The Runaway Princess (4 page)

E
veryone surged forward, and Ted and Rolf reappeared from the scrum of shocked onlookers, as my teeth continued to chatter with delayed shock. It was a
long
way down from that balcony.

Rolf, however, was doing a very good impression of someone who nearly falls out of windows at every party. He brushed dead leaves off his shiny shirt as if nothing had happened and made a “drinky drinky?” gesture to a nearby girl, but his blond mate grabbed him by the arm and whispered furiously into his ear. He seemed less than impressed—whether with Rolf for making a show of himself, or with us for having a potentially lethal balcony, I couldn’t make out.

Meanwhile, a couple of girls rushed over to Ted and patted him like a big hero. He looked startled, then disengaged himself to sort out the iPod, and to my relief, Beyoncé was blaring out of the stereo again before you could say
“awkward.”

Rolf beckoned me over, back on the charm offensive. I went, praying Jo was on her way back up to deliver the telling-off I wasn’t sure I’d be able to summon up. Even though he totally deserved it.

Or maybe we did. Who was supposed to have locked the doors? Jo … or me?

“This is all your fault.” Rolf shook his head flirtily. “If you’d been here—”

“If I’d been here, I’d have told you not to go on the balcony,” I said. “In fact, I was. Couldn’t you hear me yelling?”

“Have you never seen
Romeo and Juliet
?” He pouted.

“That doesn’t work on me,” I said.

“It will. Give it time. Listen, the Rolex has spoken. I need to move on. Where’s the lovely Josephine?”

“I don’t know.”

Rolf’s pout intensified. “Playing hard to get. At her own party.
Quel
style.” He snapped his fingers, pointing to the door. “Anyhoo, with deep regret, the Rolf Express is departing this station. Are you on board?”

“This is my party!” I protested. “Of course I’m not on board!”

“Too bad.” He grabbed my hand, kissed it, then made a clicking noise: two broad-shouldered men I hadn’t seen before materialized and ushered him to the door, making a wall of navy-blue blazer between him and anyone trying to follow. The trio of blondes trailed behind, one of them staggering under the weight of a cooler. Rolf made one last salute at the door, which only about four people caught, then he was off.

I still had no idea who he was, but I felt as if half the oxygen had just left the room.

“Don’t think the Rolf Express is taking passengers from this station,” said Ted.

“The Rolf Express should be
canceled
,” said Jo, appearing from nowhere with a dark look on her face, despite the glitter. “I’ve a good mind to put a cow on the line. Rolf is such a … a …”

“Perfect example of someone you’d meet in hell?” suggested Ted. “Maybe even the bloke who’d be in charge of the entertainments?”

“Where did you spring from?” I demanded. “Did you
see
all that?”

“I caught the last bit.” Jo squirmed.

“Then why didn’t you stop him?” I started to ask, but she’d gone over to the stereo and was starting to whip everyone into joining her doing the “Single Ladies” dance. We’d spent many happy hours dissecting that routine, although only Jo could do it in high heels.

From the way she was geeing everyone along, I assumed Marigold
hadn’t
left the gas on downstairs.

“What’s up with her?” I asked Ted, as Jo did the flippy hand action with surprising attitude for a history of art graduate. “Did she invite him? Does she know him?”

“Rolf? Oh yeah. I think there’s some history there,” he yelled.

My eyes popped. “Rolf? And Jo?”

I couldn’t hear what else Ted said, but his face was really saying it all. He was trying to make his face nonchalant, but failing as only a man allergic to emotional conversations can.

I would have hung around and been more sympathetic, but
unfortunately
for Ted, at that point I realized that Rolf’s very handsome blond mate hadn’t left the party but was trying to catch my eye over his shoulder.

*

I
t took all my concentration to walk over to him without treading on any guests or bowls of olives. By the time I finally made it to where he was standing by the door, my mind was completely blank apart from the word
gorgeous
. Because he was. Absolutely gorgeous.

Just say hi. Hi is fine. Hello, even.

Then he smiled at me, a quirky twitch of the lips, accompanied by an apologetic frown, and I lost even
gorgeous
in a sea of white noise.

