Not Your Cinderella

by Kate Johnson

  He’d arranged for a cart to be taken out dispensing hot drinks and checking on people, and made sure everyone knew it was Clodagh’s idea.

  The crowds cheered as he emerged from the car and waved at them. The chapel looked magnificent in the snow, sunlight just breaking through. It was freezing, but Jamie was far too nervous to be cold.

  “How did you do it?” Nicholas said. “It rained when I got married.”

  “Nick, Nick, Nick,” said Jamie. “Haven’t you figured it out yet?”

  It was Olivia who had pointed it out. “Come on, Jamie, she’s a put-upon maid with a family who take her for granted and an absentee father, and for heaven’s sake, she’s near as dammit got the footman—”

  “Not a footman…”

  “—who’s in love with her—”

  “I think he fancies you more,” Jamie said, because Davood Khan had taken to working more shifts with Clodagh when he knew Olivia was going to be around.

  “That’s for me to know and you to find out,” she said pertly. “And look—she even left a shoe behind at your house.”

  “It was an ankle cast. What are you trying to say?”

  Olivia just gave him a knowing look. “It’s a fairytale, that’s all.”

  “Shut up, Oll.”

  “What haven’t I figured out?” Nick wanted to know as they went up the West Steps and into the chapel. It was wreathed in winter greens and heavy with the scent of flowers, and people turned to look at him as he made his way to the front of the nave, the better to smile and wave to the VIPs as they entered.

  The pageantry started here, with various European royals arriving. Jamie nodded to Annemarie’s relatives as they took a seat on the right hand side of the chapel.

  “Here we go,” he murmured, as they were followed by an explosion of sound and colour. Several gigantic hats appeared in the doorway, and underneath them was Clodagh’s family. Her brothers wore morning suits with cummerbunds. One of the little girls was dressed like Queen Elsa from Frozen.

  “I can’t look,” said Nicholas.

  “Oh my god, innit grand!” said one of Clodagh’s sisters.

  “Oi, be dignified, like Clo said,” admonished another.

  “Ooh, I don’t like that,” said the third, peering at Princess Charlotte’s tomb.

  “Where is he? Innee gorgeous,” said Sharon Walsh, waving extravagantly at Jamie, who waved back to everyone’s amusement.

  A footman guided them to their seats, heroically keeping a straight face.

  Cousins and aunts began to arrive, the tiara count going up rapidly. Jamie glanced up at the Garter banners hanging in the Quire as various relatives took their places. He’d be up there soon.

  Ed’s place still stood empty. I wish you were here so I didn’t have to fill your place.

  Then he reminded himself that Clodagh wore Ed’s garter, and that Annemarie and Dai and the children were here. And so was Ed, if he got sentimental about things.

  Annemarie and Victoria arrived with baby James. Alexander and Georgina were part of Clodagh’s band of miniature attendants. Soon after his parents entered, and then the National Anthem was playing and his grandparents walked in.

  Jamie bowed his head to the Queen, who smiled back at him, and he and Nicholas moved forward to the front of the Quire, where the ornate organ screen prevented him from seeing most of the Nave.

  And then there was a wait, an agonising wait, as he fantasised grimly about the Glass Coach overturning in the snow, before the roar of noise outside told him Clodagh had arrived. According to his watch she was right on time, but he was pretty sure time was moving more slowly today.

  He wasn’t sure he’d survive the wait to see her.

  Clodagh’s phone buzzed again, with her mother’s number. She’d already sent a million texts and called her at Oh God O’Clock in the morning. She’d called again when the hair and make-up people Clodagh had sent round appeared at the hotel, and then again to complain they were making her look old and boring.

  “You can’t hardly tell I’m even wearing lippy, babes,” she said, and Clodagh had pretended her phone was being confiscated by a royal flunkie before her mother frazzled the last nerve she had.

  “It’s stopped snowing,” said Olivia, peering out of the window.

  “Has it? Good. Is that good? Do we want it to snow?”

  “No, darling. Makes a mess of your hair and then there are all the well-wishers and journalists freezing to death like little match girls, which is frightfully bad press.”

  “You mean bad luck,” Clodagh said, as the hairdresser fussed over one particular strand.

