To Marry a Prince (27 page)

‘Sorry, I missed that. Did you say homework?’

‘Yes.’

She could hear the latin rhythms in the club behind him.

‘Don’t follow.’

She told him about Lady Pansy’s package. ‘The dress makes me feel ill to look at. And the dance instructions are like preparation for an Outward Bound course,’ she said in horror, ‘with crossword puzzles and charades thrown in. I may run away to sea.’

‘Nah. Not you. You’re not a runner.’

‘I could be. How the hell do you make an arch without raising your arms above your head?’

‘Ah, the Reels,’ he said, enlightened. ‘Look, forget all that. I’ll make sure you only dance with me or guys who know what they’re doing.’

‘Hmm,’ said Bella, unconvinced.

‘Trust me. Just close your eyes and I’ll drive. I came reeling out of the womb.’

‘Oh, God.’

‘Don’t worry, Dream Girl. I’ll get you through it.’

‘You’ll need to,’ she said grumpily. But she felt better for talking to him.

The week before Christmas was mad, with lots of parties at which she saw people she hadn’t heard from for ages. Some of them knew she was seeing the Prince of Wales but very few of them cared. Very few of them, Bella thought with a little chill, expected it to last.

By lunch-time on Christmas Eve the shops were empty and the London streets nearly deserted. There was a fine fall of rain but it was too warm to turn to snow. Both girls stowed their overnight cases and presents in the back seat of the rented car, leaving the boot free for Georgia’s international luggage, and went off to Heathrow to meet her flight. She was coming via Madrid.

Georgia strolled out through Passport Control looking, as she always did, a miracle of understated elegance. She was wearing slim jeans, cowboy boots, a fringed alpaca jacket and a pearl-white poloneck
sweater. Her nut-brown hair was shoulder-length, drawn back at the neck with a thin band. Her hair shone. Her eyes sparkled. She looked like a million dollars and totally in control of her world.

‘Who travels for twenty-four hours in a white poloneck?’ said Lottie in awe.

‘She changed in the ladies, after she landed,’ said Bella, who had travelled with her grandmother and knew her strategy.

They surged forward and embraced her.

‘You look wonderful,’ Georgia told them both impartially.

Bella took charge of her case and led the way to the car park.

‘Did you have a good flight?’

‘Her grandmother was wheeling the smallest possible carry-on case.

‘I had a good book. The flight passed.’ She shrugged. ‘Now tell me about you two. Bella has a young man and a new job, I know. Lottie, what about you? Still enjoying London?’

Most of the traffic had gone by the time they got on to the M3. So they had a straight run, in a light grey drizzle, with Lottie talking about her job, very amusingly, and Georgia asking all the right questions, just as she always did, in her soft Southern drawl.

They delivered Lottie to the Hendreds, had a cup of tea and a mince pie there, and drove on to Janet and Kevin’s.

‘Now,’ said Georgia, as Bella pulled out of the Hendreds’ drive, ‘tell me about him. I can’t get any
sense out of either of your parents. How long have you known him?’

‘Not long at all.’ Bella gave her a rapid outline of events to date.

‘Hmm. No, you’re right. That’s fast.’ It was interesting. When she was thinking aloud, Georgia’s Southern drawl became more pronounced. It was, decided Bella, very attractive – calm and somehow poised.

‘I wish I were poised,’ she said involuntarily.

Her grandmother looked at her quickly. ‘That’s an interesting word. Does he make you feel inadequate? Socially, maybe?’

‘He doesn’t but, well—’ She described the New Year’s briefing package.

Georgia’s sculpted lips tightened perceptibly. ‘How discourteous. Who did you say this person is?’

‘Lady Pansy. She’s Queen Jane’s right-hand woman, as far as I can see. Been with her for ever.’

Georgia drummed her fingers thoughtfully. ‘That suggests she has no life of her own,’ she drawled. ‘You need to watch these loyal retainers. They can become very gothic in their devotion.’

Bella laughed heartily. ‘Not Lady Pansy! If she weren’t so elegant you’d say she was a horse.’