He looked like most of the men Jo invited to her parties—white shirt open at the neck, dark blue jeans, thick blond hair cut in a tously style—but there was an extra sharpness about him, as if he were just a bit more in focus than everyone else. And he was still smiling as though we already knew each other.

“I didn’t want to go without apologizing,” he shouted in my ear over the sound of wine and crisps being ground rhythmically into our carpet. His breath was warm against my neck, and I felt all the tiny hairs spring to attention. “Don’t worry, Rolf is in a car speeding far, far from your flat.”

I leaned into his ear and yelled, “Not in the driver’s seat, I hope.”

Not bad. Where did that come from?

He laughed, showing square white teeth, and leaned toward my ear again. “I wanted to check that he hadn’t damaged anything on your balcony. If he did, obviously he’s going to want to replace it.”

I arched my eyebrow. “He is? Or you are?”

“I am,” he said. “And he’s going to pay me back.”

I felt the same fluttery excitement that I’d had the first time I’d driven to college on my own after passing my test: as if everything were rushing toward me and I was reacting second by second, not knowing where my reactions were coming from.

We’d moved closer together as two guests (under)dressed as Botticelli cherubs tried to leave, and now we were nearly nose to nose. He had a straight nose with a few freckles scattered across the bridge, and I had to fight the impulse to tell him how glad I was to meet a fellow freckler. Either Jo’s blue cocktail was kicking in or there really was something in all that claptrap about certain people just being easy to talk to.

“Shall we have a look?” he suggested.

“At what?” I squeaked.

“The damage to the balcony?”

I nodded dumbly and turned to the window.

He followed me across the room, and we had to swerve to avoid being whacked in the head by Jo and her line of would-be backup dancers.

“How do you girls learn that?” he asked, touching my arm to direct my attention to where Jo was strutting in perfect unison with four other girls.

“It’s just that one dance,” I admitted, aware of how close he was to me. “Jo does it as part of her Edinburgh stand-up act, with different words—she calls it ‘Single Laddies.’ I can do it too.” I demonstrated one quick hand move and smacked a nearby Simon Cowell in the face by mistake. “Oh, my God, sorry, sorry. …”

Gorgeous Blond Man grinned and made a space for me to get through to the window. As I opened it, I groaned aloud: the heavy window box of geraniums was still there, but the plants I’d wedged behind it had been shoved through the railings and off the balcony. Grace’s precious pots and my precious seedlings would be toast—as would her dreams, and our plans for the rental property contract.

Not that I believed all that hippie mumbo jumbo.

Still, I sobered up instantly in the chilly night air. I didn’t normally get so sentimental about plants—some sprouted, some failed, Nature was mean like that—but for some reason this felt symbolic.

“What?” The man leaned to see what I was looking at.

“There were seven pots of seedlings and some herbs,” I said. “I don’t even want to
think
about what they hit on the way down.”

“Really? Oh no.” His own expression turned serious when he saw my face. “Were they expensive plants? Or valuable pots? Can we replace them?”

“No. They’re …”

He looked at me as if he really wanted to know, and the words tumbled out of my mouth before I had time to think about what I was saying.

“They’re seeds I was growing for a client—hers haven’t sprouted, so I was growing these as backup. I was going to swap these with the ones she’s managed to wipe out before she gets back this week. I’m a gardener,” I added, in case he thought I did this sort of thing for fun. “And they’re not dodgy.”

“Can’t you just swap them for some different seedlings?”

I shook my head, already wondering what I could tell Grace. “She got them while she was on some retreat in Thailand. There are photos of the flowers in her meditation pack—she’d know if they suddenly came up as tomatoes.”

He frowned, then his face cleared into a smile. “Oh, I know the course you mean. Were they Dream Seeds? Lots of nude yoga and talking about your soul’s greenhouse? Each seed represents a wish, et cetera, et cetera?”

“You know them?” I squinted at him. He didn’t look the sort to go on Grace’s courses. I mean, he looked wealthy, but nowhere near flaky enough. (Also, nude yoga?)

“Let’s say I know
of
them,” he replied. “And I know how important the seeds are to the fruitloops who … Oh, God, sorry, the, um …” His eyes were doing the frantic darting thing mine did when I was trying and failing to find the tactful word.

“You had me at fruitloops,” I said. “In the nicest possible way.”

