by Kate Johnson
“Little drinky?” said Olivia, tossing her hooded velvet cape onto a chair.
Jamie shrugged. “Let me wash this bloody make-up off and I’ll be right with you.”
Olivia extended her hand and admired the illusion of bones painted onto her arm. “Whiskey?”
“Splash of water.” He headed up the stairs, discarding clothing as he went. Off with the make-up, using some special remover the make-up artist had thankfully left behind, and on with joggers and t-shirt.
He never got to wear clothes this comfortable in front of anyone else. Granny had Rules about what constituted casual wear around any of her homes—which technically was all the ones Jamie had ever lived in—and jogging bottoms were not part of her vocabulary.
She was on the phone when he came downstairs, frowning. “Jamie, it’s Geraint. Says you weren’t answering your phone. Something about… something you asked him to do?”
Damn, he’d left it in the pocket of his costume. He took Olivia’s from her. “What’s up?”
“Benson followed Miss Walsh, sir, like you asked.”
Something uncomfortable tightened in Jamie’s stomach. “Is she okay?”
The tiniest of pauses. Jamie didn’t know what his face was doing but it made Olivia’s eyes widen.
“He’s on his way to hospital with her now, sir—”
“What?”
Olivia grabbed his arm. Her weird blue cartoonish face was creased with concern.
“She’s not badly hurt, sir, so don’t worry, and the police have taken care of Mr Cunningham—”
“Police? Geraint, what the hell happened?”
He found himself moving towards the hallway, grabbing his jacket and swearing at his running shoes as he tried to pull them on one-handed.
“Where are you going?” said Olivia.
“There’s no need to come, sir, we have the situation under control.”
“Geraint.” Jamie tried to hold on to his patience. “Tell me in words of one syllable exactly what happened and yes, that is an order.”
He was already outside, striding across the lawn. Geraint began explaining things, his voice infuriatingly calm. Benson had followed Clodagh home as instructed, seen her safely into the house, heard shouting and then a scream and series of thumps. He’d broken down the door to find Clodagh crumpled at the bottom of the stairs, and the Steppenwolf guy standing over her. “Steppenwolf said she slipped, sir, but Benson said if she slipped then he’s the King of the Belgians.” Benson had taken him out—Geraint did not elaborate as to how—and called the police and an ambulance.
“Where is she?”
He was inside the gatehouse now, the control room set up with monitors showing every angle of his house and the street outside. Geraint and three others were there.
“She’s perfectly safe, sir—”
“Is it Addenbrookes? I need you to drive me.”
“Sir, that’s not appropriate—”
“Fuck appropriate,” Jamie said sharply. “You know why she’s hurt?”
“Because a drunken bully attacked her,” said Geraint, infuriatingly calm.
“No, because of me. Because I got involved with her. I made her breakfast. I interrupted her fight with that guy. Now he’s taken it out on her and it’s my fault she’s hurt.”
“Jamie, you’re not making any sense,” Olivia said. He hadn’t even realised she’d followed him.
“That guy? Beating her up in her own flat? He’s her boyfriend, Olivia, who else would he be?” Christ, she’d told him she didn’t want to go home, that morning in the boathouse. She’d sat there with blood on her sleeve and told him some story about someone having an accident, outside freezing herself to death at dawn because she didn’t want to go home because that arsehole was there.
“And I interfered, didn’t I? I tried to stop him creeping on her and he went home and waited for her and threw her down the stairs.”
Silence. Jamie had tears in his eyes, angry frustrated stupid tears, because someone was hurt and it was his fault.
Olivia broke it. “It’s not your fault,” she said, and held up a hand to stop him replying. “But I see why you must go.” She handed him his phone. “Do you want me to come with you?”
She was still in costume. Midnight had come and gone. “No, you stay here. Get some sleep.”
She nodded and said in her Lady Olivia of Allendale voice, “Geraint, I believe His Highness requested the car be brought round.”
Geraint had been with Jamie in Afghanistan when they rescued a family being held hostage by insurgents. From the look on his face, he’d rather be back there now facing them than Olivia.
