Marrying Up (13 page)

Giacomo dragged out a delicate gold chair and plonked himself down on it. ‘So wossup, man?’ He grabbed a slice of toast.

‘If you mean what have we been talking about,’ his mother replied patiently, ‘the answer is that we’ve been talking about
Max.’

‘Max?’

‘Your brother, remember,’ Engelbert said ironically. ‘Maxim Albert William Carl Philip Emanuel Gothenburg de Sedona.’

Giacomo blinked. ‘Wow. Does he really have so many names?’

‘We need to find him a wife.’ Engelbert gestured at one of the white-gloved footmen to take his unsatisfactory egg away. ‘He’s
got to come home and get married. For the good of his country,’ the monarch added stirringly.

‘Marry?
Max?
’ Giacomo was so astounded that he dropped his toast on to the antique carpet. ‘Marry who? He’s not even got a bird, not so
far as I know.’

‘Quite,’ muttered the Queen.

‘We’re going to find him a bird, as you call it,’ the King said briskly, clattering his tea cup down in its saucer. ‘A bride
will be chosen,’ he added pompously, ‘from among the leading families of Europe.’

Giacomo looked puzzled. ‘I’m probably being a bit thick . . .’ he began, frowning.

‘Surely not,’ the King put in witheringly. The Queen shot him a look.

‘. . . but,’ Giacomo continued slowly, ‘you’re actually going to make the poor sod come back from sticking his arm up cows’
arses or whatever it is he’s doing and marry some old munter he’s never seen before, just because it’s his royal duty?’

Engelbert sighed so hard in exasperation that the linen napkin covering his suit front fluttered with the force of it. ‘Well
I wouldn’t have put it quite that way, but in essence I suppose that sums it up reasonably accurately.’

Giacomo was reaching for another piece of toast. ‘Bit heavy, Pops, don’t you think?’

‘I don’t disagree,’ muttered Astrid.

The King, now feeling rather persecuted, was swift to counter attack. ‘Come on, Astrid,’ he snapped. ‘You’re supposed to be
supporting me. It’s your royal duty, remember? It could be worse. Max isn’t interested in anyone else, after all. We’re not
insisting he tears himself away from the love of his life or anything, are we?’

Astrid flinched. Was there something knowing, something barbed, in her husband’s tone? She dared not raise her eyes and show
him the pain in them, or see any unexpected insight in his. She remained staring at the table, hands out of sight, clenched
agitatedly on her knees. ‘I’m not aware of him being in love with a
person
,’ she said in a monotone. ‘But he adores what he’s doing and he won’t want to leave it.’

‘He’s going to be a king; kings can’t be vets,’ Engelbert was ranting, when, in the service kitchen outside the large gold
and white door, there was a shattering crash as someone dropped a plate on to the stone-flagged floor. The entire family jumped
in shock. Engelbert’s angry gaze remained on his wife. ‘You have to call him,’ he said accusingly. ‘
Now
.’

Max was on his knees in a grubby cowshed when his mobile shrilled. Politely, he ignored it at first, being deep in conversation
with one of the Duke of Shropshire’s dairy girls about the mastitis from which one of the herd was suffering. Max was enjoying
himself immensely; the comforting, earthy smell of the shed, the warmth of Daisy’s flank, the certain knowledge that he could
cure the animal, all conspired to give him a feeling of ineffable satisfaction.

‘Shouldn’t you get that?’ Tamsin, the dairy girl, asked, as Max’s mobile rang insistently in the depths of the battered jacket
he had thrown casually over the wall of Daisy’s byre. ‘It might be something important.’ She shook her loose red hair over
her shoulders, rather hopelessly by now, it had to be said. It had been obvious from the moment the handsome young vet had
arrived that the only female in the shed he was interested in had four legs and a pair of horns.

It occurred to Max that it might be Polly. They had arranged to meet later for supper. He felt a thousand pinpricks of fear
in his stomach; was she calling to cancel?

Tamsin watched as he hurriedly pulled the mobile out and turned his back. A girlfriend? There must be some reason why he had
so utterly failed to respond to the considerable efforts the farmyard assistants had made to interest him. Even the guinea
pig girls had turned out daily in full make-up.

