To Marry a Prince

Chapter 23

‘Will He Call It Off?’ – Sunday Despatch

Bella was still in the car when Richard called. She expected fury, or that deadly Royal chill, but it was worse than that. He just sounded tired.

‘How could you be so thoughtless?’ he said. ‘How could you? Nell is barely more than a child, my mother and I are out of the country, my father has a heart murmur … You just don’t think.’

Bella looked over her shoulder at Eleanor, now slumbering heavily. She looked about twelve. ‘It just got out of hand, that’s all. I know it’s a mess but these things happen …’

‘Well, you’ll have to clear it up,’ he said flatly. ‘Julian Madoc is talking to the Press Officers. The internet has gone crazy and there’s some very nasty stuff out there. He’ll be in touch with you. I strongly advise you to do what he says.’

‘Of course.’

‘Where are you now?’

‘On the road back to London. With Nell. George is driving us.’

‘Well, that’s something, I suppose. Don’t go to Camelford House. Take her straight to the Palace. I’ll call Pansy.’

Bella flinched.

‘And when you get there—’

‘Yes?’

‘I know you don’t want to, but this is non-negotiable. You move into the Palace and you stay there. Or I’ll issue a statement that the engagement is off. I mean it, Bella.’

She felt numb with shock. ‘I can hear you do,’ she said through frozen lips.

‘So do it.’

He rang off without saying goodbye.

It was dreadful. Julian Madoc was quite kind, to Bella’s surprise, but Lady Pansy could barely contain her triumph. It came liberally coated with more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger, but triumph was what it was. Eleanor kept to the room that had been prepared for her and a nurse sat with her. Nobody told Bella what, if anything, was wrong with the Princess. Nobody told Bella anything much, until George came over to see his sister before dinner and dropped in to see Bella afterwards.

She was sitting in the window seat, trying to read a mystery and failing to keep her mind on the blood-spattered corpse.

‘How’s it going?’ said George, sliding round the door like a murderer himself.

Bella wondered if he had been told to keep away from her contaminating presence. She wondered if Richard had told him that.

‘I’m fine. How is Nell?’

‘She’s thrown up. Just as well or I think old Jones would have stomach-pumped her. She’s lying in bed with the duvet over her head sulking. Which means she’s ashamed of herself.’

He wandered round the room, which looked as if it had been furnished by Lady Pansy. There were pictures of men with guns, coupled with china cabinets full of King Charles spaniels and pirouetting Columbines. It made Bella feel crowded and faintly ill. But George seemed completely at home in it.

He said, ‘She’s a pill. But it’s not all her fault. When people give you a role, you sort of play it. You know?’

‘A role?’

‘The three of us. Good Boy, Bad Boy, Wild Child. They’ve been calling her that since she was thirteen. People believe it.’

‘But surely …’ And then Bella remembered the cartoon she had seen, before she even met Richard. The Royal Family as the Seven Dwarfs, that was it. What had they called the children? Dim, Ditzy and Dull. She’d believed it, hadn’t she? ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ashamed of herself.

He shrugged. ‘I get to play the Clown. Not a problem. It’s tougher on Richard who does all the dull stuff and never, ever gets drunk, or goes on the razzle, or even does his own thing. At least, not until he met you.’

‘Me?’

‘You have no idea what a bid for freedom you were. For all of us, including Nell and me. You gave us hope.’

‘But why? Surely Richard does everything he wants to? The Queen says he’s very strong-willed.’

‘The Good Boy?’ said George. ‘He’d give up anything, if he thought it was his duty. He was a fine sailor, you know. Really gifted. Might even have had trials for the Olympics if they’d let him carry on with it. Only Mother said it was too dangerous. So he gave it up. My father didn’t stop him. He gave it up. It’s as if he’s trying to kill off everything about him that isn’t …’

‘Public property?’ said Bella in a small voice.

‘Yup, maybe. Then he started parkour. Do you know what that is?’

She shook her head.

‘Sort of free running. You try to cross the city without touching the ground. Very gymnastic. Lots of vaults and springs and swinging from your hands. He was really good. He still watches it on YouTube sometimes. It makes me so mad. He should be doing it.’

‘He told me he liked climbing buildings,’ said Bella, enlightened.

George cocked an eyebrow. ‘Really? As if he still does it?’

She said carefully, ‘As if he still plans to do it, certainly.’

‘That’s the best news I’ve heard in years. Let’s hope he sticks with it.’ He brightened at a thought. ‘If you can get him into a horned helmet, hauling an oar with a bunch of weirdos, there might still be hope for him. Power to your elbow, Bella Greenwood. Power to your elbow.’

