The Runaway Princess (28 page)

M
um loved my engagement photograph. So did Dad, although he wasn’t so impressed by some of the edging plants in the royal gardens.

“You look just like your Auntie Gloria,” she said, flicking through the spread in
Hello!
“Although you could have brushed your hair.”

“It was meant to be like that,” I said over my shoulder. “Tousled. And they’ve airbrushed my double chin out.”

Mum and Jo were in the back of the Range Rover, poring over the new edition of the magazine that I’d collected on the way up, while I sat in front with Billy and tried to persuade him to turn part of his lawn over to wildflowers.

“Shut up about your double chin,” said Jo. “They didn’t airbrush the way Leo’s looking at you, did they?”

Someone with Photoshop had worked a bit of magic, but Jo had a point—the blissful smiles Leo and I were both wearing as he rested his head on my shoulder in one of the candid snaps were completely natural. The sun had come out, sparkling off the sapphire-blue sea in the background and warming my bare feet on the grass, and I’d felt like the luckiest girl in the world. It was exactly like a holiday snap, except I was wearing about a million pounds’ worth of jewelry, and the stately home in the background belonged to my fiancé, not the National Trust.

“Memo to
Tatler
: All tiaras should be worn on tously hair from now on,” Jo went on. “You look as if you’ve just stumbled back from a ball the morning after. So in love. You’re so gorgeous, the pair of you. If I didn’t know you, I’d be eaten up with jealousy.”

“Well, you do know me.” I felt embarrassed, especially since Billy was clearly trying not to smile. “And you know that underneath that smile is an agonizing invisible brace, and behind the camera are twelve people telling me to suck my tummy in.”

“Stop spoiling the magic!”

“Yes, Amy. It’s bad manners not to accept a compliment.” Mum colored up too.

“Where did you read that?”

“Debrett’s etiquette guide. Your father and I have been preparing for your wedding—it’s very complicated. I don’t want to make a faux pas and call someone the wrong kind of highness.”

I was about to tell her not to be so daft, but I had an abrupt vision of the pile of reading matter in my own overnight bag: Sofia’s illustrated history of Nirona,
Teach Yourself Italian
, ballroom dancing for beginners. I’d only negotiated this time off from the preparations because I’d promised to study and shun carbs while I was in Yorkshire.

“You’ll be fine,” said Jo quickly. “People who matter don’t mind, and people who mind don’t matter. Just don’t name-drop. That’s what Earl Spencer once told me. Anyway, which shop are we going to first? I can’t wait!”

Jo and Mum and I were in the Range Rover heading for Leeds to choose my wedding dress. I’d wanted to drive myself, but Leo had flown to New York for work, and had thoughtfully insisted that I take Billy and the car while he was away.

“It’ll be easier,” he’d said. “He can whiz you round town to different places and you won’t have to worry about parking. And you can have a glass of wine if it all gets too much. Anyway, don’t argue, because my assistant’s already booked him into the Leeds Hilton for the night, and Billy likes a hotel.”

I couldn’t argue with that. And since I wasn’t driving, I could concentrate on keeping Mum’s anxiety at being out of the house at the lowest possible level. I had my fingers crossed that it might abate once she was out of immediate town gossip range—I knew I certainly felt worlds more relaxed in London than I did in Rothery.

“We’re booked in at the Wedding Warehouse,” I said, pulling out the notebook.

“What? Not Selfridges?”

“No. I just want something simple.” I didn’t add,
and Dad’s paying for the dress
. “We’re going to try to get your bridesmaid’s dress sorted out, and something for Mum too. And then we’ll go out for tea.”

“Fabulous!”

I glanced in the rearview mirror. Jo looked thrilled. Mum, squashed into a big floral mac that had fitted her last summer but now didn’t, looked a lot less so.

*

B
illy dropped us off at the door, and we trooped into the ivory satin wonderland that was the Wedding Warehouse.

Sylvia (“your gown fairy for today!”) lost no time in pouring Mum and Jo “a complimentary glass of bubbly” and hustling me toward the racks of glossy, sparkly, netty whiteness.

“Close your eyes and imagine yourself at the altar,” she instructed with a waft of her French manicure. “What are you
seeing
?”

“Her very own handsome prince,” said Jo.

Sylvia covered her throat with her hands and pulled an “Aw! Kittens!” face. “That’s lovely!”

