To Marry a Prince (36 page)

She presented Lady Pansy with the new timetable. Bella would still go to the Palace to meet her, but she would do it on a regular timetable: at 2 p.m. on Monday to review stuff that had come in at the weekend and make any changes needed to the week; a quick catch up on Wednesday at 5.30 p.m.; the major review and planning meeting of the week to be two hours on Friday morning. With adjustment to her childcare management, Trudy thought she could generally manage to attend the Friday meeting. Lady Pansy was to pass any questions to Trudy who would prioritise and manage while Bella was at work.

Lady Pansy knew when she had been outmanoeuvred. Her phone calls slowed to a trickle.

Bella and Trudy spoke at lunch-time every day.

‘You need to pace yourself,’ Trudy advised. ‘Plan to do one thing at a time and stick to it. Wedding dress this week. Bridesmaids the next.’

‘Oh, God, bridesmaids! I haven’t thought about bridesmaids.’

‘
Next
week,’ said Trudy firmly.

Yet it was Richard who found the solution to the wedding-dress problem.

‘Of course you can’t have a dress you hate,’ he said vehemently. ‘You’ll be looking at photographs of it for the rest of your life.’

‘But tradition …’

He took her left hand and looked at the ring. ‘We can set some of our own traditions.’

She searched his face. ‘You’re sure?’

‘Of course.’

‘Your mother had the full meringue, and so did your grandmother.’

He snorted. ‘And my great, great ever so great grandmother wore a dress of total bling. Your point is?’

Bella was stunned. ‘Bling? How do you know? I don’t believe you.’

‘Would I lie to you? Look, I’ll prove it.’

They were in his flat, padding around in earlymorning disarray. He went over to his desk and switched on the laptop.

‘Look. Here.’

Bella went and peered over his shoulder. He had called up a Regency sketch of a man in knee breeches
and an elaborate jacket leading a girl in a slim, high-waisted, low-cut dress, with puffed sleeves trimmed with lace. Her hair had been screwed into a knot on top of her head and she was not wearing a veil. Bella peered closely.

‘Silver lamé on net over a tissue slip,’ she read. ‘It was embroidered at the bottom with silver lamé shells and flowers. The manteau – oh, I see, that was the train – the manteau was of silver tissue lined with white satin, with a border of embroidery to answer that on the dress and fastened in front with a splendid diamond ornament.’ She looked up. ‘Heavens, she must have looked like a Christmas tree.’

Richard’s lips quirked. ‘Especially when you think of all the candles they’d have needed.’ He flickered his fingers. ‘Glitter, glitter, glitter. What about going the whole hog and reviving the traditions of 1816, then?’

Bella kicked him, not very successfully as her feet were bare.

He held her off, looking injured. ‘Only trying to be helpful.’

‘No, you weren’t. If you were really being helpful, you’d tell me who I should get to make the dress,’ Bella said with a sigh. She looked fondly at her ring. ‘You have a really good eye. Haven’t you got a favourite young dress designer as well?’

‘Well, I suppose I could ask around,’ he said doubtfully. ‘But it’s terrible bad luck, isn’t it? I don’t care, but a lot of people do. No point in giving the insects something else to exercise their mandibles on.’

‘You’re probably right. I think my mother would worry too. She’s quite superstitious. Oh, well. Back to the drawing board.’ Bella glanced at the screen again, and said wistfully, ‘Did you see that they got married in Carlton House? Family and fifty guests, that’s all. Those were the days.’

They had decided to marry in the Cathedral. It was beautiful, of course, but not, as Bella said, human-sized. Besides, there was a huge echo. It made their footsteps on the marble floor sound like Death treading ponderously up from the vaults to claim a soul. That was something she did not say.

Richard knew she wasn’t comfortable with it. He also knew – they both did – that there wasn’t really an alternative.

So now he gave her a quick hug and said, ‘Look, what about a Working Party?’

‘What?’

‘OK, you can’t see off the Meringue Party without support. So get some.’

