Royal Pain (21 page)

“I know I’m American,” Bronte began defensively, “but I wasn’t raised in a barn, you know. I think I can see my way around a four-course dinner, and I’m sure I won’t be too much of an embarrassment for you.”

“You see, that’s exactly what I mean.” Max was now also attempting to sit up and have a proper conversation eye-to-eye. “It has absolutely nothing to do with you, American or otherwise. She may pretend or grasp, or what have you, that you are American or working or lascivious—”

“Lascivious!?”

“I mean it doesn’t matter what absurd notion she latches on to,” he said, raking his hand through his hair in frustration. “Please. What I mean is this will be entirely about
her
… she will do every damn thing to make it about my father’s death, or my sister’s near divorce, or your nonroyal blood—none of it will have any basis in truth. And when you saw that—what did you call it again?”

“The Max-look-of-worry…”

“Yes, that. In any case, I was contemplating my mother’s, well, let’s face it, what promises to be her hostile response to our happy news.”

“And you are just now contemplating this?”

“Well, not just now. I mean, I told you she might not be thrilled—”

“Max, you have a PhD in complex economics for chrissake. Please don’t be obtuse. Just admit there exists a galactic gap between not thrilled and
hostile
. What the fuck?”

“Bron—”

“Did you purposely wait until we were making our approach into Heathrow to tell me the… the… the fucking severity of the situation? What are we really talking about here? Does she even know we are coming?”

A split-second shadow of hesitation passed over Max’s face.

Bronte deflated. “Or should I ask, does she know
I
am coming?”

Silence.

“Max?”

“Would you like coffee before we serve breakfast, Mr. Heyworth?” the attractive Australian steward intoned politely.

Bronte simply glared at the poor attendant mercilessly, as if to say, “You will keep on moving down that aisle if you know what’s good for you, Crocodile Dundee,” then turned her attention back to her wayward fiancé.

“Max? Care to elaborate?”

“My mother… I mean, obviously she knows about us. Lydia’s been home for days, and I’m sure she has told her…”

Bronte refused to dignify that hanging thought with a response.

Max plowed on.

“Sylvia has never taken much of an interest in me, Bron. I don’t mean to sound maudlin, seriously. It was probably the best for everyone involved. You’ll see how her field-marshaling of Claire’s life has turned out. Well, you don’t know all the particulars yet, but trust me,
not
well
. And the mother-son détente has always served both of us quite well, thank you very much. But she can be quite a cur if things don’t go her way, and I guess I have just put off thinking how it will feel to have the Klieg light of her dissatisfaction shining right on me… on us…”

“Klieg light? You make her sound like an armed guard looking to stop a prison break. Holy fuck. This is… this is…”

“Calm down, Bron darling. I promise, it’s just—”

“Stop. Please, Max, just stop. I need to think for a few seconds.”

Bronte tried to busy herself with folding and putting away the mangled sheets and blanket that Virgin Atlantic had supplied, but she was making a mess of it and taking out her frustration with her now less-than-perfect fiancé on the innocent linen. She finally resolved the sheet situation by shoving the whole unruly mess into the footstool contraption, whipping her hair back into a ponytail, and putting her sleeping pod back into the full upright seat position.

Nothing like a little mindless bustle to take your mind off things.

She rubbed the palms of her hands along her linen khaki pants—
comfort
, she had thought when she chose to wear them on the flight;
idiocy
, she now thought as she looked at the wrinkled lower half of her body.
I
won’t be deriving any much-needed confidence from my appearance, then.

And, as fate would have it, she smiled at that. He was already in her head. When would she ever have tacked on that useless
then
to the end of a perfectly good sentence? In a reworking of her favorite Steve Martin one-liner about the French, she thought,
Man, those Brits have a word for everything
.

Max cleared his throat.

“So what’s the smile for, then?”

Bronte theatrically erased any trace of a smile.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“That”—he touched the edge of her lip with the lightest caress—“right there at the corner of your mouth.”

He knew it was one of the most sensitive parts of her body, and he was quite prepared to lure her out of her dread with some good old-fashioned flirting.

“Don’t even try it, Max. It’s such a novel sensation, me being truly and justifiably pissed at you. Let me savor it for a few minutes at least.”

Max frowned boyishly.

“And don’t try that either. I don’t give a fuck if you feel guilty or ashamed of yourself, because you damn well should.”

Bronte crossed her arms in front of her chest.

Max trailed a finger down her neck and she tried to shake him off with a shrug, then swatted at him when his touch moved down her shoulder.