‘Horses are very gothic,’ said Georgia obstinately. ‘You watch her. And watch your back around her.’

Of course she didn’t say any of that in front of Janet and Kevin. Georgia’s idea of good behaviour demanded a high degree of forbearance, as well as refraining from giving advice in public or arguing either. So when Janet started to complain about Finn
baiting the newspapers with his antipathy to the monarch, Georgia just smiled faintly and drifted away to somewhere more congenial.

But she did take Bella on one side and say, ‘Are you really worried about spending the New Year with Richard’s family?’

‘No-o-o.’ But in the end it all poured out: the dancing-by-numbers Bella had never done before, The Striped Horror, the pumps.

Georgia laughed. ‘My dear child! You just need a posh frock.’

‘I’ve got one,’ said Bella gloomily. ‘And how.’

‘No. One you like and feel comfortable in. Look, you may not care for the idea, but I have a lot of my own frocks stored in London. We still just about made a debut in my day. Why don’t we see if there’s anything that you suitable among them? We’re quite similar. I think the size will be about right. They may be a little short, but if you have complicated dancing to face, that is hardly a fault.’

Bella agreed, but without much hope.

She spent an edgy Christmas, sustained mainly by Richard’s phone calls from various places in the world where British forces were serving. No wonder Ian had kept the diary from her, thought Bella, watching the TV News to see Richard jump lightly from a helicopter on to the deck of an aircraft carrier. He looked instantly at home, eager and friendly, and always a concerned, good listener. Oh, she did love him.

She looked up suddenly and found her grandmother’s eyes on her. Georgia said nothing, just inclined
her elegant head, but Bella felt as if she had been given her grandmother’s blessing. She hugged herself.

‘You’ll love him,’ she said, suddenly certain that she was right.

‘I probably will, dear. As I said, you and I are very alike.’

Richard met Bella at the station on New Year’s Eve. Just him. No security officer, no Press Adviser. The stationmaster touched his cap in a friendly way and wished them both Happy New Year, and Richard drove the big 4WD off up into the hills, along an unmade track to the house.

‘Best view,’ he said, waving at folds of snow-covered hills to his left and a sparkling, darting brook in the white valley below them.

‘It’s gorgeous,’ Bella said, truthfully.

‘But freezing. Hope you brought plenty of warm clothes?’

‘Yes, I came prepared.’ Conscious of Georgia’s Alternative Posh Frock in her suitcase, Bella said carefully, ‘What will people wear to the ball tonight?’

Richard glanced down at her. ‘Yes, OK. Don’t rub it in. I’ll be prancing around in a kilt with a lace jabot and a velvet jacket. And so will all the other guys. I don’t get a vote.’

She was taken aback. ‘No? Really? You mean, I get to see your knees?’

His eyes glinted. ‘You’ve seen my knees, you baggage.’

‘Not in public. Not to really stand back and admire
them.’ She let herself dwell on the picture with pleasure for a moment. Then said, ‘No, actually, what I meant was the ladies.’

He shrugged. ‘It’s easier for them. They wear their usual rig. With mountaineer’s underwear underneath to keep them warm, of course.’

‘Their usual rig?’

‘Yes. Why?’ he said puzzled

She thought of The Striped Horror. Puffed sleeves like a Michelin Man’s biceps were nobody’s idea of normal.

‘I think I may have got the wrong end of the stick,’ she said diplomatically. ‘Look, do me a favour. I’ve borrowed a dress … well, actually, like your boat, it’s more sort of inherited. Will you come and give me your opinion on it before we have to join the party?’

Richard agreed with enthusiasm.

And later he took one look at her in a Grace Kelly number, with a soft skirt of misty grey silk crepe, and, ‘Very elegant.’

So that was all right. At least it would be until Lady Pansy caught sight of it. Her niece, the Honourable Chloe, was among the guests as well. It would be interesting, thought Bella with a touch of cattiness, to see whether Chloe’s gown was out of the School of Striped Horror.