  “I mean bad press, darling. We make our own luck.” Olivia submitted to the attentions of the make-up artist attempting to improve upon perfection. Clodagh had been somewhat annoyed to find that Olivia still had an immaculate complexion even after her make-up was taken off.

  “It’s very pretty out there,” said Sarah. “The photographers have been going mad. Um,” she added, “Er, we might need to be ready just a smidge earlier so they can take some more pictures outside...”

  Clodagh met her own panicked gaze in the mirror. “Earlier?” They still had an hour to go, and that didn’t seem nearly enough to accomplish every task on Sarah’s frighteningly comprehensive list.

  “It will all be fine, darling. Have some ‘poo,” said Olivia, and waved at someone to open a bottle of champagne.

  “I do wish you wouldn’t call it that,” Clodagh muttered, but she accepted a glass. Jamie had teased her gently about how much she’d taken to champagne after trying the good stuff; at least, he had until she’d bought a bottle of the cheap fizz she’d been used to for special occasions, and he’d experienced first-hand why she’d never liked it.

  Her phone buzzed. Christ, not Mum again. But it was Jamie, and she felt her heartbeat calm a little at just the sight of his name.

  A few more hours, and then you’ll be married and all this will have been worth it.

  She batted away Sarah’s hand and picked up her own phone. “Question: would you mind if I ditched Nick and had Ghost the direwolf as my attendant?”

  She laughed at that. Her first thought on seeing the snow this morning had been that Windsor looked like something out of Game of Thrones. She searched for an image of the Night King with his crown of ice, and sent it to him. “So long as I can dress like this.”

  “Dammit, Clo, you’re not supposed to show me what you look like! You’ve just cursed us to ten feet more snow!”

  She texted back that there was probably a dragon hanging around somewhere to melt it—after all, his father was the Prince of Wales—before Sarah confiscated her phone.

  Oll shimmied into her dress, a slinky beaded affair that made her look like a cross between Daisy Buchanan and an Oscar statuette, allowed herself to be sprayed with another layer of make-up fixative, and nodded to the dresser in charge of Clodagh’s dress.

  “Come on then,” she said, and Clodagh clutched at her dressing gown. “Or you’ll have to get married in that.”

  “Like the Vicar of Dibley,” Clodagh said in panic. The dress—The Dress—was so beautiful, shimmering and floating like a dream. She couldn’t wear it. It was too perfect.

  “She had pyjamas. Now then. Another swig of ‘poo, and off with that robe.”

  She already had a corset on. And stockings, and the blue garter Annemarie had brought round that morning. She’d kept her own knickers, though. Primark’s finest. Something old, she’d explained firmly, and been grudgingly allowed.

  Her dress was allowed to be the something new. The something borrowed was a diamond necklace of the Queen’s. A man from the Jewel Tower had brought it this morning. It weighed far more than its real mass on her collarbone and Clodagh was aware of it with every breath.

  Olivia removed the champagne to a safe distance, and The Dress was lowered over Clodagh’s head by three attendants. The designer herself fastened the laces at the back, fussing over the exact fit for longer than C
lodagh could bear.

  She couldn’t quite look at herself in the mirror, not until it was all finished, and Olivia took hold of her chin gently but firmly and made her.

  “Oh,” she said, because the woman looking back at her was a princess. Diamonds winking at her throat, her silk dress glowing, gold embroidery shimmering with every breath.

  And the princess started to smile.

  She smiled all through the photos that were staged in one of Frogmore’s beautiful unused bedrooms, the make-up and hair people pretending to attend to her, the dress designer making sure she was photographed straightening a seam, the florist handing over the bouquet.

  She smiled as she was photographed on the stairs, her train arranged carefully behind her, and in front of various fireplaces and vases and portraits, including one of Queen Charlotte.

  She smiled as her father appeared in the drawing room, handsome in morning dress, and the camera clicked away as he took her arm.

  She smiled as she and Olivia posed in the frigid air beside a snowy holly tree, and then outside the Glass Coach before climbing carefully in as she’d rehearsed.The coach, its body tiny compared to the huge painted wheels, dipped and swayed alarmingly.

