To Marry a Prince

Chapter 21

‘When One Thing Goes Wrong …!’ – Tube Talk

Bella drove back very carefully the next day. She hadn’t slept much.

Richard had rung to say that his father was in the King George IV Memorial Hospital for Officers and seemed to be stable. The doctors weren’t really sure what was going on. They’d done a blood test and results suggested a minor heart attack.

‘According to his valet he fell asleep over the television last night and then woke up and suddenly started talking scribble. That could have been because he was still half asleep. But it just might have been a small stroke, which is what’s worrying them. Madoc said he’s been short of breath a lot lately. And also there were a couple of odd episodes this week, when my father seemed very anxious about something. But Madoc didn’t press him and it seemed to pass. Classic symptoms of a mild heart attack, apparently. He’s being monitored round the clock at the moment. Anyway, the quacks say it isn’t life-threatening, though he needs to be careful.’

‘How are you?’

‘Me?’ Richard sounded drained but impeccably polite, as always. ‘I’m fine. The emergency was all over, pretty much, by the time I got here. My mother is shaken, though.’

Bella just longed to be with him, to hold him. Somehow she couldn’t quite bring herself to say it. She did say, ‘What can I do?’

He puffed out his breath as if he were trying to think of something for her to do, to make her feel better. ‘Bring the car back to Camelford House. I’ll make sure the Guard House are expecting you and don’t play any of their stupid tricks.’

She knew he would too. Even when he was so tired he couldn’t see straight, even when he was desperately worried about his father, he would make sure that she did not have to lock horns with some jobsworth who wanted to show her she didn’t belong there. She thought her heart would break.

‘I’ll see you tomorrow then.’

‘What? Oh, yes. Tomorrow. Thank you.’ He was obviously about to put the phone down and added conscientiously, ‘Good night. Thank you for waiting up.’

She did not know how long she sat there with tears falling silently. She loved him with all her heart but in his distress she could not get near him. It was like walking into a wall.

Bella did not know Richard’s big car very well. Had only driven it a couple of times before, to move it in car parks and so on. But she was a good driver, steady and unflappable, and the tears had dried towards dawn. She delivered it safely to Camelford House by mid-afternoon.

It was Fred, one of the nicer security men, in the Guard House when she put her head round the door.

‘Afternoon, Miss Greenwood. How’s His Majesty?’

‘On the mend, we hope, Fred. Has Prince Richard got back yet?’

‘Been and gone, miss. He’s over at the Palace with the Private Office. They’ll be rearranging diaries, I reckon.’

‘Yes.’ Yes, of course. She shouldn’t have needed a security officer to tell her that. ‘I’ll – just go then.’

‘Right you are, miss.’

He took the keys from her and Bella wandered blindly out into the London streets. Should she join Richard? Would he want her? Or would she be just another burden that he had to carry and be polite to, in addition to everything else?

There was only one way to find out. She half expected it to go to voice mail but he answered his phone after only three rings.

‘Bella. Where are you?’

‘Back in London. They tell me you’re at the Palace. Shall I come over ? Or—’

‘Yes,’ he said with urgency. ‘Yes, come now. That would be – yes.’

A flunkey escorted her to a room she hadn’t seen before. It was long and thin, with several desks with slightly outdated computer screens on them, and wall-mounted clocks showing the time in Ottawa, New York, Kingston Jamaica, Paris, Rome, Delhi and Canberra.

Richard was standing at a long folding table – it reminded Bella of a pasting table she had seen decorators use in her mother’s house – with three other men, looking at a huge roll of paper.

He glanced up when she came in and surged towards her, almost lifting her off her feet with the strength of his hug.

‘I’m glad you’re here,’ he said, too quietly for anyone else to hear. ‘So glad. I wished I hadn’t gone off last night the moment I got into the helicopter. I wasn’t thinking straight.’

‘You were worried. We both were. What’s this?’