“Cut it out!” she half-whispered, half-groaned.

Max smiled, got to his feet, then leaned over his seat to whisper into Bronte’s ear.

“This is so not a big deal, I swear. I’m going to the loo and you had better be done with your snit by the time I get back or I will have to resort to extreme measures. And I am warning you, if you require a proper spanking in the airplane lavatory, I will provide it.”

Whether it was the heat of his breath or the naughty, suggestive laugh that undercut his words, Bronte realized—for better or for worse, ironically—that she would never be able to stay angry at Max for long. She looked away as he headed toward the first-class bathroom so he wouldn’t see her grin.

Bronte decided to try her hand at freshening up before they served breakfast, and to apologize to that nice Australian steward while she was at it. She headed back to the other bathroom and waited for the “occupied” light to turn off, hoping there wasn’t some hairy beast of a man taking his time in there.

While she waited, her eye wandered to the nearby magazine rack and the most recent copy of
Hello!
magazine. Something about that exclamation point always made her smile. She grabbed it and began flipping through the pages to pass the time. She was daydreaming that she would probably see her own face in those pages sometime soon when, about three-quarters of the way through, she found herself—Valentino properly credited—skipping across the Lincoln Center esplanade hand in hand with Max as he tugged her along.

“Good God,” she muttered.

The very handsome and not at all hairy-beast-of-a-man who had been taking his time in the bathroom, had, of course, emerged in immaculate splendor at that exact moment and gave Bronte’s mussed, disheveled appearance a quick head-to-toe perusal.

He caught sight of the magazine image and caption, then added, “You might want to stick with Valentino.” He somehow managed to accompany the near insult with the world’s sexiest, albeit utterly inappropriate, wink. Then he was off down the aisle resuming his seat.

Bronte tucked the magazine under one arm and shook her head in disbelief.

About five minutes later, she plopped back down into her seat and slapped the copy of
Hello!
onto Max’s chest as if it were a subpoena. “News travels fast.”

“What now?”

“Just a rehash of the picture from Lincoln Center that was in the
Post
last week, but I suppose I should have paid more attention when you gave me the 411 on your celebrity status over here. Well?”

“Celebrity status? You must be joking, Bron.”

“Look, all I’m saying is please prepare me for the inevitable. I get it—you’re royal, you’re a duke, you’re an eligible bachelor. You are
somebody
. But are you, say, the Brad Pitt of London or the little-known but much-adored second cousin of Jude Law?”

“Very funny.”

“Believe it or not, I wasn’t even trying to be amusing. Max?”

“Well, I’d say probably more toward the second cousin variety, but occasionally certain family connections crop up and one of us turns up in the news for a few days. But you don’t need to worry about paparazzi trying to catch you topless on the prow of a yacht. We don’t have a yacht, for starters, but the topless bit—”

“Okay!” Bronte interrupted. “Let’s get a few things clear, Max. If it wasn’t my ass on the line, I would probably find your cagey humility perfectly sexy, but as it stands, I’m on the verge of dumping you for that flirtatious bathroom hog a few rows back.”

Max’s head whipped around to check out the smarmy bastard across the aisle and two seats behind him, then turned to Bronte with a grim look.

“Very well,” Max said. “There’s no way to predict how it will all spin out, but just to give you the back story, our family has been well out of the spotlight for many years—with only the occasional mention of Sylvia’s hat at Ascot or a snap of Claire at the ribbon-cutting for the children’s hospital near Dunlear. Basically, my father and grandfather were particularly adept at imparting a healthy sense of our own irrelevance.”

Bronte’s smile made it easier to proceed.

“So, you three would have that in common,” Max continued with a self-deprecating grin. “Basically, I think they will leave us alone as long as we’re not out clubbing until three in the morning or puking in Leicester Square.”

“How attractive.”

“We’ll just keep a low profile, Bron. There are two charities that I am particularly involved in, and all the business stuff, of course. No one is going to leave you in the lurch. My mother’s secretary is wonderful. I’ve already scheduled a meeting for the three of us to meet. She can walk you through the early stages of what’s involved.”

Bronte felt her chest constrict.

He sensed her anxiety and squeezed her hand tighter. “Bron, look at me. Nothing has changed. Just think of it as a business. That’s all it is. I have offices in London and out at Dunlear. Would you be so worried if I had inherited a real estate investment finance business from my father?”

She shook her head. “I guess not. But it’s not the same, Max. It’s just not.”

“It is, Bron. That’s exactly what it is. A job.” He paused for a few seconds. “Just one we can never quit,” he added quietly.

