Marrying Up (11 page)

The King smacked his forehead. ‘Where,’ he groaned, ‘did I go wrong with Max?’

‘When you put him in military uniform at the age of six?’ the Queen suggested icily.

Her husband rounded on her furiously. ‘All crown princes of Sedona wear military uniform from the age of six. It’s—’

‘Traditional?’ offered the Queen, meeting his gaze boldly.

The King stared irritably at the manicured lawns before him. ‘It’s not a question of forcing.’

‘Isn’t it?’ Astrid fought not to sound shrill.

‘No,’ Engelbert said decisively. ‘We need to
encourage
him. He’ll be twenty-one soon, the age at which all de Sedona princes get married.’

‘Used to get married,’ Astrid corrected. ‘We’ve dropped that particular rule, remember?’

The King looked her boldly in the eye. ‘Well the PR man thought it would be a good time to bring it back. Have a competition
for his hand, almost. Like one of those TV talent shows.’

‘
Never!
’ Astrid’s hand, holding her rose clippers, was shaking. ‘
Never
that.’

‘All right, all right, perhaps that’s not appropriate.’ Engelbert’s plump hands were held aloft. ‘But we need a wedding,’
he said stubbornly. ‘That’s the bottom line.’

Astrid recognised one of the PR man’s stock phrases. Out of sheer desperation, an idea now struck her. ‘If someone has to
get married, why can’t it be Giacomo?’ she suggested.

‘
Giacomo?
’ The King seemed stunned. ‘My dear, where do I begin? Because he’s not the Crown Prince? Because he needs to learn how to
behave first? According to Hippolyte, Giacomo was just going to bed as he came into the office this morning.’

Monsieur Hippolyte was the King’s long-serving private secretary, now doubling as the palace press officer. The PR consultant
had been unable to believe, on arrival, that the royal family had no media representative whatsoever.

Astrid suppressed a groan. Their younger son’s all-night visits to the local nightclub, La Cage Aux Princes, seemed worryingly
frequent. Whilst the place was exclusive in the sense that only the richest were allowed in, this did not, she feared, make
for the most morally elevated company. Still, as Engelbert would remind her, young men had to sow their wild oats, and at
least Giacomo’s club of choice wasn’t Madame Whiplash, an establishment of even more doubtful morality than La Cage and whose
existence in genteel Sedona the Queen did her best to ignore.

‘He’s not doing anything else,’ the Queen pointed out with persuasive speed. ‘Marriage would give him a role, do him some
good.’

But the King was shaking his head.

Astrid felt desperate. She had to save Max somehow. Having experienced it herself, she knew the full horror of the situation
now threatening him: sudden marriage to an unknown someone for the sake of the future of the state. Yet the state in question
was her state; she was queen of it.

What should she do?

At her coronation she had sworn under oath, before the Archbishop of Sedona, to put her country first in all things. Nursing
her firstborn in the quiet of the palace nursery, she had put her lips to his downy head and sworn to protect him and love
him for life. Whose side should she be on? Her country’s good versus her son’s happiness. Her duty as a mother versus her
duty as monarch. To which of her responsibilities should she be loyal?

Her only hope, for the moment, was that Engelbert would not insist she became directly involved. If she were given time, she
might think of a way round this appalling dilemma. A way out, even.

‘Obviously. So if you could just ring Max,’ the King was saying, with a casual expectation that made her see red.

‘Me! Why
me
?’ Astrid flared. ‘It’s
your
idea. Why don’t you ring him?’

The King looked surprised. ‘Because you’re the best at talking him round,’ he said. ‘Max will do anything for you.’

His words twisted the knife so agonisingly that Astrid wanted to scream.
Because he loves me, and because he knows I love him and want the best for him. I don’t want to ‘talk him round’, as you put
it. I know what it feels like to be made to do what you don’t want to
.

‘I won’t,’ she muttered stubbornly, slashing at the bushes with her blade.

Her husband watched her for a few minutes.

‘You have no choice,’ the King said. His tone was light, but matter of fact. ‘You’re Queen of Sedona. Your duty is to your
country. You should keep your personal feelings – which I don’t pretend to understand, by the way – out of this. Max’s marriage
is a matter of state, and you must support it – and me. I’m your husband, remember.’

