To Marry a Prince (15 page)

‘My pleasure. Let me introduce you to my very smart new kimono. Gift of my friend Lottie. For some reason they’ve put a ducky little tassel on the belt.’ She folded his fingers round the tassel. ‘Got it?’

‘Got it,’ he said gravely, leaning over her and starting to pull the silk sash very, very slowly.

‘Well done,’ she said, approving and just a little breathless.

‘Mmmm?’

She felt hot and cold, between the flames and the shadows; weak as water under his hands – and, at the same time, the most powerful force in the world.

She smelled wood smoke and wine, with a side order of garlic bread. The old cushions felt heavenly. The intensity in his eyes was dazzling. It felt so right to be here, in this place, at this moment.

They stopped talking.

‘Can You Keep a Secret?’ –
Girl About Town

It was the start of the strangest two weeks of her life. Basically she felt she was living two lives. There was the Bella who was picking up the strands of her old life, seeing friends, working at the dentist’s surgery, meeting her brother for a drink.

And there was the Bella who took Richard’s phone calls and made dates to meet him which got cancelled at the last minute.

Lottie, the only one who knew, shook her head. ‘He’s got you on a string.’

‘He can’t help it,’ said Bella defensively. ‘His father isn’t well. Richard’s taking up the slack. And I can’t call him. He’s always in a meeting or on his way somewhere. Surrounded by people anyway. So he can’t talk, not properly. He has to phone me when he’s alone. Well, he does if we want to keep it secret.’

Lottie sniffed. ‘Which leaves him calling all the shots.’

‘Yes, but that wasn’t his choice,’ Bella said candidly. ‘He was willing to take our chances with people finding out. I was the one who wanted to keep it, well, private.’

Lottie shook her head over this lunacy. ‘Why on earth?’

‘I thought it would be easier to back away from, if it didn’t work out. You know the idea. Keep it casual and nobody gets hurt.’

‘This is
casual?
’

Bella stiffened. ‘We’re not committed or anything.’

‘You could have fooled me,’ muttered Lottie into the fridge.

‘Neither of us has made any promises,’ Bella told the back of her head, loudly and clearly.

Lottie took out her breakfast orange juice. ‘OK, OK. Keep your hair on. You’re both fancy-free. You can each date anyone you like.’

Bella glared.

‘No, I thought you didn’t mean that,’ said Lottie with satisfaction. ‘Oh, go to work and give someone else hell. I need to put on a happy face.’

But, even if her flat-mate disapproved, at least Bella could
talk
to Lottie about Richard. With everyone else, she had to remember not to mention him. What was worse, she couldn’t talk about anywhere they’d been together in case it invited questions and she let something slip. It made for some silent coffee breaks.

‘This thing is changing my character,’ she told Richard when they snatched half an hour in a bookshop café in Piccadilly.

‘Mine too,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Until I met you, I’d never gone out in disguise before.’ Today he was wearing jeans and a lopsided baseball cap along with
Clark Kent spectacles with no lenses in them.

She leaned forward and straightened the baseball cap. ‘Your own mother wouldn’t know you.’

‘I know. I’m getting good at this. The secret is to look like a nerd. Nobody looks at nerds twice.’

She grinned. ‘Greater love hath no man, than he will dress up as a nerd for his lady.’

He made a face. ‘Not just dress up. I’m playing hide and seek with my security patrol too. And those guys are
trained
.’

That hadn’t occurred to Bella. She said in quick alarm, ‘You’re not putting yourself in danger?’

‘Nah. I’m just being a bit less amenable than usual. It gets us half-hours like these while they scamper round looking for me.’

But Bella was still worried.

He touched her cheek reassuringly. ‘It’s good for them. A couple of those guys had written me off as a pussycat. Now they know different.’

‘But—’

‘Hey, they were due a challenge.’

She stared at him for a long moment and made a discovery. ‘You’re enjoying it.’

‘Too right.’ He caught himself. ‘Though, of course, I’m only doing it for you.’

