Marrying Up (38 page)

After Max had left for the airport, Engelbert, pleading a headache, had retired to bed. The stress of recent days, and especially
this day, had taken its toll.

And not just that, the Queen knew. Engelbert was still worried about Sedona’s future. No royal engagement and wedding meant
no publicity bonanza and, consequently, no surge in investment and business. After all the drama, he was back to square one.

Astrid, walking slowly back up the castle drive after waving her son off, wished she had the answer. She was grateful to Engelbert,
humbled by his generosity, guilty about the many times she had considered him arrogant and pompous. That, after the revelations,
his love for Max had not diminished one whit was one of the many reasons she appreciated him more than ever. Engelbert was
a prince among men, even if he did happen to be a king.

He had suggested that, in order to protect the Queen’s privacy,
Max retain the title of Prince but none of the obligations. As far as the outside world was concerned – and most of those
in the chateau as well – Max had, with the full blessing of his parents, effectively resigned his claim to the throne in order
to pursue his veterinary career. What business was it of anyone else who his father was? the King had demanded. They would
get round the issue by simply transferring the title of Crown Prince to Giacomo.

After the tumult of recent days and weeks, the Queen felt calm stealing through her soul as she arrived at the castle door.
Drifting round her nostrils came the sharp, warm scent of the lavender borders; the sky above was full of clouds blushing
with the final lingering kiss of a sun evidently reluctant to say its farewells.

Of course, the final part of the jigsaw would be for Max to find someone he loved. Then, Astrid thought, she could finally
relax. She smiled as she closed the door behind her. Did one ever really relax as a mother? Wasn’t that luxury forever surrendered
from the moment you first held your child?

Kicking her heels for two days in Nice had been the last thing Polly wanted to do. But since the airline had been unable to
find her a seat straight away, there had been no alternative. That it was a night flight back seemed particularly depressing;
the last of the day. The end of the line, in every sense, she thought glumly as, finally, she pushed through the revolving
airport door.

She had spent the last forty-eight hours resolutely not thinking about Max. She had distracted herself with the English newspapers,
tried to people-watch, stared at pictures in art galleries, trailed round gloomy palace museums, looked unseeingly at clothes,
trained her eyes on the sea; most of all she had walked, walked and walked, as if the motion and the intensity of it could
give her some relief.

Whenever she had felt a thought about him coming, she had headed it off. She had blocked him, dodged him, ignored him, refused
him. But still his image bobbed at the edge of her brain, demanding admittance. So far, he had not succeeded.

But now, out of the corner of her eye, as she passed a news stand, Polly caught sight of a familiar face. He was not, Polly
promised herself, striding past the news stand determinedly, going to force his way in now. Whatever the article was about,
she did not care. The couture wedding dress, the celebrity chef, the famous guests, she wanted to know nothing about them.
Nothing. She could not care less. Really.

On the other hand, what did it matter? She was flying away from him tonight, escaping from the whole sorry mess. She need
never hear his name again. She allowed herself one last glance. The headline stopped her dead in her tracks.

PRINCE CANCELS WEDDING

Dropping her bag on the concourse, Polly dashed across to the shop. Within a minute she had the paper in her hands. Words
leapt out at her.
Mistake
. . .
impostor
. . .

Allison Donald
. . .
renounced throne
. . .
returning to England
. . .
Allison Donald!
Polly shook her head. It was too incredible for words. She sank down on her bag, stunned.

It was at that moment that Max rushed into the airport for the last plane to London, and saw her.

‘I was promised a royal wedding,’ stated Lady Annabel, sitting opposite the private secretary’s desk and fixing him with a
gimlet eye.

A gimlet eye, indeed, was more or less all Hippolyte could see, the rest of Lady Annabel’s face, apart from her bright-pink-lipsticked
lips, being covered with bandages. With world press attention in mind she had, it seemed, decided on a little last-minute
plastic surgery, calculating that it would be healed in time for the moment her daughter went up the aisle behind the new
Crown Princess.

Except that that, of course, would not now be happening.

‘I was promised a royal wedding,’ Lady Annabel repeated. ‘And now, as it appears that promise cannot be honoured, I’d like
to ask you what you intend to do about it.’