‘Oh, Mum, it’s you,’ she heard him exclaim warmly. That he had a good relationship with his mother somehow made him more attractive
than ever. She sighed and patted Daisy, who was turning her large, square head and lowing enquiringly, evidently wondering
where Max had gone.

‘How’s Beano?’ Tamsin heard as Max walked into the cobbled yard. ‘Oh, good. Good boy. What? Yes, I can talk, but make it quick,’
he said happily, glancing back and giving Tamsin a smile that made her heart turn right over. ‘I’ve got an important lady
awaiting my attentions.’

‘An important
lady
?’ Astrid, at the other end, gasped. How important? Hope soared within her. Royal, rich, marriageable important? It might
be all right after all . . .

‘Yes, I’m just sorting out her teats.’ Max chuckled. He felt, as he increasingly did these days, in an uncharacteristically
skittish mood. He was doing exactly what he wanted. And if he wasn’t madly in love quite yet, he was, he knew, closer to it
than he’d ever been.

‘
Teats?
’ Astrid had almost dropped the phone. Her hands were shaking.

‘Just an old cow,’ Max explained, wondering why his mother sounded tense. She was usually the first to get a joke.

‘
What?
’ she squealed.

‘A
real
old cow. C’mon, Mum. What’s happened to your sense of humour?’

Exactly what’s going to happen to yours in a minute
, Astrid thought sadly. She clung to the final, few precious minutes in the knowledge that she was being loved and esteemed
by her favourite son. After she had broken the news, things between them would be different for ever.

‘I just hoped you meant you’d met someone,’ she said wistfully.

‘Oh, I have met someone,’ Max said happily.

‘What did you just say?’ she demanded, and Max repeated himself.

‘
Someone?
’ Astrid yelped. ‘You’re not teasing me? Not the cow? A real person?’

He was laughing. ‘No, not the cow. Yes, a person. A girl.’

Astrid’s hopes soared again. If this girl had a title of some sort, was someone with wealth and connections that Engelbert
would consider worthy . . . Her fingers crossed round the receiver.

‘She’s an archaeologist,’ Max was saying.

Astrid’s ears buzzed. The line from Sedona was a bit crackly, but had he really said
aristocrat
? ‘A what?’ she croaked.

‘Archaeologist,’ he repeated cheerfully.

An
archaeologist
? Astrid came to earth with a bump.

Archaeologist. There were some of those in the principality at the moment; she had passed them several times en route to official
engagements. They spent their time up to their knees in dirt. Most of the men had beards, and the women were very plain, apart
from one who hung around at the edge in a leopardskin bikini and pink wellingtons. It seemed unlikely that an archaeologist
would fit the crown princess template.

‘Have you,’ she began cautiously, ‘have you, er, told this archaeologist who you
are
, darling?’

‘That I’m a prince, you mean?’ Max lowered his voice and glanced round. ‘Course not.’

‘Why of course not?’ his mother pursued patiently.

‘Well, no one here knows who I am,’ Max told her, making double sure Tamsin was out of earshot. ‘Apart from Stonker, that
is.’ A slight impatience, Astrid noticed, had crept into his happy tone. ‘I don’t want them to. I want people to behave normally
around me. Because it’s not as if I
am
anyone, in the sense that I’m more important or anything.’

Astrid suppressed a sigh. Max’s egalitarian streak was another reason why he had always been on a collision course with his
father. She tried to look on the bright side; if this girl was unaware, at least she could not be interested in Max for the
wrong reasons.

‘But you must have told her
something
,’ she pressed.

‘I told her that Dad ran a family firm and worked in tourism,’ Max said shortly. He had been rather pleased with this neat
précis. It wasn’t a lie, and it didn’t offend anyone. ‘Also that the rest of my family lived abroad.’

‘I see,’ was all Astrid could think of to say.

‘Hey, Mum, you OK?’

‘Yes, of course,’ the Queen said hurriedly.

‘You sound a bit funny, that’s all. Look, were you ringing for a reason? Was there something you wanted to tell me?’

‘Oh . . . nothing, darling,’ Astrid said. ‘Nothing important.’

Florrie’s world was even grander than Alexa had anticipated. The flat in Belgravia was huge. Vast and luxurious, with oversized
windows whose thick lined curtains were big enough to have fitted a stage, it had lofty corniced ceilings, white fireplaces
and fat four-seater sofas upholstered in yellow chintz.

