Twice Upon a Time (34 page)

Gus shook his head. ‘Fooling a few women who barely knew us was one thing, but fooling the world? Our mother? I don’t know.’

Ludo frowned. ‘But if we get away with it, then we both get to be happy. I know you’re not happy, Gus. I know you hate the thought of the life ahead of you. In a perfect world you would be with Cinda, living at Avignon, playing your music, having fun, like I’ve been able to all these years.’

‘And you would be king,’ said Gus darkly.

Ludo stood up. ‘Is that why you don’t want to do it – because you’d have to give up the crown?’ His face was angry and hurt. ‘I don’t care who’s king beyond having someone who actually wants to do good. I never liked how I was always an afterthought to Mamma. I feel like my life has no purpose beyond stepping up if something should happen to you. My whole life I’ve been a spare part.’

Gus looked at Ludo and suddenly understood what his life must have been like. Always the afterthought, the second fiddle. He stood up and grabbed his brother by the shoulders. ‘I don’t want any of it,’ he said. ‘I just want Cinda.’ His voice cracked with emotion.

‘Then you can have her,’ said Ludo quietly. ‘You deserve her and she loves you.’

Gus looked his brother in the eye. ‘Do you think so?’

‘I do,’ said Ludo honestly. ‘I saw her at the party. She was heartbroken but she was too good to ask you to choose.’

Unlike Perrette
, thought Gus. He suddenly realised they might not know the news.

‘Perrette wasn’t pregnant,’ he said.

Ludo nodded. ‘Not surprised. I never liked her anyway,’ he said. ‘After she sent me that email in Africa, I knew she was a scheming piece of work.’

Gus stared at Ludo, his brow furrowed. ‘What email?’

Ludo rolled his eyes. ‘She told me that you were trying to get Cinda for yourself, and you know, that upset me because I didn’t know then that you actually liked her. I just thought you were trying to make her not like me, and you shouldn’t treat a girl like that. And also it pissed me off because she was my girl then and you were supposed to be looking after her.’

Gus shook his head. ‘So you didn’t want her but you didn’t want me to be with her?’ he challenged his brother.

‘Yes, something like that. But only until I saw that she was in love with you – very much in love. And then it didn’t matter; I just felt bad for her that she was in such a terrible situation.’

Valentina looked at Gus and spoke hesitantly. ‘I don’t know Cinda, but Ludo speaks so highly of her. I was almost jealous until I realised how it was between you and her.’ She smiled.

Gus nodded and stood up, pacing the room while he thought. ‘You know if we get caught the entire population of Sardinia will turn on us,’ he said. ‘People think we’re irrelevant enough as it is. Imagine if they find out we’ve tricked them.’

‘Then at least we will have gone down in battle,’ said Ludo.

‘So how would we do it?’ Gus asked, feeling some cautious hope in his heart for the first time in months.

‘I have it all worked out. First we have to fool Valentina’s father, then we have to fool Mamma. She’s going to Switzerland with the Greek cousins for Christmas. Let’s surprise her there and see how we go,’ he said.

‘That’s two weeks away,’ said Gus, horrified.

‘I know,’ said Ludo, ‘but we have to work fast. Who knows how long Cinda will wait around? And Valentina and I want to be together now. We’ve worked out a plan. Here’s how it’s going to work . . .’

For the next few hours, they talked about everything, physical and emotional. Each studied the way the other walked, spoke and gestured. Valentina acted as their coach and guide and critic.

‘Valentina,’ Gus heard the king’s booming voice, and he sat up straight.

‘Not yet,’ he whispered. ‘We’re not ready.’

‘We don’t have to do it now,’ said Ludo quickly. ‘We can start tomorrow after I get a haircut.’

The king entered the room and Gus stood up.

‘Welcome to Spain,’ boomed the king, extending a hand to Gus. ‘I am pleased you are here to see my lovely daughter.’ He winked.

Gus shook his hand and smiled, suddenly acutely aware of the man’s enormous physical frame.
Please let this work
, he thought, thinking of the punch the king could throw if he was angry.

The king beamed at Gus. ‘You will stay a few days, I hope,’ he said.

‘Thank you, sir,’ said Gus.

With that, the king left them to continue their conversation and Gus breathed a sigh of relief.

‘God, I don’t know if I can do this,’ he said, worried.

‘Relax, it’s all good,’ said Ludo.

‘Relax, it’s all good,’ said Gus, mimicking him.

‘That’s perfect!’ said Valentina, laughing.

Gus wondered, not for the first time that afternoon, if he wasn’t crazy for listening to his brother.

The next night, Gus pulled on Ludo’s slacks and white linen shirt, unbuttoned at the neck, while Ludo tied Gus’s tie around his neck. ‘Dude, I wish you weren’t so straightlaced. This tie is going to strangle me,’ he complained.

‘You might be strangled by the king if he finds out what we’re doing,’ said Gus.

‘Don’t be an arsehole,’ said Ludo.

‘You swear too much to be me,’ said Gus.

‘Fuck off,’ said Ludo, but with a smile.

They stared at each other in the mirror. Ludo had cut his hair as short as Gus’s that afternoon.

‘Tell me your story about the hair again,’ he said to Gus.

‘I cut it because I’m sitting for official photographs and mother asked me to,’ he said, shaking his head and running his hands through his hair. ‘I still don’t know about that. It’s not like you ever listen to a word Mamma says.’

‘It’s fine, nobody will care,’ said Ludo.

