Twice Upon a Time (35 page)

Cinda looked up at the lodge, the sloped roof covered in snow, and burst into tears. ‘Gus has a new girlfriend,’ she said. ‘I saw it in
Hello
.’

Alex’s face was pained. ‘I was so hoping you didn’t see that.’

‘And he looks happy,’ Cinda said, trying to hold the sobs back. ‘I don’t think I can cope. I hate him so much.’

Alex sighed and shivered a little in the cold. ‘I wanted to warn you before you came inside. The queen is here,’ she said in a low voice.

‘Your mother?’ asked Cinda, confused.

‘No, my aunt, the queen of Sardinia,’ said Alex and Cinda gasped.

‘Is Gus here?’ she asked.

‘No, he’s . . . with Valentina’s family for Christmas,’ she said.

‘Oh god, I’m going back to London,’ said Cinda, turning and walking to the car.

‘No, you’re damn well not,’ barked Alex. ‘You’re my guest. Auntie won’t care, she’s too busy crowing about Gus and Val . . .’ she stopped herself too late.

Cinda felt something soft fall on her face and looked up at the sky. ‘What’s that?’ she asked.

‘That’s snow, you silly thing,’ laughed Alex and she hugged Cinda again. ‘Come on, come and get drunk with me.’

Cinda thought about facing the queen again and sighed. ‘I think I’m going to have to be on something to get through this Christmas,’ she said.

‘And you say you’re not one of us,’ giggled Alex as she walked inside the lodge, holding on to Cinda’s arm.

Alex stomped her boots inside the mud room and Cinda did the same. Then Alex kicked her boots off and Cinda followed suit. She looked down at her hot pink socks and smiled ruefully at Alex.

‘Not exactly silk stockings,’ she said and Alex looked down and laughed.

‘I love them. I want some,’ she said as she opened the door into the lodge.

It was exactly as Cinda thought it would be, all beams and whitewash. There was the beautiful smell of an open fire and some delicious cooking somewhere.

Maybe if I stay out of the queen’s way, I might just have an okay
time
, she thought as she followed Alex up the stairs.

‘This is your room,’ said Alex, opening the door to a beautiful room with a four-poster bed decked out in beautiful white linen and a small fire crackling away in the fireplace.

‘It’s gorgeous,’ said Cinda as a servant brought in her case and placed it on a wooden bench.

‘Come down and meet everyone,’ said Alex and Cinda looked at her feet.

‘I should change my socks first,’ she said.

‘No way, be who you are, darling, please,’ insisted Alex.

Dutifully Cinda followed Alex back down the stairs towards the sound of chatter coming from a large central room. Everyone stopped when Cinda and Alex walked in, and it felt to Cinda like a thousand pairs of eyes were on her.

‘Everyone, this is Cinda. Cinda, this is everyone,’ said Alex loudly. ‘I’ll introduce you properly later,’ she said, turning to Cinda, ‘you won’t remember if I do it all at once.’

Cinda looked around and her eyes met the queen’s. To Cinda’s surprise, Sofia smiled warmly. Cinda smiled back, unsure what she had done to deserve such a greeting.

‘Come and sit with me, Lucinda,’ said the queen, and Cinda walked over and sat by her on the sofa, where the queen was doing a Sudoku puzzle. ‘How are you, my dear?’ she asked with a warm smile.

‘Very well, thank you,’ said Cinda carefully.

‘Have you seen Ludo lately?’ the queen asked, her eyes shrewd.

‘No,’ said Cinda. ‘I’m living in London now.’

‘Ludo said he sent me something for Christmas that you’d had a hand in,’ the queen said lightly.

The painting
, thought Cinda, wishing she were upstairs under the bedding in her four-poster bed.

‘Oh yes, perhaps,’ said Cinda vaguely.

‘It was a shame that you two didn’t work out,’ said Sofia.

Cinda looked at her, and something snapped in her. ‘Are you serious?’ she asked before she could stop herself. ‘I know what you did.’

The others around them didn’t notice, but Alex swept over and grabbed Cinda’s arm. ‘Come over and meet my little brother, he’s very good at drawing,’ she said firmly as she dragged Cinda from her seat to the other side of the room. ‘Don’t do it,’ she hissed in Cinda’s ear.

