by Anna Bloom
“I’m all about the great.”
His gaze dropped to my lips and my stomach tightened. “I know.” I winked.
“Well, so long as we are clear on some things.”
“Just some things.”
Daisy bounced into my arms when we met her at the door to St George’s. I swept her up tight, skimming my nose along her blonde hair, filling myself with the faint smell of her shampoo. I’d always hated missing the afternoon school runs, holding resentment that Nana got to share the after-school buzz while I sat in an office pretending I knew a lot about marketing that I really didn’t.
Of course I never quite envisaged that I’d have the press with me on the school run, but then even them I slowly managed to accept.
I knew I had to. I couldn’t keep fighting my chance of happiness. I had to take it.
As if reminding me of that very fact, Granny Alice’s ring pinched my finger as Daisy grasped a firm grip on my hand, her other one reaching for Oliver’s, so we walked in a connected line. Good for us, problematic for the people on the pavement. I refused to duck my head though and shy away from the interested glances we got. Instead I focused on the word vomit streaming out of Daisy’s mouth.
“Then I said to her, well the kitchen shouldn’t be throwing away all the food like that. I mean there are people starving in this world.” I seemed to have tuned back in at a pivotal moment. Daisy stood stock still on the pavement, let go of our hands and placed her own on her hips.
“You said that to the cook?” Oliver’s lips quirked into my favourite smile. “Wow, you’re an echo crusader, Daisy.”
“Well it’s a waste, there are starving people on these streets, Da—” She cut off her words; those bright blues I adored glittered around the edges.
Oliver stood stock still, frozen into place.
For my part, my mouth flapped open like a fish—my favourite look to share with the press.
Oh shit.
I should say something.
Anything.
Anything… right now… any time…
Fuck.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that.” Daisy placed her hand over her mouth, her eyes on me, alarm and… what was that… fright… in their depths?
“Daisy. Don’t worry.” I mean she hadn’t done anything wrong. She’d just called the man she loved Dad. I guess that was right… wasn’t it?
So why did she have tears trickling down her face? “Sorry, Mummy.”
I lowered myself until we were eye to eye. “What are you sorry about? That you nearly called Oliver, Daddy?”
I glanced up at him, but he still seemed to be frozen. Not helping. At all.
“I… I...” Her little bottom lip quivered. “I know you always said it would just be me and you.”
I huffed a breath like I’d been punched. “Sweetie, that’s changed, and it’s okay for us to open ourselves up to new things. Oliver loves you very much.”
Fuck. I wanted to elbow him in the balls to make him move.
She stared up at him, a tear sliding down her cheek. “I’m sorry, Oliver. I know you aren’t my real daddy.”
Her words moved him into action. With his face still almost blank he bent at the waist and smoothed his hands around her face, lifting it up so they could meet gazes. “Daisy, my princess. I will always be whoever you want me to be.”
She nodded, although it didn’t look easy, holding her as he was. “So you don’t mind?”
I swallowed hard, my chest aching, my heart beating rough and loud. He knelt in front of her, in front of everyone watching, all the passers-by who could see their future king on his knees. “It would be the greatest honour of my life.”
I dashed my fingers at my face. My skin sizzled with sticky heat under my touch. “I’m going to kill you guys if I’m on the front page of The Sun crying tomorrow.” I turned for the car, only to find a Nissan 4x4 in our place.
“Ugh, where’s the car?”
Oliver grinned, and although I could still see a storm in the green of his eyes, I knew he dug deep to pull it under control; after all, one must never show emotion in public.
I wiped at my face again.
“I thought we could go shopping.”
My mouth hung open.
“Shopping?” I turned looking for Bill. He’d be here somewhere, his finger against his earpiece while he frowned at his boss.
“Sure. There’s an amazing toy shop three streets along and I thought Daisy might like to look in there.”
I glanced up and down the road again. “But…”
“I’m trying here, Leia. I’m hearing what you are saying and I’m trying to change. I might not get the King and Queen strolling down Kensington High Street any time soon, but I think we can at least give it a whirl.”
How did he manage to make everything sound so easy?
“So we are just going to stroll along?” I lifted an eyebrow.
“Strolling, strolling, strolling.” Damn that smile.
“Would you like to go toy shopping, Daisy?” I turned to ask Daisy. I mean after all she’d just kind of unofficially adopted herself a father in the middle of the street. It was a dumb question anyway. Of course she’d say yes.
“Okay. Let’s stroll.” I shrugged and reached my hand out for him. “Strolling, strolling, strolling.”
He grinned and squeezed my fingers tight. “And there’s a new Lego I quite fancy.”
“Ohhh now the truth comes out.”
Chuckling, he pulled me tight into his side and kissed the top of my head.
I eyed the box with a level of cynicism that every mother has instilled in them at the birth of their child. Just this time I wasn’t talking to my child. “There is no way we can carry that home.”
“We can manage it between us I’m sure.”
“Down to St Mark’s? Are you having a laugh?”
Oliver eyed the giant box of Lego again. It wasn’t even about getting it home. I huffed a breath. “That’s going to go everywhere, you know that? And I mean everywhere, under the sofa, in between your toes.”
