by Anna Bloom
“I know.”
I shuddered, my deeply contained memories of that fateful day at King’s Hospital working their way free of their box for a moment. I locked them back quick.
Gizmo licked all over Daisy’s face. Ugh.
I went to say something, but Oliver caught my hand and pulled me through the small sitting room. Size wise it was on a par with my Finsbury house. A small space, albeit it with nice sofas. He pointed to a door and I stepped over and poked my head through, finding a small cottage-style kitchen, and my Bad-Assy mug sat by the kettle.
“Did you give the keys back to the housing association?”
Oliver watched me thoughtfully. “No. I figured you might want to, and of course I didn’t want to presume.”
“Someone else will need that house though, won’t they? Maybe someone like me, who has nothing.”
I had far from nothing now. And I didn’t mean the flat screen television, or the beautiful furniture, or even my shitty Ikea sideboard which now stood in an idyllic cottage with my old picture frames on it. I had so much more, because the air I breathed I now shared with him, with my daughter who giggled and wrestled with a smelly Yorkshire terrier.
Daisy looked over. She hadn’t gone to search for her new bedroom, and I knew without a doubt she’d been in on this the whole time. “Harrods was a decoy I’m guessing?”
They shared a glance that made me go all gooey inside. “The removal men took longer than expected.” Oliver had no shame, his expression bold and determined.
“Fine.” I wiped at my face again.
“Mummy, Nanny Margi says to never allow your true emotion to show.”
I chuckled, watery and a whole lot of pathetic. “I think I might struggle with that.”
Oliver’s eyes burned bright. “That’s why I love you.” He leant over and gave me a swift but firm kiss on my mouth. A kiss that shouted everything I needed to hear.
“Oh, I made this for the fridge.” Daisy went to where her school bag sat by the wooden front door and pulled out a piece of paper. On it she’d drawn the three of us, all of us holding hands. Oliver’s head bore a crown and in his hand he held a sceptre—ahaha! I remembered that damn word.
Daisy and I and the man who would one day be king.
I took it and went to the fridge where the magnets which had been on our fridge at the old house sat. I stuck it on and then looked around the kitchen. “No staff you say?”
“Nope.” His grin grew wider and I nibbled on my lower lip.
“You know I can’t cook, right?”
The grin stretched and we both said at once. “Toasted sandwiches.”
Daisy gave a shout which set Gizmo off barking—bloody hell that dog had got a yap.
“You like it?” Oliver pulled me close, our skin brushing together and making me shiver with warm waves.
“I truly do.” I hesitated. “But I wasn’t anti-living in the palace, I just want to make that clear.”
“I know.” He peppered kisses along my cheek, his leg sliding between my knees. “But I can appreciate when I’m wrong. I shouldn’t have expected you to just fit in.”
“Isn’t that what girlfriends to the future king are supposed to do? I spoke to your father and he told me that’s basically what was expected of your mum.”
He shifted up, cradling me in his arms as he met my gaze. “Possibly, but I don’t want to be like that. I told you when I met you that I’d been sleeping until you woke me up. I couldn’t see us from the outside if that makes sense.”
“I think so.” I brushed my fingers through the tangles of his hair, breathing in the smell of him, us, together.
“One day, Leia, I’m going to have to go and live in the palace. I will be king. There’s no avoiding my destiny because it’s been written for me as long as I’ve been alive.”
My palm cradled his cheek, my gaze unwavering from his.
“What man I am when I walk in that palace as king is the only thing I can change. You are right, you’ve always been right. My family don’t have a place in society the way we used to.”
“I told you, I talk ninety-eight percent nonsense.” He smiled slowly and pecked a kiss on the side of my mouth.
“Then it’s the two percent that I’m listening to.”
“And what do you want me to do in my office? I’m never going to be the sort of woman who will happy to design a clothing range or be happy lunching and having facials.”
Next to our new bedroom, which had elements of the room we’d slept in at the palace with its grey and white theme and the big four-poster—I couldn’t lie, I’d remain grateful Oliver had moved the bed with us—sat an office for me. It contained a desk and a chair. A blank canvas for me to do with as I wanted. “I think the office should be purple and white.”
He looked at me closer. “The colours of Dream Free?”
My stomach tightened as I recalled the marketing campaign we’d all come up with when Oliver first visited us at Bright Futures. I remembered all too well what he looked like that day down by the river when we’d been wearing the white and purple T-shirt and he’d touched my hair in front of the press; ensuring that Dream Free went viral.
“Do you think Janine would be happy for me to run with it? I mean I’ve never done anything vaguely useful before.”
He snorted and buried his head into my neck. “You mean the marketing manager of Bright Futures didn’t know what she was doing?”
“Well I didn’t say that exactly. But I can honestly say I’d rather be meeting people, helping them, than working out how to get people to click on a Facebook page.”
He paused for a moment. “I think Janine has probably been waiting for you to suggest that.”
“She was pretty cross with me the other day. So was Molly.”
“Leia, no one is cross with you. This is a huge adjustment, and everyone knows it.”
