A Royal Match (48 page)

I took shelter with one of the tragic parents standing nearby under an umbrella and watched the girls and boys as they filed into the party. They all looked soooo young! Eventually the parent who had offered me shelter under her umbrella waved desperately as her little girl finally disappeared into the party. She apologised to me but said she and her umbrella were leaving. I almost pleaded with her to take me home with her, but I resisted the temptation.

So there I was, the tragic American Freak who had actually imagined that Honey, the toxic psycho toff, had liked me. I wiped a tear before it could fall down my face and ruin my make-up, before realising there was no need to worry about that now. I wasn’t going anywhere. Why shouldn’t I cry my heart out?

I stood in the rain with my SIM card in one hand and my clutch bag of vomit in the other. I opened up the Fendi and tried not to breathe in as I found my phone and wiped it free of vomit. It was a bit of a struggle, and I dry-retched a few times, but eventually I managed to swap the SIM cards and start my phone up.

My message bank was near to full. The first few txts
were from Freddie, just the usual flirty txt. The next was from Billy, and even though I wanted to delete it and scroll down to see if there were more from Freddie, it was quite long for a txt, so I began to read.

I know this is a shity wy 2 tll u. but after I saw u in W I kind of pulled Portia. I feel really bad but I guess that dusnt help? Sorry. B.

It was sent the day I’d kissed Freddie in the rain under the awning in Windsor. Which meant the same day I’d decided Portia was stealing Freddie from me, Portia was actually pulling Billy. I felt stupid as I remembered flirting outrageously with Billy the next time I saw him with Portia. To think – I’d interpreted his embarrassment as a sign that he was desperately keen on me when actually he was desperately keen on Portia!

It was hard to absorb the full enormity of how not receiving that txt from Billy had destroyed my friendship with Portia. I scrolled down to the next txt, which was from Freddie.

sorted the euro ball. Where will I pck u up? Txt me or do u stll wnt me 2 bugger off? Freds x

The tears were streaming down my face, and I didn’t care that every time I wiped them away I was smearing my eye make-up even more. Freddie had wanted to take me to
the Royal Bore after all. My crying jag was interrupted by a suited door gorilla who came up to me and tapped me on the shoulder. I expect he wanted to offer me a tissue, so I waved him away. Only unlike your average door gorilla, he spoke really nicely to me. ‘Excuse me, miss, are you Calypso Kelly?’

‘Yes, I am and I need to get into that ball,’ I told him, resisting the urge to throw myself into his big comforting-looking chest. ‘I am totally drenched –’

‘I understand you had trouble entering the party. Sorry about that, miss, but His Royal Highness didn’t think we’d manage to find you in there, and …’

I looked around. ‘Is Freddie
here?’
I asked.

He gestured toward another man in a suit, only this suit wasn’t a door gorilla; this suit was Freddie, my Freddie. Freds.

‘Freds? What’s going on?’

How romantic was this? How utterly fairy fable-ish, I thought as I swooned with excitement – right up to the point where Freds wrinkled his nose and asked me,

‘Have you just vomited on yourself, Calypso?’

I began to explain about Honey and how she’d vomited into my handbag, but Freddie started to laugh. ‘It’s not
that
bad,’ he teased. ‘At least not as bad as your skin, which appears – if I’m not mistaken,’ he added, peering closely at my arm, ‘to be peeling off you.’

And then he did the coolest thing! He took his hand and ran it down my arm. Only it wasn’t cool when he looked at the gunk on his hand and grimaced.

‘That’s the make-up she made me put on to hide the rash from the prickly blanket….’

He put his arm around me. ‘You can tell me all about it on the boat. Right now we have a ball to get to.’

‘You mean the Royal Bore? I mean, the Annual Euro Royal Bash Thingamee?’

‘Yes, now put this on,’ he instructed, handing me a motorbike helmet and leather jacket. ‘Quick spin down to the river and we take a boat straight to the castle pier.’