I glared at Jo. “I’m seeing something very simple,” I stressed. “Something unfussy, that won’t crease or be too big to sit down in. Something that won’t look like a dress walking down the aisle with a woman hidden somewhere inside it.”

“But not too plain,” said Mum from the velvet sofa in the corner. “You want to make the most of your lovely figure.”

“So, no meringues is what you’re saying, Mum,” said Sylvia, and then turned pink.

I turned pink at the same time Mum did. It was something that happened a lot; the more people noted Mum’s size, the more their brains seemed to make food references, and the more they drew attention to themselves, the more likely they were to make another one. I did it myself.

Jo leaped in to defuse the embarrassment with the dexterity I wished I could learn from Sofia’s reading list. “She wants to look like a very off-duty princess. Don’t you? Ooh, I like this one with the daisies on the neckline—what do you think, Pam? Ivory or cream?”

“I like cream,” said Mum, and blushed again.

“Me too.” I grabbed the dress off the hanger. “Let’s start with this.”

*

I
thought I’d be in and out of the changing room for hours, but with her characteristic good taste, Jo had picked the one wedding gown in the shop that fitted me, suited me, and, most of all, made me look like me, but me in a perfume commercial from 1962.

Unlike most of the Barbie-skirted showstoppers lining the walls, this dress had been hand sewn by a local designer. It was made from soft washed silk, with off-the-shoulder three-quarter sleeves that showed off my collarbones, and decorated with tiny daisies sewn around the edges, scattering down the full, knee-length skirt. It was the sort of dress that made you twirl and pose and then just stare at yourself and smile.

Sylvia zipped me up, and then made an involuntary
awwww
noise. The transformation between the me in jeans who’d arrived and the wedding me was so dramatic that it was almost too rude to draw attention to it.

“This is the one, isn’t it?” I said in a small voice. This was exactly how, as a nine-year-old, I’d imagined I’d look on my wedding day. A real country bride, fresh and simple.

Sylvia patted my arm. “I’m lost for words, love,” she said. “And that doesn’t happen often, I can tell you. You stay there, and I’ll prepare them for your big moment.”

She swept out into the main room where Mum and Jo were waiting patiently with pink satin “suspense masks” over their eyes, so they could really appreciate “the wow factor.”

“You can remove your masks, ladies,” she said, beckoning me onto the bridal viewing podium. “And if you reach for the box of tissues, I think you’ll need them, Mum.”

Mum and Jo pulled off the masks, and their mouths dropped into perfect Os.

Mum’s eyes filled up immediately, and Jo clasped her own cheeks.

“You look beautiful,” she gasped. “Your tiny waist! Your hair! Oh, Amy. … Pam, what do you think? Is that the one?”

Mum was so overcome she couldn’t make the words come out. She nodded her head, then shook it, then nodded again. Then reached for the tissues. “Happy tears,” she managed, which set Jo off properly.

Sylvia darted forward before I even knew I was crying and shoved a wodge of tissues between my watery eyes and the pristine top. “Let me just pop the finishing touch on.” She grabbed a full-length veil from the stand and pushed the comb into my ponytail.

Then, as an afterthought, she picked up a crystal tiara and shoved that on too.

“If you’re going to marry your handsome prince, you want to look like a princess,” she added with an indulgent beam.

Jo’s face creased up behind the tissue, and I warned her not to say anything with my eyebrows.

“It’s very nice, but I was thinking of having flowers in my hair,” I said, reaching to take it off. “Some Avalanche roses, with maybe some ivy and mistletoe? It’s a winter wedding.”

“Ooh, mind the veil with your ring. … Now, that’s a lovely one!” Sylvia grabbed my hand to examine my engagement ring; engagement rings were like pregnant bumps, I’d come to
realize—
everyone felt at liberty to have a good look. I felt awkward, like I had when Jennifer Wainwright had nearly wrenched my sunglasses off my head to examine them.

“How much was that? If you don’t mind me asking. It looks just like the real thing!”

I really didn’t know what to say. I had no idea what it was worth; weren’t the sorts of jewels you inherited priceless? “Um, I wouldn’t like to say.”

“Smart lass!” Sylvia winked at me. “It’s what lots of my clients are doing now—getting a big rock from QVC and leaving the real one at home.”

“It’s real,” said Jo at the same time that I said, “Yes, it’s Diamonique.”

