by Kate Johnson
“I’ll walk you there.”
Clodagh opened her mouth to complain, but he was already putting his jacket on. The Australian girl watched them in bewilderment.
“Clodagh. You’ve been up all night and had two hours’ rest and I would be derelict in my duty if I didn’t at least see you home. If you fall in the river or get hit by a flying oar I’ll never forgive myself,” he added.
I don’t want to you see how crappy my flat is. “Sure, okay. But I have to run, like now, or I’ll be late.”
Jamie shrugged. “Ready when you are.”
They left the boathouse, the sun properly up now and glinting prettily on the river. Clodagh tried to get her bearings; she’d cut past the boathouses many times but never actually been inside one, and she ended up halfway along Kimberley Road before she realised she was going the long way.
“Look, I’m sure if you call in to work they’ll understand,” said Jamie as he walked along beside her.
I am being walked home by a prince. This is so weird I might be dreaming. Clodagh pinched herself discreetly and said, “At this short notice? They’ll not be able to get anyone in. It’s hard enough during the day.”
“Yes, but… surely it’s a health and safety issue? You’ve had no sleep—”
“I’ve had a couple of hours.” And tonight she could sleep all she wanted, because she only had an evening shift on Friday and no pressing essays to turn in.
“That’s not enough,” Jamie said and Clodagh, too tired for patience, snapped.
“Well, it’ll have to be. Look, I’m sorry, Your Highness,” she stopped walking and so did he. “I don’t have any option. I have to pay rent, the electricity is due this month and I’ve barely managed my course fees this year. I have to go into work, because they pay me by the hour and I need every penny I can get, okay? I don’t have a safety net. I don’t have anything to fall back on. I am only one skipped shift away from homelessness.”
Jamie swallowed. Behind him, the two bodyguards looked tense. Oh hell, did they think she was going to wallop him? Clodagh took a step back.
“All right. Fine. I’m sorry,” said the prince. His hands came up in a gesture of appeasement. “I didn’t… I didn’t understand. I apologise. Would you like me to explain to your boss why you’re… no. Okay. Let’s go.”
They walked in silence for a bit. Clodagh felt a bit sick. I just yelled at a member of the Royal Family. Oh shit. This probably is treason.
“I’m sorry,” she said after a few excruciating minutes. From a window somewhere came the sound of a violin. Purcell, maybe. She’d done a module on that, too.
“Not as sorry as I am,” replied the prince gently. “I shouldn’t have pushed. Please, accept my apology.”
He held out a hand to her. This time, it was ungloved. Clodagh swallowed, and took it.
The touch of him shocked her. His fingers were chilly, he didn’t try to crush her hand and his palm was soft, but none of that was what made her stop and stare, jolted, up at him.
He touched her hand, bare skin to bare skin, and this was something she’d done countless times with countless people, but somehow it felt like the first ever time a human being had actually touched her.
Jamie’s hand held hers, and he looked down at her and their eyes met, and his looked incredibly green, the green of Midsummer Common at sunrise, the green of the sea, the green of forever, and she couldn’t look away. His lashes were long, his brows thick and glossy, and there was a small freckle just under his left eye.
They held hands, not shaking them, standing still and alone on a deserted street in an empty city, close and getting closer, electricity building between them.
I know you. I know you, now, and I always have and I always will.
She breathed him in, the closest thing in the world to herself. There was no one else around.
Then the violin screeched and with a pop like a bubble bursting, the real world slammed back into place around them. A passing car blared out hip-hop, and a phone rang somewhere and an accusatory voice from behind them said, “Oi, you’re blocking the pavement.”
Clodagh looked round, astonished to find anyone else in their private universe, and found a woman with a large pram and several shopping bags glaring at her.
And Clodagh realised she’d been standing opposite the Co-Op on the corner of Milton Road holding hands and staring at Prince Jamie like a fucking idiot.
Morris or maybe Khan said, “Sir? Miss?” in a tone that said they were acting really weird and could they knock it off, please?