He took her hand and led her towards the table. ‘My father’s schedule. He doesn’t hold with computers. He likes to see it mapped out in front of him.’

It resembled nothing so much as a giant campaign plan. It was even colour-coded. One of the blocks of colour started in three days’ time. She looked at it hard.

‘But that’s—’

‘Australia,’ said Richard levelly. ‘Yes. My father and mother were due to fly out on Thursday on the first leg of an Asian Pacific Tour. Six weeks away. They’d get back just over a month before our wedding. It’s out of the question now. The King has to be under medical observation for at least a month.’

‘You’re going to cancel?’

He held her hand very tight by his side. ‘No. Can’t do that. I will take over their schedule. Nell will accompany me to Australia and fulfil my mother’s programme there. My mother may join us later, depending on my father’s rate of recovery.’

‘So you don’t want me there?’

‘Oh, I want you all right,’ he said, with such bitter weariness that she had to believe him. ‘I just can’t have you. It’s not done. It’s not protocol, God help me. You’re not Royal yet.’

‘They’d be getting a substandard product?’

He gave a snort of laughter and immediately looked better for it. ‘Yeah, I s’pose.

‘So I take over my father’s diary. George is supposed to be studying, but he doesn’t have another exam this year, so he can take over mine. He’s cleared it with his supervisor. Maybe you’ll help out?’

‘Me? Even though I’m not Royal?’

‘Always helps to have a bit of skirt, though,’ said a voice from Richard’s other side, and Bella realised that her future brother-in-law was among those present.

He lurched round Richard and gave her a hearty kiss. ‘We’ll keep the world on its toes while you’re away, Magister.’

That was when she realised, truly realised, that Richard was going away and she would be left on her own. And knew that she could not make a fuss. It would only make things worse for him.

‘Yes, sure. I’ll stay here and keep on with the pre-Royalty arrangements, counting down to the wedding.’

‘And I’ll phone you every night.’

‘I’m banking on it.’

They spent Richard’s last two nights in England together. He sat up late at his desk, working through things. Sometimes typing at the computer. Sometimes staring into space, thinking. Bella brought him a drink or coffee or, once, cocoa because he said he couldn’t remember what it tasted like. So she pulled on her outdoor clothes and slipped out to the Late, Late Store attached to the big local garage and came back with a tin of cocoa, sugar, because she had never seen any in his kitchen, and enough milk to sink a battleship. She made it carefully and then frothed it up as a treat.

He was writing again, but turned at her arrival by his desk. ‘What?’

‘Cocoa.’

He stared at the mug in her hand. ‘But we haven’t got any cocoa. I’ve never seen any in the Palace. I didn’t even know it was still made.’

‘Late-night garage shop,’ she said smugly. ‘And it is made by me. Taste it and see if it’s sweet enough.’

He inhaled the aroma first. ‘Oh, heavens, yes. I must have been about six the last time I had this.’ He tasted and a look of bliss came over his face. Then he lowered the mug.

‘What is it?’ Bella said. ‘Too hot, too cold? Needs cream? What?’

‘You,’ he said in an odd voice.

‘Me? Yes?’

‘You – think about me.’

‘So?’

‘You don’t understand. Lots of people take care of me, smooth my path, give me things. But that’s their job, or else they’re being polite to my father’s representative. You – think about me and then go and do what you see I want. Yourself.’

She stood quietly in front of him, her hands by her sides.

‘Of course,’ she said softly.

He leaned forward and rested his head against her. Bella stroked his hair. She could feel all the worry and effort and alertness drain out him, and he stayed there, just being in the moment, for the longest time. Eventually he stirred.

‘You’re wonderful,’ he said in a matter-of-fact voice, as if it were so obvious, it was just something you said to remind yourself. Like, check door key, or turn off iron.

Bella felt her heart would spill over, it was so full. This, she knew, would carry her through the next lonely six weeks without him.

It would have to.