To Marry a Prince (6 page)

She padded out of the door.

‘Mud,’ Bella heard her complain as she stomped off
towards the kitchen. ‘I take her to the smartest party
ever
and she finds mud.’

Bella showered and washed her hair. And when she saw the silt in the bottom of the shower tray, she got right back in and washed her hair again. Emerging pink and a bit soapy-eyed, she pulled on her new underwear, drainpipe jeans, crisp cotton shirt and a cashmere jumper which she had picked up from the Oxfam shop the day before. Then she went into the kitchen, still rubbing her hair with the towel.

Lottie was slumped over a carton of orange juice at the breakfast bar, flipping through texts on her telephone.

Bella thought: I used to do that too, every morning. And when I was shopping, and when I was waiting for Lottie to meet me at a club. Why does it feel so strange now?

Aloud she said, ‘Anything interesting?’

Lottie huffed. ‘No. Dammit.’

Bella poured herself some juice but pulled a face as soon as she tasted it.

‘Water,’ said Lottie, recognising the signs. ‘Your tastebuds will be all over the place until you’ve rebalanced your water table.’

‘You make me sound like farmland.’

‘And you’re surprised? After the stunt you pulled last night?
Mud!
I ask you!’

Bella flung up her hands. ‘OK. OK. I’m sorry. I’ll change the sheets.’

Lottie shrugged. ‘You’re sleeping in them. Up to you.’

Lottie was not usually grumpy, not even the morning after a heavy night. Bella reached a glass off the shelf above the counter top and filled it from the cold tap. Then she pulled out one of the high stools and sat down at the bar next to her.

‘What’s wrong, Lotts?’

Lottie pushed back her hair and gave a watery sniff. ‘I thought I’d nailed a contract last night. But not a peep out of the bastard this morning.’ She looked at her watch. ‘Make that this afternoon. And I really
worked
at that pitch.’

‘Maybe he’s saving it up for working hours,’ suggested Bella. ‘He’ll call you on Monday.’

Lottie gave her a pitying look. ‘Billionaires’ working hours are twenty-four seven. They don’t wait till Monday. If he was interested, he would have called. No, I’ve blown it.’

She got up and opened the fridge, staring at its contents moodily. ‘No milk. No fresh coffee. Oh, well, it will have to be fizz.’

She hauled out a bottle of Cava and clawed ineffectually at the black foil over the cork.

‘Let me.’

Bella took it away from her and removed the foil and restraining wire from the cork. Texting might feel strange but opening champagne came back to her as naturally as breathing. She tilted the bottle at forty-five degrees, held the cork firmly and turned the bottle until the cork gave a little. Bella applied pressure to ease the transition and eventually removed it with no more than a ladylike hiss from the wine.

Lottie silently held out two glasses. ‘You’ve always been good at that. No bangs, no spills. It’s super-cool. I suppose Georgia taught you how to do it?’

‘Nope. My grandmother doesn’t think a lady should open her own wine bottles. A lady ought to sit prettily while a Big Strong Man makes a prat of himself spraying champagne everywhere.’

‘There’s a very nasty side to your grandmother,’ said Lottie, with admiration. ‘Seems a waste though.’

Bella thought about it. ‘Actually, Georgia once told me when she was pissed that men were only good for two things: opening wine bottles and emptying mouse traps. And then she said cats were more rewarding and alcohol was overrated.’

Lottie gave a snort of laughter. ‘She was wrong.’ She waved her glass. ‘Come on, start pouring.’

Bella did, but shook her head at the other glass that Lottie pushed towards her.

‘Not for me, thank you. You’re right, I need to acclimatise, I think. I only had a couple of glasses last night and it made me really weird.’

Lottie flumped back on to her high stool. ‘Ah-ha! This is where you tell all about the mud. Come on then, give.’

Bella leaned against the door and gave her an edited version of the Great Ivy Disaster, dwelling on the unreasonable number of plants in the courtyard and skirting lightly round the rescue activities of Silk Shirt.

