Marrying Up (33 page)

Le chateau royal
. A small black and gold sign pointed back
into the town. Polly followed it along a passage of tempting, glossy shops: bags, shoes, a toy emporium selling child-sized
pink tin racing cars of vintage design, an art gallery with what seemed real grass as carpet. She allowed herself one stop
only, at a souvenir shop with postcards of the royal family outside. Just to check, after all, that she had not been dreaming.

No, here was Max all right, slightly resentful in his official uniform, a hint of exasperation in his dark eyes. Polly looked
with interest at the rest of the family. The Queen, sitting with her ankles crossed in a gold-framed armchair, sweet-faced
and Grace Kelly glamorous in a pale blue dress and pearls. The King, she thought, looked squat and pompous. Polly had no doubt
which one of them was forcing Max to marry.

And this, presumably, was Max’s brother. Polly stared into the laughing face of the blond young Prince Giacomo. Her first
impression was how entirely unlike Max he looked. Her second was how closely he resembled the boy who had hijacked the bus.
But that, of course, was impossible.

A noise; a blare and a thump. Hurrying along the passage into the full blaze of a cobbled sunlit square, Polly found the castle
and the source of the sound simultaneously. The band marched up and down, all gleaming breastplates, whirling pompoms and
parping brass. Behind it stood Max’s home.

It was bigger than she had imagined; a huge fortress of the same pale stone as the rest of Sedona, and just as fairy-tale,
with pointed towers like stone pencils, flags, turrets, carved escutcheons and heraldic beasts. A setting for a magical story.
Would it be her story?

She glanced up at the windows glinting in the sunlight. Was Max behind one of them?

She drew a deep, excited breath and strode confidently up to the first of the two white sentry boxes positioned either side
of the great gates. ‘I’ve come to see Prince Maxim,’ she explained to the soldier within, a vision in pale blue, gold buttons
and tight white trousers.

She was delighted as the soldier raised his chin and saluted. Saluting seemed an excellent start.

‘Name?’ barked the soldier.

‘Polly Stevenson.’

The soldier consulted a list. ‘You’re not expected.’

‘I know I’m not expected.’ Polly smiled. ‘I’m a . . . friend. I just happened to be passing.’

The soldier looked at her doubtfully. ‘Members of the royal family are unavailable to casual callers.’

Polly felt suddenly desperate. That admittance to the chateau might be difficult had never occurred to her.

‘Please,’ she said, pleadingly.

‘You must have authorisation,’ the soldier said sternly.

‘So how do I get that?’

‘The normal procedure for an audience with His Royal Highness, or any other member of the royal family, is to put any such
request in handwriting in triplicate.’

‘In
triplicate
?’

The soldier bowed his plumed helmet in affirmation. ‘In triplicate, yes. Twelve months in advance of the desired date.’

Polly felt her grip on her temper loosening. ‘And I suppose it then gets put on a silver salver and handed to the first footman,
who puts it on another salver and hands it to the second footman, who hands it to the third, who hands it to His Majesty?’

‘Exactly that, yes,’ the soldier said mildly. ‘After which, you may, following the appropriate pause, take up the enquiry
with His Majesty’s private secretary.’

‘Thank you,’ Polly said tightly, before turning and walking disconsolately away. There was obviously no point arguing.

The heat beat down. The band thumped on. Polly’s head was starting to ache, and hope was draining from her. Max might be within
the chateau, but she remained very much outside. And going by official channels, she would be unable to see him for twelve
months.

The main square was marked at the four corners by four large
cannon mounted on wheels. Polly leant against the nearest one in despair.

After a number of deep, fortifying breaths, she forced herself to think carefully through the options. Were there any? How
was she to get in? Fairy-tale though it looked, the chateau was nonetheless a castle. Strong, ancient and thick-walled, it
had been built to protect the inmates and repel invaders.

She passed the chateau gates again and stood for some minutes looking up at the façade, willing Max to come to a window.

The soldier from the other sentry box stepped forward. ‘Move along, mademoiselle.’

A blaze of fury possessed Polly. All right, then. If they persisted in treating her like a criminal, she’d behave like one.
Think like one. Were there, she wondered, any breaches in the fortifications? It seemed unlikely. A high, thick wall began
where the gates stopped.