She snatched her hand back, face hot, and scurried out of the way of the woman with the buggy, who glared and barged past, taking with her the last remnants of the moment that had expanded to fill everything Clodagh knew.
“I’m sorry,” she stammered. Why was she always apologising to him?
His hand followed hers, as if it wanted to catch it and keep it hostage, and then he shook it off as if it was full of electrical charge, and gave her a flicker of a smile.
“Don’t be,” he said, very softly, his eyes still on her face. He looked puzzled, as if he couldn’t work out what had just happened. Then he put on his sunglasses, and she couldn’t see the changing shades of his eyes any more.
“I should—I just live—I should go.” She flapped her hand in the direction of her flat, which made it look as if she lived in the Co-Op. “Thanks for the… bacon,” she said, and turned. Thanks for the bacon? Jesus Christ, Clodagh. Get a grip.
They were following her, she realised as she waited on the traffic island for the lights to change. The two bodyguards, neither of them huge but giving an impression of massiveness, flanking Jamie, in his technical sports gear and sunglasses like any student leaving the boathouse after a training session. He was watching her, although how she knew that she couldn’t say.
She crossed the road, rounded the corner and felt in her bag for her key. Her fingers shook, and she told herself that was just because she was so tired.
It took two tries to get the key in the lock, but she managed it, and the last thing she saw before she closed the door was Prince Jamie of Wales standing on the pavement with his hands in his pockets, watching her.
Chapter Four
Historygal blog: The little known story of how Edward VIII nearly married a divorced commoner and abdicated!
Bear with! Yes, I am talking about the Queen’s father and yes, this is all true. We’re all familiar with the beloved Queen Mum, Freda Dudley Ward, later Queen Winifred. We all know they met in an air raid shelter during the First World War, while he was still the Prince of Wales and she was still married to her first husband, from whom she was living a discreetly separate life.
But here’s the story of the woman he almost married; and who would have led to his abdication. Why? Well, let me tell you about Wallis Simpson…
“Now what’s this your PPO has been telling me about some girl?” Olivia said, throwing herself onto the back seat with no warning. Well, he knew she was getting into the car. He didn’t know his personal protection officers had been blabbing about him.
“Why yes, I do think that went well,” said Jamie, fastening his seatbelt. He was proud of his hands for not shaking. “Great turn-out and I was especially pleased to see the improvement Sergeant Drayton has made.”
“Yes, yes, whatever. He’s walking with a frame, it’s a medical miracle, I’ll say a rosary for him.” Her hands fluttered impatiently at him.
“You’re not Catholic.”
“Jamie!”
He looked out of the window to give himself time. Smiled and waved at the crowds outside the clinic. A man in a wheelchair saluted him.
He thought he saw a girl with bouncy brown curls and a wide, pretty smile, but when he looked again it was a total stranger.
When Jamie turned back to Olivia he was composed. “You don’t believe everything the PPOs tell you, do you? Which one was it this time?”
“The sexy one.”
“Oh
, that’s helpful—”
“The Indian one.”
“Khan? His family is from Pakistan, actually, and your mother really would disown you if you brought home a Muslim boyfriend.” The Duchess of Allendale was the sort of person who began sentences with things like, “I’m not a racist, but…”
Olivia smoothed her skirt. “It’s 2017, darling, I can date who I like. And speaking of dating…?”
The car paused at a junction. With the privacy screen up, no sound came from the front of the car. Jamie stared at nothing, then said, “I’m not dating anyone.”
“Seeing, shagging, whatever. Semantics. Jamie, I’m your oldest friend. Spill.”
“There’s honestly nothing to spill. I’m not seeing anyone. I haven’t got time.”
That part at least was true. He’d cut his royal duties to the bone, but there was no way he’d miss a visit to the military veterans charity both he and Olivia were patrons of. It had been doable after his weekly meeting with Peaseman, and he’d also been asked to do an afternoon tea with young carers in Stoke, which was where they were currently headed. Tomorrow he had a hospital opening, a meeting of former Land Girls and then, if he was lucky, he might be able to catch up on some of the reading he’d missed this week while he was sitting in a boathouse watching a pretty girl sleep.
