To Marry a Prince

by Page, Sophie

  Bella felt very cold, going back to Lottie’s flat. Cold and lonely. The Underground was harshly lit and everyone else in the carriage seemed to be part of a couple, holding hands or cuddled up together against the world. The flat was dark and empty. She remembered: Lottie was working again tonight. Just like Richard, she thought. He was at a gala concert in Leeds, followed by some sort of reception. He would not be answering his phone.

  But suddenly Bella desperately needed to speak to him. So she didn’t text but left a voice mail.

  ‘Saw my brother. Things aren’t good. When you get a moment, I’d like to, well, hear a friendly voice, really.’ She tried to pull herself together. ‘Hope the music was good.’

  It wasn’t worth lighting the freshly laid log fire. So she put on the small electric fire to boost the central heating and huddled over it in the dark, too sad to read or even to go to bed.

  She did not know how long she sat there in the half-dark before the phone rang. She checked the number and felt better at once.

  ‘Hello, Richard.’

  ‘Hello, lovely. Tell me everything.’

  She did. Well, some of it. Some of it was Neill’s private business, of course, and Val’s.

  ‘But when I looked at him, I could see all those years of awfulness when Finn and my mother were married. I could see it all starting up again with Neill and Val. And I knew he did too. He looked so forlorn, Richard. I wanted to make it better. And I couldn’t.’

  There was a short pause. Then, ‘Where are you?’ he asked.

  ‘In the flat,’ said Bella, surprised.

  ‘Where’s Lottie?’

  ‘Doing a product launch in Birmingham.’

  ‘So she won’t be back tonight?’

  Bella looked at her watch. ‘Shouldn’t think so. Not now.’

  ‘Blast!’ He sounded worried.

  She hastened to reassure him. ‘Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to talk to Lottie. If she were here, I’d be curled up in my room. I don’t want to talk to anyone. Except you.’

  There was an odd silence. For a moment she thought she’d lost the signal.

  ‘Richard? Are you still there?’

  He said decisively, ‘Right. Don’t go to bed. I’ll be there as soon as I can.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t want you to be on your own,’ he said simply. ‘Not feeling like this.’

  ‘Oh, Richard.’

  ‘I’ll call you as soon as I have an ETA.’ And he rang off.

  Bella felt so much better after that, she actually roused herself enough to make a cup of tea. She turned on the table lamps in the sitting room and then went into the kitchen and did the washing up from breakfast.

  And then Richard called back.

  ‘Two hours.’

  She nearly dropped the toast rack she was decrumbing. ‘That’s impossible.’

  He sounded angry, though not with her. ‘No, it isn’t. I might be a horrible boyfriend in the support department and too far away when you need me, but at least I have access to helicopters. See you later.’

  He cut the call before she could argue.

  ‘Wow,’ said Bella, sitting down slowly on the sofa. She felt as if someone had sandbagged her when she wasn’t looking. She felt muzzy-headed and she couldn’t seem to breathe properly. ‘Did he say he was my boyfriend?’

  She decided to light the fire after all.

  When he arrived she flew to the front door and walked into his arms. They stayed there for ages, just hugging in the dark little hallway.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said at last in a muffled voice.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, kissing her hair.

  ‘What? Why?’ she asked, honestly puzzled. ‘I mean, I throw a wobbly and you thank me? What for?’

  ‘For calling me.’

  She pushed herself away from him a little and stared up at his face. He seemed very serious.

  She said uncertainly, ‘I don’t think I understand.’

  ‘OK. What about this? For wanting me with you.’

  Bella had that breathless, sandbagged feeling again.

  Keeping his arm round her, he walked her back into the sitting room. The fire was blazing cheerfully. It felt like home.

  She said so.

  The arm round her tightened like a vice.

  But all Richard said was, ‘Right.’

  9

  ‘The Good Boyfriend Guide’ – Girl About Town

  The night was wonderful. Next morning was not.

  For one thing, they both overslept. They had talked until later than late, until there was no more traffic outside in the street and the other flats were silent. And then they didn’t talk at all. By the time they fell asleep neither of them was thinking about anything as mundane as alarm calls.

