To Marry a Prince (39 page)

‘Going back to Greece would be nice,’ she said now, wistfully. ‘Do you remember that terrace?’

‘Yeah. Brilliant. But I’m not sure it’s practical for a weekend. Don’t forget, Nicki and Sarah are on first-year teacher salaries.’

Bella nodded. ‘I know. And it would be a hassle banging through airports and things. Besides, Lady P would probably set the Press on me if went outside the UK. We must support British trade.’

Lottie chuckled. ‘Well, I can do you a very nice cowboy bar in Newcastle, complete with bucking bronco and a rugby club down the road.’

Bella’s eyes popped. ‘You’re not serious?’

‘Yup. Girl from work had her Hen Night there. We all took turns on the bronco. Fell off. Threw up.’

Bella, who had been on four Hen Nights so far and thought she knew the form, was impressed. ‘One hen always throws up. But the whole flock?’

‘Every last woman. And then they cleaned up, came back and tried again. And then danced till dawn with a couple of cowboy strippers. They make ’em tough in the North.’

They were both silent, contemplating the enviable stamina of other people.

‘So do you fancy it? Bronco busting?’

‘Maybe not.’

‘Thought not. I’m getting together with Joanne sometime this week to sort things out. Anywhere you really want to go? Anything you want me to veto?’

Bella smiled. ‘I trust you.’

‘OK then. A judicious combination of silly and togetherness. I can do that.’

And so she did, or at least tried to do.

It all started very well. Joanne had found a small spa in West Yorkshire. Newly opened in a down-at-heel not-quite-stately home, it was inexpensive enough for even the tyro teachers to afford and fifteen of them turned up on Friday night. They had a lovely morning walk ending at a local pub, then lay around talking and taking massages and facials. Bella had been given the master suite, which was pretty impressive with a fourposter bed and balcony, and they all congregated there. Three of them sprawled on the bed with the others dispersed about the room while they advised Joanne on the use of a borrowed set of hair straighteners and discussed the evening to come. And then the whole event was overtaken by an irresistible force, in the form of the Honourable Chloe and Princess Eleanor.

For form’s sake, Lottie and Joanne had had to ask along the two bridesmaids from Richard’s side. For form’s sake, they’d had to accept. But Nell had only just got back from New Zealand, where Queen Jane had taken over by Richard’s side, and Chloe had a Friday night party to go to. So they said they would drive down together on Saturday afternoon, in time to hit the local
town for dinner. And when they arrived it rapidly became clear that these two were going to party to the max and were absolutely determined to take everyone else with them.

‘Right, people,’ said Nell, for whom three weeks of enforced good behaviour had been too much. ‘Let’s get the rules straight here. The photos will be incriminating. You will be drunk. You will be sweaty. You will wear false eyelashes.’ She said to Chloe, ‘Anything else?’

Chloe said, ‘RM?’

‘RM. Right.’ Nell tapped the side of her nose. ‘How could I forget him? Anyone who doesn’t snog a random man gets locked out.’

They both collapsed in giggles.

‘Oh my Lord,’ muttered Bella, sitting bolt upright against the fourposter bed’s rich crimson bolster. ‘What have they been drinking?’

‘Let’s hope it’s just drink,’ said Lottie grimly.

Whatever it was, its effects didn’t abate. Instead of going for an Italian meal, followed by a spot of karaoke, the group found themselves whisked through some rudimentary tapas and on to a whistle-stop tour of every club and dive in the place. There were more than Bella expected and some of them were pretty rough, the sort of places where you went in and danced and kept your nose carefully blocked against the prevailing smell of last night’s clientele.

Eventually they ended up in a dungeon of a nightclub. Chloe, who was barely coherent by then, ordered vodka with Sambuca chasers for everyone. Bella had looked forward to the prospect of trotting
around town with brightly dyed feathers in her hair in the company of friends in a similar state, but now she was stone cold sober and starting to feel seriously uncomfortable. She managed to lose her drinks behind a giant cocktail card and signalled Lottie.

‘I’ll give it thirty minutes tops and then I’m off.’

‘Nell will pass out before then,’ said Lottie knowledgeably.

And, indeed, she was wobbling dangerously on her platform heels and grabbing any man who passed, almost certainly more for support than RM reasons.

‘I can’t stand much more of this,’ muttered Bella. ‘It’s no fun. And Joanne looks as if she’s going to cry.’

But Lottie was made of sterner stuff. ‘Don’t be a wuss, Bella. Someone
always
cries on a Hen Night.’

That was true. And Joanne had one or two of the three classic reasons to cry: she had just broken up with her boyfriend, and she had been at Bella’s christening.