“But, Mummy, it’s a castle.”
“You guys built one already!”
“Aha! But this one is the Unikitty Cloud Castle.” Oliver’s arms folded across his chest.
“I don’t give a—” GAAAAH.
The sales assistant looked at us, her eyes as wide as serving platters. We were beyond dinner plate eyes now. With a starched white shirt and black smart skirt, she looked like she should be serving food in a high-end restaurant, but that seemed to be the uniform. We weren’t in any old toy shop. No. We were in Harrods. A toy steam train whistled passed us for the hundredth time.
“Okay, listen.” I took a deep breath. “How about we just get something small? I don’t know, a Baby Annabell or something, and then we come back for the castle another day. We don’t really have room at the apartment for this.”
Oliver and Daisy pouted identical faces.
“Oh, do whatever.”
“Yes!” Oliver fist pumped and then gestured for the woman to help him get it to the till. It was too big for one person to carry alone… the man had no brain for sensibilities it seemed.
“We can get a cab,” I suggested.
“No need. I can get Bill to bring a car.”
I scrunched my face. “I think you are missing the point of trying to be normal.”
His lips crept into that curve that could melt my heart and he leant close to my ear. “There’s only a certain amount of normal I’m capable of.”
“I’m seeing that.”
A flurry caught my attention from the door and a woman in a black suit with a gold name badge elbowed her way through. “Your Royal Highnesses.” She swept a bow. It took me a minute to register she’d addressed me along with Oliver.
Oh.
“I do hope we have been able to fulfil your needs this afternoon.”
“Perfectly, thank you.” Oliver gave her his politest, warmest princely smile.
“I think I’m in enough trouble for the Lego but thank you.” Oliver laughed with ease and then cast a glance over his shoulder to where staff hovered, seemingly star-struck. “Is it okay if we say hello to the staff?”
“Oh, of course, we would be honoured.”
He slipped his wallet out of his back pocket and took out a card which he gave to the woman who’d been serving us. She deserved a tip for not fainting in my opinion. Then leaving his card with the cashier, he caught my hand and reeled me into his side, planting a kiss onto my cheek. “Come,” he whispered and Daisy and I followed after him like a chain of interconnected links.
“Hi, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” He started shaking hands while the staff in their smart suits bobbed curtseys or dropped bows. They all looked utterly spellbound, which I could one hundred percent sympathise with. He blinded me from the moment I woke until I closed my eyes and went to sleep.
“What’s the best toy in here?” He asked one young red-headed chap whose fair skin scorched a vivid red as he tried to get his brain to work.
“Uh, that’s the Millennium Falcon, Sir.”
“Ah, the Falcon. Daisy, let’s go and look.” He swept Daisy up in his arms and she giggled as she wrapped her little arms tight around his neck. “We should have gone for that instead of the castle.”
Daisy shook her head, her eyes shining. “Castles are better than everything.”
He kissed her cheek, squeezing her tight. “Of course you are right. You are always right.”
I watched them go off to discover the Millennium Falcon, my heart close to exploding in my chest. Maybe this could work.
I had to believe it would; otherwise, hell, it was going to hurt unlike anything else.
Fourteen
“So, your big afternoon plans were to go shopping?” I turned to him in the backseat of the car. Bill, of course, had ensured a car was parked directly outside Harrods which we slipped into.
Oliver shot me a wide grin. “Nope. My plans were to distract you both from not going home for a while.”
I narrowed my gaze while the word home echoed around my head. No girl in the history of girls would ever turn down the chance to live in a palace—excluding me maybe. I’m that girl. The difficult one.
“I thought Nana was coming over and you were going to beg her to come and live with us at the palace?” I couldn’t stop my lips turning into a pout. Nana would never say yes to that; you couldn’t say I hadn’t warned him.
“True, true.” He leant over and kissed my forehead. The press waited outside the gates to the palace and judging by their calls, news had travelled quickly. “Daisy, how was your first trip to Harrods?”
Daisy shrunk against me and a deep frown scored Oliver’s face. “Ignore them, Daisy,” he muttered shooting a death stare through the darkened glass of the window.
“Daisy! How’s your new school? Have you made friends?”
“Idiots. Can you drive a bit faster please?” Oliver leant forward and tapped the driver on the shoulder, but the gates were slow to open.
I squeezed Daisy with my arm. “Don’t worry, sweetie, we will be home in a moment.”
Daisy lifted her chin and shirked out of my hold. “Don’t worry, Mummy; they will be bored soon.”
I met Oliver’s gaze and his scowl eased, turning into a smirk.
“Could you take us to Fenmore please,” he asked the driver.
I glanced at him in confusion as the car cruised past the main courtyard of the palace, past the front door to the apartment and slowly crunched over the gravel down a path that led away from the main building. “Where are we going?”
“Just wait, one minute.”
That car cruised further and his smile grew. “Maybe two minutes.”
I sat back against the leather seat and waited, counting in my head, because two minutes seemed to tick by tortuously slowly.
