Killer Queens (21 page)

‘First one needs more time to cook. Like a batch of biscuits,’ the Duchess of Wexford, the mother of Belinda’s best friend, Lady Margaret, had told her briskly. ‘Not that I’ve ever baked biscuits, of course, but that’s what Cook always says. First tray takes a bit more time.’

The Duchess was the closest thing that Belinda had ever had to a mother; her own had died when she was three years old in a riding accident, and Belinda had been brought up by a long series of nannies, her father having been more interested in hiring young, pretty girls than picking a nice, sensible, experienced woman to take care of his only child. Unfortunately, the inevitable consequence of picking young pretty ones was that every time he would drop back in from his tax exile on Mustique, he would seduce the nanny and then sack her when she got too clingy. Poor Belinda had to watch the process repeat over and over again as the girls passed from euphoria to misery. Every time they packed their bags, sobbing, Belinda sobbed too. And in the background, her father’s secretary resignedly got on the phone to yet another agency to hire yet another impressionable girl who would, yet again, be dazzled beyond belief when the Duke deigned to notice her on his next trip back to Worcestershire . . .

It was the Duchess of Wexford who had brokered the marriage between Belinda and Prince Oliver. Oliver, at thirty-seven, was being pressured by his father, the famously overbearing King Stephen, to marry and produce heirs to the throne; Belinda, at twenty-one, was a beautiful, healthy, sporty girl from one of Britain’s oldest aristocratic families. Her inexperience meant that she was easily swept off her feet by the charming, dashing and extremely handsome Oliver. Having been recommended to meet Belinda by the Duchess, Oliver had flown to Verbier, where Belinda was working the winter season teaching skiing: ‘Lady W’, as Belinda called the Duchess, had been careful not to say a word to Belinda about her plan, to avoid making the latter a bundle of nerves.

Oliver had wasted no time. Lady Margaret, who knew him a little better, had been instructed by her mother to bring him and Belinda together. Within two months, in what the press enthusiastically described as a whirlwind courtship – off-piste runs by day, and by night, fondues, hot buttered rum and dancing till dawn to Europop at the Farm Club, punctuated by its legendary ice cube fights – Oliver had proposed, and Belinda had more than eagerly accepted.

So far, marriage to Oliver hadn’t been quite the fairy tale that Belinda had imagined during those dizzy, glorious days of her engagement. She had been buoyed up on a cloud of sheer exhilaration then, the world at her feet, adored by the media; Belinda didn’t have a bad angle to her face, was naturally, dazzlingly photogenic, and her lonely, unloved childhood meant that she was pathetically grateful to Oliver for his proposal and to the Royal Family for their instant acceptance of her. King Stephen could not have been kinder, belying his formidable reputation; Queen Alexandra was restrained and poised, as always, but welcoming. The wedding was spectacular, the nationwide street parties joyous; over a billion people watched on television or listened on the radio as a radiant Belinda blushingly said ‘I do’ to Oliver.

And then . . . well . . . a wife is different from a fiancée, isn’t she? I can’t expect Oliver to treat me as if we’re still on honeymoon.

Not that the honeymoon was quite as wonderful as I thought it would be, either. But Oliver’s a lot older than me, he’s so sophisticated. He’s had lots of girlfriends. I must seem really young and silly to him a lot of the time – no wonder he doesn’t want to spend every waking hour with me. We had skiing in common when we met; that’s why we were together so much, we could spend all day out on the slopes. And sports were the best parts of our honeymoon in Hawaii – waterskiing, wakeboarding, kayaking, learning to paddle-board—

She smiled at the memories. Oliver had the physique and the energy of a man ten years younger; he was incredibly fit, strikingly handsome, effortlessly physically competent. Belinda had watched his lean tanned body riding the waves, balancing skilfully, with awe and admiration and disbelief that he was hers now, that out of all the women in the world he could have had, he had chosen her, a twenty-one-year-old who had none of his sophistication or worldliness.

She wasn’t in a complete haze of delusion: she knew that Oliver and everyone in his circle was happy that she was younger than him because she’d fit into his life better, adapting to his wishes, and her youthful body could conceive and bear babies more easily. But that was fine with her. He was her tall, handsome prince, who’d chosen her, and she could ask for nothing more than to fit into his life and have his children.