Richard took her down to the drawing room at Drummon House, at the cocktail hour. There was a handsome fire blazing in the great hearth, but a combination of stone walls and ill-fitting windows meant that the warmth did not permeate very far into the room.

The Queen, greeting Bella kindly, seemed not to notice that she had failed to curtsey.

Prince George, a taller, gawkier version of Richard, flapped a hand in greeting. ‘Hi. The sooner the physical jerks start, the sooner the sound of chattering teeth will die away.’

A steward offered her a tray. Richard inspected it and explained its contents. ‘You can have one of three sorts of malt whisky or a concoction of blended Scotch, amaretto and cointreau, which George invented last year. I don’t advise it.’

‘I call it Drummon Hell,’ Prince George told her proudly.

He had the reputation of being a bit of a hell-raiser and Bella had been wary of meeting him, but she found she liked him. It was impossible not to; he was a Labrador puppy in human form.

Bella took one of the glasses, with a word of thanks, and they moved further into the drawing room. As soon as they were out of earshot of the Queen she hissed, ‘I hate whisky.’

‘Don’t worry. I’ll drink it.’

‘And I forgot to curtsey to your mother.’

‘She’ll get over it.’

‘But Lady Pansy won’t. She looked really disappointed. You know, more in sorrow than in anger.’

‘Pansy’s an old fart,’ he said brutally. ‘Don’t worry about it. Lots of people don’t curtsey these days.’

‘I have tried, honest. But I just can’t get the hang of it.’

‘No sweat. When you have to, it will come naturally.’

Bella was alarmed. ‘When I
have
to? What do you mean,
have to?
You just said lots of people don’t.’

Richard looked mischievous. ‘Wait and see.’

Bella looked round the room. There was a smattering of dinner jackets but the men were mostly in kilts, worn with crisp white shirts, a frilled or lacy stock, and a waisted black velvet jacket with gold buttons. They looked very fine. The women were more varied in their dress. If they had had the same instructions as Bella, none of them had resorted to stiff shiny satin and puffed sleeves. Some of the older ladies were wearing long white gloves, above the elbow. The cannier ones kept pashminas to hand. Bella saw that Lady Pansy herself was in a stiff violet crinoline that she had probably been wearing in the eighties.

No black permitted, Bella remembered from Lady Pansy’s notes, low necklines discouraged and sleeves were obligatory. Lottie had howled with laughter: ‘Where do they think they are? In a cathedral?’ she’d said. But now, looking at one of her fellow first-timers who had ignored the spirit of the notes and opted for festive décolletage, Bella felt sorry for the woman. Diamonds and gooseflesh was not a good look.

She did not have long to pity her, however. There were three mighty raps at the door, followed by an earsplitting noise like an elephant farting. Then the doors were flung open and in marched a piper, kilt swinging.

At once there was a scramble to fall in behind him.

George hissed in her ear, ‘We all march round the room after him, and divide so women go to the left and men to the right. Then we go down either side of the
room and meet in front of the doors and join up with a partner and go into a Grand March.’

The name was vaguely familiar but that was all. ‘Sorry. My mind’s a blank.’

‘Don’t worry about it. It’s dead easy. Just do what everyone else does. All you need to do is make sure that nobody queue jumps when you go to meet your partner. It’s a favourite trick.’

‘I didn’t realise it was so competitive.’

‘Blood on the floor,’ said George cheerfully. ‘Keep your eye on Richard. You may need to make a grab.’ And he waved cheerily as he peeled off in the other direction.

‘I will.’

Bella nearly lost him, though, when Chloe, in a figure-hugging lacy dress that was only just this side of decent, darted in front of her at the last moment, just as Bella was about to step out in front of the big doors to meet him.

‘Excuse me,’ she said in a breathy, little girl voice that exactly matched her wide-eyed stare.

But Richard was too quick for her. With a nifty softshoe shuffle that Fred Astaire would not have been ashamed of, he slid momentarily out of his line and in again behind a grey-haired man, who at once stepped up to the place in front of the doors. The Hon Chloe had no choice. She gave the elderly party her hand and they marched off together down the middle of the drawing room, now cleared of furniture.