Eventually though we came to a halt outside a small cottage. Small and pretty with flint stones on the wall and green ivy climbing the walls, I peered at it closer. Dusk had already settled—that’s how long we’d spent shaking hands in Harrods—and the pathway was dark, but the front door of the cottage was illuminated with the help of two old fashioned gas lamps either side of the front path.
“What’s this?” I cast a confused glance at Daisy, but she returned my look with a questioning one of her own.
Oliver didn’t answer. He slipped out of the car and then walked around to my door, pulling it open and offering me his hand.
“Oliver?” My eyes narrowed.
“Okay. So.” He huffed a breath and the car drove off, leaving us what felt like acres away from the main palace. “I realise that I’ve maybe gone about things wrong. I expected you and Daisy to move into the palace, into my apartments, and didn’t really think too much of what you were leaving behind.”
I glanced at the cottage again. “Okay.”
“This cottage is the old gamekeepers. It’s been sat here for a long time doing not much at all.”
“And?”
He rubbed at his face, uncertainty flickering in his eyes. “So I asked if I could buy it.”
“What do you mean, buy it?” My heart beat a little faster in my chest. “I thought all of these grounds belonged to the crown?”
He nodded again. “They do. This belongs to you.”
The air whooshed out of my chest. “Pardon?”
“I want you to have a home, Leia. Not somewhere you have to stay because of who I am, and what the circumstances necessitate. I never want you to feel like you are just stopping by and don’t belong. So this is yours. Your name is on the deeds.”
My breath came in short bursts. “Oliver…” I had nothing. I stared at the stone clad cottage. It looked like something out of a fairy tale. The woodsman from Red Riding Hood could come marching out the door at any moment, his axe in his hand.
“Did you know about this?” I asked Daisy.
“No!” I scrutinised her face and decided she didn’t have her fibbing I’m-so-guilty look on it.
Oliver reached into his pocket and pulled out a key with a ribbon on it. “There are no security pads, no staff. It’s just ours, well yours.” He grinned wide and my heart raced for different reasons. “Although I’m kind of hoping you will let me live here with you.”
“I thought you were going to ask Nana to move into the palace? Isn’t that why you invited her over for tea?” I could have sworn that was the plan.
“With the agreement of my parents, I’ve offered Nana the use of my, sorry I mean our, old apartment. It’s here when she wants it.”
“And she said?” There’s no way Nana would agree… I think.
Oliver’s smirk answered my question. “She asked what the rules were on overnight guests.”
I cringed. “That’s disgusting.”
Oliver chuckled and motioned that I should open the door. He turned and picked up the giant box of Lego, but I remained rooted to the spot. Daisy looked at me expectantly.
“What about all the decorating you did for Daisy’s bedroom?” My heart sank down to my stomach. “I feel like I’m making life really awkward for you. You keep trying to please me, when really.” I trailed off and he waited expectantly. “When really you give us everything just by being who you are.”
Oliver laughed, the sound ringing through the early evening air. “That’s probably the nicest thing you’ve said to me yet.”
I flushed, hot and bothered.
“Open the door, Leia.”
Daisy nodded, slipping her hand into mine. I cast a suspicious gaze over her again. She loved that bedroom in the palace, but she didn’t seem to be overly upset to lose it. “Open it, Mummy.”
“My house?” My fingers shook as I held the key. I’d never owned anything of my own before. The house I’d brought Daisy up in had belonged to the co
uncil. Daisy and I just two of the needy people who desperately required help to keep a roof over our heads.
This was beyond anything.
It changed things that I didn’t think Oliver realised. More than loving a prince, moving house. This gave me bricks and mortar to call my own. Still, I hesitated. “I need to pay you back.”
“What?” Confusion flashed across his face. “It’s a gift, Leia. And really it cost nothing at all.”
“To you. But to me, it’s everything, Ollie. I’ll pay you back every penny and then it will truly be mine.”
His you’re-utterly-ridiculous expression of frustration flashed over his face, but he cleared it as quick as it arrived. “Perfect. I’ll give you my bank account details.”
“Thank you.”
“Oh, my god. Will you just open the door already? This box is actually heavy.”
I chuckled as I slid the key into the lock and pushed the door open.
Big swollen tears filled my eyes and then blinked slowly down my cheeks. Inside everything looked perfect. Shades of Oliver’s signature style lingered amongst all my own belongings from the Finsbury house. It was Oliver Beaufort, mixed with Ikea classic.
I snorted and wiped at my face.
Oliver put the box on the floor and then slid his hands to my shoulders, making me look at his face. “Please tell me they are happy tears. If I have to decorate and pack again, I might cry myself.”
“No, it’s perfect.”
I recognised the black sofas from the Bermondsey warehouse where we’d spent our first night together. The bright red rug on the oak floorboards was also from there. And the dog.
Gizmo launched at Oliver and he scooped to pick him up. “Isabella said he smelled too bad to stay in the palace with her anymore.”
Daisy reached for Gizmo. My parental mode switched on and I put my hand out to stop her. “Tight chest today?”
She rolled her eyes. “Nooo, Muumuum.”
“Have you needed a pump?”
“Nooooo.”
Oliver laughed and then just gave her the damn dog anyway. “Leia, the allergy tests came back clear.”