Little Lady Agency and The Prince

  ‘It does take a while,’ I said, shooting Jethro a flirty glance. ‘All the hooks . . . and clips . . .’

  Honestly, I couldn’t help it. It was the wig.

  I saw him swallow hard. ‘Waste of time!’ he croaked.

  ‘I don’t think I could be bothered,’ snapped Daisy. ‘And I have a job to get to in the mornings. Unless it’s part of your job?’

  ‘It is,’ I agreed.

  ‘Oh, she’s a different girl at home,’ Nelson assured her. ‘You wouldn’t recognise her.’

  ‘Anyone got room for pudding?’ asked Jethro, trying to change the subject. ‘The strawberry tart sounds nice.’

  ‘Yes, you do have a bit of a thing for tarts,’ seethed Daisy. ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘I’ll just have a black coffee, I think.’ I put my napkin on the table. ‘Would you excuse me?’ I said, as Nelson and Jethro half-rose from their seats.

  ‘What a good idea!’ said Daisy grimly. ‘I’ll come with you.’

  She practically hustled me into the loos, then as soon as the door swung closed, turned on me with a ferocity I hadn’t seen since my sister Allegra had her car clamped.

  ‘What are you playing at?’ she demanded. ‘Jethro is off-limits! Off-limits! Leave him alone, you hear me?’

  ‘Darling,’ I said, leaning against a wash basin and affecting a sorrowful expression. ‘If only. Jethro is utterly devoted to you. He told me so when I—’

  Daisy’s eyes boggled. ‘When you what? Has he been meeting up with you behind my back? I knew it! Right, I’m going to have it out with him this minute.’

  Oops.

  ‘God, no,’ I said quickly, grabbing her arm. ‘I mean, we spoke on the phone and . . .’

  Nelson’s constant warnings about not spinning a web of complicated lies reverberated in my head.

  Keep it simple.

  I put a hand to my throat and smiled bravely.

  ‘. . . I must admit . . . Jeth is a wonderful man. But he made it very, very clear to me that you’re the only woman for him!’

  Which was true.

  ‘He said that?’ she asked hopefully. ‘And he wasn’t . . . drunk?’ Her guard fell and revealed a sudden flash of something I recognised: vulnerability. Poor Daisy. She must have had a bounder in her past. I’d had enough bounders myself to spot the ugly scars of paranoia.

  ‘Absolutely not. He’s mad about you. Adores you. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if he—’

  Daisy’s eyes lit up and she grabbed my hands. ‘Really? OhmiGod! You think he’s about to propose?’

  ‘Um! Who knows?’ I gasped, but she was already barging back into the restaurant, doors swinging behind her.

  ‘I think that went off all right,’ I said, as Nelson and I strolled arm in arm down Piccadilly afterwards. I’d changed out of my crippling high heels into the more manageable pair I kept in my big handbag, and shaken out my brown hair from underneath the wig. It was one of those rare early spring days in London when the trees are out, the sun is shining and you feel as if you’re breathing in summer instead of the usual grime.

  What with that, and a strong sense of a job well done, I was positively floating along.

  ‘Indeed,’ Nelson agreed. ‘It was nice of the manager to give us that champagne. Not that they had much choice after Daisy announced her engagement, mind you. I heard her telling the waiter how like Jethro it was to have arranged lunch so near Bond Street, for Tiffany’s.’

  ‘Well, what about you being such a great pretend boyfriend?’ I gave his hip a nudge with mine. ‘If you’re that good at making tactful conversation, I have no idea why you’re still single.’

  He looked sideways at me. ‘I learned from the mistress. Look, this is my office – are you taking the rest of the day off?’

  ‘Certainly not,’ I said. ‘I’ve got a wardrobe consultation, a broody mother and an unknown family drama to fix this afternoon.’ I leaned up to kiss Nelson on his cheek. ‘Thanks for your help.’

  ‘My pleasure,’ said Nelson. ‘I’ll see you back home.’

  The flat Nelson and I called home was a few streets away from the office, in a friendly but rather run-down residential area behind Victoria Coach Station. We had nearly the same postcode as Buckingham Palace, which impressed Jonathan’s mother no end, but it really wasn’t that posh at all. Still, I thought, noticing the first flickers of pink blossom on the cherry trees as I walked home, I’d miss its shabby gentility when I moved to Paris.

