Marrying Up (36 page)

Lady Annabel coughed. She reached for her napkin.

Florrie, glancing up from her iPad, now piped up. ‘Jack, you mean?’ she exclaimed, leaning over the table so excitedly that
she knocked over a crystal water glass. ‘Omigod, Ma, he’s gorgeous! Totally hot.’

Lady Annabel’s head was a blur as it twisted confusedly between Barney and her daughter. ‘You’ve
met
him?’ she stuttered to Florrie.

‘Yah, he’s a fun guy. We hijacked a bus together.’

‘You . . .
what
?’

‘Never mind,’ Florrie said brightly. Then she added
imploringly, ‘Oh Mumsie,
do
let me be a bridesmaid.’

Barney laid his paw on Lady Annabel again, and this time it was not shaken off. ‘I think,’ he purred, ‘that you’ll find it
more than worth your while. Prince Giacomo is a prince, after all, and anyone he marries would bear the title of Princess
. . .’

The conflagration raging in Lady Annabel’s eyes now finally died down. She turned to Barney and smiled. She turned to Alexa
and did the same. And while the smile did not meet her eyes, it was friendlier than any Alexa had seen in living memory.

‘I see,’ Lady Annabel murmured, ‘that congratulations are due.’

She had gone, Max had to accept it. He had lost her for the second time. If once was carelessness, twice was almost too much
to bear. She had appeared like a miracle and left like a curse. A mere couple of hours and she had vanished as if she were
a dream.

There was nothing he could do, no way he could trace her. Where she had been staying, which flight she had been on, how she
had got into the castle even, he had no clue. Not that it would help if he did. She had left in the belief that he was in
love with someone else; that he was going to marry them too.

And now he might have to. Lady Alexa was to make an official visit to the chateau two days from now. Where, no doubt, she
would find Engelbert a pushover. Her scheming, it seemed, had got her everywhere.

And now, another bitter blow.

Max could no longer avoid the realisation that his devoted hound was desperately ill. When Beano was sick in the night again,
the Prince knew there was no option but to take him to Etienne. The diagnosis he could guess; verification, however, could
come only from the vet’s equipment.

The streets of Sedona were as clean and bright as usual, and busy as ever with browsing visitors and locals going about their
business. As they greeted him, Max did his best to rise above his misery and smile back. It wasn’t their fault, after all.

His path along the street had been so far unimpeded, but now someone appeared to block it. ‘Your Royal Highness!’ Fear leapt
in Max’s chest – another lunatic? In his arms, Beano lifted his sick head and managed a weak growl.

‘Your Royal Highness!’ repeated the person. An ancient crone, Max saw, looking down about three feet below him. Stooped, dressed
in black, with white hair in a bun and a tanned, wizened face. She was beaming at him toothlessly. He responded with a strained
smile. He could not rush off. Duty – damn the word – forbade it. One of the unwritten rules of Sedona was that anyone could
stop the royal family in the street if they had something particular to say to them. Accessibility was central to Engelbert
and Astrid’s monarchical style.

‘When’s it going to happen, then?’ the crone cackled.

Beano tried now to yap; Max tried to soothe him. ‘What?’ he asked reluctantly.

‘You getting married.’ The crone’s wagging finger reminded Max of a well-cooked sausage. ‘You got a lovely girl now,’ the
old woman hectored, her cackling voice echoing horribly round the narrow, peaceful street. ‘Lady Alexa! Very nice. So when
you going to name the day, then? Eh?’

It seemed to Max as if the whole of Sedona was listening. He muttered something polite, clutched the still-yapping Beano close
and hurried off as fast as he could.

Etienne examined Beano immediately. He came out of the X-ray room, his face drawn with distress.

‘Bad news, I’m afraid, my friend. There is a large tumour.’

Max bowed his head. He had suspected as much. He met Etienne’s sympathetic brown eyes. ‘There’s no chance?’

The vet bit his lip and shook his head.

Irrationally, suddenly, Max remembered his first date with Polly.

It was moving, seeing the demonstration of a relationship like that. The love a person had for their pet, thousands of years
ago.

Like you say, people aren’t all that different. I’d probably want to be buried with my dog.

