by Page, Sophie
‘What? I’m still growing, you know!’ he said when Princess Eleanor called him a greedy pig. ‘I burn up a lot of energy.’
‘Not on the ski slopes, you filthy porker,’ she said, prodding him. They were clearly great friends though Bella suspected that they were both a little in awe of Richard. Of course, he was five years older than George, seven years older than Eleanor. It was a big gap, even if he wasn’t also carrying all the responsibilities of being the Prince of Wales.
Eleanor was not as cheerfully accepting of Bella as George was. She seemed friendly enough but remained distant, almost as if she were embarrassed.
That afternoon the cause of this became clear.
‘I’m glad that you’re with Richard,’ Eleanor said, awkwardly, when she and Bella found themselves drinking warming soup together while Tilly proudly showed off what she had learned that morning.
‘It’s been a bit difficult. Everyone thought he was going out with Chloe again.’
‘Again?’
Eleanor looked surprised. ‘You might not know but he’d been dating this Deborah person. We all knew it wouldn’t last. She was always looking round for the cameras. When that finished, he took Chloe to some party and then they went on to a nightclub. I don’t know the details. But he had a little walk out with her years ago, just after he left university and before he did his year in the Navy.’
Eleanor looked up at the mountain.
‘I don’t know how serious it was. You know Richard, he doesn’t talk about his feelings, and I was only a teenager. But Pansy said that Chloe was waiting until he came back. And when he did …’
‘Deborah?’
‘No. Nobody for a long time. Then there was Anastasia for a bit.’
Bella looked blank.
‘Princess Anastasia? Of Finland? She married last year. Big spread in Royalty Watchers.’
Bella nodded as if she knew what Eleanor was talking about. Whereas she had never heard of Royalty Watchers Magazine until last year.
Eleanor wasn’t deceived. ‘You don’t know, do you? OK. She was an Art History major at Smith. Whenever he was in the States, he saw her. And then she came over here and worked for the National Gallery. Her father is on the Olympic Committee?’
Bella clicked fingers. ‘Got it. King Edvard or something. One of the bicycling Royals, right?’
Eleanor choked with laughter.
Coming up behind them Richard took off his sunglasses and surveyed Tilly’s composed run. ‘She’s not bad. What were you laughing about?’
Eleanor looked agonisingly embarrassed.
‘Bicycling Royals,’ said Bella crisply. ‘It’s rude to eavesdrop.’
‘What’s wrong with them? I’ll have you know that some of my best friends are bicycling royals.’
He put his arm round Bella and pushed his woolly ski hat further back. She saw that he had got rid of his skis.
‘Ready to go?’
‘What about you? Don’t you want another run?’
He shook his head. ‘I’ve had my fresh air for the day. Anyway, Mother’s tired. I thought we could go back with her?’
‘Sure.’
He drove with that controlled competence Bella was coming to learn he brought to everything. The Queen sat next to him and she did, indeed, look tired.
‘I will go and lie down for half an hour,’ she said when they arrived at the house. ‘Let’s have tea together in the conservatory at half-past three. I want to talk to you both before everyone gets back.’
What she wanted to talk about, it turned out, was the wedding. ‘Your father tells me that the Prime Minister’s Office has a list of possible dates, most of them this year. It is your decision, of course. But I want you to think about it very seriously.’
Bella looked at Richard. Did he know this was coming?
Richard was calm. ‘I think we’ve got that, Mother. The PM sent the list of dates over in the second week of January. That’s a fortnight ago now. Someone has been sitting on it. I know it’s not me and it doesn’t seem to be Father’s office. So it had to be you. What exactly is going on?’
The Queen folded her lips together. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have done that.’
‘No,’ Richard agreed, not angry but not very friendly either.
His mother flushed. ‘I really wanted to get to know Bella …’
He said very coolly, ‘No, you didn’t. Have you even called her since the New Year?’
The Queen looked miserable. Bella felt sorry for her.
‘So, I repeat, what’s this about?’
