crown Princess and the Dowager. I had a summons first thing and they met me together, prepared to gang up on me I suspect if it didn’t meet with their approval. In the event they seemed pleasantly surprised. They even promised a quote.”
“About how much they were looking forward to the wedding?”
“Who knows, but Prince Carlo popped in, took a look and asked if it was a women-only thing or could he tell the world how happy you’ve made Jonas.”
“What? Oh ...”
Rather than flattered, Hope look flattened and concerned.
Ally reached out and took her hand. “Forget Jonas. How happy are you?”
Hope sighed. “I’m not sure that love makes you happy, Al.” She looked out of the window as if desperate to escape. “Maybe it’s just weddings and receptions and balls that are the problem. Or Crown Princesses with a protocol fixation.” She pulled a face, attempting to make a joke of it. “Ignore me. I’m suffering from a surfeit of footmen.” Ally would have pressed it but Hope forestalled her. “Show me what you’ve got,” she said, making it clear that the subject was closed.
Ally took out her tablet and opened it at the pages she’d shown the princesses, but Hope shook her head. “Not the diary. It’s got the royal seal of approval and I know I can trust you to do a good job. I want to know all about the party on the green.”
Ally talked through her ideas for the “country fair” party she was planning. The bouquets of cupcakes that would be the centrepieces for the tables in the marquee, buckets of garden flowers, the glorious carousel with its gilded horses.
“It’s going to be family event. I’ve booked a bouncy castle for the children, I’ve found a Punch and Judy man and I’m hunting down someone who’ll give donkey rides.”
“What fun. I wish we could move the whole damn thing out there and let our hair down.”
“Once the official stuff is over, you’ll be able to go out and join in.” She closed her tablet on the pictures of the gilded horses of the carousel. “In fact it will be expected and if Princess Anna thinks it’s beneath her I’ll play the noblesse oblige card and drag her out there, too.”
Hope laughed, shook her head. “She’s met her match in you.”
“You catch more flies with honey than vinegar. I’ve been practising my curtsey and I’m being unbelievably respectful. I’m not sure the Dowager is taken in but Anna thinks I’m tame.” Ally glanced at her watch and yelped. “I have to go.”
“Enjoy your lunch.”
“I’ll tell you all about it tonight.”
“Tonight?”
“Oh, didn’t I say? Flora and I decided that, as royal bridesmaids, it’s our duty to take you for a girl’s night out. Celina has fixed it with Princess Anna – I didn’t ask what she had to sacrifice – so you can tell Jonas that he has the night off. You are going clubbing.”
Chapter Nine
Ally had just put the finishing touches to her make-up, brushed out her hair and, anticipating a breeze down by the harbour, twisted a scarf around it to keep it in place when her phone rang.
“Fredrik?”
“Ally ...”
“Is this important?” she said. “Because I’m going to be late for a very important date.”
“I’m sorry ...”
Yes, well, she’d realized that he was going to be a no-show the minute he’d said her name.
“I’ve seen this on those cop shows on the TV,” she said. “Every time the hero gets a hot date someone finds a body.”
“There isn’t a body but you’re right – there is a crisis.”
“A security chief’s life is not his own,” she said, swallowing down her disappointment. She expected him to be in a hurry to ring off, but he didn’t and she said, “Your mother called me.”
“She asked for your number. I hope it was okay to give it to her.”
“Dominic gave me her number last night but I didn’t want to call her without clearing it with you. She asked if I’d go and see her.”
&nbs
p; “What did you say?”
“That I wasn’t sure what the palace had arranged. That I would call her.”
“After you’d cleared it with me.”
“Can you bear it?”
“Can you? It’s a big step, meeting a guy’s mother.”
She heard someone call him. He told them he’d be right there, but instead of saying a hurried goodbye and hanging up he said, “I managed to get a table at a restaurant with a three-month waiting list. It would be a pity to waste it. I’ll send a car and you can pick her up and have lunch together on me.” Again he didn’t end the call.
“Hot date?” he queried.
“A figure of speech.”
