To Marry a Prince

Chapter 8

‘Can You Keep a Secret?’ – Girl About Town

It was the start of the strangest two weeks of her life. Basically she felt she was living two lives. There was the Bella who was picking up the strands of her old life, seeing friends, working at the dentist’s surgery, meeting her brother for a drink.

And there was the Bella who took Richard’s phone calls and made dates to meet him which got cancelled at the last minute.

Lottie, the only one who knew, shook her head. ‘He’s got you on a string.’

‘He can’t help it,’ said Bella defensively. ‘His father isn’t well. Richard’s taking up the slack. And I can’t call him. He’s always in a meeting or on his way somewhere. Surrounded by people anyway. So he can’t talk, not properly. He has to phone me when he’s alone. Well, he does if we want to keep it secret.’

Lottie sniffed. ‘Which leaves him calling all the shots.’

‘Yes, but that wasn’t his choice,’ Bella said candidly. ‘He was willing to take our chances with people finding out. I was the one who wanted to keep it, well, private.’

Lottie shook her head over this lunacy. ‘Why on earth?’

‘I thought it would be easier to back away from, if it didn’t work out. You know the idea. Keep it casual and nobody gets hurt.’

‘This is casual?’

Bella stiffened. ‘We’re not committed or anything.’

‘You could have fooled me,’ muttered Lottie into the fridge.

‘Neither of us has made any promises,’ Bella told the back of her head, loudly and clearly.

Lottie took out her breakfast orange juice. ‘OK, OK. Keep your hair on. You’re both fancy-free. You can each date anyone you like.’

Bella glared.

‘No, I thought you didn’t mean that,’ said Lottie with satisfaction. ‘Oh, go to work and give someone else hell. I need to put on a happy face.’

But, even if her flat-mate disapproved, at least Bella could talk to Lottie about Richard. With everyone else, she had to remember not to mention him. What was worse, she couldn’t talk about anywhere they’d been together in case it invited questions and she let something slip. It made for some silent coffee breaks.

‘This thing is changing my character,’ she told Richard when they snatched half an hour in a bookshop café in Piccadilly.

‘Mine too,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Until I met you, I’d never gone out in disguise before.’ Today he was wearing jeans and a lopsided baseball cap along with Clark Kent spectacles with no lenses in them.

She leaned forward and straightened the baseball cap. ‘Your own mother wouldn’t know you.’

‘I know. I’m getting good at this. The secret is to look like a nerd. Nobody looks at nerds twice.’

She grinned. ‘Greater love hath no man, than he will dress up as a nerd for his lady.’

He made a face. ‘Not just dress up. I’m playing hide and seek with my security patrol too. And those guys are trained.’

That hadn’t occurred to Bella. She said in quick alarm, ‘You’re not putting yourself in danger?’

‘Nah. I’m just being a bit less amenable than usual. It gets us half-hours like these while they scamper round looking for me.’

But Bella was still worried.

He touched her cheek reassuringly. ‘It’s good for them. A couple of those guys had written me off as a p-ssycat. Now they know different.’

‘But—’

‘Hey, they were due a challenge.’

She stared at him for a long moment and made a discovery. ‘You’re enjoying it.’

‘Too right.’ He caught himself. ‘Though, of course, I’m only doing it for you.’

‘I feel truly cherished,’ said Bella with irony.

‘So you should.’ Even though he was teasing, the warmth in his eyes was like a caress.

She laughed and conceded him the point. And after he had slipped away, back to business-as-usual, she carried that look with her all day.

It was turning out to be more difficult to see each other than Bella could ever have imagined. ‘It’s the time of year,’ Richard said. ‘People go mad, trying to shoe-horn in a Royal event before Christmas. One day I’m in London in the morning, Cornwall for lunch and Manchester for dinner in the evening. Crazy. It will be better in the New Year.’

‘You were going to let me see your diary,’ Bella reminded him. They were curled round each other on Lottie’s sofa, drinking hot chocolate and half watching an old Audrey Hepburn movie.

He was surprised. ‘I thought Ian had already sent it to you. I’ll get it sorted tomorrow.’