He should have woken her the minute the plate slipped from her hand, but instead he’d caught it and tucked a cushion under her head. She hadn’t stirred when he lifted her feet onto the sofa or covered her with her stained jacket. She was clearly exhausted, and Jamie had been too ashamed of his own privilege to go back to the pub that week.
And too shocked by that moment on the street. Benjamin Franklin with his key and his kite had nothing on that moment. Jamie was amazed they hadn’t blown every electrical circuit in the city. For a brief eternity, it had felt like they were the only two people in the world.
He didn’t know what to think about that.
When Vincent dressed him for this event Jamie had looked at his pristine white shirt and asked idly what would happen if red wine got on it.
“I’d fetch you a new one, sir,” came the smooth reply.
“No, I mean if you didn’t have a new one. If you had to clean it. Is it hard?”
Vincent gave him a long-suffering look, explained that the shirt would never be snowy white again, and then under duress supplied a list of products he relied upon for the royal linen.
“Not everyone has the luxury of a new shirt every time one gets dirty,” said Jamie, shame curling inside him at the profligacy.
“Not everyone is photographed by the international press every time they go outside, sir,” Vincent replied, adjusting the knot of Jamie’s tie.
I am only one skipped shift away from homelessness. Did she mean that? Was her life that precarious? How had a bright girl who knew Keats and hummed along to Purcell ended up living in such a crappy flat—one cracked window had been covered with newspaper for so long all the print had faded—and moonlighting as a waitress to make ends meet?
She’d mentioned course fees. And there’d been that book she hadn’t quite hidden behind the bar. Was she a student? How did she ever find time to study with all that working going on? Didn’t she have a student loan?
Jamie told himself there were a million reasons why Clodagh might be short of cash and none of them were any of his business.
Except that when he closed his eyes he saw hers, staring up at him, wide with shock. Pale brown, maybe amber, bright and clear even when she was dead on her feet. Her lips parted with surprise, her mouth full and lush. Her hand in his, jolting him like they were both made of pure electricity.
Morris and Khan hadn’t said a word to him about it, but he knew they’d noticed. They’d probably have reported it back to Geraint, who’d be busy compiling a dossier on Clodagh Walsh, a girl he’d met three times and spoken to very little and whose hand he’d held, for a lifetime that lasted less than a minute.
“Oll, when I’m seeing someone you’ll be the first to know,” he said, and closed his eyes.
Pale brown, maybe amber.
He opened them again. “What’s the name of the charity this afternoon?”
“Caring Hands, and don’t change the subject,” said Olivia.
“There is no subject,” said Jamie, and ignored her until she gave up.
Clodagh didn’t see the prince for a week or two, during which Hanna and Lee’s relationship cycled back into arguments and slammed doors and bruises that weren’t quite concealed by make-up. Clodagh twice drummed up the courage to talk to her flatmate, but was met with scorn and a flurry of what sounded like abuse in Polish.
She took extra shifts at the pub as much out of desperation to get out of the flat as for the cash.
The first week after the boathouse incident, she came into the pub to find the staff nudging each other and the regulars making jokes about flowers and chocolates. “Who’s brought who flowers?” she asked, and Oz burst out laughing.
“Maybe this is what royalty does instead of flowers,” he said, handing her a paper bag.
Royalty? Oh hell, what had he brought her? And why? Clodagh looked around, but there was no sign of the prince or his interchangeable protection officers.
“Maybe it’s money,” said Marte.
“Or a tiara,” said Paulie.
“Nah man, I bet it’s some kinky sex toy.”
“Sex toy? You shagging the prince then, Clodagh?”
Clodagh tried to block out their whoops of laughter as she opened the bag. It wasn’t a tiara, or money, or a sex toy. It was two small bottles with colourful labels. And a note. “I am reliably informed,” it told her in beautiful handwriting, “that these are best for red wine and blood stains. Hope you’re well. Jamie Wales.”