The Queen drew a long breath. ‘This engagement, this affair, it has all happened too fast. You’re still starry-eyed about each other, I can see that. I think it’s lovely. But it’s no – no foundation for your future life.’
She turned to Bella.
‘You don’t come from our world. Don’t misunderstand me. I think that’s a good thing, I really do. But it means that you have no idea what your life would be like if you married my son.’
‘Will,’ said Richard, with steely quiet. ‘Will be like. When she marries me.’
The Queen ignored him. ‘All I’m asking is that you give yourself a year. You’re his fiancée. It’s official. You can be his companion anywhere you want. Just see what it’s like.’
Bella leaned forward. ‘I know he’s public property. He told me so right at the start and I’ve seen it with my own eyes. We don’t have to wait a year for me to learn that.’
The Queen shook her head. ‘And do you realise what it’s going to be like being Princess of Wales? It’s a job, you know.’
‘Richard will help me—’
The Queen drummed her fists on the arms of her chair. ‘But that’s just it! He won’t. He can’t. He’ll be off doing his own programme. Do you know his diary already has events booked in for five years ahead? Five years. When his grandfather died, it took the Private Offices three months to rework everyone’s calendars. My poor George was launching ships. He was eleven. My little boy, all on his own in front of a horde of men in uniform, throwing a bottle at a damn’ great ocean liner. But his father said that someone had to do it and George was old enough and liked the sea. Liked the sea …’
She fought with herself, drew several calming breaths. Richard watched her with dawning concern.
‘He enjoyed it, Mother. He still talks about it.’
‘That’s not the point. He was on his own.’
‘No, he wasn’t—’
‘I wasn’t there!’ she screamed. And banged her hand down so hard that dust flew out of the upholstered arm of the chair.
There was a shocked silence.
Bella said slowly, ‘This is about the children, isn’t it? You’re worried about our children.’
Richard drew a sharp breath.
The Queen shook her head. ‘Not just the children. It’s hard on them. But you can’t imagine what it’s like when you can’t stop them being pushed on to the public stage when they’re little. You feel so helpless.’
Bella remembered Richard telling her that the Queen had been good at protecting the family from the old King and his schemes. She looked at him now. He was very pale.
She couldn’t bear it. She said fiercely, ‘Richard and I will take care of each other and our children. I promise you.’
‘I know you think you will, dear. We all think that. But the pressures never stop. In the end, you get so tired. And lonely,’ she added, almost imperceptibly. And quite suddenly the Queen’s eyes filled with tears. She jumped to her feet.
‘I’m sorry. This is your business. I should never have delayed that list. I’m sorry. Please talk to your father about it, Richard. Excuse me. I’m not well.’
She hurried away, leaving a shocked silence.
‘Poor lady,’ whispered Bella.
‘Oh, Lord,’ said Richard. He looked at Bella. ‘What do you want to do, love? Sleep on it?’
She thought about what Georgia had told her. It made a lot of sense.
/> She took his hand. ‘I think you and I need to work out what we want before anyone else gets a vote.’
‘O – K. And that is?’
Bella looked at the little lines round his eyes which always deepened when he was worried about something. He was being so careful not to push, not to put her under pressure, to step back and let her take an independent decision. And yet she could see how desperately he didn’t want to wait for a year.
Well, neither did she. She knew that without any doubt at all.
She slipped out of her chair and knelt beside him. ‘I love you so much, it’s like being soaked in sunshine. I’d marry you tomorrow if I could.’
She watched the lines disappear. He gave a long, long sigh as if he’d put down a great burden.
But all he said, in his practical way, was, ‘What about June?’
18
‘The Ring!’ – Royal Watchers Magazine
It was the start of a whirlwind that Bella would never have believed. The next week, Richard talked to the King and the Prime Minister and they narrowed the date down to three possibles. Richard’s office was on the phone to Bella every hour about some option or other until she longed to say, ‘Just do it. I’ll go along with whatever you want.’
But, mindful of Georgia’s advice, she didn’t. And they kept right on consulting her.