Lottie came in from work then, tired but pleased with the way her evening PR event had gone. Richard untangled himself and stood up, courteously. Bella turned off the television.

‘No, don’t do that,’ said Lottie, kicking off her shoes and padding across to the fire. ‘Finish your film. I’m beat. I’ll just fall into bed.’

But she was so obviously cold and hyped up that Bella insisted on making her some hot chocolate too while Richard built up the fire so that Lottie could toast her toes.

‘I have to be going soon anyway,’ he said with regret. ‘Early start tomorrow. I’m on board ship for breakfast.’

Lottie shuddered and held her hands to the blaze. ‘Rather you than me.’

‘It’ll be fine. The only problem is sorting out time for Bella and me to be together.’

‘He’s very inventive,’ Bella remarked, bringing in Lottie’s hot chocolate. ‘He escapes from his minders and comes dressed as a nerd. So far we’ve met in a bank, a bookshop, and on the main concourse at St Pancras Station. And nobody has given us a second glance.’

‘People see what they expect to see,’ Lottie agreed.

But later, when Richard had gone, she said, ‘I have an idea. Do you know which evening receptions he’s going to? Say, striking distance of London?’

Bella didn’t. But Ian did eventually disgorge Richard’s official programme.

‘Poor lamb, first of all he has to go to endless drinks receptions. Then he goes on to dinners and gets made speeches at,’ she told Lottie.

‘Hmm. Can you still do silver service?’

When they were students, they had both earned extra dosh from moonlighting as waitresses at weddings and directors’ lunches. Bella said now, ‘I suppose so. Why?’

‘Because I think you ought to tell Anthea that you’re available for some evening work.’

‘What? Why? I’m not short of money—’

Lottie sighed patiently. ‘There’s no reason for Richard to be the only one who’s inventive. You get yourself on to the caterers’ waitress roster and surprise him. Ta da!’

Bella thought about it. ‘That’s not a bad idea, Lotts.’

‘Although you’d have to get clearance to work at Royal dos, I suppose.’

‘I’ll ask Ian,’ said Bella, more and more intrigued by the idea.

The security officer thought it was a hoot and put her in touch with a terrifying woman who provided stand-in footmen and butlers for big Palace occasions. With Christmas coming up, Ellen Catering would be looking for extra occasional staff, she said, and with a Royal security officer as one referee, Bella was a godsend. Could she also provide three other references, including one from a minister of the cloth and one from a JP? Bella did. Nothing happened.

In fact, it took so long that she had almost forgotten the wheeze. Then one night in November, she got a phone call out of the blue. Would she be available that night to serve at a reception at the Landscape Gallery? Their staff had been struck by ’flu and Lottie had mentioned that Ms Greenwood might be available.

Bella consulted the coded notes she had transcribed into her own diary and saw that Richard would be going to the reception before dinner with the gallery’s director. Realistically there was not much chance of seeing him, still less managing to talk to him, she knew. Still, at least they would be in the same room and, if she got lucky, she could wave across the room at him. They had developed a series of rather good secret agents’ hand signals.

‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Where and when?’

They told her. Also, could she provide her own black trousers and shoes, as flat as possible? They would give her their uniform steward’s jacket, but she would need something black to wear underneath it.

Bella swapped duties with another receptionist and left work early to race home and bundle her supplies together. She did not have time to get out to the caterer’s West London headquarters, but turned up at the tradesmen’s entrance of the gallery as arranged.

The kitchen was in the state of controlled ferment that Bella recognised from her student years. She slotted in with the ease of long practice. The only thing that surprised her was that her steward’s jacket turned out to be quite sexy, white with black piping, nipped in at the waist and rather low-cut.

‘Not ideal. White shows every mark and people will spill things,’ said the organiser briskly. ‘But the laundry didn’t get our black uniforms back in time. So we’re down to our summer yacht club rig. Oh, well, at least the presence of Royalty should stop a food fight breaking out.’

It was a huge party, nearly a thousand guests, Bella calculated. It spilled over five galleries and two floors and out on to a heated terrace. She was run off her feet, carrying large silver trays of canapés to the furthest corners of the room, fending off hungry guests until she got to her appointed station. As she expected, she did not get so much as a sniff of the Royal party.

