by Page, Sophie
Bella said, ‘Right. That’s it. I’m taking her back to the spa.’
Lottie had a fleet of taxis on standby. She called one up and between them she and Bella bundled Nell home.
When they got there, Nell flung herself flat on the bed and passed out. She was terribly pale and there was a sheen of sweat over her face.
‘I’d better stay with her,’ said Bella, worried. ‘In fact, I might even call a doctor. That doesn’t look normal to me.’
Nell opened her mouth and began to snore.
‘That’s normal,’ said Lottie. ‘But sit up with her if you must. She was mixing her drinks like a sailor. And she must still be jet lagged, too. What a numpty.’
Numpty indeed, thought Bella, sitting with her as the night grew colder and the snores did not abate. She was so tired and her head hurt. She was also angry. She had been looking forward to her girls together weekend. It wasn’t fair that these two idiots should mess it all up.
She was even angrier when she came down in the morning to find two unshaven photographers perched on the low wall round the car park. The nightclub had not been dark enough. The entire stag party had taken photos of the goings-on with their phones. The Sunday Despatch had completely changed its front page to print them.
Bella didn’t know which made her feel more sick: the one of Eleanor, skidding along the bar; or the one of her bent double over the arm of a very fit bloke being, apparently, kissed senseless.
She stamped upstairs to Eleanor’s room. The Princess was sitting on the edge of the bed, looking as if she would not easily move.
‘Get dressed. We’re going. You’re a pain in the butt!’
Eleanor moaned, ‘I’m going to be sick.’
‘That’s the least of your worries.’
The stately home owners did their best to keep the marauding flocks of photographers and journalists at bay. In fact, one of them came upstairs and said, ‘There’s an underground passage to the gatehouse. We cleared it for the children, so we know it’s safe. Do you have someone you trust who could pick you up there?’
‘George will help you,’ Richard had said.
‘I’ll see,’ said Bella.
She called George.
He hadn’t seen the papers. He was barely awake. But he grasped the situation at once. ‘OK. I’ll be there. Directions?’
Fortunately he was less than an hour’s drive away, staying with friends.
Lottie was her usual practical self. ‘Leave the packing to me. Stay in Nell’s room. I’ll tell everyone you were worried about her colour last night and took her off.’
‘Won’t Chloe Lenane come to see her?’
‘Bloody Chloe never came home last night. If she turns up, which I doubt, I’ll get her off the premises. Confiscate Nell’s phone, by the way. You don’t know what she might send.’
‘Good thinking. I don’t trust her. She was out of her skull last night.’
Bella found Nell’s phone in her tiny pink crystal-studded handbag and pinched it. Nell was sitting in a chair with a wet towel over her face by then and didn’t notice. It was a bit of a struggle to get her down to the kitchens in order to access the passage because she kept saying she wanted to go home. But in the end, Bella managed it.
George called them when he was approaching the gatehouse and barely had to stop while Bella pushed Eleanor into the back seat and got in beside him.
‘Drive,’ she said between her teeth, ‘before I kill your sister.’
From the back seat, Eleanor moaned.
Bella’s sense of humour returned momentarily. ‘Or before she throws up all over your motor.’
He drove like the wind.
23
‘Will He Call It Off?’ – Sunday Despatch
Bella was still in the car when Richard called. She expected fury, or that deadly Royal chill, but it was worse than that. He just sounded tired.
‘How could you be so thoughtless?’ he said. ‘How could you? Nell is barely more than a child, my mother and I are out of the country, my father has a heart murmur … You just don’t think.’
Bella looked over her shoulder at Eleanor, now slumbering heavily. She looked about twelve. ‘It just got out of hand, that’s all. I know it’s a mess but these things happen …’
‘Well, you’ll have to clear it up,’ he said flatly. ‘Julian Madoc is talking to the Press Officers. The internet has gone crazy and there’s some very nasty stuff out there. He’ll be in touch with you. I strongly advise you to do what he says.’
‘Of course.’
‘Where are you now?’
‘On the road back to London. With Nell. George is driving us.’
‘Well, that’s something, I suppose. Don’t go to Camelford House. Take her straight to the Palace. I’ll call Pansy.’
Bella flinched.
‘And when you get there—’
‘Yes?’
‘I know you don’t want to, but this is non-negotiable. You move into the Palace and you stay there. Or I’ll issue a statement that the engagement is off. I mean it, Bella.’
She felt numb with shock. ‘I can hear you do,’ she said through frozen lips.
‘So do it.’
He rang off without saying goodbye.
It was dreadful. Julian Madoc was quite kind, to Bella’s surprise, but Lady Pansy could barely contain her triumph. It came liberally coated with more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger, but triumph was what it was. Eleanor kept to the room that had been prepared for her and a nurse sat with her. Nobody told Bella what, if anything, was wrong with the Princess. Nobody told Bella anything much, until George came over to see his sister before dinner and dropped in to see Bella afterwards.
She was sitting in the window seat, trying to read a mystery and failing to keep her mind on the blood-spattered corpse.
‘How’s it going?’ said George, sliding round the door like a murderer himself.