‘I feel truly cherished,’ said Bella with irony.

‘So you should.’ Even though he was teasing, the warmth in his eyes was like a caress.

She laughed and conceded him the point. And after he had slipped away, back to business-as-usual, she carried that look with her all day.

It was turning out to be more difficult to see each other than Bella could ever have imagined. ‘It’s the time of year,’ Richard said. ‘People go mad, trying to shoe-horn in a Royal event before Christmas. One day I’m in London in the morning, Cornwall for lunch and Manchester for dinner in the evening. Crazy. It will be better in the New Year.’

‘You were going to let me see your diary,’ Bella reminded him. They were curled round each other on Lottie’s sofa, drinking hot chocolate and half watching an old Audrey Hepburn movie.

He was surprised. ‘I thought Ian had already sent it to you. I’ll get it sorted tomorrow.’

Lottie came in from work then, tired but pleased with the way her evening PR event had gone. Richard untangled himself and stood up, courteously. Bella turned off the television.

‘No, don’t do that,’ said Lottie, kicking off her shoes and padding across to the fire. ‘Finish your film. I’m beat. I’ll just fall into bed.’

But she was so obviously cold and hyped up that Bella insisted on making her some hot chocolate too while Richard built up the fire so that Lottie could toast her toes.

‘I have to be going soon anyway,’ he said with regret. ‘Early start tomorrow. I’m on board ship for breakfast.’

Lottie shuddered and held her hands to the blaze. ‘Rather you than me.’

‘It’ll be fine. The only problem is sorting out time for Bella and me to be together.’

‘He’s very inventive,’ Bella remarked, bringing in
Lottie’s hot chocolate. ‘He escapes from his minders and comes dressed as a nerd. So far we’ve met in a bank, a bookshop, and on the main concourse at St Pancras Station. And nobody has given us a second glance.’

‘People see what they expect to see,’ Lottie agreed.

But later, when Richard had gone, she said, ‘I have an idea. Do you know which evening receptions he’s going to? Say, striking distance of London?’

Bella didn’t. But Ian did eventually disgorge Richard’s official programme.

‘Poor lamb, first of all he has to go to endless drinks receptions. Then he goes on to dinners and gets made speeches at,’ she told Lottie.

‘Hmm. Can you still do silver service?’

When they were students, they had both earned extra dosh from moonlighting as waitresses at weddings and directors’ lunches. Bella said now, ‘I suppose so. Why?’

‘Because I think you ought to tell Anthea that you’re available for some evening work.’

‘What? Why? I’m not short of money—’

Lottie sighed patiently. ‘There’s no reason for Richard to be the only one who’s inventive. You get yourself on to the caterers’ waitress roster and surprise him. Ta da!’

Bella thought about it. ‘That’s not a bad idea, Lotts.’

‘Although you’d have to get clearance to work at Royal dos, I suppose.’

‘I’ll ask Ian,’ said Bella, more and more intrigued by the idea.

The security officer thought it was a hoot and put her in touch with a terrifying woman who provided stand-in
footmen and butlers for big Palace occasions. With Christmas coming up, Ellen Catering would be looking for extra occasional staff, she said, and with a Royal security officer as one referee, Bella was a godsend. Could she also provide three other references, including one from a minister of the cloth and one from a JP? Bella did. Nothing happened.

In fact, it took so long that she had almost forgotten the wheeze. Then one night in November, she got a phone call out of the blue. Would she be available that night to serve at a reception at the Landscape Gallery? Their staff had been struck by ’flu and Lottie had mentioned that Ms Greenwood might be available.

Bella consulted the coded notes she had transcribed into her own diary and saw that Richard would be going to the reception before dinner with the gallery’s director. Realistically there was not much chance of seeing him, still less managing to talk to him, she knew. Still, at least they would be in the same room and, if she got lucky, she could wave across the room at him. They had developed a series of rather good secret agents’ hand signals.

‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Where and when?’