He looked up at the overhead compartments to gather his thoughts, then stared back into Bronte’s eyes. “I think this is why I never told you back in Chicago. It was wrong; I know it was. You were right to be pissed. But—” He exhaled. “But the ducal responsibilities really do not have to take over our lives. You are so efficient. You can juggle more crap in a single hour than most people can deal with in a week. I have three stewards who oversee all the buildings and lands. I know it might be disconcerting for you personally. I mean, you’re gorgeous and they’re all going to want to take pictures of us at parties and write about what you’re wearing for a few months maybe…”

“Max,” she whispered, “that sounds terrifying.”

“But you already do that. Think about it. You do that for Sarah James and you know tons of people in that world already. I mean, you don’t say ‘fuck’ in your press releases. It’s not like you’ve ever tripped over a red carpet.”

The weight on her chest was now starting to feel more like the anvil that Wile E. Coyote used to drop on Road Runner. “I have, actually. It was more of a stumble, but still. It was at a Valentino show last year.”

“Oh God. I am going about this all wrong. Just forget about it for now. One thing at a time. Let’s get through dinner with my mother. After that, the rest of it will feel like a cakewalk.”

“I’ve never actually done a cakewalk.”

“Very funny.” He leaned in and kissed her, slowly at first then with a rising passion. He pulled away from her reluctantly and his lip quirked up on one side. “Just remember,
that
is what we need to keep as our priority. Okay?”

“Okay,” she sighed. “All I’m saying is forewarned means forearmed. I can handle whatever comes our way as long as you give me a little heads up. All right?”

“Of course. I just didn’t want to worry you—”

“See,” Bronte interrupted, as she placed the palm of her hand on his cheek. “Like that right there will be a real problem moving forward. You know me well enough to recognize that ignorance is most definitely
not
bliss where I am concerned. Just give me the worst, then let me rail and stuff sheets into idiotic hassocks for a few minutes and I’ll be good to go. But if you casually introduce me to someone whom you just happened to have slept with once or twice way back when and just kind of
forgot
to tell me, not good to go.”

“Is that hand on my cheek a show of intimacy or are you about to slap some sense into me?”

Bronte drew her thumb slowly across his lips and replied softly, “Definitely the former.”

***

It was a relatively quick ride from Heathrow to the mews house in Fulham that Max had purchased soon after he came down from Oxford. He moved to London after he’d secured his first job as a minion at a large steel conglomerate. The house had needed a ton of work, and his dad had loved coming into town and helping him fix it up on weekends. The two of them had ripped out decades of lino, as Max described the linoleum floors to Bronte, and layers of flocked wallpapers and stripped the whole structure down to a beautiful, rustic simplicity.

Bronte was so taken aback at the combination of charm and sophistication that she dropped her bags just inside the front door and gasped at the beautiful living room.

“Oh, Max. I never was able to picture how you actually lived. This is so fantastic!”

She began walking through the room, lightly touching her index finger along the dark mahogany antique drop-leaf table that doubled as a collection spot for keys and mail.

“It’s not much really. My mother still chides me for living in the stables.”

But Bronte could tell he loved it. The living room had an enormous window that faced back out onto the quiet cobbled mews, happily framed by the ancient wisteria that was a riot of green and purple. The morning light cast a luminous glow on the rough-hewn, wide oak floors.

After all that linoleum was pulled up, the wood floors were in a beautiful state of well-worn age: scuffs and scars from centuries of use, bent nails, and the hint of sanded away bits of paint and glue from the passage of many years. The large beam that ran across the center of the punched-up ceiling had a similar patina of comforting wear.

The furniture was a mix of well-worn, unpretentious antiques and casual upholstered seating. Two enormous white sofas with inviting down cushions faced each other in front of a fireplace with a deep interior blackened from use. A set of narrow stairs led away to the right, and two sets of welcoming French doors led to the back half of the ground floor.

Bronte continued to make her way through Max’s world, loving everything about it. The back portion of the little house had been completely gutted so it was a single room that ran the full width of the building. A modern stainless-steel kitchen took up the entire wall to the right, with a multitiered, stainless-steel industrial work surface on oversized wheels serving as the kitchen island. A well-loved farm table, probably about ten feet long with ten mismatched wooden chairs set convivially around it, took up the rest of the room.

“And now for one of my favorite parts,” Max whispered hotly into Bronte’s ear as he guided her with the warmth of his hand at the small of her back out into an intimate, overgrown, walled garden.

“Oh, Max!”