‘You’re good,’ said the organiser, impressed. ‘Take this through to the Woodley Gallery. It’s for the directors’ party. Make sure the ravening hordes don’t strip it bare before you get there.’

‘That means it’s the hypoallergenic tray for the Big Wigs,’ one of the other waitresses told her, looking harassed. ‘Sir Brian Woodley is the guy who gave the money for this new gallery, and he can’t eat eggs, dairy, nuts … God knows what else. All that worrying over his billions, I guess. Who’d be rich? Good luck!’

Bella got the tray through the crowds and was directed to the official party. The speeches were over and they were standing in front of a picture of a cliff overlooking a stormy sea. She moved quietly among them, concentrating on keeping the big tray level and trying to identify the food-challenged benefactor, when she heard a strangled sound to her left.

Looking round, she saw Richard staring at her.

Staring? Glaring, more like, completely ignoring the VIP who was talking to him, and narrowing his eyes at her as if she and her canapés would poison him.

She recoiled. Her tray tilted dangerously.

‘Whoops,’ said one of the VIPs, restoring it to the horizontal.

‘I’m so sorry,’ murmured Bella, tearing her eyes away from Richard.

He looked furious. She had never thought of that and was completely taken aback. So she concentrated so hard on what she was doing that it hurt.

Nobody else seemed to notice or to blame her for the near accident. Indeed, she got a kind word from the director and a nod of appreciation from the egg-allergic benefactor. But Bella could only be thankful when the tray was cleared and she could race back to the kitchen.

Only, as she approached the staircase – ‘One moment,’ said a voice behind her.

She turned. It was Richard, still furious, she could see, but hiding it well under a layer of courtesy as he shed his attendant VIP with smiling charm and strode over to her, through the crowd. She flattened herself against the wall, in the hopes that he wanted to get past her. But no such luck.

‘Can you get me another of those anchovy pastries?’ he said loudly.

‘Y-y-yes, of course.’

‘Sir.’

‘Wh-what?’

He said under his breath, ‘You call me “Sir”. Or people will notice.’ But for once his eyes weren’t smiling when he said it.

What was wrong?

‘Of course, Sir,’ said Bella, confused.

‘Well, jump to it then.’

She jumped.

The kitchen was impressed. ‘Hey, His Royalness likes our anchovy straws,’ said the organiser. ‘Nibbles by Royal Appointment, no less.’

The chef put a fresh batch into the oven and Bella took a smaller tray on a quick circuit of the nearest room, to be back as soon as the anchovy straws were cooked.

Fifteen minutes later, she was weaving her way through the guests on the big staircase again, this time carrying a small basket of warm savoury pastries, looking for Richard. When she finally saw him, he was standing firmly in front of a set of three paintings, listening to a guide, or it might even be the artist, hold forth to the director’s party.

Bella hesitated. As if he could feel her eyes on him, Richard looked up and made one of their hand signals, acknowledging her and pointing towards the far end of the screen. It was so fleeting that nobody could have been certain that he did it, or not unless they were watching him closely.

He was a born conspirator, thought Bella, somewhat reassured. She must remember to tell him so.

She eased her way through the crowd. There was a respectful distance between the director’s party and everyone else, which resulted in even tighter bunching at the margins. Several times she lost sight of Richard altogether and by the time she got to the edge of the screen, he and his host and fellow guests had moved on. She hovered, not sure whether she was meant to follow them or not. But even as she stood there undecided, she saw Richard’s head turn and he was retracing his steps. He did not look up – he was frowning down at the catalogue – but he made a gesture which just might have been a signal to retreat behind the screen

Oh, hell, thought Bella. Still, what have I got to lose?

She backed round it, and found herself in a narrow space, full of chairs and signboards. She nearly backed out again, only almost immediately Richard was with her.

‘Quick.’ He put one hand over her shoulder and did something complicated to a wall-mounted console she had not noticed. A bit of wall slid away behind her. ‘Inside.’

Bella backed, predictably stumbling a little. She caught hold of him to steady herself and stood there, blinking, as the wall closed again behind him. It left them in darkness except for the street lights beyond the uncurtained windows. Richard’s breathing was thunderous.