Polly followed the wall until it turned to form the side of a narrow, shady alley. She followed it down; the alley turned
again and led through a wide archway into a large, sunny cobbled courtyard. The back of the building; the service quarters,
Polly realised, just as a large bright blue van roared into the yard and drew to a screeching halt.

Doors banged; two men in blue overalls sprang out. ‘We’ve brought the laundry,’ one of them called to Polly. ‘Here, come and
help us get it out.’

I don’t work here
, Polly was about to say, before experiencing a flash of revelation and hurrying over. Minutes later, her arms piled so high
with snowy cotton that her face could not be seen, she was following the two men in blue overalls into the chateau.

She kept her head down and her eyes on the blue trouser bottoms of the van men. The first room they came into sounded big
and bustling; Polly’s empty stomach surged at the smell of coffee and bacon and eggs. It was evidently breakfast time in the
castle.

There were people about; hellos were exchanged, but no one
asked the men, presumably a regular sight, their business. They passed on, with Polly following, into another room with a
tiled floor. It was shady and very warm and there was a clean smell of soap powder. Drying racks hung from the roof; the walls
were lined with slatted wooden shelves. This, evidently, was the castle laundry.

The men, muttering to each other, loaded their piles of sheets on to the shelves. Then, nodding to Polly, they left.

She remained in the laundry, smoothing the top of the sheet pile over and over again, as she reflected on her enormous luck.
She was in! She had penetrated the mighty defences of the chateau. Now, to find Maxim.

The palace breakfast room looked much as usual when Max, Beano limping gamely at his heels, entered it. The big French windows,
as was normal at this time of year, were open to the breathtaking panorama of mountains sweeping down to a distant sea. Brightness
and air poured into the pretty white and gold chamber.

The King and Queen, sitting at the oval table by the window, looked up in surprise. Max shrugged; admittedly, he had not breakfasted
with the family for some time. He had started to wonder, however, whether cooperation with the authorities, at meal times
at least, might achieve a better result than continuing resistance. He planned also to capitalise on the fact that he had,
as requested, spent the previous evening at Bigski’s party. Would he mention the mad woman at the end? Max was not sure. It
might worry his mother, and no harm had been done. The girl was obviously insane. She had vanished into the darkness as suddenly
as she had appeared. Homeward bound in the cosy darkness of the purring royal car, Max had gradually downgraded his levels
of alarm. By the time he reached the chateau, he thought of his assailant more in sorrow than in anger. She clearly needed
professional help.

The King and Queen were dressed for the official duties that would make up their day; the King in a suit, the Queen with her
usual smooth chignon and in a mint-green sleeveless dress. She
was smiling at Max, but her smile looked a little uncertain. ‘You look exhausted,’ she said.

The King made a noise that sounded oddly snigger-like. Max ignored it, however; he was thinking and acting positively.

‘I’m fine,’ he said brightly, although exhausted was exactly what he was. After the drama of the party, Beano had not been
well again and Max had spent much of the night soothing him.

He was more tired than he thought, Max realised. So tired he was starting to see things. For example, the newspapers his parents
were looking at, the front pages of which were turned towards him, seemed to be dominated by a large photograph of someone
who looked amazingly like himself. Kissing a dark-haired girl.

It was with a plunge of pure horror that the Crown Prince realised it was no trick of the imagination.

He leapt forward and grabbed the newspaper with shaking hands. The photograph really was of him with the madwoman who had
assaulted him on the yacht.

He stared, transfixed, at the headline.
Our Future Queen?
demanded
The Sedonan
. Hot and cold waves of horror coursed through his body. He remembered, as he’d writhed to get free of her grasp, the flashing
and whirring of a camera, but had not connected the two events.

That kiss! He looked as if he were devouring the woman. But it had been the other way round; she had hurled herself at him,
wrapping every limb about his body, wrenching his head down so his lips met hers.

Max fought the overwhelming urge to run screaming from the room. ‘It’s not how it looks,’ he gasped. ‘She was a mad person.’

‘Mad person? That’s not very chivalrous,’ the King remarked placidly.

His father actually looked pleased, Max noticed. But how could he be?

‘You don’t understand.’ Max stared desperately at his parents.
‘I don’t know who took that picture. Or why. I don’t know who that woman is either. She just appeared when I was getting off
Bigski’s boat. Sort of launched herself at me.’

