Killer Queens (15 page)

She hadn’t seen Hugo for eight years. Greedily, she feasted on the sight of him. He was fully a man now, with Oliver’s blond hair, his long aristocratic nose and strong jawline.
Thank goodness he’s so clearly Oliver’s son,
she always thought, looking at him.
With all the dirt that Oliver tried to throw at me in the divorce, that piece of mud he could never have flung. Not that he would, of course. It wouldn’t exactly have been in his interest to imply that he wasn’t capable of fathering children.

But her son had her eyes and brows, and, above all, he had her smile. She had always secretly hated her smile; it was too wide. One of her nannies had even called her ‘Gummy’. The media, the world, had fallen in love with that smile of Belinda’s, so open and unforced, and during her engagement, even the first few months of marriage, she had smiled constantly, dazzled with happiness, by her fairy tale come true, by her ridiculously handsome prince, who could have had anyone in the world and who had chosen her.

She reached a hand up to the screen, tears forming in her eyes. Hugo was smiling just as she had done, twenty-five years ago, a positive grin that creased his whole face as he looked down at the young woman beside him. His arm was wrapped protectively around her, sheltering her in his embrace.

Belinda flashed back for a moment to her own engagement photographs; Oliver had held her hand, raising it so that the gathered press could see her ring, smiling at the cameras, not at her:
look, I’ve finally done it! All those years with my name linked to every eligible princess in Europe, one after the other, a whole bevy of aristocratic girls, with a few models and actresses thrown in there for spice – and now, at thirty-seven, I’ve settled down with a young, pretty, more-than-eligible duke’s daughter who stares up at me as if I were Prince Charming come to life.

Are you happy now?
Oliver’s almost defiant eyes asked.
Father, Mother, are you happy now?

By contrast, Hugo was smiling down at his fiancée; his love for her was abundantly clear. His cheeks were pink with excitement, his gaze, as he looked down at her, positively melting. And what made Belinda’s tears fill her eyes and start to trickle down her cheeks was that this – she read the name as it scrolled beneath them in a news trail – this Chloe Rose was staring up at Hugo just as blissfully. Their hands were clasped as they talked about how happy they were, about when the wedding was to be held; the photographers had to call to them to turn Chloe’s hand so that the ring could be seen, and Chloe giggled, the sweetest little laugh, said: ‘Oops!’ and rotated her left hand, saying reprovingly to her fiancé, ‘Darling, you’re distracting me!’

‘She’s so pretty!’ Belinda breathed. ‘Oh, she’s a
darling
!
’

Not a model, not an actress. As if Hugo would ever have married one – of course that would have been impossible. But a normal style of beauty, a nicely curved figure in that charming silk dress, not a clotheshorse or a skinny minnie.

‘He looks very handsome too,’ Rahim said. ‘But what
is
that tie? It’s truly awful.’

‘It’ll be something naval,’ Belinda said abstractedly. ‘They’re mostly ghastly. She’ll have to pick his ties better at public events.’

Rahim, a dandy who had his suits tailor-made in Jermyn Street, his shoes by Lobb’s of St James, and his silk ties personally chosen for him by Giorgio Armani, nodded vehemently in agreement.

‘She’s
exactly
the kind of girl you hope your son brings home,’ Belinda said softly to Rahim, her eyes still on Chloe. ‘
Exactly
the girl you hope he ends up with.’

Chloe’s future mother-in-law feasted her eyes on her daughter-to-be, taking in every choice that Chloe had made with the eye of one who’d already been through the royal bride mill. Belinda approved each in turn. The dress, so perfect, which fitted Chloe nicely and looked current without being over-fashionable, was from Hobbs, the shoes from Bertie, as Chloe was now revealing in answer to the questions thrown at her.

Oh, good girl!
Belinda thought.
Good girl – not only British designers, but traditional high-street ones too! She couldn’t have done better.
Chloe’s cheeks were as pink as Hugo’s, her pretty heart-shaped face attractively framed in her waves of light-brown hair, her eyelashes fluttering as they talked about how they had met –
in a coffee shop
? Belinda thought incredulously.
Goodness, things have changed. Oliver would never have dreamt of going into a coffee shop – he’d have sent someone in for him!
– her plans for charity work for the future, how Hugo, now that he was engaged, would not be going out on active service with the Navy but seconded to naval intelligence at Northwood, HMS Warrior Permanent Joint Headquarters.