They appeared to be in a small boardroom. Just at the moment, it was a dumping ground, not only for chairs but for stepladders, paint pots and, unmistakably, dust sheets. It smelled of turpentine.

‘Gosh. They only just got the place finished in time, didn’t they?’ Bella said brightly.

But Richard was not interested in the gallery’s refurbishment issues.

He towered over her like an avenging angel. ‘Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?’

Before she could answer, he drove her back against the baize-covered boardroom table and was kissing the life out of her.

When at last Bella got her breath back – some of her breath back – he was kissing her neck, her hair, her temples, and muttering. She swallowed hard.

‘Um—’

‘You’re crazy,’ he whispered urgently. ‘You know that? Mad as a Cornish cat. This party is crawling with photographers, journalists of all persuasions, not to mention a whole bunch of people who would sell their granny for a name check in the gossip columns. And you waltz in, looking like something out of a 1940s musical, and expect to get away with it?’

‘Nobody looks at waiters.’

His laugh was half a groan. ‘They look at perky waitresses dressed like cabin boys. Sexy cabin boys.’

‘Oh.’

‘I just bet there’s half a dozen dirty old men out there who already have your picture on their phone.’ He flipped open her mess jacket and did some complicated breathing into her cleavage. ‘God, you’re gorgeous,’ he said, muffled.

Bella’s head went back and her toes started to do that curling-for-the-carpet thing again.

‘Is this wise?’ Her voice came out high and breathless.

‘Nope.’ He was laughing, intent, and there was no way he was letting her go.

She was wracked with pleasure. ‘What if someone comes in?’

‘Your problem,’ he said smugly, not raising his head. ‘I don’t care.’

She gave an involuntary gasp of pleasure. ‘Don’t do that.’

He did lift his head then. ‘Don’t you like it?’

‘That’s not the point.’

‘Thought so,’ he said with satisfaction, and went back to driving her quietly out of her mind.

Bella stuffed her knuckles in her mouth and concentrated on not screaming the roof off. Then various irritating fastenings began to give and her concentration became even more focused. They toppled sideways, Richard laughing like a maniac. She felt a shoe fall away, then her trousers and suddenly he wasn’t laughing any more and neither was she, as they pulled at each other’s clothes almost desperately.

A bit – a tiny and diminishing bit – of her brain said: I don’t do things like this. And nor does he!

But her body wasn’t having any truck with that. There was that moment of total completion as he slid inside her and then they were off on a crazy ride and she stopped thinking at all.

She floated gently back to earth to find he had collapsed on top of her, his mouth against the naked skin of her armpit. Naked? How did she get naked? She smelled warm skin and freshly laundered cotton and shampoo. Or was it aftershave? And, distantly, the whiff of new paint. She moistened her lips and discovered she was tasting champagne that she had never drunk.

‘Oh, Lord,’ she said, as her brain came tiptoeing timidly back into consciousness.

He stirred. His tumbled hair was soft against her sensitised breast. Bella shivered involuntarily.

‘Whaaa?’

She began to push at him. ‘We need to move. We’ve got clothes to find.’

At once he was alert. He sprang to his feet, only to trip over his own trousers and stagger, hobbled, to the boardroom table. He held on to it like a drunk in a Western saloon.

‘Jesus!’

Bella could not help herself. She started to laugh and couldn’t stop, lying on the carpet convulsed and helpless.

He looked down at her, sprawled and giggling. He ran a hand through his wild hair. A slow smile dawned.

‘You are disgracefully tempting—’

And then the worst imaginable thing happened. A door that neither of them had been aware of opened at the far end of the room.

He dropped like a stone to the carpet and rolled under the table. Bella hauled up her trousers and grabbed her jacket, trying to wriggle deeper into the shadows and join him. She found that she had picked up a carpet burn.

‘Ouch!’

She shut up at once. But was it too late? She could not see anyone for the piles of chairs and the big table. But that door was definitely still open. She held her breath, aware that Richard, too, was hardly breathing. His hand felt for her across the carpet and she realised that he was sitting with his knees up, his back against the table leg. He gathered her against him, comfortingly, and they braced themselves for discovery as Bella buttoned her steward’s jacket.