She’d just thought that the actual process of making them would be a bit more . . . fun. Would last a bit longer. Would involve Oliver kissing her, holding her. Looking her in the face. Letting her lie on her back, instead of her front, every so often . . .

She pushed the thoughts away as quickly as they had come. There was no point in going over this again. Oliver only had sex with her one way, and that was just how he liked to do it. He was very resistant to any discussion of sex, but in the early stages – when she’d tried to turn over – he’d explained that he had a bend in his penis that made it uncomfortable for him to have sex at any other angle. It didn’t seem like
that
much of a curve to Belinda, but she didn’t exactly have much experience in that area – she wasn’t a virgin, but a few fumbling encounters with boys of her own age at ski resorts or hunt balls, boys who finished almost as soon as they’d started, hadn’t given her much time to familiarize herself with the male anatomy in an erect state before it was inside her, whipping through its business in a matter of minutes.

Not that Oliver takes much longer
, she thought disloyally.
But I’m sure with time it’ll get better. And he’s been so careful about the baby. I did show him all that research saying it was okay to have sex when pregnant, but he said that my body was a temple to him now, and he just couldn’t think of me that way until I’ve given birth . . . gosh, it’s been frustrating! He’s so busy so much of the time with all his projects, and we had such regular sex when we were trying to get pregnant . . . I do miss being close to him like that . . .

She sighed, her hands wrapped around her large, curving stomach, a lovely round ball which she found hugely satisfactory. Belinda loved being pregnant, had loved every minute of it – apart from not having sex with her husband. Even though their sex life might not be quite as amazing as she had hoped it would be, she was hugely attracted to Oliver, and every time he slid inside her, it made her feel beautiful, desired, attractive.

And she loved, too, the approval she got from everyone from the moment the news had got out: her husband, the Royal Family, the Duchess, the country – honestly, the entire world. Images of a radiant, glowing, pregnant Belinda, more beautiful than ever, had circulated round the planet, been plastered on the covers of glossy magazines in every language. From the perfect fiancée, she had become the perfect bride and then the perfect mother-to-be. The ideal woman.

It’s just a bit lonely up on a pedestal sometimes . . .

Nine o’clock in Balmoral Castle, and it was as silent as the grave. The tartan carpeting, the heavy oil paintings hung in serried rows from the dado rail above the papered walls, all cushioned any noises. Belinda had not really had a chance to form any taste of her own when she married Oliver, having never lived anywhere but her own ancestral home, where the décor was as old-fashioned as the interior style preferred by the Royal Family. If she had been asked, she would have said that she found Balmoral much too busy. The Balmoral and the Red Stewart tartans especially created for Queen Victoria were everywhere, on carpets, curtains, and upholstery, while the rest of the chairs and sofas were covered in floral prints. The walls were all papered in equally busy prints and hung with endless still-lifes of dead animals – stags, pheasants, boar, deer. To someone unused to the British aristocracy’s eccentric style in stately home decoration, it might have seemed both morbid and overdone.

Belinda was secretly relieved that tonight was the last she would spend in a set of rooms almost entirely hung with pictures of bloodstained corpses. She and Oliver were due to leave the castle the next day, heading back by private train carriage from Edinburgh to Kensington Palace to be close to the Chelsea Hospital, the breathtakingly expensive private clinic which was British celebrity mothers’ first choice to deliver their babies.

I hope it’s soon!
Belinda thought eagerly.
I know I’m not supposed to want the baby to come early, but I just can’t wait to hold him . . .

Knowing that she was carrying a boy was very much the icing on the cake, as far as everyone who surrounded Belinda was concerned. If the firstborn was a male, it meant that any awkward feminist issues could be safely shelved for a whole royal generation; no worries about having to reform the rule of primogeniture, no consequent awkward legal messes as the tail of the legislation whipped back and forth to cause endless confusion as the entire British aristocracy – and the Church of England – struggled to follow suit. Belinda had done her duty by the country perfectly so far. A boy in the womb, another child hopefully to follow: the minimum requirement was an heir and a spare.