We shared a quick, apologetic smile of conspiracy.

He touched my arm. “In that case, let’s go down and see if they’ve survived the fall. I can’t have someone’s karmic journey on Rolf’s conscience as well as him ruining your party.”

“Does it look ruined?” I asked. The Beyoncé dancing was reaching a new level of ferocity, and if Mrs. Mainwaring hadn’t been doing some kind of mashed-potato move in the middle of the floor, she’d have been banging on the ceiling with her broom. That didn’t mean her cat was inside. If anything had happened to Elvis, I wanted to find out before she did.

He glanced over and when he turned back a white-hot shiver rippled through me.

“No,” he said, keeping his eyes on mine. “Quite the opposite, I’d say.”

“Okay,” I said, before I said anything more stupid. “Let’s go and have a look for these plants.”

*

I
t was much quieter in the hall, and I suddenly felt conscious of not actually having introduced myself. The fact that he seemed so relaxed with me only made me worry that we
had
been introduced and I’d forgotten. That had happened before now. Although it wasn’t my fault so many of Jo’s friends had nose jobs without telling anyone.

“Do I know you from somewhere?” I asked, following him down the stairs.

It came out less flirty and more accusatory. I scrabbled to salvage it before I made it worse.

“I mean, I don’t mean that to sound like you’re forgettable, because obviously you’re not, ha-ha, um …”

He paused by the communal post table and extended a hand, inclining his head in an old-fashioned courtly manner. I hoped he hadn’t noticed the thermal underwear catalogue with my name on it, and I leaned against it, just in case.

“Leo,” he said. “I was just thinking the same thing. But I’m sure I’d have remembered your name if we’d met.”

Leo had a good handshake. A tingly sensation spread through me as he gripped my hand and held it just long enough for me to register his smooth skin and the warmth of his grasp.

“Amy,” I said, and my voice didn’t wobble. “Amy Wilde. I’m from Yorkshire.”

“Ah. That’s where your accent’s from. Sorry, I’m very bad with accents. It’s unusual. Melodic.”

I could feel myself blushing. “You’re the first person who’s ever said that. Most people ask me where I’ve parked my tractor.”

Leo laughed, and if I hesitated for a micromillisecond, just enjoying the feel of his hand in mine, he did too. Just long enough for me to notice. Then he smiled and released it to open the front door.

“Very pleased to meet you, Amy,” he said, and held the door open for me. “Now, whereabouts do you think these pots fell?”

“Round here.” I pointed down the narrow passage that led round the back of the house. From the front, No. 17 was elegant white stucco; at the back it was a rat-run of fire escapes, television aerials, and scabby window boxes. The second-floor flat, belonging to the Harrises, who were rarely there, had a bigger balcony than ours, jutting out onto a sort of extension, which they used as a storage space for junk. Currently one sandbox (no idea why, they had no kids) and a very dead Christmas tree.

It wasn’t a very charming scene, and I made a mental note to offer to replant everyone’s window boxes ASAP. I scanned the yard for smashed pots and a flat cat; then the security lights went on, and I caught sight of something red sticking up out of the sand.

“Up there!” Relief rushed through me. “Look, in the sandbox!” Then the relief rushed back out. “But they’re away until the middle of next month. That’s one of the reasons we had the party. I won’t be able to get in for ages.”

“No probs.” Leo stepped back and grabbed hold of the fire escape, testing the brackets for strength. Then he shrugged off his jacket. “Hold this.”

“What? No, you don’t have to—” I started, but he shushed me good-naturedly and started to climb up the fire escape toward the Harrises’ balcony. He made it look very easy.

His jacket was light and lined with a beautiful purple satin that gleamed in the streetlight. There was a label in it that I didn’t recognize and it smelled of some expensive cologne that was far more subtle than Rolf’s pungent aftershave, which I could still smell on my own clothes. I glanced up and saw that Leo was concentrating on judging the jump to the balcony from the fire escape, and while his back was turned I took a surreptitious sniff.

It was one of those colognes that bypasses your brain and goes straight to your hormones. I wasn’t an expert like Jo, who could categorize all men in London by their bathroom shelves, but I could pick out geranium, rose, and something else. Real smells. Flowers and plants and grasses and air and skin—