A hectoring voice said, ‘This looks terrible. If Sir Brian asks, you’ll just have to say that the paint is still wet. We’ll have to keep it locked. We can’t have Royalty coming in here.’

‘Too late,’ muttered Richard into Bella’s hair.

She started to shake again, with agonising, silent laughter.

The bossy person went out and closed the door decisively. Silence and shadows reigned again.

‘Oh – my – God,’ said Bella on a long, shaky breath.

Richard was stuffing his beautiful shirt back into his trousers. ‘Too right,’ he said with feeling.

She thumped back against the piled chairs with a great sigh of relief.

‘I thought we were for it.’

‘Yup. Me too.’

But he didn’t sound as worried at the thought as she would have expected. Instead, he sounded positively tranquil. Even pleased with himself.

‘What happened to that terminal good behaviour syndrome?’

He laughed. ‘I must be getting over it at last.’

He stood up, shaking out his jacket, and held his hand down to help her up. She took it and came lightly to her feet.

Trying for normality, she said, ‘That was unexpected.’ Her voice did not sound like her own.

‘Tell me about it.’

Richard’s hair was all over the place. Her fault, Bella realised. She tried to restore order to it, without much success.

He caught her hand and carried it to his lips, kissing the palm. ‘Why didn’t you tell me what you were going to do? Do you know what I felt when I saw you?’

‘Yup. I think that was pretty clear.’

‘You were damned lucky I kept my cool.’

She wriggled a little, appreciatively. ‘Not that cool.’

He shook his head, laughing. ‘Call it a slow burn, then.’ He shot his cuffs. ‘Have you any idea how far outside my comfort zone this is?’

Bella was indignant. ‘And whose fault is that?’

‘Mine. Mine.’

‘If you hadn’t jumped on me …’

‘Stop it,’ he said, not laughing now.

She widened her eyes, innocently.

‘And you can stop looking like that, too. I have three hours of speeches, compliments, and landscape art to get through. I need Zen, not—’

‘Not—?’

‘Not an inner eye full of you looking, well, like that.’

Bella raised an eyebrow.

‘OK. OK.’ He re-buttoned the offending mess jacket and straightened it over her hips. His hands lingered, as if they had a will of their own. But he said, ‘No!’ and put her away from him with resolution. ‘I have places to go, people to be bored by. This has gone far enough. I am leaving now.’

Just before he pressed the button to slide the door open, he turned and said as if it were desperately important, ‘I need to be with you tonight. Will Lottie be OK with that?’

‘I’ll sort it,’ said Bella, dazed.

‘Of course,’ said Lottie, when she called.

She didn’t ask any more and Bella didn’t volunteer any confidences. But they had known each other a long time.

‘I think I’ll stay over at Katy’s. We’re going to a movie and it will be easier.

So they had the flat and the night to themselves. And they didn’t talk about the diary, or the dangers of being found out, or friends, or family, or anything but the moment and what they wanted next.

It was their last night together for nearly two weeks. There were no more evenings in front of Lottie’s fire, not even curtailed ones. They spoke during snatched moments on the phone, several times a day. Although they went on to radio silence, at Bella’s request, when her mother came up to Town for a day of exhibitions, shopping and pampering.

‘I can’t face standing next to her and talking to you on the phone,’ Bella told Richard frankly. ‘She’d be over the moon if she knew. I couldn’t bear it. I know that. But not telling her feels so underhand, somehow.’

‘I can relate to that. OK, silent running on Thursday. We can have a nice long call after midnight to make up for it.’

They did. But in all that time they only met face to face twice: once in a sandwich shop, with Richard disguised in jeans and a Millwall supporter’s scarf; once at a literacy fund-raiser for which Lottie’s company was doing the PR. Richard was guest of honour, of course, very princely in tuxedo and all the trappings, monogrammed cuff links included. He and Bella had a sedate dance. She did her usual trick of falling over her feet. He managed to stay looking regally courteous and kept her at a decent distance, but a muscle worked in his cheek, and she knew it was no easier for him than for her.

‘This is torture,’ Bella muttered.

‘I know. I’m sorry. You’ve been very patient. And at least we’ve got dinner next week.’