And then the date was finalised, a Press call scheduled, and the Queen called her at last. Summoned to an audience, Bella took another early departure from the office and recorded it carefully on the time sheets she had introduced when she took over. One thing she didn’t need, she thought, was some journalist claiming that the new Princess-to-be skived off work!
The Queen was on her own. As soon as the flunkey had retreated and closed the doors behind him she said, ‘I owe you an apology for our last meeting. I should never – all I can say is that it was with the best of intentions.’
‘I’m sure it was,’ said Bella. ‘I’m certainly going to come to you for advice. I shall need it.’
‘Yes, you will,’ said the Queen sadly. ‘So I suggest that Lady Pansy moves from her informal role as your friend and mentor to becoming your formal Court Adviser. You will want a Personal Assistant as well, of course. Maybe your little friend, Charlotte Hendred, is it?’
You’re very well briefed, thought Bella.
Aloud, she said, ‘I wouldn’t ask her to interrupt her career. But thank you, that’s a good idea. I will start to look for one.’
The Queen smiled. ‘That’s settled then. And, forgive me, I know that you young people like to be selfsupporting, but this is rather exceptional. So the Palace will pay. In fact, I suggest your team should use an office in St George’s Tower, where a lot of our staff are housed.’
More security, more forgetting to sign in and out, thought Bella, with a sinking heart. But there were some battles that were worth fighting and some that weren’t. So she said, ‘Thank you, Ma’am,’ as if she were really grateful, and the office was set up.
But before she could make her first visit to her new team, she had a call from Richard.
‘Can I take you to dinner?’
‘Any time. When?’
‘Tonight?’
‘Tonight? I thought you were at some Trade Fair.’
‘Yup.’
‘Don’t tell me, you’re tired of admiring machine tools and want me to come and massage your back?’
‘That would be a definite bonus.’
‘All right then. Where shall I meet you?’
‘I’ll send a car,’ he said mysteriously. ‘It’ll be at your office around four, if that suits.’
‘I was looking forward to scrambled eggs on toast in front of a DVD … Of courses it suits! Lovely.’
It was driven by Ian, though she didn’t know the car. More important, nor did the three or four photographers who now camped regularly outside her office. Bella waved to them as she went past, forgetting Lady Pansy’s precepts. She was nearly skipping along, delighted to be seeing Richard on the spur of the moment.
I’m going to see my love, she thought. I’m going to see my love.
Ian was waiting for her round the corner, as he had promised. She slipped into the passenger seat and he took off, heading for the motorway.
‘Where are we going?’
‘Richard said something about a picnic.’
‘A picnic? In February?’
Ian chuckled. ‘You haven’t noticed the date, have you?’
‘What?’
He jerked his head towards the back seat. ‘It’s on the paper.’
Bella turned round and fished up his copy of the Morning Times. ‘February the fourteenth. So?’
He sighed. ‘Look in the Personal Column.’
‘If Richard is sending me messages in the Personal Column he never told me,’ said Bella indignantly. ‘I hate this business of his office talking to my office. It’s just so artificial, I – oooh!’ as she saw the columns of fond messages that made up the page today. ‘It’s Valentine’s Day.’
They drove for about an hour, then turned off the motorway and drove for probably another hour or even more deep into mysterious countryside, full of stone houses, abrupt hills, tiny single-track roads and thatched pubs.
‘Are we going on a tour of Middle England?’ asked Bella. ‘This feels like Tolkien country to me.’
But Ian just shook his head mysteriously, glanced at his watch, and kept on driving. Eventually they turned on to an even smaller road, with a green Countryside Trail signpost.
There were fields on either side of them, completely dark. The lane was deserted, not a house or light to be seen. It ended at a cattle grid and a five-bar gate. Richard was leaning against it, dressed in a Barbour and jeans.
‘Is that a spare pair of Wellington boots?’ said Bella suspiciously. ‘Jesus, he really did mean a picnic.’ She got out of the car.