“Molly said she was going to proposition you herself.”
He laughed again, rocking our bodies together, kindling a warm lick of heat in the pit of my stomach. “I’m already spoken for.”
“Yeah?”
“I told you. You’ve blinded me to everyone else.”
I grinned, so stupid, but I couldn’t keep it off my face.
“So how about we combine our efforts?”
“What do you mean?” I couldn’t see how much longer this naked conversation could last for. I mean there’s only a certain limit of rational conversation one can have when there’s a growing hard-on pushing against the inside of your thigh.
“So I want to prove to everyone the royal family can be current.”
“Yes.”
“And you want to drive Dream Free to reach more people.”
“Yes.”
“Then I say it’s high time we get onto social media.”
“Say what, what?”
“Imagine how many followers the Tabloid Princess would have if she was on Instagram.”
I cringed and ducked my head into his shoulder. “Imagine how much hate I would have.”
“How else are you going to reach out and tell people the things they need to know? You aren’t one of us, Leia. You are better, more real, a person who has lived out there in the real world.”
“The real world sucks, Ollie. I don’t think people want to hear about the elevation of a council estate girl to one of nearly a princess.”
“I think you are wrong. They are going to want to know everything about you. Who would you rather tell them? You or the tabloids?”
Well he had me there. The tabloids had already printed the worst they could about me.
Yet still, here I stood.
He caught my lips, distracting me with a deep kiss. When he pulled away, his eyes burned bright. “How do you feel about becoming a real princess? Just out of interest?”
I narrowed my gaze, my heart bashing hard in my chest. “Are you actually asking?”
His lips quirked into my favourite smile. “I might be thinking about it.”
&
nbsp; “Well that’s not a yes or a no.”
“You haven’t said yes or no either.”
His lips landed back on mine, harder, insistent, leading me down that path that only existed with us in the moment, when it was just him and me and not a care in the whole damn world between us.
Fifteen
“You can’t just go marching off through Kensington. It’s not the done thing.” Marcus’ glasses slipped down his nose and he pushed them back up. The meeting room next to the library was full of people. The quiet and calm of the palace didn’t extend to this room. It was like the NASA launch zone.
“So you’d rather we rewound two years and I was falling out of a club instead?” Oliver’s hands had curled into a tight ball and I wiggled my fingers in between them.
“Yes. Maybe. At least that way we would be giving the public what they expect. The papers would be printing less because it wouldn’t be new for them.”
“For me to be an idiot you mean?” Oliver’s words snapped through the air.
“Sir, you look more of an idiot strolling down the road like you have no concern about who you are or where you should be.”
Oliver turned to the Queen. “This is outrageous. Why are we still listening to this man? He hasn’t a clue what people are like or what they want to see from us.”
The Queen sighed and rubbed at her temple. “Oliver, you just need to see things within the bigger picture. The people aren’t used to seeing us walking down the road holding hands or kissing in the street. It’s never been done before.”
“Kissing, Mother?” I cringed in my seat. Right now would be a great time for an invisibility cloak to land in my lap. “I’d like to think you and father would have at least managed a kiss before.”
“On our wedding day and on the balcony yes. That’s when people expect it.”
Oliver’s hand flattened with a bang against the table. His head shook, a vein pulsing in his temple, and I leant over and caught his fingers again, squeezing them tight. “This is utterly ridiculous. Are you telling me any other couple in the world can walk down Kensington High Street holding hands, apart from Leia and I?”
Marcus coughed and pulled a pile of newspapers across the table. “It’s not just that. It’s keeping open the discourse about Miss Lawrence. It’s not allowing her to drop from the headlines. Yesterday you went to Harrods; today everyone is saying she’s above her station, that she’s using you.”
Invisibility cloak now please.
“But we know that’s not true. The whole issue we have here is that people don’t know us. They don’t know that Dad likes to go fishing, or that John…” he trailed off here and a curtain of silence hung over us all. After a pause he cleaned his throat and then went on. “It’s Christmas soon. We should stay here for this year, live in the city, spend time with the people; not run away and lock ourselves in a grand house while other people don’t have enough to celebrate.”
I’d pulled my hair in front of my face as a shield, but I peeked out through the blonde curtain to look up at him. His face was set with utter determination.
The King spoke. The man had few words. He seemed to store them up for maximum input. “The family will stay together at Christmas as is the tradition.”
“No.” Oliver stared at his father. “We do things wrong. Why can’t you see it’s why no one takes us seriously anymore. If we were more active within society then we would give people less to gossip about because we wouldn’t be so different from them.”
“Oliver!” The King bellowed. “We are not normal. We are the royal family. It’s an honour that has passed from one generation to another. You need to forget all this folly you have of being normal, because you aren’t.”
Oliver glared at his father and then shook his head slowly. “We need to agree to disagree on that point, Father, because I don’t believe that to be the case anymore. We are normal people. Society shouldn’t be split by those who wear a crown and those that don’t.”