  Bella awoke to find Richard hopping and swearing at the end of the bed. It reminded her of the crazy moments at the gallery.

  ‘Hello, handsome,’ she said, putting her hands behind her head and watching with pleasure.

  He ignored that. ‘We should have set an alarm call,’ he snapped.

  Even then, she didn’t scent danger. Maybe she was too relaxed, looking round the small bedroom that resembled a war zone. There was a pillow on the window sill, where it had clearly been flung, and the duvet was hopelessly tangled. Various garments, male and female, lay along the floor like a paper trail.

  Richard fell to his knees, turning over the detritus with increasing impatience. ‘I’ve lost a bloody sock.’

  Bella looked at his naked shoulders with appreciation. He had a beautiful spine, she thought. ‘I’ve got news for you. You haven’t found your shirt either.’

  ‘Try not to be stupid.’ He sounded seriously put out.

  She blinked, trying to clear her head. ‘Where did you take it off? The sock, I mean.’

  ‘How the hell do I know?’

  His face appeared over the side of the bed. His hair was tousled and he had a distinct morning shadow. He looked gorgeous – and very bad-tempered.

  ‘Retrace your steps?’ suggested Bella lovingly.

  One glance at his expression was enough to tell her that teasing him was not a good idea this morning.

  ‘No. Right. Cancel that suggestion. I’ll look in the sitting room.’

  She swung her legs out of bed and searched round for something to wear. The flat was distinctly chilly. Or maybe it was his expression. She couldn’t remember where she’d put her sapphire kimono and it didn’t seem worth hunting for it, so she pulled on the tee-shirt she normally slept in and padded out to look for his clothes.

  She didn’t find the sock, but she did collect his white dress shirt from where it had fallen on to the log basket. She shook it to get rid of the wood shavings and looked round for the rest. His overcoat was hung tidily over the back of a chair but his jacket was in a heap behind the sofa. She shook that out too. There was a lot of fluff and old crisps behind that sofa.

  An anguished roar came from the bedroom. ‘Where’s my sodding phone?’

  Bella trailed round the room but could not see it on any of the tables or bookcases or even the floor. She was just investigating the mantelpiece when Richard appeared in the doorway, wearing one sock and shoe. He was carrying the other shoe.

  ‘No sock. No phone. Why aren’t you looking? Why are you staring in the mirror? This is important.’

  Bella was beginning to feel she’d had enough of this. ‘I’m looking along the mantelpiece for your phone,’ she said frostily.

  ‘Why would I put it on the blasted mantelpiece? It’ll be in my jacket pocket.’

  He held out an imperious hand for the article of clothing.

  Bella was outraged. ‘Call me Jeeves, why don’t you?’ she snapped, handing it over.

  He held the jacket up on one finger and went through the pockets without success. ‘Damn! What did you do with it? Did you turn it upside down?’

  ‘Oh, sure, I shook it out of the window.’

  He yelled, ‘Will you
stop being a facetious idiot and help me look?’

  They glared at each other.

  Then he turned away. ‘Oh, it’s hopeless. Do whatever you want.’

  He started moving stuff around the crowded sitting room in a haphazard way but with increasing desperation.

  In spite of her mounting indignation, Bella could see there was a problem.

  ‘It might have fallen out of the pocket, I suppose.’

  ‘That’s what I said …’

  She cast his shirt aside and dived over the back of the sofa like a pearl fisher heading into the deeps. She lay flat on the floor and started to wriggle her arm under the sofa, groping about for alien objects. In quick succession she found a lipstick, a small plastic bottle of mineral water, half-empty, and a paperback. She lobbed all of them over the top of the sofa.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he said impatiently. ‘Your housekeeping can wait. I need—’

  ‘Hang on.’

  Her fingers had encountered the edge of something small, flat and hard. It was just out of reach. Concentrating, Bella closing her eyes and stretched the very furthest she could manage. ‘Ow-ow-ow …’ She felt the sofa move under the pressure and grabbed. ‘Got it!’

  She rolled on to her back, clutching the phone to her, and looked up, only to find Richard standing at her feet, looking anything but grateful.

  ‘Why didn’t you ask me to move the sofa?’

  She ignored that. ‘Look, here it is.’