  My living arrangements at the moment were rather complicated, due to the fact that Jonathan had just taken a job running the upmarket Parisian branch of his estate agency, Dean & Daniels, while I still had to run the one and only branch of the very London-based Little Lady Agency. Consequently, I was working hard in SW1 from Monday to Thursday lunchtime, and living at Nelson’s, then hopping on Eurostar to Paris and into the arms of Jonathan for the rest of the week.

  Not seeing each other all the time did have its romantic advantages, if you know what I mean. He’d been there for nearly four months and we still hadn’t found time to go up the Eiffel Tower.

  However, I couldn’t go on living in two places, and Jonathan had been nudging me for a while about exactly when I was going to move to Paris permanently. I did want to, honestly. It was just . . . quite a wrench.

  When I got in, Nelson was going through the post and yelling at a radio phone-in, as was his wont. I kicked off my shoes, and put a bottle of wine on the table next to him.

  ‘A little thank you for this morning,’ I said. ‘Do you want to open it now? I’ve had a hellish afternoon trying to coach a client into telling his dragon of a mother he’s living with his girlfriend and has been for the last five years. Not to mention the fact that his father’s practically got him lined up to marry his cousin. God, sometimes I just don’t know where to start.’

  Nelson looked up from a selection of bills. ‘It’s a good job these people don’t know you and your own family arrangements, or else they’d find it hard to take your Nightmare Family Management very seriously.’

  I would have disagreed with him if it wasn’t true. The Romney-Joneses were, not to put too fine a point on it, a bunch of melodramatic, self-centred schemers. Jonathan thought they should all be in therapy, which of course we had been, for about a month in the early nineties, until my father found out that the therapy bills would cost the same as the mortgage.

  ‘More to the point,’ Nelson went on, ‘I hope you’re going to put some of that into action this weekend.’

  ‘Oh, don’t. At least I’m taking Jonathan home with me for back-up.’ I sighed. ‘We need to start talking about the wedding, and Mummy’s invited everyone for a family dinner – Allegra and Lars, Emery and William, Granny . . .’

  ‘The whole lot. Blimey.’ He wandered over towards his room, pulling off his tie. ‘Maybe you should take the wig with you? Might help you put your foot down.’

  ‘I don’t think Jonathan would go for that,’ I said. ‘He has quite strong views on the wearing of the wig.’

  Nelson paused on the other side of the room. ‘Mel, I was joking.’

  ‘Any chance of a foot rub?’ I asked hopefully. Nelson’s foot rubs were legendary. He had very strong thumbs and could turn me to jelly in seconds. That and the cooking made him Flatmate of the Year, indefinitely. ‘I’m walking on knots here.’

  ‘Sorry, I’m running late,’ he said, catching sight of the kitchen clock. ‘Maybe later?’

  He vanished into his room, and while I was still making pleading noises he reappeared, wrapped in a towel at his waist, and headed for the bathroom. ‘You’ll have to get your own supper tonight. And can I borrow that fancy bath oil of yours? I’ve run out,’ he yelled over the sound of the boiler cranking into action.

  My jaw dropped. One, Nelson was suggesting I made supper. Even when he’d been rushed into hospital overnight with blood poisoning he’d left instructions about what I should heat up from his freezer of delights. Two, he wanted to use bath oil. Three,
he was wandering around the flat in a towel.

  The sight of Nelson’s upper body, which he kept Englishly under wraps for as much of the year as possible, was a rare thing indeed. Even though we’d known each other for ever – possibly because we had – we’d agreed on dressing gowns as part of my moving in.

  So it was quite startling to have it so suddenly unveiled, and I couldn’t help noticing his biceps, newly rounded and flecked with a thick crop of freckles where his T-shirt arms had stopped and his tan started. He’d spent a few weeks in the Med crewing some yacht with his mate Roger, and heaving all those mainsails around had clearly had an effect.

  But before I could recover my jaw, he turned round and slapped a hand over his stomach.

  ‘What are you staring at?’ he demanded, turning away from me again so I couldn’t see whatever it was he was so self-conscious about. ‘Haven’t you ever seen an appendix scar before?’

  Mel! I told myself, with a brisk mental shake. That was the trouble about having a boyfriend you saw only at the weekends. By mid-week, I could almost fancy Jeremy Clarkson.