My intense pride that Oliver spoke up for himself suffered a serious setback by the fact I knew he spoke my words not his own. These were the sentiments I’d shared with him when we first met. Now he fought with his family, with the whole palace, to say them.
The King cleared his throat. “The best thing to do is for us to announce the child will become a countess in the New Year Honours list. That way she is protected within the fold of the family.”
Oliver’s olive skin leached to a pale hue. “No. That decision comes from Leia and I.”
I stared between them. From the corner of my peripheral vision I could see the Queen shaking her head. “Henry, darling, I don’t think you can rush that.”
“No, you can’t.” Oliver snapped. He pushed back from the table. “So you aren’t open to spending Christmas with us here in London, where people will see us, get to know us?”
Henry’s face settled into a firm mask, and Marcus, who I’d happily punch, shook his head. “No, we will go to Wales as is tradition.”
Oliver leaned across the table. “Father, being a royal shouldn’t be about tradition. It should be about the people.”
The King’s shoulders fell slightly and the Queen reached over. “I hope one day soon, Oliver, you’ll realise that the two things are inextricably linked, and that without one, the other can’t exist.”
With a small shake of his head Oliver turned for the door.
I hesitated. My legs unwilling to move.
Everything happening here was because of me.
“I’m sorry.”
King Henry looked up, a smile on his face. “This isn’t just about you, Leia.” He sat up straighter. “Can Daisy come for a ride after school?”
The fact he preferred the company of my child to me twisted a little in my gut like a blunt knife, but I sent him a small smile regardless. “If she’d like to and she’s not too tired.”
I went to follow Oliver, my feet the scuffed steps of a reprimanded teenager. “Leia.” The Queen called back.
“Yes, Your Highness?”
“Try to keep him off the streets. The backlash won’t be pretty.”
“The backlash?” I asked but my attention was caught by Oliver pacing along the hallway and I shot her a wave and dashed after him momentarily forgetting about her words.
Not for long though.
Definitely not long enough.
“What’s happening?” I plopped down on the sofa and lifted my legs across his lap.
He blinked up at me, momentarily distracted, his gaze far away. The news ran in the background. “Did she go to sleep okay?”
I nodded and picked up the glass of red he’d poured for me while I’d been upstairs with Daisy. “The school seem to be protecting her.” I took a sip of the wine. “And I think they have enough students there who live a very discreet life. Did you know the Chelsea Football Club owner’s son goes there?”
“He does?” Oliver lifted an eyebrow, but his attention still lingered on the television screen.
“Turn it off, Ollie. We don’t need to watch this.”
“I hate the fact they are criticising you as a mother.”
I swallowed hard. My throat tingled with the wine like I chugged down vinegar and not a fine Shiraz.
“People don’t understand, so they fill in the blanks. We kind of knew that was going to happen.”
On the screen, images of us coming out of Harrods with the damn Lego box filled the screen. The fact it was the main news item on the evening news actually astounded me.
“What you have here,” a woman sat on a curved leather sofa, “is a real issue with the idea that you can buy a child’s affection.”
“It’s just a toy.” The presenter queried. I’m glad someone spoke some sense.
“But you have to remember that Miss Lawrence has come from nothing. What is it telling this child to now be able to walk into Harrods and buy the biggest and most expensive toy you can find?”
“It wasn’t the most expensive,” Olive
r grumbled and for a moment I thought he’d launch his glass of wine at the wall. Instead he clutched it tighter.
“You should not buy a child’s affection. I mean where is this girl’s real father? What does he think of all this? How confusing must this be for a six-year-old to suddenly have the future king pretending to be your dad.”
I reached over and grabbed the buttons. Slipping from the sofa, I knelt in between his knees. “You aren’t pretending, Oliver. Daisy loves you; you must remember that.”
“That’s not what everyone else sees, is it though?”
“Does it matter? If we know.”
His hand briefly brushed along my jaw before he slumped back on the sofa. “None of this is to do with you. It’s to do with me and my family. I’ve spent so long hiding myself, all of us, that now everything people know is distorted from the truth. Do you know how much it bites my arse that people don’t know the real reason why I didn’t get married?”
I nodded, a lump forming in my throat. The royals were exceptional at brushing things under a carpet.
“And next time I decide I truly do want to tie the knot, what do you think everyone will be talking about?” His gaze burned. “It sure as hell won’t be the intense and ridiculous love I feel for someone, or the way my life has transformed from pitiful to plentiful because it’s been enriched beyond measure. No. It will be the royal player tries again.”
My heart ached so hard. Tentatively I reached for his face. “What are you going to do? If you carry on this path, you are going to divide the family. I don’t want to be the one to make you do that.”
He swept forward, his lips catching mine. “It won’t be you, Leia. The division has always been here.”
The conversation ended as his lips searched mine deeper and harder and much like I did in my life before. I went to bed at the same time as Daisy—only this time I was no longer alone.
The next few weeks had carried on in the same way, full of speculation about the royals. We’d kept to ourselves, enjoying out time in our new home; living together, school runs, me trying to cook—and failing… A normality for us that no one knew about.