“Of course. Have you any plans for this evening?”
“Actually, Flora, Hope and I do have something planned.” Was it wrong to feel just a bit glad that she wasn’t available? That having dumped her and landed her with his mother he was going to have to work a little bit harder for that hot date.
About to tell him they were going clubbing she stopped herself. Hope wasn’t yet a “face” in San Michele. All that would change after the engagement announcement at the ball, but tonight she would be anonymous, free to be herself. The last thing they needed was a security tail.
“It’s a girl’s night. You know – pizza, a soppy movie, ice cream.”
“If that’s what you consider a good time ...” There was another call and he said, “I have to go.”
“Take care, Fredrik.”
“You too. High heels and cobbles don’t mix. And when you’ve had enough ice cream, don’t call a cab, call me.”
What? He knew! She shook her head. Of course he knew.
“Wait!” She swallowed. “If there are going be heavies keeping an eye on us, ask them to be discreet. Hope needs a night off from all this.”
“You won’t know they’re there.”
Fredrik was as good as his word.
She’d looked around when they had first arrived but, seeing no obvious surveillance had relaxed and soon forgotten about it as the three of them swigged exotic cocktails, dancing the night away just like they had when they’d all lived in London.
There had been only one brief moment when the crowd had parted and she’d seen Fredrik, uncharacteristically casual in a T-shirt and jeans, leaning against the bar. Their eyes had met for a heart-jolting second before the crowd closed. She hadn’t seen him again but she’d known he was there and when, giggling, they had spilled out into the street in the early hours he was waiting.
Flora and Hope piled into the back seat, oblivious to who was holding open the door of the “cab” she’d ordered, but Fredrik’s eyes had met hers through the rear-view mirror and he’d been grinning.
When he’d dropped them off, she’d waved Hope and Flora inside saying that she would sort it.
“Did you have a good time?”
“You were there. What do you think?”
He just smiled, took her hand and walked her to her door.
She opened it, stepped back but he didn’t follow. “I’m on duty.”
“So this is just work?”
“Someone had to keep an eye on our nearly princess letting her hair down.”
“It was just you?” she asked. “No cocktails, no dancing, no one to talk to. Just a room full of scantily dressed women dancing their socks off.”
“I didn’t notice any socks. Or women.” He reached out and cradled her cheek. “I only had eyes for you.”
Which was when she grabbed him by his T-shirt, hauled him into her room and threw herself at him.
He caught her, one hand tangling in her hair, one on her rear drawing her into his body so that she could feel his need, exult in it as his mouth claimed hers in the kind of kiss that followed a seven-year drought. A deep, intense, no-holds-barred kiss that was only brought to an end by the need for oxygen.
“I thought you were on duty,” she said, breathlessly.
“My duty was to see you all safely home. Hope is in the hands of her maid; Flora has Max to take care of her. That just leaves you.”
Ally giggled. “You’re going to put me to bed?”
“Do you have any problems with that?”
“Just one.” She gave a little wiggle. “I’m wearing too many clothes ...”
His eyes blazing with intention, he deftly unzipped her dress and leaving it in a crumpled heap on the floor, picked her up and carried her to the bed.
She was impatient to see him, touch him. She had her hands full of warm, male-scented T-shirt when his phone rang.
Noooooo!
Her scream of frustration was silent. She had no idea what he said. Her French was good, her Italian passable, but there was a local dialect that he made good use of as he dug his phone out of his back pocket and snapped “Jensson”.
He listened, ended the call.
The only word she understood was “Nico” but she could make a good guess at the word he’d used to describe him.
“Don’t tell me,” she said. “You’re back on duty.”
“I’m always on damn duty.” He lowered his head so that his forehead touched hers. “I have to go.”
“Of course you do.”
She held his T-shirt to her face for a moment, breathing in the scent before, with a sigh, she let it fall over his taut stomach.
“It’ll calm down after the ball,” he said, holding her for a moment, his kiss a promise that this was only a postponement.
“Just make sure you turn up for that, Prince Charming, or I’ll have my fairy godmother turn you into a frog.”