Bella wondered if he had been told to keep away from her contaminating presence. She wondered if Richard had told him that.
‘I’m fine. How is Nell?’
‘She’s thrown up. Just as well or I think old Jones would have stomach-pumped her. She’s lying in bed with the duvet over her head sulking. Which means she’s ashamed of herself.’
He wandered round the room, which looked as if it had been furnished by Lady Pansy. There were pictures of men with guns, coupled with china cabinets full of King Charles spaniels and pirouetting Columbines. It made Bella feel crowded and faintly ill. But George seemed completely at home in it.
He said, ‘She’s a pill. But it’s not all her fault. When people give you a role, you sort of play it. You know?’
‘A role?’
‘The three of us. Good Boy, Bad Boy, Wild Child. They’ve been calling her that since she was thirteen. People believe it.’
‘But surely …’ And then Bella remembered the cartoon she had seen, before she even met Richard. The Royal Family as the Seven Dwarfs, that was it. What had they called the children? Dim, Ditzy and Dull. She’d believed it, hadn’t she? ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ashamed of herself.
He shrugged. ‘I get to play the Clown. Not a problem. It’s tougher on Richard who does all the dull stuff and never, ever gets drunk, or goes on the razzle, or even does his own thing. At least, not until he met you.’
‘Me?’
‘You have no idea what a bid for freedom you were. For all of us, including Nell and me. You gave us hope.’
‘But why? Surely Richard does everything he wants to? The Queen says he’s very strong-willed.’
‘The Good Boy?’ said George. ‘He’d give up anything, if he thought it was his duty. He was a fine sailor, you know. Really gifted. Might even have had trials for the Olympics if they’d let him carry on with it. Only Mother said it was too dangerous. So he gave it up. My father didn’t stop him. He gave it up. It’s as if he’s trying to kill off everything about him that isn’t …’
‘Public property?’ said Bella in a s
mall voice.
‘Yup, maybe. Then he started parkour. Do you know what that is?’
She shook her head.
‘Sort of free running. You try to cross the city without touching the ground. Very gymnastic. Lots of vaults and springs and swinging from your hands. He was really good. He still watches it on YouTube sometimes. It makes me so mad. He should be doing it.’
‘He told me he liked climbing buildings,’ said Bella, enlightened.
George cocked an eyebrow. ‘Really? As if he still does it?’
She said carefully, ‘As if he still plans to do it, certainly.’
‘That’s the best news I’ve heard in years. Let’s hope he sticks with it.’ He brightened at a thought. ‘If you can get him into a horned helmet, hauling an oar with a bunch of weirdos, there might still be hope for him. Power to your elbow, Bella Greenwood. Power to your elbow.’
*
But there was no sign of Richard breaking out. Even when he and the Queen came back from their tour, he and Bella never got their old intimacy back. Partly, of course, it was because he insisted on her living in that barracks of a place. It didn’t feel quite right, sleeping together in the great echoing Palace, with servants popping out of doors when you least expected them, and the King at one end of the building and the Queen at the other. But he could have kissed her as if he meant it, talked to her properly. Even taken her out somewhere.
He didn’t. He was just courteous and considerate and desperately busy. Whenever he saw her, he made it clear that he was on his way somewhere else. He couldn’t even spare half an hour to walk round one of the parks with her.
The only sign of emotion he gave was when she said quietly, ‘Richard, I don’t know what’s gone wrong. This can’t just be about the Hen Night. Do you want to end the engagement?’
He looked at her as if she had stabbed him. It was the only hopeful sign she had seen.
And at once he said tonelessly, ‘If that’s what you want, then of course.’
Bella said, ‘No, it’s not what I want. How can you think that? Remember what we used to be like?’
She went to him. His hands came out to her for just a moment. Then they fell to his sides and he stepped back.
It was like a slap in the face.
She stood very still for a couple of seconds, mastering herself. Then she said quietly, ‘What has happened to us? Is it something to do with your father? Surely he’s better? He seems terrific.’
The King, alone of the family, seemed to be in tearing spirits. He had lost a stone and a half, started jogging round the Palace grounds, and had thrown himself back into his official engagements with a will. He looked, in fact, like a man who has been on holiday. Unlike his elder son, who looked so fine-drawn, you could see the skull under his skin.
Richard said formally, ‘He is very well indeed. The doctors are very pleased with him.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Now, I’m sorry, I’m overdue at the Cathedral. The Prior is talking about a rehearsal but I’m saying it’s too soon.’
And he was gone before Beth could stop him.
It was only afterwards that she thought, he is going to the Cathedral? Without me? What is going on?
Of course, it was probably because of the paparazzi. The tell-tale photographs had come from cellphones and the newspapers had tweaked and enhanced them in-house. But the paparazzi didn’t find her boring any more. Whenever she stepped outside, they homed in on her like wasps round a jam jar.
‘Do they think I’m going to throw myself into the arms of some passing hunk?’ she asked Lottie irritably, having run the gauntlet of their cameras in order to have her hair done by Carlos, followed by supper with her friend. ‘What do they think I am?’
‘Desperate,’ said Lottie frankly.
‘What?’