His father was still smiling, however. ‘You hadn’t drunk too much?’ he suggested skittishly.

‘Of course not,’ Max snapped. ‘That’s Giacomo’s territory.’

Astrid did not defend her second son. Instead she said, ‘This girl in the pictures. She’s apparently very respectable.’

‘She wasn’t acting very respectably,’ Max growled.

‘She’s Lady Alexa MacDonald. Of that Ilk,’ the Queen added.

‘Hippolyte knows all about her,’ the King chimed in blithely. ‘According to him, the phones have been ringing off the hook
in the press office. It’s a news sensation, exactly the sort of thing Sedona needs. Everybody wants to know about you and
her.’

‘There’s nothing
to
know!’ Max cried. Beano, at his feet, gave a warning growl.

The breakfast room door now opened and Giacomo wandered in, his handsome, sleepy face showing all the signs of an exceedingly
late night. His expression altered abruptly when he spotted the newspapers. ‘Hey, bro,’ he exclaimed, snatching up one and
scanning the front cover. ‘Good going.’

‘It wasn’t how it looks,’ Max shouted.

‘They all say that,’ Giacomo drawled, flipping back a shining blond lock of hair. ‘I’m always saying it myself.’ He read the
report out loud. ‘After an assignation on a luxury yacht, the besotted Prince sealed his love with a passionate kiss . . .’

‘But I wasn’t! I didn’t!’ Max yelled.

Beano started to bark.

‘Shut up!’ snapped Engelbert.

Beano looked up at his master with an indignant expression. But Max, usually lightning-quick to defend his pet, was too preoccupied
to notice.

‘Hey, what’s the problem?’ Giacomo grinned. ‘She looks hot. Well,’ he allowed, ‘not bad, anyway.’

‘A charming girl.’ The King sniffed, twitching his moustache from side to side. ‘Hippolyte says she is very well connected
at the English court. An aristocrat, no less,’ he added, his voice lingering over the magic word.

Unseen, the Queen made a slight moue at this. Privately she wondered if well-brought-up girls got themselves photographed
kissing passionately on the front pages of newspapers. But perhaps she was being old-fashioned. Engelbert had been delighted
that a pretty and, apparently, well-connected girl, to whom Max was clearly attracted, had appeared on the scene.

And yet Max’s reaction seemed one of genuine horror. That he would deny all knowledge of it, she had been warned to expect.
Yet there was defensive and defensive, Astrid thought, and Max’s reaction was beyond anything she had anticipated.

Engelbert had sidled up to his son. ‘Nothing to be ashamed of,’ he said with a smirk, elbowing Max in the side in jocular
fashion. ‘We all have to sow our wild oats.’

Pretending she had not heard, Astrid fiddled with her linen napkin.

Max rounded on his father, eyes sparking with anger and frustration. ‘Wild oats have nothing to do with it,’ he cried.

There was a knock; Monsieur Hippolyte entered. His hair was carefully arranged in its usual determinedly black bouffant and
his brown face – curiously smooth for his age – was wreathed in smiles. ‘Very positive press coverage, Your Royal Highness,’
he remarked, bowing in Maxim’s direction. ‘May I offer my congratulations.’

‘There’s nothing to congratulate me about,’ the Crown Prince snapped.

Monsieur Hippolyte’s round eyes met the King’s and they exchanged an understanding smile. ‘Of course. It’s early days,’ the
private secretary said. ‘There are, to put it mildly, quite a number of newspapers interested in this story, but I’ll tell
them all no comment, shall I?’

As Hippolyte bowed and withdrew, Maxim turned in despair
to his mother. ‘It’s not early days, Mum. It’s not “no comment”. It’s not anything.’

Astrid looked back at him helplessly, wondering what to think. Suddenly it did not seem at all clear.

It was more than clear to the King, however.

‘Be sensible,’ he urged his son. His voice was reasonable and friendly. ‘She looks like good breeding stock, this girl.’

To Max it seemed as if everything stood absolutely still. He felt suddenly very cold, despite the summer morning. ‘You’re
not . . .’ His teeth were chattering in his skull. ‘You’re not suggesting . . . I should
marry
this woman?’