I wanted to pinch myself as I climbed onto the old Norton behind Freddie and we sped beneath the Hammersmith fly-over. I clasped my hands around him tightly as we rode Bond-like down some old stone steps. I swear my heart was in my mouth by the time we got to the little strip along the Thames called the Lower Mall. I could see the jetty and a giant boat with security guys hanging about it, waiting for us.

Two men in chinos who were chatting into mouthpieces were there to take the bike from Freddie. We handed them our helmets and jackets and walked down the jetty hand in hand. I had to carry my lovely shoes, though, because they kept slipping through the slats.

Just before we climbed onto the boat, Freddie wrapped his arms around me and kissed me, only not for very long as he pulled away to ask, ‘Is there actually anything valuable in that bag of yours?’

I looked at the fur Fendi Honey had lent me and shook my head. ‘No, I washed my phone in the rain and now it’s in my …’ I looked down at the phone wedged in the elastic part of my bra where my cleavage would have been – if I had any.

Freddie looked too and grinned. ‘So, no passport? No valuable item of jewellery, no wallet, no government documents of vital importance, no driving licence, car keys?’

‘Nothing. The only item of value is my Lancôme Juicy Tube lip-gloss.’

‘In that case,’ he said, removing the bag from my hand
and tossing it into the Thames, ‘I think we can dispense with it.’

‘Oh,’ I said sadly as I watched it sink to the bottom of the river. ‘I was really quite attached to my Lancôme Juicy Tube lip-gloss.’

‘Sorry,’ he said, putting his arm around me. ‘I was lying about the spew thing, though. It really did stink. Besides, I’m planning on kissing you quite a bit, and I hate lip-gloss.’

I smiled. ‘It was actually Honey’s bag.’

‘Really?’ He rubbed his jaw in a madly sexy way, appearing to ponder the situation for a split second and then smiled as he announced in a Sean Connery piss-take, ‘Well, my dear, the bateau awaits us!’ Then he bowed down, really, really low, and ushered me onto the bateau.

On the boat he directed me to the shower, where I scrubbed the make-up from my body. It was like being in a really cool dream – only one I’d never even dared to dream, although I still regretted losing my lip-gloss to the Thames. Being without lip-gloss always makes a girl feel slightly vulnerable, but then I reminded myself that a prince had just whisked me off on a motorbike and now we were en route to a ball. A
real
ball – and not just any ball, the Royal Bore!

There was a knock on the door as I was about to climb back into my soggy clothes. I opened it an inch. Freddie was standing there, only he was facing the other way as he passed me the most stunning ball gown I had ever seen. It was black silk taffeta spangled with tiny multi-coloured
diamonds and thousands of sparkles. It looked like a long ballerina’s dress, like a summer night sky sparkling with stars.

‘Oh, Freddie, it’s so lovely. How did you know what size I was?’

He scratched the back of his head. ‘Well, see, that’s where I had to solicit the help of secret agent Portia. I took her out for pizza that day I first saw you in Windsor. You girls can eat pizza till it comes out your ears, can’t you? She told me your size and suggested where I’d find such a dress. I almost got her a gating, I interrogated her for so long.’

‘Oh,’ was all I could really muster for fear of blurting about all the horrible, suspicious things I’d thought and how mean I’d been to her about everything. ‘But how did you know you were taking me? I thought it was complicated.’

‘Complicated doesn’t even come close. Mother quizzed me to no end about you before she agreed to send off for the dress.’ By this point I was getting cold so I took the dress from his hand and closed the door to change.

When I came out, he passed me a box that contained black Jimmy Choos with satin ribbons that laced up the leg.

I wanted to say something cool like, ‘Oh, I can’t,’ but I didn’t have the mettle. Instead I virtually snatched them from his outstretched hands. He helped me sort out all the bows and ribbons as we tied them up my leg. I really did
feel like Cinderella being claimed by her prince. I only wished I could stop feeling shame over being so ghastly to Portia.

When we arrived at the ancient stone battlements of Windsor Castle, fireworks were already being let off. Freddie and I dashed up the stone steps of the pier and straight through security, through the throngs of glamourous dancing Euro Royals, marvelling at the fireworks display.