Stain remover. “He’s sent me stain remover,” she said, and smiled for the first time since she’d seen him.
The staff and the regulars looked at each other in consternation. “Now that is kinky,” said Oz.
Hallowe’en found her pinning up the tattered decorations the Prince’s Arms had had for donkeys years and listening to the older regulars complain about how American the whole thing was.
“Actually Hallowe’en is firmly British,” she said, preparing to bring out Random Facts Girl and launch into what Oz called her Samhain Monologue.
“What? No it’s not. We didn’t do this when I was a kid,” said Paulie.
“We had Mischief Night when I was,” said Stevo.
“Nah, that’s for Bonfire Night,” said Paulie.
“Bloody isn’t. It’s Hallowe’en.”
“Bloody is!” Paulie shook his head, his Bradford accent getting stronger. “Bloody southerners.”
“Well, go back up north, then.”
Clodagh had heard the argument too many times to count. Paulie was adamant Yorkshire was the best place to be from, but equally adamant he wasn’t going back.
The pub began to fill up. Marte had hired a band to play and put up a few posters and the clientele ebbed and flowed with pub crawlers in costumes of varying quality. Clodagh, who’d been raised with the ‘wear black tights and draw a cat nose with Mummy’s eyeliner’ type of costume, always appreciated the home-made over the shop-bought, of which there were more every year.
“Anyway, it’s all trick or treating now,” said a man Clodagh knew only as John the Milk. He waved his empty pint glass at her and she nodded and picked up a clean one.
“Yeah, and try getting them to do a trick!”
“Can’t, mate, you’ll have the PC brigade on you. ‘Want to see a trick, little girl?’ Just imagine.”
“Never did us any harm.”
“When were you a little girl?” said Clodagh, and they all laughed.
The conversation moved on. She served John the Milk, then Paulie, and then the students came in, noses pink from the cold, talking excitedly about some computing thing that was quite literally a different language. Hunter the American was dressed
somewhat incongruously as Luke Skywalker. Zheng had a t-shirt that said, ‘Go, ceiling!’ There was a vampire, a mad surgeon and half-hearted ghost.
Ruchi came to the bar. Her t-shirt said ‘Error 404: Costume Not Found.’
“Cute,” said Clodagh, fetching the lager glasses for the boys. “I don’t get Zheng?”
“Oh, he’s a ceiling fan.”
Go ceiling. Clodagh had to laugh at how terrible that was. “What are you having?”
“Red wine, I think, then I can pretend it’s blood.” Ruchi leaned forward. “And then spill it on Hunter, who said earlier my talk on system modelling was ‘quite good for a girl’.”
Clodagh felt her eyes get big. “Why is it some men confuse being a massive dick with having one?”
Ruchi laughed uproariously. “That’s brilliant. What are you?”
Clodagh groaned and looked down at her tight, itchy polyester dress. “For some reason Oz was in charge of the costumes. I think it’s meant to be a sexy vampire. It was that or sexy witch. Or a sexy… I want to say pirate?” To be honest there was little to tell them apart.
“Was there an option not to wear a polyester minidress?” Ruchi said, looking her over with an expression that said she was glad it was Clodagh and not herself.
“Nope.” At least she’d had enough advance warning to find a pair of normal tights to wear under it, instead of the fishnets Oz had been so hopeful of. And Clodagh didn’t expect sexy vampires usually wore trainers, but she was going to be on her feet all night and she had to walk home, too.
There had been a wig, but Clodagh had just grabbed a handful of her wild corkscrew curls and asked Oz sweetly how she was meant to fit them all under the damn thing, and he’d backed off.
“Oh well. It’s just for one night. And at least you’re getting paid.”
Clodagh repeated that to herself several times throughout the night, when a customer spilt a pint of beer on her, when another grabbed her arse as she was collecting glasses, when she went too close to the speakers just as a guitar screeched with feedback.