But Lottie was no fool. ‘You’re looking shifty. There was a man, wasn’t there?’

Bella shook her head. ‘No, there wasn’t. I fell into the ivy all on my own.’ Well, it was the truth, she told herself.
Silk Shirt had not appeared until she was already on the floor.

Lottie stared at her for a moment like a Junior Inquisitor with something to prove. Then she seemed to get bored. ‘If you say so. So – apart from attacking the ornamental plants, did you have a good time?’

‘Yeah, it was great. Good music, great dance space.
Fabulous
art. It was lovely to dance again. I talked to some nice people, too.’

‘But …?’

Bella shifted her shoulders uncomfortably. ‘Oh, I don’t know. I just sort of overdosed on people, somehow. All of a sudden I felt I couldn’t hear for everyone talking, could hardly breathe for all the bodies. So that’s when I went out into that courtyard place.’

Lottie was picking at a ‘3 for the Price of 2’ sticker on the juice carton. She did not look at Bella. ‘And you didn’t enjoy that?’

‘Apart from making a spectacle of myself, you mean?’ said Bella bitterly.

Lottie glanced up then. Her eyes gleamed with triumph. ‘See? I
knew
there was a man. You can’t hide anything from me.’

‘Oh, rats.’

Lottie waited.

Eventually Bella sighed. ‘OK. Somebody came along and dug me out of the compost heap. He was very nice and I was – well, a bit drunk and soppy, to be honest.’

‘Did you make a pass at him?’

‘No, I did not,’ said Bella, outraged.

‘Then you didn’t make a spectacle of yourself,’ said Lottie cheerfully.

Bella shook her head in disbelief. ‘You know, you have a very black-and-white view of life.’

‘Just being practical.’

‘Huh?’

‘I know you. If you’d made a pass at him, you’d want to avoid seeing him again. Depending on who else he knows, that could be very limiting. You’ve got a social life to revive prontissimo. The Christmas party season is coming. What’s his name?’

Bella glared. ‘We didn’t exchange business cards.’

Lottie pursed her lips. ‘He didn’t tell you his name? Not a good sign. Did he ask yours?’

‘Look,’ said Bella crisply, ‘he got me up, dusted me down, waved me goodbye. No big deal.’

‘If you say so.’

‘I say so. Now – are you going to climb into that fizz until it meets over the top of your head, or can I take you out for a burger?’

Lottie said she couldn’t face a burger and she didn’t really want to go out. She wanted to slob around in sweatpants and read the papers. But if Bella was offering to cook her famous Eggs Benedict, she, Lottie, wouldn’t say no.

Bella recognised an olive branch when she saw it. ‘I’ll go and get the necessary.’

Lottie pushed off to shower and Bella slid the end of a spoon into the neck of the Cava bottle and put it back in the fridge. Then she made a careful list of all the things she would need for Eggs Benedict plus the other
essentials that Lottie had somehow let get away from her, like milk and coffee, grabbed her friend’s coat again and went out.

It was a bright golden day and the low sun hit Bella straight between the eyes. Dazzled, she raced to the corner shop, promising herself that she would unearth her sunglasses before she came out into this light again. She came back with a stripy plastic bag full of food and a copy of every newspaper that the shop sold. By that time, Lottie was dressed and in a much better temper.

Bella cooked and they had a companionable afternoon brunch in the kitchen, before tucking themselves up in front of the fire and dividing the newspapers between them, sharing the good bits. From time to time Lottie would also read out some snippet about the current scene that she thought Bella ought to catch up with. Eventually daylight disappeared, leaving only the firelight and the glow of a table lamp in the corner of the room.

Lottie cast the last bit of newspaper on to the floor, yawned, and said, ‘You can’t beat a lazy Sunday with an old mate. What do you want to do this evening? Telly, a movie or a DVD?’

Bella looked up from the last colour supplement she was leafing through. ‘Whatever. Don’t ask me to make decisions.’

‘DVD then. Something with a happy ending.’

‘Sounds great. I suppose I ought to call my mother, too. This should be late enough for her.’