“My lady,” he said stiffly. “Sir.”
She gave Jamie a hug, whispered, “Now tell me you don’t like her,” in his ear, then trailed back to the house like a ghost.
The drive should have taken ten minutes. They got there in seven. Geraint had Benson in his ear telling them how to find Clodagh, and Jamie nearly ran down several people in his haste to get there.
And there she was, sitting on a bed with a paper sheet on it, still wearing that stupid bloody vampire dress. Her eyes were closed, one of them swollen and purple, and there were scrapes and bruises on her arms and legs. Her right ankle looked gruesome, twice the size of the left and the colour of damsons.
“Clodagh.” He hadn’t meant to sound so anguished.
Her eyes opened, one of them not fully. “Oh,” she said. “We keep meeting.”
“I came as soon as I…” He reached for her hand and she looked down curiously as he took it. It wasn’t electricity he felt this time, but a jolt of shame. “Clodagh, I’m so sorry.”
“Hmm? My head is killing me.”
He peered closer. “Did you hit your head?”
She blinked a bit. “Maybe. I don’t remember. This man says he works for you.”
Benson gave Jamie a speaking look.
“He does, and he’s getting a raise after tonight,” Jamie said firmly.
Right then the doctor came in, a tired-looking man not much older than Jamie. “There are too many people in this room,” he said.
Jamie looked at his PPOs, who turned to go. Geraint looked like he really wanted to say something, but kept silent.
“Are you the next of kin?” asked the doctor, and Jamie panicked.
“Why? How bad is it?”
“Oh, not too bad.” He showed Jamie an X-ray, as if that was something he knew how to read. “Clean break. We’ll get it in a boot, six weeks, should be fine. No walking for you,” he added sternly to Clodagh, who nodded dazedly.
“Does she have a head injury? She couldn’t remember.” Jamie’s thumb stroked Clodagh’s. Her nails were torn and the back of her hand grazed.
“Yes, a concussion. There’s no skull fracture or swelling, just a bump that will take a little while to heal. You’ll need to keep a close eye on her for the next forty-eight hours. No need to keep waking her through the night, let her sleep but do be aware for these signs.” He handed Jamie a leaflet. “The rest are just bumps and bruises. You’re a lucky girl,” he added to Clodagh, who looked up at him blearily.
“Yeah, so lucky to be thrown down the stairs,” Jamie said. He hadn’t asked if Benson had shot and killed Steppenwolf. He hoped not. Jamie wanted him to suffer.
The doctor looked between Jamie and Clodagh. “It’s been reported to the police?”
“Yes. My… colleague took care of that.”
The doctor shook his head as he bustled about. “Hallowe’en. Drunks and idiots.”
“She’s neither.”
Jamie didn’t snap at people very often. No one in his family did. They didn’t need to. But every now and then when he was tired and angry, out it came. Olivia said it was a tone of voice that reminded her he was descended from men who ruled their kingdoms with swords and nooses.
The doctor stopped what he was doing, looked Jamie over and appeared to see him for the first time.
“Forgive me,”
he said. “I didn’t recognise you. Your Royal Highness.”
“Would you have insulted my friend if you had?”
The doctor paled, but rallied. He fitted Clodagh’s ankle with a thick kind of boot that let her toes stick out, and gave Jamie a set of instructions on how long she had to wear it and what she could do in it, which wasn’t much, apparently.
He checked her eyes and her head again, then announced she was free to go, so long as Jamie, “or perhaps someone else,” could keep an eye on her for the next couple of days. Jamie wondered if the man thought he had special flunkies for this kind of thing.
He dispatched Benson to find a wheelchair while Clodagh sat on a chair in a waiting room and yawned.
“Where are you going to take her?” Geraint asked quietly. “There are a few hotels—”
“Hotel? Don’t be ridiculous. She’s coming home with me.”
Geraint’s mouth got very thin. “Sir. This is highly inadvisable. You hardly know her.”