‘You were a lovely baby,’ she said, smearing her mascara terminally on Bella’s handkerchief. ‘A lovely, lovely baby. I so wanted a sister. You’re as good as a sister to me. I love you, Bella. I’ve always loved you like—’

‘Like a sister. Yeah, you said. Thanks, Jo. I love you too.’

‘Beautiful baby,’ said Joanne, who was at that stage of inebriation where the sufferer thinks that if they keep on plodding round the same track again and again they will find the slip road off and get away.

There was a stag do at the other end of the club which now decided to join forces with the girls. Chloe Lenane announced that she was going to snog all of
them, and did. It took some time. The guys accepted the challenge enthusiastically. A tall hockey player came over, plucked Bella out of her corner, danced her round in a fast latin number and ended up throwing her over his arm, trying to suck her face off. Bella extricated herself.

‘Thanks for the dance. I’m just going.’

‘Oh, come on! The night is young …’

But Bella had caught sight of a commotion at the bar. Nell, having run out of snoggable men in the stag party, had wriggled round behind it and was trying to grope the hot young bartender. He was nice about it, but put her firmly out of his way by sitting her up on the counter. Only, from there she scrambled to her feet and strutted along the top of the bar. Already unsteady, she skidded in the spilled drinks and shot the entire length of the bar on her bottom, skirts and huge platform shoes flying. Then she fell off the end, landing in a tangled heap and lay there, laughing like a maniac.

Bella said, ‘Right. That’s it. I’m taking her back to the spa.’

Lottie had a fleet of taxis on standby. She called one up and between them she and Bella bundled Nell home.

When they got there, Nell flung herself flat on the bed and passed out. She was terribly pale and there was a sheen of sweat over her face.

‘I’d better stay with her,’ said Bella, worried. ‘In fact, I might even call a doctor. That doesn’t look normal to me.’

Nell opened her mouth and began to snore.

‘That’s normal,’ said Lottie. ‘But sit up with her if you
must. She was mixing her drinks like a sailor. And she must still be jet lagged, too. What a numpty.’

Numpty indeed, thought Bella, sitting with her as the night grew colder and the snores did not abate. She was so tired and her head hurt. She was also angry. She had been looking forward to her girls together weekend. It wasn’t fair that these two idiots should mess it all up.

She was even angrier when she came down in the morning to find two unshaven photographers perched on the low wall round the car park. The nightclub had not been dark enough. The entire stag party had taken photos of the goings-on with their phones. The
Sunday Despatch
had completely changed its front page to print them.

Bella didn’t know which made her feel more sick: the one of Eleanor, skidding along the bar; or the one of her bent double over the arm of a very fit bloke being, apparently, kissed senseless.

She stamped upstairs to Eleanor’s room. The Princess was sitting on the edge of the bed, looking as if she would not easily move.

‘Get dressed. We’re going. You’re a pain in the butt!’

Eleanor moaned, ‘I’m going to be sick.’

‘That’s the least of your worries.’

The stately home owners did their best to keep the marauding flocks of photographers and journalists at bay. In fact, one of them came upstairs and said, ‘There’s an underground passage to the gatehouse. We cleared it for the children, so we know it’s safe. Do you have someone you trust who could pick you up there?’

‘George will help you,’ Richard had said.

‘I’ll see,’ said Bella.

She called George.

He hadn’t seen the papers. He was barely awake. But he grasped the situation at once. ‘OK. I’ll be there. Directions?’

Fortunately he was less than an hour’s drive away, staying with friends.

Lottie was her usual practical self. ‘Leave the packing to me. Stay in Nell’s room. I’ll tell everyone you were worried about her colour last night and took her off.’

‘Won’t Chloe Lenane come to see her?’

‘Bloody Chloe never came home last night.
If
she turns up, which I doubt, I’ll get her off the premises. Confiscate Nell’s phone, by the way. You don’t know what she might send.’

‘Good thinking. I don’t trust her. She was out of her skull last night.’

Bella found Nell’s phone in her tiny pink crystal-studded handbag and pinched it. Nell was sitting in a chair with a wet towel over her face by then and didn’t notice. It was a bit of a struggle to get her down to the kitchens in order to access the passage because she kept saying she wanted to go home. But in the end, Bella managed it.

George called them when he was approaching the gatehouse and barely had to stop while Bella pushed Eleanor into the back seat and got in beside him.

‘Drive,’ she said between her teeth, ‘before I kill your sister.’

From the back seat, Eleanor moaned.

Bella’s sense of humour returned momentarily. ‘Or before she throws up all over your motor.’

He drove like the wind.

‘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?’