  “I think it was made for tiny dainty Victorians,” said Kingston, who hadn’t had as much practice as Clodagh had.

  “Actually it was first used for the coronation of George V in 1911,” said Clodagh, who didn’t think Random Facts Girl was going to go away when she became a duchess.

  He gave her a grimace of a smile as the coach lurched into movement, but it had turned into something less seasick and more camera-friendly by the time they rode through the streets of Windsor. The coach probably wasn’t that warm, but adrenaline was keeping Clodagh fueled. She grinned and waved like a maniac.

  People lined the streets, cheering and waving behind crowd-control barriers. Banners were hoisted, congratulating Our Clo on landing a prince.

  “They love you,” said Kingston.

  “I better not fuck up then,” she said, and he laughed.

  All too soon the coach stopped and the red-liveried footman opened the door. Clodagh beamed when she saw it was Davood Khan, just as it had been all those times she’d rehearsed. He winked at her as he helped out her father and then herself, and she was grateful for his steadying hand as she took the three rickety steps down to the pavement. The noise of the crowd nearly overwhelmed her.

  “Smile,” he said.

  “Wave,” Oll said.

  “Oh Christ,” Clodagh said, grinning through clenched teeth and shaking her bouquet at them. There was bunting with her face on it.

  Kingston gave her his arm to walk up the West Steps, which seemed to be at least thirty feet higher than last time she’d done this, and only faltered a little at the top.

  “What is she doing?” he muttered, as her mother hurried down the aisle towards them.

  “Mum!” Clodagh hissed. “Get back in your seat!”

  “Oh, I will babes, I just needed to see you.” She beamed at someone standing near the exit. “This nice young lady said it’d be all right.”

  Clodagh glanced at the woman, who ought to know better if she was really a member of the wedding party, and saw only a hand slipping inside a fur coat and coming out with—

  “Shit!”

  That was Kingston, rapidly turning Clodagh away and shielding her with his body. Khan swung forward, Olivia gasped silently, and over her father’s shoulder Clodagh saw the woman tackled to the floor, covered in red.

  Oh God, he’d shot her! There was a death at her wedding! This wasn’t what she’d meant by Game of Thrones—

  Wait, no shots had been fired. As various security personnel blocked the view from the nave, Khan handed a small canister to an attendant.

  “Paint?” said Clodagh’s father, as the girl tried to sit up, glowering at them all.

  “You were going to throw paint on her?” said Olivia, aghast.

  “You fucking cow!” snapped Sharon Walsh, and punched the girl in the face.

  Clodagh, Essex to her core, couldn’t help a small victory cheer.

  “Was that you last Christmas?” Khan demanded.

  The girl on the ground, her fur coat ruined by the paint, glared up at them. “I love Jamie!” she said.

  “Melissa, for God’s sake,” said Olivia, folding her arms. “A one night stand, and a year later you’re trying to ruin his wedding?”

  “He loves me!”

  “No, he loves Clodagh,” said Olivia in disgust. “He’s marrying Clodagh. Davood, be a lamb and get this miserable creature out of here, darling? Now, then. No paint spatters anywhere? Help me with this train, will you?”

  Olivia bossed them all into order, someone came forward with a mop—what the hell, did Oll have a mopper on standby?—and Clodagh found herself arranged like a dolly, as if nothing had happened.

  There wasn’t even any paint on the floor.

  “Right babes, while I’m here,” said her mum, and got out her phone, turning on the front-facing camera.

  “Really, Mum, a selfie?”

  “Who else gets a selfie like this?” said Sharon, and the picture was taken with Clodagh laughing.

  Her father took her arm. Her mother kissed her cheek and said, “It ain’t a wedding without a punch-up, babes,” and took her seat.

  And then the music changed and Clodagh began the very long walk up the aisle.

  With Annemarie, whose train was a full five metres long, the post-arrival primping of her gown had taken some damn time. Victoria had needed four attendants to organise her veil. Had Clodagh gone for something even more extravagant? Jamie, his back properly turned, told himself he was the product of centuries of breeding and thirty-one years of training and he could damn well stand still and wait a few more minutes.