“I know enough.” Jamie shoved a hand through his hair, which needed a wash after all the product the make-up artist had applied. “And don’t tell me you don’t have a full dossier on her.”
His security team compiled dossiers on pretty much everyone he spent time with. They’d checked out all the students in his lab and all the staff too. They knew more about his friends than he did. Jamie was pretty sure they’d run background checks on everyone he’d ever slept with, but he’d never asked because he really didn’t want to know.
“Of course, sir. Standard procedure.”
“And? Is she dangerous, violent, anti-monarchist?”
Geraint looked like he’d swallowed a toad. “No,” he said, and the ‘but’ hanging there was enormous.
“No? Good, then. She can stay. You can’t seriously tell me you’d leave her alone in this state? She clearly can’t go back to her flat.”
They looked at Clodagh, who was purple with bruises and grey with tiredness. Well, but maybe she did have somewhere to go. A friend or relative nearby, perhaps. Jamie sat down beside her and said, “Where do you want us to take you?”
“What?” She still seemed dazed. Jamie had suffered a concussion once as a teen, falling off a horse. He remembered virtually nothing about it but the headaches and nausea that followed. The accident itself had vanished from his memory.
“You can’t go back to your flat. It’s not safe or secured. Is there somewhere you can go?”
Clodagh looked at him like she was having great trouble remembering who he was. “Um. My mum, I suppose. Can you take me to the station?”
Jamie glanced at Geraint. “Where does your mum live?”
“Uh, it’s in, it’s near… it’s in Essex.”
“Where in Essex?”
She rubbed her face and winced when she encountered her black eye. “Harlow.”
Probably only about thirty miles away, but still thirty miles too far. “Clodagh, it’s the middle of the night. There aren’t any trains. This isn’t a Journey song.”
She blinked a few times. “I’ll wait at the station. It’s fine. Where’s my bag? Or I could get the Megabus…”
“Your bag is in the car, and you are not waiting at the station, or getting the Megabus.” He didn’t even know what what was. “Isn’t there anyone closer?”
She thought about this for a while. Benson came back with the wheelchair and Jamie helped her into it.
“I can go to the pub,” she announced triumphantly.
“Do they have rooms?” It really didn’t seem like the sort of pub that had rooms.
“No, there’s a settle in the top bar though—”
“No,” said Jamie frankly. “Do you even have a key?”
“Oh.” Her face crumpled. “I don’t have anywhere else to go. Do you think they’ll let me stay here?”
He wanted to hug her. He wanted to hold her close and tell her everything would be all right and he was going to take care of her. Yeah, she’d love that.
“I have a spare room,” he said. “It’s up some stairs, I’m afraid, but it’s yours if you want it. And Olivia will be there, just in case you were worried about being alone with me.”
Clodagh looked confused. “I can’t,” she said.
“Sure you can. It’s no skin off my nose.”
“But you’re…”
“A friend,” said Jamie firmly. Apparently the only one she had.
Clodagh woke with a splitting headache and absolutely no idea where she was. The bed was comfortable, the room large, and her handbag sat on a chair near the window. The place looked old, with an exposed beam running above the window, and uneven walls. The only door was heavy and old, the kind that ought to have metal studs in it. Propped near it was a set of crutches.
It was really unlike her to get drunk and hook-up with a random guy she couldn’t even remember the next day, but it seemed the most likely explanation. At least until she tried to sit up and pain shot up her leg.
Oh. The crutches must be hers.
Clodagh pulled back the covers and stared at the big padded boot on her right leg. Her unvarnished toes stuck out the end. She wiggled them experimentally, and then tried moving other bits of her foot until she located the source of the pain in her ankle bone.
A flash of memory hit her. Lee, throwing her down the stairs, yelling at her and looming over her…
Well, that explained the headache and the ankle boot, but not the surroundings. Clodagh thought she could remember a hospital, and maybe… no, she must have imagined Prince Jamie being there.