But as far as Belinda was concerned, she had no desire to stop at two. She wanted to keep going, pop out as many babies as she could, turn the cold, detached atmosphere of the royal family into a warm, loving, caring one which would gradually soften her husband into becoming the man she had thought she was marrying.

Oliver had gone to his suite of rooms after dinner, saying that he had a headache and wanted an early night;
but it’s only nine
, Belinda thought, unable to settle, to nod off in front of the TV in her living room.
Olly won’t be asleep yet. I could just pop in and say I wanted to double-check when we’re leaving tomorrow – pregnancy is making me very dozy, I forget everything unless people tell me over and over again . . .

The truth was, she wanted a goodnight hug and kiss from her husband before she settled into bed. Pregnancy had made her not only absent-minded but more vulnerable, in need of even more physical contact than usual.

I do wish we could at least share a bed, if we can’t have sex,
she thought wistfully.
But Olly says he’s much too selfish a sleeper – he starfishes across the bed and he’s never been able to share with anyone. I
do
wish . . . oh well, no point dwelling, as Lady W would say . . .

In her silky slippers and her belted cashmere maternity dressing gown, Belinda drifted down the short corridor between her and Oliver’s rooms, her young, lithe body so used now to the weight of the baby that she moved with surprising ease. Staircases were harder, but even so, everyone was very impressed with how effortlessly she was carrying her child.

Posh people never knocked on doors: that was for servants. Turning the doorknob, she thought for a moment that the main door to Oliver’s suite was locked, but it was just stiff. She had hardly ever opened the door to her husband’s rooms, as he normally visited her.

Oliver wasn’t in his sitting room: he was probably reading in bed. Belinda thought, her heart leaping, that she might even dare to lever herself up onto the high four-poster with him. Sit there for a few moments, put her head on his shoulder, kiss his neck. She knew that his parents had been detached, undemonstrative to the point of neglect; she was trying to bring Oliver along in easy stages to be more affectionate, but she never knew how her advances would be received.

The door to the bedroom was open. Belinda’s slippers, her light tread, made no sound at all on the blue and red tartan carpet as she approached. And her gasp as she saw what Oliver was actually doing on the four-poster bed, her stumble and grasp at the lintel of the door, were barely audible either over the noise being made by Oliver and his companion.

They were both naked, their bodies glistening with sweat and what looked, to Belinda, like a light application of oil. Oliver hadn’t lied about preferring to be on top, and having his partner on their stomach. But it was only now that Belinda let herself realize that the story about the curve in his penis had nothing to do with the angle of her pelvic bone, the interior walls of her vagina, even an attempt to find her G-spot, which Oliver had once suggested. It was absolutely nothing to do with a vagina at all.

Because underneath Oliver, sweating, oiled, groaning and grunting, was Simon, one of the under-footmen, his uniform in a crumpled pile by the bed. Two pillows were propped under his hips, and his outstretched hands were clutching around one of the poles of the four-poster so that he could buck back against Oliver as the Prince of Wales fucked Simon’s plump, raised arse in a regular, rhythmic motion that was horribly familiar to the Prince’s watching wife.

Only Oliver never says a word, barely makes a sound, when he does it to me
, she thought dumbly.
But with Simon—

‘I’m fucking your dirty little common arse!’ Oliver was saying, his eyes bright and delirious with lust. He had never looked as handsome as he did at that moment. ‘Your dirty little footman’s arse!’

‘Yeah, fuck me,’ Simon moaned. ‘Your Royal Highness! Fuck me harder!’

‘Filthy little oik!’ Oliver said, grabbing Simon’s hips, his hands digging into the young man’s pink bum cheeks. ‘You’ve been asking for this all day, strutting around in your tight little trousers—’

‘Yeah, give it to me!’ Simon reared back even harder. ‘Fuck, I wanted you to do it to me all day – I couldn’t wait for tonight—’

‘You were fucking gagging for it, you common little slut!’

‘I fucking was!’

Oliver slapped Simon’s arse so hard that the whole handprint showed up, deep red: Simon yelped.

‘
What
do you call me?’ Oliver demanded.

‘Your Royal Highness!’ Simon moaned. ‘Your Royal fucking Highness!’