‘Do about it?’ Hippolyte echoed helplessly. What the hell was he supposed to do about it? Was it his fault that the prospective
royal bride had turned out to be an impostor?

‘Well someone has to gather up the reins,’ Lady Annabel informed him sharply. ‘Astrid and Engelbert are all over the place,
they can’t seem to make any decisions. It’s up to you and me . . .’ and here Lady Annabel fixed him with her glare again,
‘to sort this mess out.’

A mess, the press secretary mused, was certainly one way of putting it. Not only was there no longer a royal bride, there
was
no royal bridegroom either. Maxim had resigned his claim to the throne and had waltzed off to England to neuter cats, or whatever
vets did. No wonder the King and Queen were shut up in their apartment, not speaking to anyone.

As the eerie bandaged face trained its baleful gaze on him, Hippolyte felt he knew exactly what it was like to be hunted.
Was it a coincidence that a leopardskin print wrap dress comprised the rest of her ladyship’s attire? Lady Annabel’s face
in its normal state was frightening enough. But this white mask with glittering eyes was like some nightmare from a Greek
tragedy.

‘Well, you’d better do something,’ the mask said briskly. ‘Otherwise it’s curtains for Sedona. So far as I understand it,
they need a wedding to save the monarchy. Just think about what’s going to be lost. All those visitors. All that money that
would have come into the country . . .’

He was sweating, Hippolyte knew. Two separate tides of warm darkness were seeping from under his arms across his chest and
would soon meet in the middle. Their progress was speeded by the knowledge that Lady Annabel was right. She had identified
the main issues with a clarity that would be admirable were it not so horrific and inconvenient.

He tried to arrange his thoughts, but they remained in utter disarray. ‘It’s a disaster,’ he moaned, his sweating face in
his damp hands. ‘The publicity is ruinous.’

Thanks to that bastard Snort. He had clearly made a killing from photographs of the former Lady Alexa boarding a tour bus
from Wolverhampton in the company of both her parents. The only positive thing was that Barney van Hoosier seemed to have
disappeared without trace.

Emitting a puppy-like whimper, the private secretary stared at Lady Annabel through his plump fingers. ‘What can we do?’ he
whispered brokenly. Somehow, the entire future of the monarchy, as well as that of the economy and relations with most of
the rest of the world, rested in his hands. It was not what he had signed
up for. Back in those wonderful long-ago days when he had joined as a junior private attaché, the delivery of the royal post
was about the extent of his duties.

The mask was nonchalantly inspecting its nails. ‘I have a plan,’ it said casually, ‘in case you are interested.’

It occurred to Hippolyte now that this was the entire reason she was here. Of course she had a plan. Was Lady Annabel the
sort to throw herself pathetically across his desk and beg him to help her? Or was it more likely that, having devised the
solution in every detail, she required his assistance in putting it into action? He did not like Lady Annabel, Hippolyte decided,
but he admired her.

‘What’s your plan?’ he asked her.

‘Everyone loves a royal wedding, Monsieur Hippolyte,’ Lady Annabel announced. ‘And it’s up to you and me to provide them with
one.’

‘You and me . . .?’ The private secretary fell back in his chair, disappointed. She had said she had a plan, but they were
back where they started.

The mask leant forward. ‘Monsieur Hippolyte. There
can
still be a wedding. There
can
still be a bride and bridegroom.’

‘There can?’ Hippolyte wasn’t following.

The bandages nodded so vigorously it made the private secretary wince. Didn’t it hurt? He watched the magenta lips moving.

‘Yes. Florrie can marry Giacomo.’

Hippolyte’s head abruptly emptied of all thought. Into this silence and vacancy, something appeared. It was small at first,
and the press secretary struggled to make it out. Then it got larger, and shinier, until it seemed to fill the whole of his
mind with its glow. It was the answer. Lady Annabel’s suggestion would save everything.

‘Giacomo!’ gasped Hippolyte. ‘His Royal Highness Prince Giacomo?’

‘Crown Prince Giacomo, as he is now, of course. And why
not?’ the mask challenged. ‘He and Florrie get on enormously well. Possibly better than enormously . . .’