  ‘Bath’s about to overrun!’ I carolled. ‘Use whatever you want! I’ll make the tea!’

  And I turned on my heel and scuttled back to the kitchen.

  Nelson never lingered in the bath, and after ten minutes he plonked himself down at the kitchen table. He was now dressed in a pair of jeans and a blue shirt, and towelled his damp hair as I pushed a mug of tea towards him.

  ‘What’s the big rush?’ I asked, hoping he’d stay long enough to put dinner on.

  Nelson stopped towelling and looked up. ‘Dur. I’m taking your friend Jossy Hopkirk out for dinner. We’re going to a new organic pub in Islington. Come on, you set up this date.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  In an effort to kick-start Nelson’s sluggish love life, I’d turned to my bulging address book and set about creating a programme of blind dates for him, in the hope that he too might get to enjoy the delights of couplehood currently experienced by me and Jonathan. I had high hopes for Jossy. She had an advanced driving certificate and worked for a donkey charity. Competent parking and animal aid featured high on Nelson’s Top Ten requirements in female company.

  ‘Is that a new shirt?’ I asked curiously. Nelson seemed to be making more effort than normal – a haircut, fresh shirt, the trip up to north London . . .

  ‘Ah, you noticed!’ he said. ‘Yes, it is.’

  ‘Good!’ I said. ‘That’s . . . good.’

  ‘You like it? It’s the right colour?’

  ‘Yes. It’s great.’

  I wasn’t sure what this was about. Nelson normally spurned my help in clothes shopping. He was the one bachelor I wasn’t allowed to fix up.

  ‘Suppose I should really get you to give me a final check-up,’ he went on, as if he were reading my mind. ‘Sort out my wardrobe, and all that. Before you . . . go.’

  ‘Before I go where?’

  ‘To Paris.’ He ran a hand through his hair; now drying in wheat-coloured spikes. ‘Have you sorted out a date yet? For your big move?’

  I blinked. ‘No. Not yet.’

  For the second time that evening we stared at each other in silence.

  ‘I expect I’ll be discussing that with Jonathan this weekend,’ I said, trying to sound excited.

  I mean, of course I was looking forward to setting up home in Jonathan’s gorgeous Parisian apartment, and it wasn’t like we’d never be in London again, but leaving Nelson and the flat I’d lived in for so long was something I hadn’t spent too much time dwelling on.

  Nelson made a really obvious attempt to look jolly. ‘Yes, well, I need to know, so I can aim to get one of these blind dates of yours moved into the spare room,’ he said. ‘Place wouldn’t be the same without tights over the radiators and nine different shampoos cluttering up the bathroom.’

  ‘And then there’s my rent!’ I said, in an equally lame jokey tone. ‘I know it’s subsidising your organic-food addiction.’

  He pulled a face. ‘And what if she doesn’t like eating?’

  I felt a terrible pang in my chest, at the idea of Nelson patiently putting up with some dreadful bimbo’s faddy diets and yappy friends talking over Time Team. We’d come to an understanding over the years.

  ‘I’ll miss you, you grumpy sod,’ I blurted out, grabbing his hand over the table.

  ‘I’ll miss you, you daft baggage,’ he said, squeezing it.

  The phone rang on the wall next to me. It was half six, the time Jonathan called me from work every day. His time-keeping, like everything else about him, was meticulous.

  I squeezed Nelson’s hand apologetically. ‘That’ll be Jonathan. We’ll talk later, OK?’

  Nelson looked as if he were about to say something, but then shoved his chair back. ‘Right. I should get a move on.’

  ‘You look v foxy, by the way,’ I added, reaching for the phone. ‘I hope Jossy’s made as much effort!’

  Nelson mumbled something I didn’t catch, but I wasn’t really listening. My skin was tingling with delicious anticipation as I picked up the receiver and reeled off our number.

  ‘May I speak with Mrs Melissa Riley-Romney-Jones?’ enquired a smooth American voice.

  I sighed with pleasure and leaned against the kitchen wall. ‘Not quite yet. In a month or two?’

  ‘Not sure I can wait that long, Mrs Romney-Riley-Jones,’ said Jonathan.

  I didn’t care what order the names were in, I would never ever get sick of hearing any of them.

  2

  Jonathan Riley was the first man I’d ever dated who actually seemed finished.