But Beano was going before him to the happy hunting ground.
May there be lots of tasty bits from the celestial kitchens
, Max bid his pet silently.

To Etienne he said, in as steady a voice as he could manage: ‘Well you’d better do it then.’

Almost the worst of it was that Beano loved Etienne. As the vet approached him, he stood up on his shaking legs and licked
him, waving the tail that had once been so magnificently plume-like.

Etienne glanced at Max. ‘You want to stay?’ He was filling up his syringe, and his voice was gruff with controlled emotion.

It was not a case of wanting, not exactly, Max thought wearily. ‘I’ll stay,’ he said.

He saw Beano hold out his paw trustingly to Etienne and then glanced away. Once the syringe was empty, he picked his dog up
for the last time. Beano nudged his nose reassuringly with his own, and looked into his eyes.
Don’t worry, Master, I’ve had a good life
, the eyes seemed to be saying. Then he slumped in his arms and was gone.

A quick, awkward squeeze of the shoulder from Etienne and Max walked away, his arms empty. His heart, however, was full. How
could something so small leave such a huge absence? Nothing would ever be the same again.

Life as he had known it had ended, all the fun and friendship had gone. What happened now – Alexa’s visit included – was a
matter of supreme indifference to him.

On the morning of Lady Alexa’s visit, Astrid rose early. She had slept very little the night before. The laboratory had promised
that the results would come today; what would they tell her?

Getting mouth swabs was not the easiest of businesses. After much mulling over potential pretexts, none of which seemed remotely
convincing, Astrid had concluded that night-time, while her targets slept, was the only opportunity. As Engelbert, fortunately
in this respect if no other, slept with his mouth open, she had been able to insert the cotton bud with minimum fuss. Giacomo
and Maxim had been trickier.

Bending over Max, whose mouth was also slightly open, Astrid was struck by the beauty of his face in repose. Lately it had
been rare to see him without a scowl or a frown; the smooth, unlined look of his face in the shadows reminded her of the sunny-natured
small boy he had once been. How long ago it seemed.

As she hovered over his mouth with the bud, he turned and opened his eyes. Shocked, Astrid stepped back; realising then that
he was still asleep, she came forward again and dived in with the bud. ‘Polly!’ Max said.

Polly? The name was new to Astrid. Who was this Polly?

She had lingered a few minutes, but as Max said no more, she had stolen out of the room.

Poor Max. Alexa was due today. The Queen’s fists clenched. She had to help him.

Normal palace procedure was that the royal post, delivered to the back door in grey Royal Sedona Mail sacks, then went straight
to the offices of the royal private secretary. Here it was sorted, placed on silver salvers bearing the individual crests
of royal family members and taken out by footmen to arrive at the royal breakfast table at a moment precisely timed to be
after the eggs and immediately before the final rounds of toast.

But this, the Queen knew, would be a good two hours after the original arrival of the post. She had therefore decided to get
up especially early and be at the chateau’s main rear door when the grey sacks first arrived. No one was likely to question
her right to find her own mail; if, indeed, anyone was there.

Even as the Royal Sedona Mail van roared out of the chateau’s cobbled rear courtyard, Astrid, with the help of a rather surprised
cleaner, was dragging the two sacks into the service area by the back door. It was a space filled with boxes and cleaning
supplies in which the Queen, with her smooth hair and her pearls, presented an incongruous sight. She took little notice of
her surroundings, however, occupied as she was with emptying the post bags out on to the black and white lino tiles and scrabbling
frantically through the contents.

On her knees amid the envelopes and slithery plastic piles of junk mail, Astrid looked up at the sound of a familiar voice.
‘Yo, Ma. Whassup?’

Giacomo had clearly just arrived back from a night out. His eyes looked as red as his face, his tail coat was creased and
his white tie noticeably grubby.

‘What happened to you?’ she asked.

Giacomo shifted from foot to foot. ‘Had to walk. Left the key in my car, and when I came out, the damn thing had gone.’

‘Your new Maserati?’ Astrid gasped.

‘Yah. The very same. Bloody silly, isn’t it?’

‘
Very
silly.’ But perhaps the silliest aspect of all was the makers presenting it – for reasons best known to themselves – to Giacomo
in the first place.