Hippolyte could only stare ecstatically at the bandaged face before him. The Greek allusion had been right. Lady Annabel was
an oracle, no less. The fount of all wisdom.

‘The wedding’s what matters, and the princess,’ the oracle was explaining. ‘Sedona’s too tinpot for anyone to give two hoots
about which prince it is.’

Hippolyte bridled at the tinpot, but decided to let it drop. There were bigger issues at stake.

‘But . . . but . . .’ His mouth was opening and closing. ‘What will Their Majesties . . . the King and Queen say?’

The mask stood up and put both slender brown hands on its leopard-print hips.

‘That, my dear Hippolyte,’ it pronounced, ‘I leave to you.’

Queen Astrid was resting in her room when the white-and-gold door opened abruptly and in stalked Lady Annabel. Her features
were set with an expression that betrayed, even from fifty feet away, a determination that brooked no opposition.

A few paces behind her came Hippolyte. He looked worried; he had clearly tried, in vain, to stop Florrie’s mother’s sudden
apperance.

‘Lady Annabel.’ The Queen rose calmly from her chair. ‘To what do I owe this pleasure?’

Lady Annabel, resplendent in a tight-fitting turquoise silk suit which set off her shining chestnut bob, strode forward, her
high-heeled sandals stabbing the cream carpet. Her air, as she came right up to Astrid, was excessively businesslike.

The swelling on her face was calming down now, the Queen saw. She observed with interest the fact that Lady Annabel’s visage
had apparently retained its deep mahogany tan, even under the bandages. Perhaps, after sufficient exposure to sun or sunbed,
it just stayed that colour.

Her eyes slid over Annabel’s bright-blue tailored shoulder to where Hippolyte was cringing in misery. He looked imploringly
at her, made some desperate gesture at Lady Annabel and held his hands up in defeat.

‘A very pleasant day, Lady Annabel,’ the Queen remarked mildly, as an opening shot.

The other woman, however, clearly had no intention of talking about the weather. ‘I have come about the jewels,’ she announced.

‘Jewels?’ The Queen frowned slightly.

‘Your jewels,’ said Lady Annabel crisply.

As Hippolyte groaned, Astrid smoothed over her amazement with a smile. Experience had taught her that if one stood and waited
pleasantly, most things explained themselves. And what her particular experience of Lady Annabel had taught her was that she
explained things in a direct manner, to the point of rudeness. Astrid did not bear Annabel any ill will for this; on the contrary,
the solution to the royal wedding problem had been ingenious and Giacomo, in particular, was delighted about it.

‘I imagine,’ Lady Annabel said smoothly, ‘that it is tradition in Sedona for the Queen to lend the Crown Princess the pick
of her collection to wear on her wedding day?’

The Queen raised a white hand to stifle a surprised cough. Sedona had many traditions, but this was not one of them. Her immediate
predecessor had certainly not been given to such gracious gestures. Engelbert’s mother would have taken her entire collection
to the cathedral and sat on them throughout the service rather than see anyone approach the altar in as much as an earring
that had belonged to her. It was amazing that she had not somehow contrived to take them to the grave.

Nonetheless, Astrid smiled graciously. ‘I would be more than happy to lend Lady Florence whatever she would like to borrow.
If she were to come and see me . . .’

‘Actually,’ Lady Annabel interrupted. Behind her, Hippolyte cringed again. It was the most fundamental breach of royal protocol
to interrupt a member of the royal family when talking.

‘Lady Florence,’ Lady Annabel continued, ‘is occupied with a shoot for
Socialite
magazine at the moment.’

Astrid’s eyes widened. Yet more publicity!

With Hippolyte as her terrified executive assistant, Lady
Annabel had taken absolute charge of the royal wedding. She had sold to the highest bidders not only the rights to produce
commemorative plates and tea towels, but newspaper interviews with the engaged couple, glossy magazine photoshoots and fly-on-the-wall
documentaries on every aspect of the preparations. All the palace staff had been encouraged to blog, which in many cases was
an entirely new word in their vocabulary.

Annabel’s belief that the whole world, especially the celebrity one, loved a royal wedding had been proved spectacularly true.
Heston Blumenthal and Gordon Ramsay had been persuaded to do the catering and Damien Hirst to decorate the cake.