  She scrambled up, flushed with triumph. The little phone had not gathered as much fluff and crumbs as the paperback but it was grimy. Richard took it from her. He shook out the jacket and draped it carefully over the back of an upright chair. Then he produced a pristine handkerchief from the pocket of his dress trousers and wiped the screen.

  ‘Thank you,’ she prompted.

  But he was already calling someone. ‘Davis? A car. Soon as possible. No, not Battersea. Let’s think. Outside Mozart’s House on Ebury Street. Do you know that? Call me when you’re five minutes away.’ He shut it off. ‘Shirt.’ And held out his hand.

  Quite suddenly Bella’s temper broke free. She put her hands on her hips.

  ‘Oh, yes. Very Royal.’

  That startled him. ‘What?’

  She clicked her fingers. ‘Jacket! Shirt! Phone! Car! Now!’ The last word came out as a shout.

  ‘And your point is?

  ‘Real people say thank you. Please, even. Real people don’t bark out orders like a dalek.’

  ‘I’m sorry. Thank you.’ But it didn’t sound as if he meant it.

  She shouted, ‘Don’t think you can snap your fingers at me, sunshine. I’m not paid to take your crap.’

  He stiffened. ‘What do you mean by that?’ Icicles hung from every syllable.

  ‘There are two of us late here,’ Bella hissed. ‘But does that matter to you? No, of course not. My first duty is to help Your Royalness get dressed and then go scrambling around under sooty sofas after your phone …’

  ‘You do not understand.’ Every word came out like machine-gun fire. ‘You have no idea what my life is like.’

  ‘Not sure that I want to.’ And she clicked her fingers mockingly. ‘Do this! Do that! Jump! Jump! Jump!’

  His face went a dull red. ‘I have no choice,’ he yelled. ‘I am who I am. I do what I have to do. That means I am never late. Never. Can you understand that? People look up to me and I have to be there. I have to.’

  ‘Fine. Then stop shouting at me and go.’

  He gave her a look full of fury and seized up his jacket without a word.

  ‘And don’t come back,’ Bella shouted.

  She stamped off to the bedroom. She dragged clean clothes out of the closet, muttering to herself, and took them off to the bathroom, without saying goodbye. She was cleaning her teeth when she heard the front door slam.

  ‘Bastard,’ she told the bathroom mirror.

  Then she sat down on the loo and howled her eyes out. So after that she had to wash her face all over again and was even later for work. It was no consolation at all that nobody had even noticed she was missing, as she told Lottie later that evening.

  ‘That’s a tribute to your fabulous new system,’ Lottie said. ‘Everybody did what they had to do because it was all up on the screen for them. And you’d put it there. Result!’

  Bella smiled reluctantly. ‘You mean I’ve just organised myself out of a job?’

  ‘So what? You always said it was temporary,’ said Lottie, refusing to sympathise. ‘Give Anthea another call.’

  ‘I keep texting her. She never gets back to me.’

  ‘Then go and sit in her office until she does the business.’

  ‘Yes, I was thinking I’d probably have to go round there,’ agreed Bella. ‘Boring.’

  ‘But necessary. Don’t worry, you’ll get a job in ecology soon. Now tell me all about Neill.’

  Bella chose her words carefully. ‘He’s fine. Looking for a hobby, I think. His career’s going well but he wants to get out into the fresh air. He told me he’d been asking Finn for suggestions.’

  ‘Fund-raising,’ said Lottie at once. ‘I can use him. Give me his number.’ And, as a second thought, ‘Where is it he’s based?’

  ‘Dorset.’

  Lottie was pleased. ‘Thought so. Devon would be better but Dorset will do. I’ve got just the thing for him. Teamwork, lots of physical exercise, fantastic scenery and free beer. And all for a good cause.’

  She looked so pleased with herself that Bella hadn’t the heart to discourage her. She thought it sounded a bit too much like organised games for a man who worked all day in a school. But she handed over her brother’s phone number and listened with respect to Lottie selling it to him.

  ‘I’m looking for volunteers to row a Viking longship over Easter next year. For charity. Some mad designer has built an authentic boat. There’s a group already committed but they haven’t got enough oarsmen. They’ll train you but you have to be willing to put in the time. Good fun and it’s very educational.’