‘She never wanted me to be with Ludo, she’s full of royal crap,’ said Cinda.

‘Why do you care? You don’t want to be with him anyway,’ said Alex, frowning.

‘It’s the principle of it,’ said Cinda angrily. ‘Acting like she’s so devastated when she’s the one who sent him away to Africa. And that’s where he met the girl who’s now with Gus.’

Alex squeezed her hand. ‘I know, but don’t let it ruin your Christmas. Let it go, she’s very set in her ways. Remember that her life is filled with rules and manners. She’s probably just trying to be nice.’

‘Pfft,’ said Cinda as she sat down at a round table where a boy of about fourteen was sitting hunched over a sketchpad.

‘Cinda, this is my brother, Constantine.’

Cinda smiled at the boy. ‘Alex says you draw?’ she asked, politely.

Constantine pushed over his sketchpad. Cinda looked down at a picture of a half-naked woman holding a machine gun, her high-heeled foot pinning a man to the ground. Then she looked at Alex, whose eyebrows were raised, waiting for her assessment.

‘Finally someone has done a portrait of
me
for a change,’ said Cinda darkly, and Alex burst out laughing.

Cinda managed to escape the family with Alex for the rest of the afternoon, and they went into the nearest town, Davos, for some shopping and drinks.

Alex was fun and generous, but Cinda wished she could just escape the Sardinian royals forever. Her brush with the queen had shaken her.

‘She’s nuts,’ she said to Alex when they were in the car on the way back to the lodge, both slightly tipsy on warm schnapps. ‘And I should know, because I have a crazy mother who makes stuff up to suit herself as well.’

Alex laughed as the car pulled up to the lodge. There was a large black SUV parked in the driveway.

‘Who’s here?’ Alex asked the driver.

‘I’m afraid I don’t know, Your Highness,’ he answered, and got out to open the door for the girls.

Cinda walked into the lodge with Alex, stomping and removing their boots again. Then they took their bags of shopping and went to walk upstairs when a voice called Alex’s name.

‘It’s Mother,’ said Alex with an eye roll. ‘I’d better go. Come and meet her. You think your mother’s crazy? Wait til you meet mine.’

‘I’ll just put these bags away and then come down,’ said Cinda. She walked up the stairs to her room and closed the door behind her.

She didn’t know if she could pretend like this for long. It was exhausting pretending to be happy when she just wanted to lie in bed.

In her ensuite, she brushed her hair and applied some lip gloss, then she walked back down the stairs towards the voices.

Knocking on the door, she opened it and saw Alex standing by the window, her angry expression changing to panic when she turned and saw Cinda.

‘Are you okay?’ Cinda asked as she crossed the room towards her.

‘Hello, Cinda,’ she heard and she turned to see Ludo standing behind her.

43

‘You’ve cut your hair,’ was the first thing she said to him.

‘I have,’ he said and he walked towards her, kissed both cheeks and hugged her tightly.

She stood, not hugging him back, staring helplessly at Alex over his shoulder and mouthing the word
Help
.

Alex mouthed back the words
I’m sorry
and made a face, exiting the room and shaking her head angrily.

‘It’s wonderful to see you,’ he said, pulling away from the embrace, his eyes searching hers.

‘I can’t say I feel the same,’ said Cinda, failing to keep the hostility from her voice.

‘You’re angry with me?’ he asked, his expression hurt.

‘Why wouldn’t I be angry with you?’ she walked over to a chair and sat down, trying to stop her legs from trembling.

Why was he there and why did he look at her like that? It was unsettling. With his hair short he looked so much like Gus that she thought her heart would break.

‘I can see that you’re very upset with me and I would like to know why. I thought we were friends,’ Ludo said, sitting on the chair next to her.

‘We’re not friends, Ludo, we’re two people who had a silly meaningless fling. Don’t think it was ever anything more than that to me.’ She looked at him defiantly.

Ludo paused, ‘And Gus, what about him?’ he asked hesitantly.

‘Gus? God, I never think of him.’ Her voice sounded hollow to her own ears.

Ludo leant back in his chair as though he had been punched in the stomach. ‘But I thought you loved him,’ he said, looking confused.

‘I thought I did too,’ said Cinda with a shake of her head. ‘But it seems I’m more like my mother than I’d care to admit. I fall in love too easily and it’s bound to get me into all sorts of trouble.’