There was another long kiss before, with a groan of frustration, he tore himself away.
Ally woke to a thumping head and a dry mouth but it had been worth it. It had been a great night. Not perfect. In a perfect world Fredrik would not have been dragged away to deal with Nico’s drama but it had been wonderful to see Hope letting her hair down and having fun.
She eased herself out of bed, downed a glass of water and a couple of painkillers and checked her texts. The only one that she was interested in was one from Fredrik. Just one word. ‘Tonight.’
She shook her head. Barring some crisis ... Then she smiled. There were places in Combe St Philip, quiet dells in the woods where the grass was soft and there was no phone signal.
She was trying to talk herself into getting up and going for a run when her phone beeped.
Fredrik ...
She grabbed her phone, grinning as she opened the text. It wasn’t from Fredrik; it was from Flora.
Hope and Jonas had done a bunk.
Instead of fizzing with anticipation at the prospect of the gala ball, the promise implicit in Fredrik’s text, Ally spent the day worrying about Hope.
The night out, letting her hair down, was supposed to shake out the tension, but clearly it had done the opposite and given a focus to her doubts.
She’d sent a message to Max letting him know that she was with Jonas, that they just needed thinking time away from the palace. They’d left it very late but you couldn’t argue with the think twice, marry once approach.
Ally doubted that Princess Anna would be terribly upset if the engagement didn’t happen but the ball was officially to celebrate Jonas’s birthday. If the major player didn’t show she was going to be madder than a wet hen and looking to someone to blame.
There were three candidates.
Fredrik, for allowing Hope to escape the palace – although Jonas, having lived there as a boy, must surely know a dozen ways to avoid security.
Nico, for whatever he’d done to cause a diversion. Neither of them were in evidence this morning to ask.
And finally, there was her. If Anna discovered how assiduously Fredrik had taken his duty to ‘see her home’ safely, Ally knew she was going to be in very hot water.
Celina had taken Flora and Max and the children to some beauty spot for the day. She had a full day meeting the palace PR team, getting their ‘quotes’ for the diary, taking photograph
s. Trying not to check her phone every ten minutes hoping for news.
Meanwhile there was no drama, no alarm in the palace. Anna asked her if she’d seen Hope and she could answer honestly that she had not. The Dowager had suggested that she might have gone with Hope and Max, or be spending the day with Jonas.
Anna hadn’t exactly sniffed, but she shrugged, tactfully agreed with her mother-in-law – who would dare do otherwise – that it would be good for Hope to have a relaxing day away from the palace and left it at that.
If Fredrik had known, he would undoubtedly have been at her door demanding to know what she knew. She wouldn’t have lied to him; she wouldn’t have had to. She had no idea where they were.
She’d been torn about whether to call him, warn him, but Hope was, always would be, her very best friend and if she needed time, then she must have it. The world wouldn’t come to an end if there was no announcement tonight. Probably.
She called Flora but she must have been out of range because it just went to voice mail. When they returned there was still no news and there was nothing to do but cross their fingers and get ready for the ball.
Shower, hair, nails, make-up. She was used to getting ready in minutes but she took everything slowly, concentrating on each detail; she didn’t want to be standing around, fretting, waiting for the footman to escort her to the ballroom.
She checked her cell for texts, hoping for something.
Fredrik’s text mocked her.
Tonight?
It seemed unlikely that was going to happen but she stepped into her underwear. She hadn’t been able to afford a new dress but she’d indulged in some just-in-case matching lace undies. Just in case the frisson of awareness between her and Fredrik had developed into something more tangible.
It had, but if Hope and Jonas didn’t turn up tonight they’d all be on the next plane home.
Cattle class.
Her dress was a weighty, rich burgundy silk, made for her by a local dressmaker who’d added a few useful extras. You didn’t get seam pockets in designer dresses.
Simple, figure skimming, the kind of classic style that never went out of date. Shoes. A pair of gold and ruby earrings that she’d been given for her eighteenth birthday. Her grandmother’s gold locket. Gold elbow-length fingerless lace gloves.