  Clearly, Neill didn’t even struggle.

  Lottie put the phone down and did a little victory dance round the kitchen. ‘Sold. One Viking warrior signed on the dotted line. I’ve already got three sponsors for various bits of it. And a celebrity, because Milo Crane will be over here making an action movie at Easter and he wants an opportunity to show off his muscles. And now I’m getting the Vikings. God, I’m good.’

  ‘Congratulations.’

  Lottie stopped dancing and looked at Bella in concern. ‘You haven’t still got the hump about being late for work? Look, you’re young. You have a life. It happens. Don’t let some dentist in a temper spoil the night before.’

  Bella stiffened. ‘What do you mean, the night before?’

  Lottie didn’t answer for a minute. Then she said awkwardly, ‘Look, I wasn’t snooping, honest. But the sitting room was all higgledy-piggledy when I got in. So I just did a bit of tidying up. And I found—’ She sighed and rummaged behind the coffee-maker. ‘Look, here it is. I was going to leave it somewhere in your room. But – well, there’s no use pretending I haven’t seen it. Here.’ She thrust a piece of black silk ribbon into Bella’s hands.

  At first Bella didn’t understand. Then she shook it out and saw what it was: two black fish-shapes joined by a thin band. Richard’s bow tie! She felt herself blushing until even her ears were hot.

  ‘Where did you find it?’

  ‘On the floor. It was under a cushion.’

  ‘Also on the floor?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be. You pay half the rent. You’re entitled to throw the cushions around. And have anyone you want to stay the night.’

  But Bella knew all about flat-sharing etiquette. ‘I’m really sorry, Lotts. I should have cleared it with you first. Only, it was a spur-of-the-moment thing, very late, you were away … I just didn’t think. But I should still have called.’

 
‘We’d all have got a nasty shock if I’d come home early and walked in on you,’ Lottie said with feeling. ‘Just let me know next time, OK?’

  Bella didn’t say so, but she didn’t think that there was going to be a next time. Richard had not only gone off in a temper that morning, he hadn’t tried to call her all day. And she wasn’t even sure that she wanted him to. One moment he was calling himself her boyfriend, as if it was obvious, an agreed thing between them. (Just to remember him saying it made her shiver, half excited, half dreading all the implications for the future.) The next moment, he was ordering her about and being scathing about the quality of their housekeeping. She hadn’t liked him very much this morning. For the first time she had felt that he wasn’t on her side and it had been a shock, especially after their closeness of the night before. It was very confusing.

  ‘I don’t want another complicated relationship,’ she said now, half to herself.

  Lottie laughed merrily. ‘Show me a relationship that isn’t complicated, Bel. You’ll get used to it.’

  But the next day she brought home a copy of Royal Watchers Magazine and a fistful of printouts of online gossip pieces. Lottie threw them on to the coffee table dramatically.

  They showed various photographs of Richard coming out of a nightclub with his arm round a tanned beauty. In spite of the chill of the November night, the woman’s most substantial item of clothing was her earrings, Bella noted.

  ‘The bastard’s got a bimbo,’ Lottie spat.

  Bella picked up the longest article and read it quickly.

  ‘This was last night,’ she said slowly. ‘That explains why he didn’t call.’

  ‘I see he found another bow tie,’ snarled Lottie. She kicked the end of the sofa, then rubbed her foot. ‘I wonder if he left that one behind, too.’

  Bella winced. ‘The Honourable Chloe Lenane,’ she read. ‘That was the women he told me about. He said she was like another sister.’

  Lottie sniffed. ‘Yeah, OK, he probably played with her in the nursery. The woman’s an aristocrat with an A-level in advanced flower arranging. But that sure doesn’t look like a sister to me.’

  Bella studied the photographs. The blonde mane was expensively streaked; also artfully tangled to look as if the woman had only just got out of bed and it wouldn’t take much to persuade her to get back into it. Maybe it was the way the flashing cameras had caught her, maybe it was the heavy black eyeliner, or, just maybe, the Honourable Chloe was as high as a kite. In spite of her fixed smile, she seemed dazed and bewildered, clinging on to Richard’s black-clad arm like a life belt.