I looked up at the exploding heavens above us, but Freddie insisted we leg it, as we were late. As we entered the first of the castle’s many anterooms en route to where I was to be presented to his parents, Sister Michaela’s first history lesson from Year Seven started coming back to me – only not the bit where her habit got caught in a nail sticking out of the floor and ripped and we got to see her bald little nun head. No, I mean the part about the castle’s history. Even though I saw Windsor Castle all the time, having been schooled not two miles away, for me it had only ever been a landmark, a marker for a nearby pizza place or tea shop. Now I was seeing it as one of Freds’s castles, one of his homes. His parents’ official residence, in fact. But most of all I was thinking, Calypso Kelly, you are stepping inside nine hundred years of history – and I was thinking in the voice of Sister Michaela.

There, among all the glorious chandeliers, ball gowns and dancing couples, my eyes fixed on the masterpieces by Rembrandt, Rubens, Holbein and Van Dyck. They lined
the walls the way framed posters of old films line the walls of my house in Los Angeles. Bob calls them vintage. But Freddie didn’t give me time for wonder as he led me rapidly to where I was to be presented to his parents. My head was swivelling, my heart was racing and before I could take it all in, there they were – his parents: the King and Queen of England. I was so happy I had spent all these years at an English public school and knew the proper etiquette on forms of address.

And then it got even better! I caught a glimpse of approval pass between Freddie and his mother and father. And then his father asked
me
to dance. We did a lovely waltz, and afterwards he thanked
me
, and before I could tell him that some of the sparkles from my dress had dusted off on his tux, I was whisked off by some old prince – an uncle, I think. Whoever he was, my dress gave him the same treatment as the king, and then it was the king of Spain’s turn to get the special Calypso sparkle treatment. I kept praying they wouldn’t notice, but then when I danced with Freds’s father again he whispered discreetly in my ear, ‘Your dress seems to be spreading its magic all over the ballroom.’ The king of England actually said this in a nice tease.

I spotted Indie in a rich pink taffeta silk gown and tiara that no one but Indie could have carried off. As she waltzed by with some elderly bald man I sort of recognised, she gave me a little wave and a wink. I was so happy I could burst … right up until I saw Portia dancing with
Freddie. I’ve never felt so confused about anything in my life, because while I was so grateful to Portia for all she had done, I hadn’t actually danced with Freddie myself.

I waved at them, but only Portia saw me – and she didn’t wave back. The prince of Sweden was whisking me around and my sparkles were dusting his dinner jacket, so it was easy enough to put it from my mind, especially when he started dusting the sparkles off and apologised to me for his dandruff problem.

Later on, Indie and I stood outside in the cool night air for a bit, sipping on our champagne and looking up at the ink-black sky. We laughed about all the odd people we’d had to dance with. ‘Now you know what I meant when I told you how terminally dull these things are,’ she teased.

‘Royal Bores, they’re all the same,’ I said grandly, as if I went to these things all the time, and we both laughed. Secretly, I was having the best night of my life – if you ignore the spew and runny body make-up thing. Even my sparkle disaster seemed perfect.

And then Indie ruined my feel-good fantasy. ‘Have you spoken to Portia yet, Calypso?’

‘I waved,’ I told her, which I knew sounded feeble, even as I demonstrated the friendly little wave I’d sent to Portia. ‘But she ignored me.’

‘I think you have to sort things out with her, don’t you?’

I nodded.

‘You know she’s madly keen on Billy, don’t you?’

‘I do now,’ I told her. ‘I only found out after she left the
school on Friday, though. Honey had stolen my SIM card, and I don’t know …’

‘You got jealous?’ she suggested.

‘Yes,’ I agreed.

‘Well, I know how that feels,’ she said, taking a sip of her champagne and looking out over the Thames. And as I watched this beautiful princess in her glamourous gown I realised that I hardly knew her – well, not half as well as I wanted to, at least.