They told her. Also, could she provide her own black trousers and shoes, as flat as possible? They would give her their uniform steward’s jacket, but she would need something black to wear underneath it.

Bella swapped duties with another receptionist and left work early to race home and bundle her supplies together. She did not have time to get out to the caterer’s West London headquarters, but turned up at
the tradesmen’s entrance of the gallery as arranged.

The kitchen was in the state of controlled ferment that Bella recognised from her student years. She slotted in with the ease of long practice. The only thing that surprised her was that her steward’s jacket turned out to be quite sexy, white with black piping, nipped in at the waist and rather low-cut.

‘Not ideal. White shows every mark and people will spill things,’ said the organiser briskly. ‘But the laundry didn’t get our black uniforms back in time. So we’re down to our summer yacht club rig. Oh, well, at least the presence of Royalty should stop a food fight breaking out.’

It was a huge party, nearly a thousand guests, Bella calculated. It spilled over five galleries and two floors and out on to a heated terrace. She was run off her feet, carrying large silver trays of canapés to the furthest corners of the room, fending off hungry guests until she got to her appointed station. As she expected, she did not get so much as a sniff of the Royal party.

‘You’re good,’ said the organiser, impressed. ‘Take this through to the Woodley Gallery. It’s for the directors’ party. Make sure the ravening hordes don’t strip it bare before you get there.’

‘That means it’s the hypoallergenic tray for the Big Wigs,’ one of the other waitresses told her, looking harassed. ‘Sir Brian Woodley is the guy who gave the money for this new gallery, and he can’t eat eggs, dairy, nuts … God knows what else. All that worrying over his billions, I guess. Who’d be rich? Good luck!’

Bella got the tray through the crowds and was
directed to the official party. The speeches were over and they were standing in front of a picture of a cliff overlooking a stormy sea. She moved quietly among them, concentrating on keeping the big tray level and trying to identify the food-challenged benefactor, when she heard a strangled sound to her left.

Looking round, she saw Richard staring at her.

Staring? Glaring, more like, completely ignoring the VIP who was talking to him, and narrowing his eyes at her as if she and her canapés would poison him.

She recoiled. Her tray tilted dangerously.

‘Whoops,’ said one of the VIPs, restoring it to the horizontal.

‘I’m so sorry,’ murmured Bella, tearing her eyes away from Richard.

He looked furious. She had never thought of that and was completely taken aback. So she concentrated so hard on what she was doing that it
hurt
.

Nobody else seemed to notice or to blame her for the near accident. Indeed, she got a kind word from the director and a nod of appreciation from the egg-allergic benefactor. But Bella could only be thankful when the tray was cleared and she could race back to the kitchen.

Only, as she approached the staircase – ‘One moment,’ said a voice behind her.

She turned. It was Richard, still furious, she could see, but hiding it well under a layer of courtesy as he shed his attendant VIP with smiling charm and strode over to her, through the crowd. She flattened herself against the wall, in the hopes that he wanted to get past her. But no such luck.

‘Can you get me another of those anchovy pastries?’ he said loudly.

‘Y-y-yes, of course.’

‘Sir.’

‘Wh-what?’

He said under his breath, ‘You call me “Sir”. Or people will notice.’ But for once his eyes weren’t smiling when he said it.

What was wrong?

‘Of course, Sir,’ said Bella, confused.

‘Well, jump to it then.’

She jumped.

The kitchen was impressed. ‘Hey, His Royalness likes our anchovy straws,’ said the organiser. ‘Nibbles by Royal Appointment, no less.’

The chef put a fresh batch into the oven and Bella took a smaller tray on a quick circuit of the nearest room, to be back as soon as the anchovy straws were cooked.

Fifteen minutes later, she was weaving her way through the guests on the big staircase again, this time carrying a small basket of warm savoury pastries, looking for Richard. When she finally saw him, he was standing firmly in front of a set of three paintings, listening to a guide, or it might even be the artist, hold forth to the director’s party.