  That wasn’t just because he had a great job, or because his coppery hair was always perfectly groomed, and his suits were handmade. It wasn’t even because he was, in my opinion, quite knee-wobblingly gorgeous, with his strong cheekbones, and a devastating smile that crinkled up his grey eyes. Jonathan had a special kind of polish, the sort you see in those Golden Era studio portraits of Hollywood stars. Nelson could snort all he liked about stuffed shirts, but I’d never seen Jonathan lose his temper or be rude, and he quite literally swept me off my feet in our fairy-tale courtship of dinner-dances and midnight taxi rides round London. I’d almost stopped believing that sort of romance was possible.

  However, while it was easy to be poised and stylish in smart Parisian cafes, in the company of a man who made me feel like Grace Kelly, there was something about the sight of Romney Hall’s wrought-iron gates that brought out the quivering adolescent in me.

  And that’s where we were right now. The happy hours since I’d picked up Jonathan from Waterloo station had flown all too quickly, and suddenly we were walking away from the safe haven of the car, and towards the ivy-covered dragon’s den.

  ‘Now, remember, darling,’ I said, ‘if you really can’t bear another moment, wink at me, I’ll pretend to faint and we’ll just have to go home. I’ve done it before. People are always passing out at my parents’ parties, for one reason or another. Leaving in a fury. Or a taxi.’

  Jonathan raised an eyebrow with an expression of adult amusement that calmed the butterflies cavorting around my insides, and replaced them with an altogether more pleasant fluttering sensation.

  ‘It’s only forty-eight hours,’ he said, putting his arm around my waist as we crunched across the gravel drive. ‘And I have met your family before, remember? It won’t be a shock.’

  ‘They never fail to shock me, and I’ve known them for twenty-nine years,’ I replied dourly. My family was held together by a series of long-running disputes and grudges, and so far Jonathan had managed to remain impressively neutral in the face of shameless flattery and pitching. Although Daddy was an MP, the rest of them were just as bad.

  ‘Well, OK, if they’re vile to me this weekend, I’ll take it as a sign that I’m part of the family. It’ll be a compliment!’

  ‘Hmm,’ I said, checking the cars. They were all there: Daddy’s Jag, Mummy’s battered Mercedes estate, Granny’
s little red sports car, some vast American SUV that I assumed belonged to my sister Emery and her husband, William, and a black BMW X5 with blacked-out windows and Swedish plates, which could only belong to my other sister, Allegra, unless Mummy had engaged a particularly Gothic caterer for this evening.

  Allegra was married to a Swedish art dealer, Lars, and was meant to live in Stockholm. We still saw quite a lot of her, unfortunately.

  I paused as we reached the huge oak front door, and suddenly grabbed Jonathan’s hands in my own gloved ones.

  ‘I just wish they’d be normal,’ I wailed urgently. ‘I just . . . Don’t let them put you off marrying me!’

  ‘Oh, honey! Don’t be ridiculous! Nothing could do that,’ said Jonathan. ‘Anyway, it’s a celebration,’ he went on. ‘How rude do you think they’d have to be to stop me from marrying you?’

  ‘Well . . .’

  Jonathan cut off my fifteen examples by wrapping his arms around me and kissing me with considerable passion. Once I’d got over the shock of actually snogging against my front door, something I’d never ever done, I melted happily into him, and would have carried on enjoying the delicious tingle of Jonathan’s hands investigating beneath my new jacket, when the front door opened and we staggered back in shock.

  ‘Oh, God,’ drawled Allegra, folding her arms across her chest so the trumpet sleeves of her latest black dress hung down witchily. ‘It’s Romeo and Juliet.’

  Blushing furiously, I scrambled to adjust my clothing. Jonathan merely shook out his jacket sleeves and stepped over the threshold into the hall.

  ‘Allegra, lovely to see you,’ he said, kissing her on the cheek.

  ‘Hmm,’ she replied non-committally.

  I steeled myself as I followed him in. It was never lovely to see Allegra. She had the dress sense of an operatic undertaker, and the sort of social manner that would have made her right at home in the more cut-throat days of the Roman Empire.

  ‘Bonjour, Allegra,’ I said, kissing her alabaster cheek. ‘Ça va?’

  ‘Hello, Mel,’ she replied. ‘Don’t tell me you got that shirt in Paris?’