Astrid looked up; Engelbert’s eyes were flinty and his square, rather heavy face was set in a manner that brooked no argument.
The royal mind was made up. Even so, Astrid thought hotly, she would resist it all the way.

‘So you’ll call Max?’

‘I can’t,’ she said stubbornly. ‘He’s at Oakeshott House, at Stonker Shropshire’s.’

A mighty jolt of panic now shook Engelbert’s composure. He swallowed, and his myopic eyes narrowed. Stonker Shropshire! That
settled it. If Max was with Stonker Shropshire . . .

The handsome English duke, with his imposing height, silver hair, libidinous reputation and the allegedly enormous manhood
to which his nickname referred, was something of a ladykiller even in his mid sixties. He and Astrid had been friends for
many years. Had they ever been more? the King often wondered.

For all his bombast and bluster, Engelbert was deeply insecure. He was aware that in marrying Astrid, he had strayed significantly
out of his league lookswise. He adored his wife, but the fear that
she had never really wanted to marry him lurked deep within, and sometimes, like now, it rose to the surface.

‘What’s he doing with Stonker?’ the King growled.

‘I did tell you about it,’ Astrid snapped back.

‘When?
When?
’ the King demanded. Had he really been informed? He cast Astrid a suspicious look.

‘I’ve told you several times,’ the Queen snorted. ‘But the only person you seem able to listen to at the moment,’ she added,
her voice rising sharply, ‘is that
ghastly
PR man.’

‘He’s not ghastly,’ the King retorted. ‘He’s saving Sedona. Look, just tell Max he has to come home and get married. He’s
the eldest. The Crown Prince, the heir. It’s his duty to his king and his country. He has no choice.’

In a garden square just south of Oxford Street in central London, a dark-haired woman in a red coat and high black heels was
sitting on a bench. She was keenly watching the entrance of an imposing thirties office block across the road. Above the revolving
door were the words ‘Fashion House’, although, strictly speaking, the building did not require this announcement that it was
the home of
Fashion
, the hugely influential glossy magazine. The leggy, polished creatures who kept the door in a constant spin were proof enough.

Alexa had watched them arrive, one by one. In Porsches, Ferraris and Aston Martins they had come, driven by glamorous men
who kissed them lingeringly before roaring off round the square in a cloud of smoke and money. None of these sophisticated
creatures seemed to walk from the Tube, as she had done.

She knew, however, that to feel bitter was an indulgence she could not afford. She had nowhere to stay that night, nor did
she have a job. And if she didn’t get both before the end of the day, she was lost. She could either sleep on the streets
or return to Mum and Dad’s; the former option seemed by far the most attractive.

She looked glumly across at Fashion House.
Fashion
magazine was not her quarry; a job on its sister publication,
Socialite
, was her aim. On the train, it had seemed a possibility; Alexa had pictured herself swanning in, passing security with a
light sally
and ascending in the lift to waylay the
Socialite
editor, impress her with her irresistible chutzpah and talk her way into a job.

Now, she felt less certain. She had been close enough to the doors to see that security was hardly the sort one just flounced
past; two mean-looking men in uniform sat behind the gold-sprayed front desk. Alexa’s hastily concocted alternative plan had
been to persuade an employee to accompany her in, but the idea of approaching any of them made even Alexa quail. There was
something so disdainful about the privileged beauties who scampered through the door, tossing their hair and swinging their
It bags. Seeing one look her over haughtily as she swept past in a cloud of delicious perfume, Alexa had retreated to the
garden square to regroup. How was she ever – ever – going to penetrate this citadel of privilege and power?

She stared hard at the square metal-framed windows of Fashion House. Behind which of those anonymous apertures was the office
of
Socialite
? That El Dorado whose desks were no doubt piled high with invitations to the parties she so longed to go to.

While the façade of Fashion House shone in the morning sun, the garden square remained plunged in shadow and was, for all
it was the height of summer, chilly. On the bench opposite, a tramp was just waking up, rustling in his filthy sleeping bag
among his plastic bags and paper carriers. Alexa shuddered. Was she looking at her own future?

Quickly, she pulled the much-thumbed copy of
Socialite
out of her bag. If this couldn’t galvanise her, nothing could.