The other thing Alexa had underestimated was the epic scale of Florrie’s laziness and fecklessness. But this, as it happened,
was entirely to her own advantage. The fact that Florrie took it for granted that the rest of the world was at her service
meant that Alexa had not only prime accommodation, but a full-time job as well.

Florrie happily allowed her to wait on her hand and foot, serve at her dinner parties, collect her dry-cleaning and even update
her Facebook page. For Alexa, this was yet another opportunity; she could collect for her own page – now relaunched under
her new name – the entire range of Florrie’s contacts, who, discovering she lived with Florrie, were usually happy to befriend
her.

Alexa’s own Facebook page contained, besides wild fabrications about her background and schooling (she was careful not to
be too specific, however), various images of her hunting, grouse-shooting, partying with royalty and frolicking on the yachts
of the rich and titled.

But were the images really her? As they were almost always from the back, and taken in bad light, these pictures of the
woman with long dark hair passed the only test that mattered; the very brief scrutiny that the attention spans of her target
audience would allot them.

After he told her he had completely forgotten how to log in, Alexa had offered to update Ed’s page too. Ed was the most wonderful
opportunity of all, the heaven-sent chance, the almost unbelievable bonus. He was Florrie’s inebriated viscount brother, offspring
of Lord Whyske’s first marriage and, thanks to primogeniture, heir to three stately homes, walls full of Old Master paintings,
various glamorous properties abroad and millions of pounds after death duties. And, more importantly still, he was single.

Desperate, therefore, to make herself useful, Alexa happily repositioned to their best advantage pictures of the viscount
looking red-faced in a deerstalker, or red-faced in white tie waving a jeroboam of champagne. His status had not been changed
for several months. ‘Bloody freezing after shooting,’ it said, which sounded odd in midsummer. Alexa altered it to: ‘Looking
forward to my sister’s wedding bash; maybe I’m in the mood for love myself.’ It hadn’t taken her long to work out that Ed
was the kind of person who had to be told to feel things. And feel things for her, in particular.

How she wished to change his status permanently to ‘married’. She had lost no time in laying plans to snare him. Being alone
and intimate with him was the first step, and a simpler business than Alexa had expected, thanks to the poor communication
between brother and sister. Whenever Ed rang up to make a date with Florrie, Alexa would invite him round at a time when she
knew Florrie would be out and neglect to mention to her flatmate that the arrangement had been made at all.

It worked beautifully; round Ed would trot and up in the lift he would come. Waiting for him at the door would be a scantily
clad Alexa; she would ask him in, sit him on the sofa and practically push her breasts into his face. Despite all this, so
far she had not managed to tempt him into bed; Ed, a keen field
sportsman, had no interests whatsoever beyond hunting, shooting and fishing.

Only once had Alexa’s hopes risen: greeting him in an unfastened flimsy negligee, having ostensibly arisen from the bath,
she had been thrilled by the viscount’s gasp of pleasure. ‘That’s fantastic,’ Ed had panted. ‘I’ve been
desperate
to open my flies.’ It emerged, however, that his requirement was not sexual relief, but for Alexa to return to the bath,
lie down, submerge her head and pretend to be a salmon, so he could test his fishing lures.

Nor was this Alexa’s only challenge.

Was Ed’s – and Florrie’s – mother suspicious of her? The terrifyingly well-groomed Lady Annabel had been chummy at first,
vocally delighted that her daughter had a reliable companion staying with her, even applying to be Alexa’s friend on Facebook.
But of late she had been positively icy, which Alexa had initially put down to preoccupation with the forthcoming wedding
of Lady Beatrice.

But was this really the case? Or did Florrie’s mother suspect her? Was this the real reason she had wanted access to the Facebook
account? Had her initial friendliness been flattery to deceive?

It took one very ambitious person to know another, and Alexa sensed that Lady Annabel was fiercely aspirational for her children.
Ed, after all, might be slow-witted, plump and with a face only a mother could love, but he was the family standard-bearer
and the future of the line. Florrie’s flatmate, with her unproven origins, was unlikely to be seen as a suitable partner.

And while in a mere matter of weeks Beatrice would be going up a cathedral aisle to marry a marquess, Alexa guessed that Lady
Annabel was looking higher for her beautiful youngest child. There had been the recent near miss with royalty; Alexa could
only imagine what Lady Annabel had made of that.