‘What do you mean? How?’

‘Think who you would have asked if you hadn’t been marrying me.’ He winced a little at the thought. ‘I just bet your grandmother has ideas about wedding dresses.’

He had responded to the summons to meet Georgia far better than Bella had dared to hope, especially as her grandmother had grilled him with ladylike thoroughness and there had been several dodgy moments.

The turning point had come, though, when Georgia, ramrod straight and acid sweet, said, ‘Are you saying
that you knew you would get my granddaughter the moment you saw her? Like buying a painting?’

Richard smiled down at her and said, very gently, ‘I love her, Mrs Greenwood. I don’t own her and I never will.’

Georgia’s eyes snapped and Bella held her breath.

But in the end her grandmother said grudgingly, ‘Ah. You see that. Good.’

And in the car home, Richard said, ‘It’s not a word I normally use but that woman is truly awesome. A Southern Belle with fabulous manners and an interrogation technique that MI5 could learn from.
And
she looks like one of those classy old movie stars, Lauren Bacall or someone.
And
she’s out saving the rain forest in person.’ He drew a long, astounded breath. ‘I thought your father would be great to meet. But – wow. Just –
wow!
I think I’m in love.’

So now Bella said teasingly, ‘You just want to meet my grandmother again.’

He nodded enthusiastically. ‘If we work the schedule right, I could even give her, I mean all of you, lunch.’

‘Machiavelli.’

He laughed, not denying it, but said soberly, ‘Call her, Bella. Your mother too. Every girl wants to consult her mother about her wedding dress, doesn’t she? No one could criticise you for that. Maybe Lottie, too? Get them all in a room together, schmooze a bit, and come out with a better brief for the designers. Include Pansy and whoever she wants to bring along. Just make sure she’s outnumbered. She looks like a sweet little old lady, but Pansy can be quite an operator when she wants to be.’

‘Thank you,’ said Bella, surprised and grateful. ‘That sounds like a plan. Er – have you any ideas about bridesmaids?’

‘Out of my league,’ he said with feeling.

But Bella found an unexpected ally on the bridesmaid issue and she didn’t have to go looking for her.

Princess Eleanor wandered into the Wednesday catch-up meeting with Lady Pansy and said, ‘Have you seen the daffodils by the lake, Bella? Do you fancy a walk? It’s so lovely and fresh outside now that the rain’s gone.’

Bella leaped up with alacrity and, as they wandered along the banks of the lake, her soon-to-be sister-in-law said, ‘Have people started lobbying you about being a bridesmaid yet?’

Bella bit her lip. ‘Yes. It was a bit of a shock, actually.’

‘Well, this is a bit of a cheek. But I’m lobbying, too.’

‘Eleanor—’

‘Call me Nell, like the boys do. I’ve been thinking about bridesmaids since I was at school. All my little friends fancied being mine.’ She pulled a face. ‘So I’ve got some theories. Wanna hear them?’

‘Very grateful,’ said Bella, touched.

‘You need your best friend. Plus a sister or cousin or whoever. And a sister or cousin from the bridegroom’s family. One small attendant. One to mind the small attendant. But the important thing is that they’re
your
bridesmaids. Not your husband’s. Not your mother’s. Not your mother-in-law’s. Yours. These women have to get you through the day, so you need to
like
them. Don’t
be blackmailed into asking anyone you don’t want. If there’s someone you absolutely have to include but can’t face on the day itself, you can always ask her to your Hen Night.’

‘Hen Night,’ murmured Bella, committing it to memory. Something else she had forgotten.

However, when Lady Pansy produced her big file labelled Bridesmaids, and started to run through the daughters of the country’s senior aristocrats, along with their family’s service to the Crown over the last two hundred years, Bella was able to say that she had already decided who she was going to ask to be her bridesmaids, thank you.

Lady Pansy stiffened. But Bella had run her choice past Richard who had not only approved but said, when he stopped laughing, ‘And you called
me
Machiavelli!’ So she knew she was on firm ground.