Not every parent would willingly throw open their Elizabethan mansion to 500 teenage ravers, but Lord and Lady Huddersfield
were characteristically relaxed about holding their own music festival for People Like Them. Classtonbury, brainchild of their
spirited daughters Ratty and Moley Huddersfield, saw every funky titled teenager in Britain cram into the stately pile. Lady
Florrie Trevorigus-Whyske-Cleethorpe thrilled onlookers by tippexing a bikini on her otherwise naked form
and bareback-riding a Belted Galloway after one too many cracktails
. . .

Alexa mused over the accompanying illustration of Lady Florrie in action. Despite being covered in correction fluid, mounted
on a cow and obviously zonked on drugs, she somehow managed to look serene and beautiful. Of course, quite apart from her
spectacular looks, she was the daughter of a rich and titled family. Oh, to have that sort of confidence, thought Alexa. To
have that sort of anything. But she would, she would!

‘All right, darlin’?’

Alexa jumped in shock as the ragged figure loomed; it was the tramp, arisen from his couch and now stumbling confusedly around
the path to her side. The stubbly face with the rheumy eyes came near; the toothless lips made a smacking sound. ‘Gi’s a kiss,
darlin’!’

Alexa screamed, leapt to her feet and beat him off with the copy of
Socialite
. Then, wobbling on her high heels, she hurried across the road to Fashion House. She needed to make progress. She was running
out of time.

The morning was melting away; soon, all the Fashion House girls would have arrived at work. She had to find someone to admit
her. But who?

Rather than stand looking hopeless outside the Fashion House revolving door, Alexa took the more dignified route of buying
a cappuccino from the café next to the magazine offices. Fishing out three pound coins from her dwindling funds Alexa briefly
assessed the likelihood of being discovered as a magazine genius whilst working as a full-time barista. It seemed, at the
very best, to be a somewhat meandering route to her object.

She carried the coffee to one of the rickety aluminium tables outside and sipped meditatively. Her agitations were interrupted
by a terrifying roar in the square and an enormous, shining black vehicle swung into view. It had tractor-sized wheels, a
gleaming, tank-like body and it bristled with lamps, bull bars and exhaust
pipes. At first she wondered if the Third World War had broken out and she had been too busy reading
Socialite
to notice. Then she realised, as the terrifying machine screeched to a thunderous halt outside Fashion House, that yet another
employee was being delivered.

There was a girl in the passenger seat; a very beautiful girl of about twenty, with long blond hair. She clutched a very short
black mackintosh over long, slim, bare white legs. Was she wearing anything at all? Alexa wondered. She could see no trace
of a neckline inside the flaps of the mackintosh collar. As the girl swung her legs fully out, Alexa saw that her feet were
bare.

The girl seemed blissfully unconcerned by her undressed state, however. Having reached the level of the road, she then sprang
back into the vehicle to bestow a protracted kiss on the driver, a stockily handsome man with fair hair and a wide face. Alexa
could not see clearly but he appeared to be dressed in a pinstriped suit over a string vest, with several gold chains round
his neck. His wrists and fingers blazed with bracelets, rings and watches.

As Alexa, too fascinated to look away, kept her gaze trained on the couple, they disappeared from sight below the steering
wheel. She could hear gasps and shrieks. ‘Omigod! Not now, Igor!’

The girl, squealing with laughter, bobbed up again and scrambled out, her blond hair wheeling, her coat swinging open to reveal,
as Alexa had expected, a body without a stitch on it. She wondered why the girl seemed so familiar, then realised. This was
none other than Lady Florence Trevorigus-Whyske-Cleethorpe, seen naked, painted in Tipp-Ex and mounted on a large bovine not
ten minutes before.

Alexa, sitting stock still at the pavement café, felt tremendous excitement. Could this be what she had been waiting for?

‘Come back!’ Igor was urging in a thick, heavy accent.

‘I’ve got to go to work!’ Florrie laughed up at him from the pavement. Alexa recognised the green leopardskin bag she swung
as one of this season’s most lusted-after models.

‘Work? Work he is for losers!’ Igor’s contemptuous laugh sounded like a hail of bullets. As he roared off, mowing down anything
in his path, Lady Florrie sighed, pulled her short black coat about her and stared around cluelessly.