‘That’s how you look. Tense and haggard, as if you hadn’t slept for a month. And you’re losing weight again, too. Have you been dieting after that silly photo?’
‘What? No. What are you talking about?’
Lottie blushed and apologised. ‘I was thinking of that photo the mad person put up on their blog. Loyal Subject or whatever they call themselves. It was you standing on the cliff, when the boys were doing their Viking thing. There must have been a stiff breeze because you’re leaning backwards but it blows the front of your waterproof out, as if you’ve got a bit of a tummy. A few of the nastier bloggers were calling you podgy.’
Bella shrugged. ‘I didn’t see it. I don’t look at the internet much. The Press guys send printouts to Trudy, but she says it’s just depressing how badly written it all is. So I don’t see it.’
‘Oh, well, good. So you’re not dieting to look like a skeleton? It just happened?’
Bella flushed. ‘I know. I’ll do better. But it’s almost like being in prison, Lotts. They want me to work at home, too. Well, I can do that. Project evaluation is a solitary activity. I don’t have to go into the city to sit at a desk and do it. But I liked the desk and the office and going round the corner to meet Ma at the pub for lunch.’
Lottie made sympathetic noises. She said she couldn’t envisage a life in which you couldn’t go round the corner to the pub.
Bella smiled, but her smile swiftly died. ‘Everywhere I go I have a palace minder in case I get drunk and fall over and a security officer in case somebody else does. I said I wanted to buy some new knickers and they asked Marks and Spencer to stay open ’specially for me.’
‘I’m impressed.’
‘Don’t be. A great shop like that, with nobody but me and a few Palace watchers in it. Creeped me out.’
Lottie said awkwardly, ‘Bel, do you think – could they be trying to scare you off? Freak you out by showing you what it’s going to be like being Mrs Richard?’
Bella nodded slowly. ‘I thought of that. But I don’t see the point. I told him we could break it off and …’ She drew a long breath. ‘He didn’t want to. He looked horrified. No, the one thing I’m absolutely certain of is that he still wants to marry me, Lotts.’
But, in her heart, she wasn’t certain at all.
24
‘Good to Go!’ – Tube Talk
And then, out of the blue, her father rang.
‘Bella?’ he yelled. He always yelled as if he were in the midst of the Siberian wastes, even if it was only Clapham Common.
Bella felt her heart lift. Finn was a meteor, whizzing at top speed and possibly destructive, but he always sizzled with energy. ‘Hello, Finn. Where are you?’
‘I’m staying with your brother. He’s worried about you. We’re coming to see you. Time we broke you out of the Bastille.’
Maybe it was Finn’s renegade influence, but quite suddenly Bella had had enough of being a ladylike prisoner, with Lady Pansy vetoing her every choice and all her own friends unreachable on the other side of the Palace’s curtain wall.
‘No, I’ll meet you,’ she said decisively. ‘St James’s Park. On the bridge. Today at four.’
Lady Pansy, a creature of habit, took tea with the Queen at four on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
And while Lady Pansy was away, Bella just walked out. Nobody stopped her. The policeman on the gate didn’t even question her, just tipped his hat.
Why didn’t I think of doing this before? she thought. I must have been going stir crazy in there. I could have walked out any time I wanted.
She walked gently round the park, smelling the honey and musk of the early roses, savouring the great blowsy displays of annuals in the beds, and the lush green grass. It felt good to have the warm air on her face again. At last, Bella felt she could breathe.
She got to the bridge at four o’clock exactly. Finn wasn’t there. Par for the course, thought Bella tolerantly, and leaned over the railing watching a family of ducklings show off their prowess at swimming in a straight line – except for the tail-end Charlie, who kept getting distracted and was endlessly chivvied back into line by his father. She laughed aloud.
‘That doesn’t sound too bad
,’ said a voice.
And she turned and there was Finn: disreputable holed jeans, appalling old lumberjack shirt, open to the waist, several days’ worth of beard and an Akubra hat. He raised his a hand, which was the closest he ever got to giving anyone a hug.
‘Live long and prosper.’
He was also a fan of cult TV. How could she have forgotten that? Bella was so pleased to see him, she grinned from ear to ear.
Her phone started to ring. She switched it off. This was Bella time. No one else was muscling in on that.
‘Finn, it’s good to see you. You look a complete down and out.’
He took it as a compliment and preened like one of the ducks. ‘Got back two days ago. Went straight to Neill’s. That Viking stunt of his looked good fun. Sorry I missed it.’
‘Well, stick around. He may do it again.’
‘I might. I might stick around to see you married, too. How do you feel about that?’
Bella thought about Finn slouching into the Cathedral and coming face to face with Lady Pansy. She could have danced with glee. ‘Oh, yes, please, Dad.’ Suddenly her eyes were brimming over.
He blinked. She never called him Dad. ‘Hey. No need to cry. If you want me there, I’m up for it. I’ll even walk you down the aisle if you want.’ His tone said it would be an enormous sacrifice.
‘You don’t have to go that far. Kevin has offered and he actually doesn’t mind wearing a morning suit.’
Finn gave a sigh of relief. ‘Great chap, Kevin. Always said so. Now walk round this pond with me and tell me what’s wrong.’