‘Princess Eleanor. She’s already said yes. My second cousin Joanne. So has she. Tilly Lenane, because she’s Richard’s goddaughter and I think she’s a sweetie. Chloe, because I know how big a part she’s always been of the Royal Family’s life, as you are yourself.’

Lady Pansy inclined her head graciously. She seemed taken aback but pleased, definitely pleased.

So while she was preening, Bella slipped in the news that would make Lady P as sick as a parrot when she started to think about it. ‘And my best friend Charlotte Hendred will be my Chief Bridesmaid, of course. So if you would just find out from Tilly Lenane’s parents and your niece whether they’re happy to trot down the aisle after me, we’re sorted I think, Lady Pansy.’

‘Of course,’ said Lady Pansy. She looked sandbagged.
Yes!
Result.

With that, the arrangements went swimmingly. After consultation with the King, the Press Office organised a bunch of interviews and think pieces.

‘I told them to leave you alone to get on with it, my dear,’ the King told Bella, when she and Richard joined the rest of the Royal Family for supper, one cool spring evening. ‘I said to Julian Madoc, “I like her style. She’s got a good head on her shoulders and she’s very well behaved.” Unlike some,’ he added with a dark look at Nell, who pretended not to see.

‘We’ll send a minder along, of course. And you must ask for any advice you want. But basically be yourself. Ver’ charming. Ver’ charming.’

With the Royal seal of approval, it seemed Bella could not go wrong. Even Lady Pansy stopped arguing. Though the High Level Talks on the wedding dress nearly changed that.

It was Lady Pansy, of course, who arranged the conference room and the coffee in the Palace. So she decided to take the initiative and invite four of her favourite designers to come too, in the afternoon, to present their ideas.

‘You did
what?’
said Bella aghast, arriving before her support group.

Lady Pansy was affronted. ‘Time is ticking away. You need to assign the contract today. Having the top four here will save time. Not all together, of course. You can talk to them in turn,’ she said kindly.

Bella was tight-lipped. ‘You knew quite well that this was to be a planning meeting only. This is
not
helpful. Get rid of them.’

But even her grandmother, when she arrived, said that it would be bad form to uninvite them at such short notice. So Bella gave in. She was still seething, though.

However, the discussion itself was very useful. Everyone had a different perspective. Bella realised she wouldn’t have thought of half the points on her own.

Janet said the most important thing Bella needed to think about was being comfortable. She would be standing a long time, she would have to move a fair amount, step backwards, go round corners, up steps, kneel and stand up again.

‘You have to feel that you can move in the dress without having to brace yourself every time, pet,’ her mother said earnestly. ‘There’s so much to do at a wedding. You want to be able to put your dress on and forget about it.’

Lottie was the self-appointed Look of Now expert. She set up her laptop and delivered a PowerPoint presentation of some of the options, given current fashions. She had cleverly produced images of Richard and Bella which were to scale and transferred dresses across to slot on to the Bella figure.

Every time anyone stopped speaking, Lady Pansy broke in with what the Queen had worn at her wedding, the Dowager Queen, Richard’s aunt the Princess Royal … She described the dresses in loving detail. They were all clearly meringue on the grand scale.

Bella said clearly, ‘Thank you, Lady Pansy. We have understood the precedents very clearly now.’

She was not seething any more. Her indignation had cooled to an icy determination to stop Lady P in her tracks. She stood up.

‘So let’s get this out of the way now. I will
not
go down the aisle to meet Richard wearing some vast crinoline that makes me look like the Dame in a provincial pantomime. It’s not my style. Please, everyone, strike that option
now
.’

She sat down. Lottie applauded. Lady Pansy was temporarily hounded out of sweet superiority and glared with fury. Bella ignored her and turned to her grandmother on the other side of the conference table.

‘Georgia? You haven’t said anything yet. What do you think?’

Georgia considered. ‘A wedding dress makes a big statement. And you need to remember what the back of it says. The photographs will all show the front. But in the church—’