‘Though in my case,’ Hugo interpolated with a self-deprecating smile, ‘I’m afraid that “naval intelligence” is a bit of a contradiction in terms.’

It was an old joke, but everyone laughed as if they were hearing it for the first time, and Chloe rounded on him prettily, telling him not to put himself down.

‘It’ll be so wonderful to have him home!’ Chloe was saying, beaming. ‘I do feel so lucky,’ she added seriously. ‘To have Hugo home and safe. I know what it’s like to have the one you love serving his country overseas, how frightening and lonely that is for the family and friends left behind. And I know how lucky I am, too, that Hugo’s coming home now. But that doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten all those months waiting for him, worrying about him. I want to become involved in working with military spouses and families now that I’m becoming one. It’s going to be one of the causes I really want to focus on.’

‘Isn’t she wonderful?’ Hugo said, beaming idiotically down at her.

Thousands of miles away, his missing mother burst into hysterical tears.

‘Oh
no
!’ Rahim switched off the iPad. ‘I debated this so much with myself – should I tell you or not – but in the end I thought, I must! It is such an important thing, your son getting married – we never discussed how we would handle this, the big milestones—’

But his words tailed off as he saw Belinda wrapping her arms around herself, her head hanging forward as she sobbed in a paroxysm of misery, the darker roots of her hair showing as the dyed blonde locks fell over her face.

‘Darling,’ he said hopelessly, ‘my sweet darling . . .’

Belinda raised her head eventually. Her eyes were red, the skin around them puffy, but they were narrowed in an expression of determination that sent chills down Rahim’s spine.

‘Don’t say it!’ he blurted out, panicking. ‘Don’t say it! You
promised
you would
never
—’

‘I have to go back,’ she said, and he let out a wail so loud that the Atlas horned larks scattered in a cloud of panic; even the distant buzzard removed itself even further.

‘I
have
to!’ she insisted. ‘I have to meet them, just once . . .’

‘Bel –
Hana
, you promised!’ he wailed even louder.

‘Rahim, I swear, I’m going back to England to see them even if I have to wear a burkha from head to toe so no one recognizes me,’ she said with absolute resolve.

Rahim jumped up from the table, standing over her. His dark eyebrows drew together, his lips tightened, his moustache bristled, his arms folded over his chest: legs planted wide and dominating, he was the picture of a commanding, despotic Arab sheik of legend, dominating his woman, laying down the law to her once and for all.

‘Under no circumstances!’ he barked. ‘I utterly and completely forbid it! It’s much too dangerous! You are staying here, where I can keep you safe!’ His index finger shot out, pointing down at the ground. ‘Right here! And that’s an end of it! I don’t want to hear another word on the subject!’

But Belinda was on her feet too, wrapping the towel firmly around her.

‘I need to go and plan this out,’ she said, paying no attention to her lover’s magnificently imposing stance. ‘Take my time, work out how I can possibly manage to pull it off . . .’

She headed up the steps back to the palace. Rahim stamped his foot so hard in frustration that he bruised a toe on the stone and jumped around, cursing furiously.

‘We might as
well
be bloody married!’ he shouted after her, shaking his fist at her retreating back. ‘You don’t listen to a damn word I say!’

‘Mom! Dad! Randy! Hailey!’ Lori called in joy as her family emerged from a limousine in the magnificent courtyard of Schloss Hafenhoffer, looking around them in amazement and disbelief at the encircling wings of the castle, barely noticing the January chill. It was much milder in Europe than their home town close to the Canadian border, and the Makarwiczes were cocooned in the warm padded coats vital for the upstate New York winter.

Lori dashed down the balustraded stone staircase, her athletic legs taking the steps three at a time; if it had been the superb cantilevered double-balconied staircase in the main hall, she would have jumped on the polished banister and slid all the way down, such was her haste to welcome her family to her new home.

‘How was the journey?’ she demanded, even though Randy and Hailey had been keeping her, and the rest of their friends, up to date with every stage of the process through Twitter and Facebook and Foursquare, all the way, from their flight from Buffalo, New York, to JFK, to Munich and then to Graz in Austria; then the helicopter transfer across the border to Valtzers, and thence into a limo which brought them up the mountain to Schloss Hafenhoffer. The entire process, capped by the dramatic approach to the castle which towered over the capital city, was so imposing that the entire Makarwicz family were literally struck dumb.