They turned to each other. ‘Good luck,’ they said in unison and then walked out the door, down to dinner.

Valentina was already in the dining room talking to her mother when they walked in. When she saw them, she swallowed her wine too quickly and choked.

‘Valentina,’ said her mother, ‘don’t gulp your wine.’ She turned to the brothers. ‘Ludovic, Augustus, it’s so lovely to see you again,’ she said, kissing the cheeks of each brother.

Ludo spoke. ‘Thank you for having us,’ he said. ‘It is an honour and pleasure to be here.’

Gus made a face.
Do I really sound like that?

Valentina had regained her composure and signalled to a servant to pour the brothers some wine.

‘Thank you, but I don’t drink wine,’ said Ludo. Gus glared at him. ‘Except, of course, wonderful Spanish wine,’ Ludo added quickly as the king came into the dining room.

‘Sit, sit,’ he bellowed and the brothers followed him to the table.

‘Augustus, you sit with Valentina. Ludo, you sit with me. I want to hear about your search for a horse.’

The brothers paused for a moment, before smoothly making their way to the assigned seats.

Gus sat next to the king and looked at Ludo imploringly.
A
horse? What horse?

He didn’t know the first thing about horses. Then it came to him. This was the ruse that had supposedly brought Ludo to Spain.

‘Ludo was telling me all about his search for a horse in Italy,’ said Ludo from across the table, looking at Gus significantly. ‘I suggested he come to Spain, because the best horses are Spanish.’

Gus tried not to roll his eyes.

‘What do you want in this horse?’ asked the king as the meal was served.

Gus tried to bluff his way through the conversation, while trying to remember to be Ludo, relaxing his manners a little while trying to converse about a subject he knew nothing about.

He glanced at Ludo, who was listening to Valentina and her mother attentively. Gus felt like he was in a dream.
This is a stupid
idea
, he thought, desperate to reclaim himself.

But then, as he looked at Ludo, being him, he remembered how unhappy he had been for so long in that role. Being a prince was a lonely life, and Gus knew more than anyone that to bear it, you needed someone by your side who could share the weight and the responsibility.

Valentina was sipping her wine and nodding as Ludo spoke. She was beautiful and elegant. She would be a good queen. Gus thought about Cinda. She could never be queen. She was too outspoken, too independent, too free and spontaneous. She would have hated it.

No
, thought Gus.
It has to be like this. Cinda may be completely
wrong for the role of queen, but she’s perfect for me.

Now he just had to hope to god that she still wanted him.

42

Cinda wheeled her suitcase behind her as she walked up to the check-in desk and handed over her passport.

She had insisted on paying her own way to Switzerland, even though Alex had offered to send a plane. She was flying economy on a commercial airline, and she felt good about her decision. Her work in London was starting to pay off, with the deposits on her portraits allowing her to think about looking for a new place to live for a while.

She didn’t want to go home, and she didn’t want to visit her mother in New Zealand either. She was still waiting for Allegra to call her back, but she knew she could die waiting, so she let the issue go.

Allegra was a shitty mother, but Cinda was an adult. What did she need her mother for, anyway? And yet some nights she yearned for the stroke of her mother’s hand on her forehead, her soothing voice telling her everything was going to be all right. How easy life was when you were a kid.

After she had checked in, she wandered up to the bookshop to look for something to read on the plane. Browsing, she came to the magazine section and picked up
Hello
. Thinking of Jonas and smiling, she opened it and gasped.

There on the page in full technicolour was Gus – holding hands with Princess Valentina of Spain.

Her heart sank and she stared at the photos of him.
He’s
made fast work of recovering from Perrette
, she thought angrily. Everything he had said to her had been a lie, she realised with an ache in her heart, as she paid for the magazine and went back to the lounge to obsess over the photos while she waited for the plane.

Why had he used Cinda like that? To get back at Perrette? Or maybe his mother interfered and set him up with Valentina.

Whatever the answer was, she was sure of one thing. He looked radiantly happy.

Is this the next Will and Kate?
read the headline.

Introduced by Prince Augustus’s brother, Prince Ludovic, who
met Princess Valentina on a recent trip to Africa, the young
couple made their first public appearance at a Christmas
pageant in Madrid.

Looks like Perrette is well and truly out of the picture!

Cinda felt sick. So Ludo had betrayed her as well. He didn’t try and help her at all, he just moved his brother on to a girl who was ‘right’ for him.

I hate them both
, she thought with a flash of fury, as she flung the magazine shut.

But on the flight to Switzerland, she looked at every photo in detail. Gus seemed changed. His posture was slightly more relaxed, he seemed more easily able to smile.
Maybe this girl is the right
one
, she thought sadly. Well, that was good – she was glad Gus was happy. But why couldn’t it be her? Why wasn’t she enough?

All the platitudes from Jonas and Alex didn’t mean anything. The truth was she wasn’t good enough for him.
I’m not even good
enough for my own mother
, she thought, her eyes filling with tears again.

When the plane landed, she tucked the magazine into her handbag, intending not to look at it again, but she couldn’t resist. She stared at it while she waited for her luggage and again when she was in the back of the Mercedes being taken to Alex’s ski lodge, not even bothering to look at the view of the Alps out the window.

Finally when the car pulled up, she put the magazine away again.

Enough
, she told herself, and she plastered a smile onto her face in preparation to meet Alex and her family.

Alex ran out as the driver opened Cinda’s door for her.

‘Darling, you’re finally here,’ she said and kissed Cinda on each cheek.