‘A whole evening! Do you think you can stick to it this time?’

‘Definitely. I’ve told everyone on my staff that nobody, nobody, interferes with my night off. If they try to put anything in my diary that evening, I’ll send them all on an endurance team-building exercise in Sutherland in December.’

Bella laughed up at him. ‘That should scare them.’

His arm tightened. ‘Too right.’ He looked down at her searchingly. ‘How are you doing, my love?

‘Fine. Great. I’m seeing Neill tomorrow. He’s come up to London for some teachers’ bash and we’re having a quick meal before he gets the train home.’

‘Sorry I can’t meet him.’

Bella shifted uncomfortably. She was coming to realise that Richard didn’t understand why she didn’t want to tell her family. He was fine with keeping their relationship secret from the media. But it was increasingly obvious that he minded not telling his own family, especially his brother George. And he’d said more than once that he would like to meet various members of her family. He didn’t press it but it was there, undiscussed, like so much of this relationship.

She said now, ‘Maybe some day.’

‘I’ll hold you to that.’

Bella thought he probably would. God, this thing was going so fast.

She said defiantly, ‘Anyway, you haven’t got a window to meet anyone new for months. Don’t forget I’ve seen the diary.’

He laughed. ‘Have you studied it so closely?’

‘Ian more or less told me to eat it after I’d read it, so I thought I’d better. You know I’ve only got hard copy? He refused to let me have a memory stick. Said I might lose it.’

‘He’s a careful man.’

She harrumphed. ‘He went on as if it were a state secret.’

He laughed aloud. ‘Bits of it probably are state secrets.’

‘Oh, God, I keep forgetting.’

He looked as if he wanted to kiss her. ‘Carry on forgetting. I like it.’

So Bella went to meet her brother next day wearing a big fat smile that she could not get rid of, no matter what she did.

Waiting for her in their favourite Covent Garden wine bar, Neill, not normally the most observant of men, saw it at once. ‘You look cheerful.’

‘I am.’ She hugged him.

He raised an eyebrow. ‘Do I need to congratulate you?’

At once she was wary. ‘What? Why? What have you heard?’

‘Francis proposed, has he?’

‘What?’

‘Ma thinks that you’ve left the island so Francis would miss you, see the error of his ways and propose.’

Bella snorted. ‘Ma is delusional,’ she said, settling herself on a tall stool and inspecting the cocktail list. ‘Francis is history. Except for whiny texts when he can’t find something, of course. And even those are tailing off.’

She could feel her brother studying her. ‘And that’s OK?’

She shrugged. ‘I get pissed off when I have to give him a step-by-step guide to find something for the fifth time. Apart from that, no problems.’

Neill looked relieved. ‘I’m glad. I mean, I know he does good work and everything. But he really is a pompous prick.’

Bella agreed cordially.

‘But Ma was so sure you had a thing for him.’

‘I did for a while,’ Bella admitted. ‘I grew out of it.

Have you tried any of these nineteen twenties cocktails?’

He shook his head.

She considered. ‘What do I feel like? A Side Car ? A White Lady? Or what about a Perfect Lady? That sounds like me. And it’s got peach in it.’

He hooted. ‘A Perfect Lady? You?’

Bella was oddly put out. ‘Oh, come on, Neill. I’m not that bad.’

‘You’re not bad at all,’ he said affectionately. ‘You’re great. You’re just not a lady.’

‘Ouch.’

‘Good thing, too. Ladies are a pain in the butt,’ said Neill with unusual bitterness. ‘Always poking and prying, and showing off to each other, and telling you what to do.’

This was serious. Bella put down the cocktail card.

‘What’s wrong, Neill?’

He shifted his shoulders irritably. ‘Don’t you start. Ma has been at me ever since I told her Val and I weren’t coming for Christmas.’

‘Er – yes. She said something about that.’

‘I just bet she did.’

‘She seemed to think you’d been talking to Finn. She said it was all his fault?’

He laughed but it didn’t sound amused. ‘Tell me about it. Val and I want to stay in our own home for Christmas, so it has to be somebody’s fault. What can I say? From Ma’s perspective, Finn’s the usual suspect.’