‘I mean,’ Giacomo hiccupped, ‘you’d think the person who got in it would have realised they were in the wrong car. Some people,
eh?’ He walked unsteadily away.

Astrid tried not to be sidetracked. There would be trouble about the car later, but for now she must concentrate on the job
in hand. The first grey post bag contained nothing from the laboratory, and neither, to her disappointment, did the second.
She helped the cleaner stuff the post back in the bags and went slowly up to her room.

Some hours later, Max stood outside the front of the chateau. Outwardly he was composed; within, numb. The recent awful events
had endowed him with a sense of distance, of unreality. He felt uninvolved in what was to occur; he would move, he would open
his mouth. But he would not, in any meaningful sense, be there.

But wasn’t that the entire trick of being royal? Distance. Detachment? Did that not cover all the skills? He felt an urge
to laugh manically.

While Alexa’s visit was not a state one, there was nonetheless more ceremony than might have been expected. The usual practice
was that visitors were received in the privacy of the Great Hall. But today the royal family had been ordered by the King
to be out in the front courtyard to meet the limousine bringing Lady Alexa from the Hotel des Bains. It was, Max understood,
to be a semi-public occasion.

Accordingly, a number of press had been allowed in through the chateau gates. Crowds of onlookers had gathered on the other
side, alerted by both the photographers and the distant view of the ruling family.

Blue sky stretched above the pointed towers of the chateau. A stronghold, Max found himself thinking sardonically, built to
protect the royal line. And yet just one girl seemed about to conquer everything without so much as a drawbridge being raised.
The royal standard hung limply against the white flagpole.
It looked, Max thought, as defeated as he felt himself. He lacked the energy, any more, to rail against what everyone said
was his destiny. He was broken; he would submit.

‘Cheer up,’ hissed Giacomo beside him. ‘You look as if you’re at a funeral.’

Max said nothing. It was nothing like a funeral; not at all like the one he had held in a corner of the castle gardens for
Beano. He had been the sole mourner; he had dug the small hole and buried his dog with his favourite collar and ball and a
bag of dog treats for the afterlife. Afterwards he had climbed up one of the towers and stared hard at the sea.

The crowds at the gate now divided to let through a shining car. The gates themselves swung slowly inwards. Giacomo dug Max
in the ribs. ‘Thar she blows!’

Not wanting to watch the limousine as it advanced, juggernaut-like and unstoppable, Max looked about him. He stood at the
top of a shallow flight of steps; beside him was his father in a uniform that seemed all buttons and epaulettes, and what
wasn’t either of those was sash. Giacomo, meanwhile, looked as louche as ever in some naval get-up. Max too had been stuffed
into uniform, and that he looked ridiculous, he had no doubt. But who cared? What difference did it make?

Only his mother was not present. His surliness of late had hurt her most, he knew. But what could he have said to her? She,
in any case, had sided with his father. With obvious reluctance, admittedly, but it was the siding that counted.

The car glided up to the steps. The photographers, who had been keeping a discreet distance, now rushed over; there was an
explosion of zooms and whirrs. Out of the car emerged a pretty dark-haired girl in a simple white dress, ballerina flats and
a single string of pearls.

‘Demure,’ Barney had stressed. ‘Think Kate Middleton. Think engagement-era Princess Diana.’

A wild cheer now arose from the crowd, and the press within the castle compound went completely crazy.

Sun poured in through Astrid’s window as she looked down on the small knot of people gathered round the limousine in the front
courtyard. The photographers were going wild. She could see Alexa posing for them, and waving at the crowd at the gates quite
in the manner of the royal she so obviously aspired to be. Had she
any
idea what it involved? Astrid wondered. How could she? Being royal was like childbirth – you could imagine it, but you could
never really understand until it had actually happened to you.

She stood before the long oval mirror in the corner of her room and stared at herself. Her reflection, as always, was as calm
as it was lovely. Possibly the grey coat she wore over a grey dress was a little severe, but the occasion, so far as the Queen
was concerned, was not one for rejoicing.

She stood patiently as her maid looked the outfit over for loose buttons and stray threads. ‘Perfect,’ Hortense murmured deferentially,
having twitched a sleeve here and pulled a hem there.