Ludo stared at her for a long time and she moved uncomfortably in her chair. ‘Why are you here?’ she asked, desperate to change the topic.

‘I came to give Mamma the painting of me,’ he said, his voice flat. ‘I didn’t know you were here until I spoke to Alex.’

Cinda nodded. ‘You can stay. It’s not like I have any power over you. I mean, I’m not ever going to be queen or anything,’ she snapped.

‘What do you mean?’ he asked, his handsome face frowning.

God, it was doing her head in, looking at him. He looked so much like Gus, but in Ludo’s clothes.

‘Nothing,’ said Cinda. At that moment the door opened and Ludo’s mother walked in, her arms outstretched.

‘Darling,’ she said greeting her son. Ludo stood up and Cinda noticed he seemed very nervous.

‘Hello, Mamma,’ he said and he kissed Sofia’s cheek.

‘You’ve cut your hair,’ she said approvingly.

‘Yes, and it seems that’s all people want to talk about,’ he said, running his hand nervously through it.

‘And you and Lucinda are catching up again? It’s lovely that she’s here, isn’t it?’

Cinda stared at the woman for a moment. ‘If you’ll both excuse me, I’m tired and would like to lie down.’ And without a backwards glance, she walked out of the room and ran up to the safety of her bed.

She was so shocked, she couldn’t even cry. Seeing Ludo reminded her so much of Gus that she thought she might die from sadness.

A knock at her door interrupted her thoughts.

‘Come in,’ Cinda said, assuming that Alex had followed her upstairs.

Ludo stood in the doorway.

‘Go away,’ she said and rolled over, turning her back to him.

‘Cinda, I need to talk to you,’ he said in a low voice.

‘I don’t want to talk to you. Go and find some other stupid backpacker that you can use and manipulate.’

‘What?’ Ludo was sitting on her bed now, and she tried to kick him off but he grabbed her foot and an electric current swept through her body.

‘I like your socks,’ he said, still holding on to her foot, in turquoise socks today.

‘Go away,’ she said and she pulled her foot from his hand and sat up on the bed, cross-legged. ‘What do you want from me, Ludo?’

She stared at him for long time, willing herself to be calm.

‘Nothing. I just wanted to see that you were okay,’ he said, a flash of hurt crossing his face.

‘I’m fine,’ she said, exasperated. ‘Despite everything, I’m doing okay.’

‘And what about Gus, how do you feel about that?’ he asked, looking at her face closely.

‘Gus? I told you. I don’t care, I know he has a new girlfriend, the Spanish princess or whoever that you met in Africa. Well played, introducing her to him, I’m sure she’ll be an awesome queen,’ she said angrily, hating herself for being a cow.

‘Is that what you think I did? Deliberately used you somehow?’ He seemed genuinely confused at the idea, which just made Cinda more annoyed. He had no idea about other people’s feelings.

Cinda shook her head. ‘You know what? You people think you’re special because you’re royals. You don’t think the normal rules of decency apply to you. I hate the hypocrisy and snobbery, I hate the way you only care if a girl is from the right bloodline, like she’s a horse or something. I hate the fact that Gus betrayed me
and
Perrette, and I hate that he’s now gone off with someone else like no-one else matters. And I hate you for being a part of it all.’ She paused and caught her breath. ‘So don’t worry about me, I’m fine. I don’t love Gus and I don’t love you. Now please just leave me alone.’

She stared him in the eyes, wondering why he was looking at her in such an odd manner.

‘So, you don’t love Gus?’

‘
No
,’ she said in a loud voice. ‘I didn’t like how I became so pathetic after he dumped me. I lost myself in him and I lost my own power. I may not be a queen of any countries but I’m queen of my own life.’

Ludo paused. ‘Okay. So you’ll be fine when I tell you that he and Valentina are coming here tonight to surprise mother with the news of their engagement?’

Cinda felt as though the world was spinning off its axis and she drew a sharp breath. ‘Are you serious?’ she asked, feeling the emotion welling up in her body.

When he nodded, the tears came like a pipe had burst and she was in Ludo’s arms, weeping into his shoulder. ‘I can’t do it, Ludo. Take me back to London. I can’t see him,’ she sobbed. ‘I can’t do it, I can’t pretend.’