‘It’s way cosier than it looks!’ Lori assured them, throwing herself at her mother and hugging her so tightly that she almost squeezed the breath from Sandy Makarwicz’s body. ‘The Dowager’s decorated everything beautifully, you’ll be blown away by how modern and smart it all is. Wait till you see the rooms we’ve picked out for you! You have amazing views over Valtzers and the river – we thought we’d let you settle in for the rest of the day, and then tomorrow we’ll go on a river cruise with a lunch at Schwanstein, where Joachim proposed to me – it’s too cold for a picnic, even with heaters, but the view will still be stunning—’

Joachim, who had been waiting by his fiancée’s side at the top of the steps, as befitted a reigning king, had deigned to follow her down at a much more measured pace, and now approached as Lori turned to gesture him forward.

‘Joachim, my mom and dad, my sister and brother,’ she said unnecessarily, her eyes shining with happiness. ‘Everyone, this is King Joachim, my fiancé!’

Joachim’s appearance, in the full dress uniform he had considered suitable for meeting his future in-laws, did not help the Makarwiczes manage to get a word out of their gaping mouths. Nor did his brisk, formal nod of greeting, combined with the click of his polished heels. It was one thing to hear that your daughter was marrying into one of Europe’s oldest ruling families, to Google pictures of Herzoslovakia, its castles, its history, its King, and shake your heads in disbelief: it was quite another, for people who had never left the United States before, to apply for passports (fast-tracked at the request of the Herzoslovakian ambassador to Washington), fly across the Atlantic, and then be transferred on a scenic helicopter ride through mountain passes to a country which looked like a fairy tale come to life and whose ruler was dressed like the hero of a musical.

‘This is like a cross between
The Sound of Music
and
The Slipper and the Rose,
’ Sandy finally said to her daughter in a tone as hushed as if she were whispering in church. ‘Oh! And
The Prisoner of Zenda.
’

‘Uh, pleased to meet you, Your Majesty,’ said Bob Makarwicz, stepping up to the plate manfully, holding out his hand to Joachim, who pumped it up and down. Mr Makarwicz towered over Joachim; Lori had inherited her height from both sides of her family, and the Makarwiczes, their tall genes enhanced by plentiful American protein, were giants in Herzoslovakia. Joachim, however, didn’t bat an eye at being dwarfed by his future father-in-law, which Lori was happy to see.

‘Joachim, please,’ he said. ‘I am to be your son.’

‘Well! Yeah!’ Bob Makarwicz blinked at the sunlight glinting off Joachim’s medals, the gold braid on his epaulettes. ‘I guess you are, uh, Joachim! This is my wife, Sandy.’

Joachim raised Sandy’s hand to his lips, causing her to emit a surprisingly girlish giggle.

‘Welcome to the family!’ Hailey, even taller than Lori, plunged forward with great enthusiasm, hovered on the tips of her toes as she leaned forward to hug Joachim, then, at the last moment, found herself defeated by the rigidity of his posture, and held out her hand instead. ‘Ooh!’ she exclaimed as he kissed it. ‘Wow! I get what Lori sees in you! Do you have a brother?’

Joachim cracked a smile at this.

‘I am afraid not, Miss Hailey,’ he said regretfully.

‘She had two Cokes in the limo,’ Sandy Makarwicz hissed to Lori. ‘Sorry, hon. I tried to stop her. You know how buzzed she gets on sugar.’

‘It’s okay, Mom,’ Lori reassured her mother. ‘They like energy here. They think it’s American and modern.’

‘Huh.’ Her mother absorbed this. ‘Gee, it really
is
a shame Joachim doesn’t have a brother. Maybe a cousin?’

Joachim greeted Randy and turned to lead the little party up the steps to the Schloss, and inside to the Throne Room, where the Dowager was waiting to receive them. Lori had suggested somewhere less formal –
anywhere
, frankly, in the entire castle, would have been less formal than the Throne Room – but no. The Dowager had maintained, very sweetly, that it was the only place suitable to meet Lori’s family, considering Lori’s own importance to the country. As a result, the
entente cordiale
that was blossoming between Joachim and the Makarwiczes ground to a screeching halt the moment he ushered them into the red and gold interior. They stood, overwhelmed, looking around them at its vaulted, ribbed stone ceiling, its magnificent tapestries, its elaborately carved dais on which stood the central throne, flanked by two other smaller ones, the scarlet silk velvet of their upholstery gleaming dully by the light of the many chandeliers.