I didn’t want to draw any more attention to myself than I had to. Although I was hypersensitive to my growing Internet celebrity status, fortunately it hadn’t yet spread beyond the outer reaches of the social gossip columns, and the people who read them. But Jennifer’s article had been in the local paper—Mum had a copy for me—and one of the reasons I’d come to Leeds and avoided our town was so no one would be looking at us and pointing. They might not have seen my horrible candid photos on YoungHot&Royal.com, but they had definitely seen the embarrassing photo of me at Hadley Green Primary School sports day that Jennifer had dug out of her own album.

“Well, that’s me sorted,” I said, to change the subject. “Do you have bridesmaids’ dresses we could look at now?”

Sylvia waved at the second room, where the racks were every color of the rainbow but mainly burgundy. “We most certainly do. What’s your color scheme? Do you have a theme, apart from winter? I’ve had some gorgeous new dresses just come in—lovely shades of chocolate and almond. …” She glanced sideways at Mum. “Um, rich brownie colors—um, lots of lovely prom styles!”

Mum busied herself examining a display of white Cinderella shoes.

“Are we not going to Selfri—?” Jo started, aghast.

“Jo, can you come and help me out of this?” I darted my eyes toward the changing room. “I don’t want to get it dirty.”

“Oh, er, right. Of course.” She followed me in and pulled the velvet curtain across.

“Listen,” I hissed before she could start, “I want to get everything here if we can.”

“Why?” She raised her hands. “You can’t just buy the first dress you try on! You should shop around a bit. And it’s not like you’re on a budget—you could get me and your mum something really fab from Selfridges that we could both wear again after—”

“I
am
on a budget!” I dropped my voice even further. “Dad’s paying for this wedding, I don’t want it to cost a fortune. And Mum’s …” I hesitated, not sure how much to say, even to Jo. “Mum’s very self-conscious. I don’t want her feeling out of place at Selfridges, especially if nothing fits. They don’t really cater for the larger lady, whereas there’s bound to be something here for her.”

“All the more reason to find her something fabulous! There are plenty of bigger celebrities who shop at—”

“Jo, no, it’s not just that.” It was so hard to explain why Mum was the way she was, not without getting into the whole Kelly thing. “She’s very, very shy. This wedding’s already a lot to get her head around—I just want the nice lady to bring Mum all the mother-of-the-bride clothes she has, so we can find her an outfit and she can stop worrying.”

I paused. “You can get something amazing for the blessing in Nirona. I promise.”

Jo squinted at me. She knew a family cover-up when she heard one. “Fine,” she said, “but lay off the red peplums. I’m not standing next to Leo Wolfsburg and his princess bride dressed as a disco strawberry.”

*

I
t took fifteen minutes to fit Jo up with a matching leaf-green washed-silk bombshell dress (although to wind her up, I made her try on three burgundy strapless numbers with peplums), but a lot longer to find something for Mum.

“This is very popular with my MOBs,” Sylvia puffed as she hauled at the zip of yet another fitted sheath dress. It was pistachio green with a brocade skirt and cropped jacket and made Mum look like a fun-runner dressed as a pea pod. “Some of them are much … bigger … than … you. There! What do you think? Pop the bolero on, Mum!”

Mum slipped her plump arms into the metallic bolero and looked at me in the mirror with mortified eyes. If anything was going to pop, it was her skirt. Her freckled pink bosom was bursting out of the straining satin bustier like an overfilled cream puff. She’d tried on six of these, and this was the one that made her look least like a sofa.

“Or maybe a wrap?” Jo suggested, offering her own filmy cashmere scarf. “That might be warmer, for the church? It will be December.”

“Mum?” I looked at her anxiously.

Her face had fallen when she thought no one was looking, but now she pulled on a brave smile. “I like it! It’s a very nice color. And maybe I’ll lose a few pounds before the wedding.” She tugged at the skirt and frowned at herself.

My heart broke at the anxiety she was trying—and failing—to hide. I couldn’t bear it.

“We can try something else?” I suggested. “We can nip into Leeds and—”

“No,” said Mum, horrified. “Not Leeds. I’ve tried on quite enough outfits. I don’t want to go anywhere else.”

“All my mums lose weight,” said Sylvia, patting her arm. “It’s the stress. I should market it as the Wedding Diet Plan!”

Not my mum, I thought miserably. Stress would have the opposite effect, and Sylvia didn’t even know about the supermodel mother of the groom on the other side of the pews, and the international press outside.