Bella said cautiously, ‘Doesn’t sound like him.’

‘Too right. When did our father ever notice Christmas?’

There was that new note of bitterness again. Neill rubbed his face and Bella realised how tired he looked, not just tired after a heavy day’s conferencing, but bone tired, as if he’d been carrying something for too long and had just suddenly ground to a halt.

Feeling even more worried, she said, ‘Has something happened?’

He gave her a stricken look and his eyes filled suddenly. Horrified, Bella realised that she had hit paydirt. And that was exactly the moment that the barman came up to take their order.

‘Perfect Lady,’ she said at random. ‘And a Brandy Alexander for my brother.’ Because that was what he had liked years ago, before he was married. ‘We’ll sit over there in that alcove. Can you bring them over?’

‘Sure thing,’ said the barman easily.

Bella grabbed up their coats and Neill’s briefcase and herded her brother towards the secluded table. The wine bar was in an old cellar and its brickwork walls were supported by numberless arches, providing alcoves that gave an illusion of privacy. She dived for one of the smallest. It was clearly designed for lovers, with a little candle flickering in a glass holder and a fresh posy on the polished table, but that couldn’t be helped.

Neill sank down on to the old settle and blew his nose hard.

‘Sorry about that,’ he said, plainly embarrassed. ‘Been a long day.’

‘Stuff has obviously been going on while I’ve been away. Come on, give.’

He leaned back and closed his eyes. ‘OK. I s’pose I’ve got to tell someone.’

Bella felt a cold clutch in her stomach. ‘There’s something wrong between you and Val?’ They had always seemed so in love, so good for each other, the successful businesswoman and Bella’s gentle, laid-back brother.

He opened his eyes. ‘You’re not to tell anyone else, right? Particularly not Ma. Promise?’

‘I promise.’

That was when the dam broke. ‘It’s like I can’t do anything right. She’s angry all the time. When she gets home, if I talk to her, I’m insensitive because after a fourteen-hour day she is too exhausted to make conversation, just to amuse me. And if I don’t talk to her, I’m taking her for granted. Or ignoring her. Or being petty and spiteful … I tell you, Bella, I’m lost.’

She was appalled. ‘What started it? Something must have.’

He looked wretched. ‘Val lost a baby,’ he said baldly.

‘Oh, Neill, no. I’m so sorry.’

‘I didn’t realise it would be so bad. I mean, we’d only just found out she was pregnant. It wasn’t planned or anything. In fact, Val wasn’t very keen at first. She said it was the wrong time in her career. But then we both got used to the idea and, well, it’s exciting, isn’t it? So we had about a week of talking through plans and thinking about baby names and, then she had this bad cramp and – well, it happened.’

Bella took his hand. Neill looked surprised. They were not a demonstrative family. But he seemed to appreciate it and did not draw away.

‘At first, Val was great. Very practical, you know? The doctor said there was nothing wrong with her, it was just one of those things, no reason why we couldn’t have other children. And she said that was good to know and she was glad she hadn’t told anyone. She went back to work at once.’ He looked at Bella wretchedly. ‘That was the only time I did anything. I did say, “Stay at home, take a few days to recover.” But Val was so sure she could handle it. And so I didn’t argue.’

‘It would take a strong man to argue with Val,’ said Bella, who was fond of her sister-in-law but careful around her.

‘I should have been strong,’ said Neill, even more wretched.

‘So what are you going to do? Counselling?’

He shook his head. ‘I suggested that. Val won’t hear of it. She says it’s our business, nobody else’s. She says it’s just because she’s overworked at the moment and we’ll come through this.’

It didn’t sound like it to Bella. ‘But?’ she prompted.

‘Sundays are hell,’ Neill burst out. ‘I can cope most of the week. I have lesson plans and marking and Val leaves early and more often than not it’s nearly midnight when she gets home. So we’re not together that much. But Sundays are a battlefield.’ He gave a short unamused laugh. ‘That’s what I was talking to Finn about, to be honest.’

‘You were asking for advice about marriage from Finn?’

‘Good God, no. I was after advice on weekend adventure activities. Something where I’d have to do lots of training. Something to keep me out of the house all Sunday, basically.’