  Oh Christ, no he couldn’t...

  Last week they’d rehearsed the ceremony for the umpteenth time, and Clodagh had innocently said to the Archbishop, “Are you sure we can’t have Helpless from the Hamilton soundtrack to walk down the aisle?”

  “It’s even got Here Comes The Bride incorporated into it,” Jamie added helpfully. “Hey, we could even dance down the aisle.”

  “Or some nice Crowded House? I think Seven Worlds Collide would be very appropriate,” Clodagh added, and it had taken a distressingly long time for anyone to work out she was joking.

  They’d agreed on The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba, which was appropriately regal and might just last long enough for Clodagh to cover the vast length of the aisle.

  And now it was striking up, which meant she was on her way, and he had to be calm. And wait.

  Keeping his back turned nearly killed him, especially when Nicholas peeked over his shoulder and whispered, “Oh my God.”

  “Oh my God good?” Jamie said out of the corner of his mouth.

  “Yes. I think yes. Yes, definitely.”

  Why the hell had they picked a chapel with such a long aisle?

  Oh, fuck it. At the halfway point he turned, to see her walk into the Quire on the arm of her father.

  Jamie stared. His mouth dropped open. And then he laughed in sheer joy.

  Clodagh looked perfect.

  Small white and gold flowers clustered around her seemingly-bare shoulders. The white silk bodice of her gown was plain, more petals scattering lower on the full skirt, collecting six inches deep at the hem. Instead of a veil she wore a cloak of gossamer white silk which fluttered as she came to stand beside him and leaned over to kiss her father on the cheek. Olivia carefully arranged the hood to fall back over Clodagh’s shoulders, revealing her hair in all its curly glory, crowned with a wreath of creamy white roses, the traditional green myrtle, and hibiscus in a glorious riot of colours.

  She handed the matching bouquet to Olivia and smiled up at Jamie.

  “I am so into you,” she whispered, and his heart turned over.

  “I’m pretty into you too, Cinderella.”

  “I am not your Cinderel
la,” she said, and then the Dean cleared his throat, and the ceremony began.

  Royalgossip.com

  We can’t believe it’s been five years since the wedding of the century: Prince Jamie and Clodagh Walsh! Sorry, other royal brides, but nothing gets the Cinderella factor quite like Our Clo, who proved that you don’t have to have blue blood to marry a prince.

  Remember that gorgeous wedding, which sparked a trend for wedding cloaks? When Clodagh and Jamie posed on the Great West Steps of St George’s Church and Lady Olivia Altringham brought her a white velvet cloak to wear for the processional journey around Windsor, every bride in the country turned to her fiancé and said, “I want one of those!”

  Of course, the Duchess has been pretty hard at work setting up the Clodagh Walsh Foundation, which helps and advises pregnant teenagers, as well as providing childcare bursaries for young mothers who want to go to university. She’s also been active in campaigning against domestic violence and offering support to victims, and along with her sister-in-law Princess Victoria has become a patron of one of the country’s foremost adoption charities. Check out this adorable picture of Princess Victoria with her adopted son, Edward!

  Let’s not forget Prince Jamie’s graduation from Cambridge, making him the first royal to ever attain a PhD. Here he is looking gorgeous in his traditional academical gown with the red-lined hood. We can’t wait to see if he wears the Scarlet gown and Doctor’s Bonnet when he takes up his Fellowship this autumn. We bet he can pull it off, even if it is a style that went out with Henry VIII.

  Of course, the most stylish royal is still Our Clo. At Jamie’s graduation she wore an amazing dress in the exact blue and green of Lady Mathilda College. This was especially appropriate since she’d just finished her first year of study at the college, reading History. Now she’s graduated to an MPhil and we all want to know if she’ll be the second Royal to gain a PhD. We know she’s the only one who can rap all the lyrics to Hamilton: check out this video of her keeping up with the London cast at a Buckingham Palace Dinner.

  And finally, for those of you awaiting the patter of little royal feet, Their Royal Highnesses The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were this week very pleased to announce the arrival of twins: a pair of kittens called Alexander and Angelica. The Palace confirmed that they won’t be added to the line of royal succession…