She glanced at her bag. Her phone might give her a few clues. Swinging her damaged leg out of bed, she attempted to stand, and promptly crumpled with a yelp of pain.
Damn that hurt! Tears came to her eyes and she grabbed her leg above the cumbersome boot, as if that would stop the pain.
From the other side of the old wooden door came footsteps, rushing up stairs and along a creaky corridor. “Clodagh?” A knock on the door. “Are you all right?”
Okay, that sounded like Prince Jamie. This was getting weirder and weirder.
“I’m okay,” she said. “I just… um…” Fell out of bed. Ugh, like a child. “I stumbled. I’m okay.”
Well, she would be if she could manage to get up. Her ankle hurt too much to move a lot and it was so bloody cumbersome.
“Can we come in?” asked a female voice. Right. Jamie’s girlfriend. “Are you decent?”
Clodagh looked down at herself. She was still wearing her bloody Hallowe’en costume.
“Not really,” she sighed, “but you might as well.”
The door opened, and she looked up to see a prince of the realm standing there, frowning.
“Do you need a hand?” he asked.
Humiliated, Clodagh nodded. He took her hands, and she braced herself for the spark she’d felt before, but all he did was pull her to her feet—well, foot—and let her fall back onto the bed.
“Takes a while to get used to, doesn’t it?” said his girlfriend as Clodagh tugged futilely at her skirt. It could not be seemly to show this much leg to a member of the Royal Family. “I remember when I broke mine years ago. Spent most of my time lying on the floor like a tipped over tortoise.”
“You spent most of your time sitting on the sofa watching TV and ringing a bell for service,” Jamie said.
She giggled elegantly. “Bardfield kept trying to hide it. I mean really, what is the point of having a butler if one isn’t to be waited upon?”
Jamie cast Clodagh a sideways look. “Would you like a bell?” he asked without much enthusiasm.
She briefly entertained the fantasy of being waited on by a prince. “Actually, I’d settle for knowing where I am,” she said. “I seem to… have… forgotten a few things.”
“Ah. Yes.” Jamie ran a hand through his hair. By the looks of it, he’d been doing that all day. “They did say you might lose a bit of memory, be confused. How’s your head?”
“Splitting.”
He nodded and glanced at his watch. “Time for some more painkillers.” He handed her a glass of water and pressed a couple of pills out of their packet. “If they don’t help, tell me and I’ll call the doctor. How’s your vision? Any blurriness? Double vision? How many fingers am I holding up?”
“Two,” said Clodagh, as his girlfriend said, “For heaven’s sake, Jamie, she asked where she was, not for a full medical exam. This is Jamie’s house, darling. It seemed the most sensible place to bring you. Your flat is not habitable, apparently.”
The look of distaste on her face said it might not ever have been.
I’m in Prince Jamie’s house. I’m actually in a royal residence. I’m in the house where royalty lives.
Holy shit.
Mistaking her look of shock, the girlfriend went on, “The boys went round to see what they could salvage for you, but it was all quite ripped up, I’m afraid. There are some bags with some clothes in, and if there’s anything in particular you want them to look for I’m sure they can.”
Clodagh looked where she pointed. Two plastic bags sat on the floor by the wardrobe, apparently all that remained of her possessions from the flat.
“Well, getting out of this dress would be a bonus,” she muttered. Louder, she added, “Thank you for bringing me here. And for… um, I can’t actually remember most of what happened but I think one of your guys rescued me?”
Jamie nodded, his expression darkening. “Your… the man who attacked you is in police custody. Unfortunately, Benson didn’t kill him.”
“Imagine the fuss if he had, darling. Now, we’re crowding poor Clodagh, who I’m sure just wants to get some rest. The best thing for a concussion is sleep. Do you need anything?”
They both peered anxiously at her, the little charity case they’d picked up. They looked like something out of a glossy magazine. So polished and beautiful. Jamie, wearing thick-rimmed glasses and a Big Bang Theory t-shirt and still managing to look regal, and his girlfriend in a cashmere cardigan that probably cost the same as Clodagh’s rent for six months.