Bella was silenced.

‘Oh, well, I suppose we’ll sort it out somehow. People do, don’t they?’

Their parents hadn’t, thought Bella. She did not say so but she could see from Neill’s expression that he was thinking the same thing.

They had a subdued meal, and when the time came to part Bella felt so tender of him that she saw him to the mainline station. At the barrier she hugged him hard, as if he were going off on some long and terrible voyage and stood watching him stomp off down the platform until he boarded the train.

Bella felt very cold, going back to Lottie’s flat. Cold and lonely. The Underground was harshly lit and everyone else in the carriage seemed to be part of a couple, holding hands or cuddled up together against the world. The flat was dark and empty. She remembered: Lottie was working again tonight. Just like Richard, she thought. He was at a gala concert in Leeds, followed by some sort of reception. He would not be answering his phone.

But suddenly Bella desperately needed to speak to him. So she didn’t text but left a voice mail.

‘Saw my brother. Things aren’t good. When you get a moment, I’d like to, well, hear a friendly voice, really.’ She tried to pull herself together. ‘Hope the music was good.’

It wasn’t worth lighting the freshly laid log fire. So she put on the small electric fire to boost the central heating and huddled over it in the dark, too sad to read or even to go to bed.

She did not know how long she sat there in the half-dark before the phone rang. She checked the number and felt better at once.

‘Hello, Richard.’

‘Hello, lovely. Tell me everything.’

She did. Well, some of it. Some of it was Neill’s private business, of course, and Val’s.

‘But when I looked at him, I could see all those years of awfulness when Finn and my mother were married. I could see it all starting up again with Neill and Val. And I knew he did too. He looked so forlorn, Richard. I wanted to make it better. And I couldn’t.’

There was a short pause. Then, ‘Where are you?’ he asked.

‘In the flat,’ said Bella, surprised.

‘Where’s Lottie?’

‘Doing a product launch in Birmingham.’

‘So she won’t be back tonight?’

Bella looked at her watch. ‘Shouldn’t think so. Not now.’

‘Blast!’ He sounded worried.

She hastened to reassure him. ‘Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to talk to Lottie. If she were here, I’d be curled up in my room. I don’t want to talk to anyone. Except you.’

There was an odd silence. For a moment she thought she’d lost the signal.

‘Richard? Are you still there?’

He said decisively, ‘Right. Don’t go to bed. I’ll be there as soon as I can.’

‘What?’

‘I don’t want you to be on your own,’ he said simply. ‘Not feeling like this.’

‘Oh, Richard.’

‘I’ll call you as soon as I have an ETA.’ And he rang off.

Bella felt so much better after that, she actually roused herself enough to make a cup of tea. She turned on the table lamps in the sitting room and then went into the kitchen and did the washing up from breakfast.

And then Richard called back.

‘Two hours.’

She nearly dropped the toast rack she was decrumbing. ‘That’s impossible.’

He sounded angry, though not with her. ‘No, it isn’t. I might be a horrible boyfriend in the support department and too far away when you need me, but at least I have access to helicopters. See you later.’

He cut the call before she could argue.

‘Wow,’ said Bella, sitting down slowly on the sofa. She felt as if someone had sandbagged her when she wasn’t looking. She felt muzzy-headed and she couldn’t seem to breathe properly. ‘Did he say he was my boyfriend?’

She decided to light the fire after all.

When he arrived she flew to the front door and walked into his arms. They stayed there for ages, just hugging in the dark little hallway.

‘Thank you,’ she said at last in a muffled voice.

‘Thank you,’ he said, kissing her hair.

‘What? Why?’ she asked, honestly puzzled. ‘I mean, I throw a wobbly and you thank me? What for?’

‘For calling me.’

She pushed herself away from him a little and stared up at his face. He seemed very serious.

She said uncertainly, ‘I don’t think I understand.’

‘OK. What about this? For wanting me with you.’

Bella had that breathless, sandbagged feeling again.

Keeping his arm round her, he walked her back into the sitting room. The fire was blazing cheerfully. It felt like home.

She said so.

The arm round her tightened like a vice.

But all Richard said was, ‘Right.’