Richard met her, kissed her, handed over the Wellington boots as if they needed no further explanation, and said, ‘Thanks very much, Ian. See you in the morning.’
Ian grinned. ‘Fine. Er – well – good night.’
He drove off.
‘For a moment there, I thought he was going to say “Have a nice night”,’ said Richard reflectively.
By then Bella was hanging on to him as she thrust a foot into the first Wellington boot. But at this she snorted and staggered and Richard had to pull her upright. He held her firmly.
‘You are so rewarding to tease,’ he said, deeply pleased.
She put on the other boot and he took her shoes, sticking one in each pocket.
Clouds scudded across a black sky. The landscape was lit only by occasional shafts of light from a watery moon. Richard was carrying a torch, small but with a powerful beam.
‘We are going up the hill a little way,’ he said. ‘Hang on to me.’
She climbed over the five-bar gate and went with him. It was not long before she saw …
‘Is that a tower?’
‘I thought you’d appreciate an indoor picnic, given the wind-chill factor.’
‘You think of everything,’ Bella said politely.
It was quite a small tower. Just one room on each of the three floors. Inside, he had lit a fire already, so the place was warm as toast. There was a tartan rug on the old flagstones with a rush basket laid in the middle of it. Two folding picnic chairs were set either side of the fire. In one corner, at the bottom of the stairs, there was small desk with an electric till and an array of postcards on it.
‘Should we be here?’ said Bella uneasily. ‘It looks very – municipal. We haven’t climbed in illegally or anything, have we?’
He laughed aloud. ‘I promise. The Administrator knows we’re here. He gave me the key and permission to park my car in the next field.’
‘And the fire?’ said Bella, still suspicious. ‘When was that chimney last swept?’
‘Do you know, I didn’t ask?’
She relaxed. ‘Oh, all right then. If i
t explodes and burns us to a crisp, I shall blame you.’
‘Do that. Champagne?’
She was surprised. Richard was a claret man normally but he knew she loved the lightness and sparkle of bubbles.
‘Very spoiling. Thank you.’
She sat in one of the picnic chairs and he opened the bottle and brought two glasses to the hearth.
They toasted each other. It seemed as if he wanted to say something and didn’t know where to start. This looked serious.
‘Why are we here?’ Bella said at last.
‘I don’t know if I’ve done the right thing. You may want to choose your own. But – I’ve never given you anything personal. Not really. And I wanted this to be from me to you. Sort of private.’
He reached into the pocket of his Barbour and removed: her right shoe, a checked cap, a tube of mints … and a jeweller’s ring box.
He looked down at it, swallowing. ‘If you – oh, hell, here it is. I hope you like it.’
And he stuffed it into her hands as if it were a ham sandwich.
Bella opened the little velvet box very carefully.
Inside was a swirl of silver metal like a curly ‘S’, with single lemon-coloured diamond set in the middle. It was very simple and yet, somehow, heartbreakingly beautiful. It was also completely him, like that gorgeous plain apartment with all the light and the wonderful inlaid wood.
‘It looks like the wind,’ she said, awed.
His breath came out in a rush. ‘You like it? You really like it? It’s by a young designer. I’ve admired his work for ages. We talked about the design for a long time and I said I wanted something that was free, that sort of flowed. This was the one I chose. We talked about gold but I liked platinum better for you. You really like it? You’re not being kind? Because you can choose your own engagement ring, you know that.’
She got up and kissed him. ‘I really, really like it. I love it. You’re a genius.’
Richard beamed.
‘Terrific. That’s – terrific.’
He bounded to the stairs. ‘Now come and look at the stars. And then I’ll feed you.’
They ran up the rickety stairs. The tower, it seemed, had ramparts. From the top, you could see mountains, valleys, the sparkle of water in the moonlight, little sleeping towns and great fields. The lower clouds had lifted but there was still a dark roof of high cloud with a great gap punched through it leading to the universe beyond where stars twinkled. Moonlight flowed down in golden swathes Bella felt she could climb.