*


But there was no sign of Richard breaking out. Even when he and the Queen came back from their tour, he and Bella never got their old intimacy back. Partly, of course, it was because he insisted on her living in that barracks of a place. It didn’t feel quite right, sleeping together in the great echoing Palace, with servants popping out of doors when you least expected them, and the King at one end of the building and the Queen at the other. But he could have kissed her as if he meant it, talked to her properly. Even taken her out somewhere.

He didn’t. He was just courteous and considerate and desperately busy. Whenever he saw her, he made it clear that he was on his way somewhere else. He couldn’t even spare half an hour to walk round one of the parks with her.

The only sign of emotion he gave was when she said quietly, ‘Richard, I don’t know what’s gone wrong. This can’t just be about the Hen Night. Do you want to end the engagement?’

He looked at her as if she had stabbed him. It was the only hopeful sign she had seen.

And at once he said tonelessly, ‘If that’s what you want, then of course.’

Bella said, ‘No, it’s not what I want. How can you think that? Remember what we used to be like?’

She went to him. His hands came out to her for just a moment. Then they fell to his sides and he stepped back.

It was like a slap in the face.

She stood very still for a couple of seconds, mastering herself. Then she said quietly, ‘What has happened to us? Is it something to do with your father? Surely he’s better? He seems terrific.’

The King, alone of the family, seemed to be in tearing spirits. He had lost a stone and a half, started jogging round the Palace grounds, and had thrown himself back into his official engagements with a will. He looked, in fact, like a man who has been on holiday. Unlike his elder son, who looked so fine-drawn, you could see the skull under his skin.

Richard said formally, ‘He is very well indeed. The doctors are very pleased with him.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Now, I’m sorry, I’m overdue at the Cathedral. The Prior is talking about a rehearsal but I’m saying it’s too soon.’

And he was gone before Beth could stop him.

It was only afterwards that she thought, he is going to the Cathedral? Without me? What is going on?

Of course, it was probably because of the paparazzi. The tell-tale photographs had come from cellphones and the newspapers had tweaked and enhanced them in-house. But the paparazzi didn’t find her boring any more. Whenever she stepped outside, they homed in on her like wasps round a jam jar.

‘Do they think I’m going to throw myself into the arms of some passing hunk?’ she asked Lottie irritably, having run the gauntlet of their cameras in order to have her hair done by Carlos, followed by supper with her friend. ‘What do they think I am?’

‘Desperate,’ said Lottie frankly.

‘What?’

‘That’s how you look. Tense and haggard, as if you hadn’t slept for a month. And you’re losing weight again, too. Have you been dieting after that silly photo?’

‘What? No. What are you talking about?’

Lottie blushed and apologised. ‘I was thinking of that photo the mad person put up on their blog. Loyal Subject or whatever they call themselves. It was you standing on the cliff, when the boys were doing their Viking thing. There must have been a stiff breeze because you’re leaning backwards but it blows the front of your waterproof out, as if you’ve got a bit of a tummy. A few of the nastier bloggers were calling you podgy.’

Bella shrugged. ‘I didn’t see it. I don’t look at the internet much. The Press guys send printouts to Trudy, but she says it’s just depressing how badly written it all is. So I don’t see it.’

‘Oh, well, good. So you’re not dieting to look like a skeleton? It just happened?’

Bella flushed. ‘I know. I’ll do better. But it’s almost like being in prison, Lotts. They want me to work at home, too. Well, I can do that. Project evaluation is a solitary activity. I don’t have to go into the city to sit at a desk and do it. But I liked the desk and the office and going round the corner to meet Ma at the pub for lunch.’

Lottie made sympathetic noises. She said she couldn’t envisage a life in which you couldn’t go round the corner to the pub.

Bella smiled, but her smile swiftly died. ‘Everywhere I go I have a palace minder in case I get drunk and fall over and a security officer in case somebody else does. I said I wanted to buy some new knickers and they asked Marks and Spencer to stay open ’specially for me.’

‘I’m impressed.’

‘Don’t be. A great shop like that, with nobody but me and a few Palace watchers in it. Creeped me out.’

Lottie said awkwardly, ‘Bel, do you think – could they be trying to scare you off? Freak you out by showing you what it’s going to be like being Mrs Richard?’

Bella nodded slowly. ‘I thought of that. But I don’t see the point. I told him we could break it off and …’ She drew a long breath. ‘He didn’t want to. He looked horrified. No, the one thing I’m absolutely certain of is that he still wants to marry me, Lotts.’

But, in her heart, she wasn’t certain at all.