Lottie gave a crack of laughter. ‘Too right, even if she danced till dawn.’

‘She’ll probably have an early night, though. So I’d better move sharpish before the window of opportunity snaps shut.’

Bella went to retrieve her shiny new mobile from her beside table. Then remembered she had put it in the bag Lottie had lent her last night. After turning over all the various piles of clothes in her room, she found the bag under the bed.

She took it back into the living room. ‘Sorry, Lotts, I forgot. I should have given this back to you this morning.’ She emptied it out and retrieved her lipgloss, the cab company’s card, her running away money, even a scrunched-up handkerchief.

There was no phone.

‘Oh, hell! I must have lost it.’

Lottie was calm. ‘Problem of being plastered in a new place,’ she said tolerantly. ‘Walk me through what you did when you came home last night.’

They went to the front door and did the whole action-rewind thing. It was no help. Bella had not put the phone down on the hall table, with her keys. She had not left it tucked into the pocket of Lottie’s coat. She had not even taken it into the bathroom with her and put it in the bathroom cabinet, which Lottie said that she herself had done several times.

‘Damn. It’s got all my numbers in it,’ said Bella, furious with herself.

‘OK. When did you last use it? I mean, you called the minicab, right? What did you do after that?’

Bella bent her mind to the problem. Her memory was hazy but she was almost certain that she had called the
cab before Silk Shirt appeared. ‘I suppose I might have left it on the table in the courtyard,’ she said doubtfully.

‘That’s easy then. I’ll call them.’

‘Actually, they might be miffed. I did leave a bit of a mess in the courtyard,’ said Bella uneasily.

‘Well, I don’t suppose they’ll have dusted for fingerprints. If they ask, I’ll just deny all knowledge. I’ll call. You have another look in the bedroom.’

But their hosts had not found a phone. And, even though Bella stripped the bed back to the undersheet, it was nowhere in her bedroom. Then Lottie called the minicab company, while Bella, reminded, put fresh sheets on the bed and hovered up the twiggy fallout.

The minicab company hadn’t found it either but the car Bella had taken home was presently on another job. They promised to check and call back if they found it.

‘Only one thing for it,’ said Lottie. ‘We call your phone and see if someone answers.’

She did.

And someone did.

‘Hello? Who is this? I think … What?’ Pause. ‘Er, no, not me. It’s my friend’s phone. Maybe you should talk to her.’

Lottie handed the phone across to Bella with a very odd expression on her face. She went into the kitchen, closing the door behind her ostentatiously.

‘Hello?’ said Bella, puzzled.

‘Who is this?’

Even through a cheap mobile’s tinny reception, Bella knew those dark brown tones. She looked down at her
bare toes and saw they were curling into the rug with appreciation.

‘Um – me.’ It came out in a squeak. She cleared her throat, tried to imagine a gargle, tried to imagine she was speaking slowly and clearly to someone who didn’t understand English very well, and tried again. ‘I mean, Bella Greenwood. We met last night and you’ve got my phone. Hello.’

‘I thought it was probably yours.’ Oh, yes, it was him all right, that hint of laughter in the smoky voice. Her toes wriggled.

‘Er – really? Why?’

‘Pink and sparkly, covered in ivy, just a bit battered.’

‘Oh.’

‘It’s a compliment,’ he assured her. ‘How many people do you know whose mobile phone is completely unmistakable?’

Bella cheered up a little. ‘Well, if you put it like that—’

‘I do. Now,’ he said briskly, ‘how are we going to get it back to you?’

‘Are you in London? Could I possibly collect it?’

There was a silence. She thought: damn, I shouldn’t have said that. He’ll think I’m angling for a date. And now he’s trying to let me down lightly. Ouch!

She went into delete mode. ‘From your office, maybe? I mean, we don’t have to meet in person. I could just drop in, if you left it with Reception. If you have a reception desk, that is. Or you could have it couriered to me here. I’d pay, of course. Can you tell them to collect the cost from me …’ Oh, God, she was burbling.