The Runaway Princess

I was traveling light, but that was only because Jo had gone through my wardrobe and hers and even then deemed only four items of clothing appropriate. Two of those were cashmere cardigans.

  “Royalty appreciates thrift,” she insisted when I was wailing in panic at my limited selection. “They wear the same clothes for years and years. Look at Princess Anne. She has blouses older than her children.”

  “I don’t think Liza Bachmann and Princess Anne are the same sort of princess,” I protested. “Remember that blog that tracks Princess Eliza’s outfits to make sure she never repeats them?”

  “Oh, but she’s a supermodel!” Jo clapped me about the arms. “Anyway, Leo’s been out with a model and he dumped her. He likes the normal-girl thing better. He won’t expect you to turn up looking glam.”

  I think she meant that to sound reassuring; but the more I saw myself on YoungHot&Royal.com, the more I secretly wondered if my carefree “no-makeup makeup” look was actually looking careless rather than carefree. And I hated myself a bit for even thinking that.

  “Here, take these.” Jo dumped her collection of vintage scarves into my bag. “Ring the changes with accessories.”

  “Just because you read that in a magazine doesn’t mean they won’t notice that I’ve worn the same thing with four different scarves.”

  “Darling,” said Jo. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned about models, it’s that they’ll be so busy with their own outfits they won’t notice what you’re wearing at all. And anyone royal will be far too polite to mention it.”

  That was consoling. Sort of.

  *

  When Leo said he’d book the plane, I’d naively thought he meant to flex his BA frequent flyer card; but Billy drove us to a private airfield south of London, where a charter jet was waiting on the tarmac, just for us.

  I was beginning to realize that the more exclusive and private something was, the more unassuming it would seem to be—until you clocked the people around you. The loos in the private terminal didn’t have gold taps, but I won’t tell you who I saw using the hand dryer when I nipped in to check my makeup. It would be very indiscreet. But suffice it to say … American Idol.

  From the second I stepped into the private jet, I was taking mental notes to pass on to Mum (and, from a technological point of view, Ted). It felt more like being in a very big luxury car than a plane, with big leather seats and clunky belts, but there were three cabin attendants waiting on us for the two-hour flight with handmade chocolates and champagne on ice.

  I had a couple of chocolates, but I couldn’t risk the champagne, not in the tight pencil skirt Jo had zipped me into. She said I looked very sports luxe. I wasn’t so sure I knew what that meant. Leo, of course, was perfectly relaxed and even joked with the crew when turbulence started to bounce us across the English Channel a bit quicker than planned.

  “Sorry there’s no film on these things,” he said, gently peeling my white-knuckled fingers off the armrest. “Or duty-free. Although I can tell you all about Mom’s Be an Everyday Princess campaign, if you can bear it?”

  I nodded. Jo and I had spent the past week extracting every single scrap of information about Liza’s campaign and Nirona in general from the Internet, and then condensing them into a series of “intelligent dinner-party questions” I could ask. It was like the Max Barclay party chat, but about a million times more upmarket.

  Leo’s voice was so soothing that even Liza’s waffle about personal dignity and community spirit sounded profound and even relevant to someone like me. I stared out of the window and tried not to be sick. The choppy water of the Channel turned into patchwork fields over northern France, and then snowcapped mountains spiking up from the clouds, and suddenly we were coming in to land at Naples.

  I glanced across at Leo. The nervous butterflies had returned, but now they were joined by a different kind, the glamorous, tropical “I’m going on holiday” fun butterflies.

  “It’ll be fine,” he said before I even said anything, and squeezed my hand.

  *

  A helicopter flew us over to the island, and landed in a paddock behind a sprawling cream stone villa with stocky turrets at each end, the walls wrapped in green vines and the roof tiled in warm terra-cotta. It was built into the side of a hill, and I could already see the different gardens laid out around the grounds, as if the castle were a grand lady with her skirts spread around her, each panel neatly embroidered in its own bright colors and patterns.

  “Wow,” I murmured, lost for words as I tried to drink in every detail at once. “It’s …”

  How did you compliment someone on his castle?

  “Breathtaking, isn’t it?” said Leo. “I get the same reaction every time I come home.”

  “I just want to run around all those gardens,” I said, touched that he seemed as in awe of it as I was. “And climb up the turrets and smell all the flowers.”

  A footman was stacking our bags onto a golf cart, and Leo put his arm around my shoulders. He seemed amused but pleased with my reaction. “That can be arranged,” he whispered in my ear.

  The golf cart took us around to the family entrance at the back of the castle; Leo explained that there was a tour on today, so the main entrance hall was occupied by four busloads of German tourists. Underneath a stone arch topped with a blue and yellow flag, Leo’s father, Boris, and an elegant woman were waiting for us. I thought they were having a row, from the waving arms and open mouths; but when we got nearer, I realized that the woman’s mane of tawny hair—seriously, I finally understood what fashion magazines meant by a mane—hid a phone, into which she was speaking with some force.

  Boris was just talking away to himself, I think.

  Leo jumped off the cart and went to greet them with air kisses and a hearty handshake, respectively.

  I slid off the seat with my knees together and tried to minimize the embarrassing wrinkles in my pencil skirt, which now looked a lot less Grace Kelly than when I’d wriggled into it that morning. I felt Leo’s hand on the small of my back before I had time to pull it down properly, and suddenly I was being shoved into the presence of Princess Eliza.

  “Mom, this is Amy Wilde. Amy, Liza Bachmann, my mother.”

  “Hello,” I squeaked, and stuck out my hand, which she took, gracefully, in both of hers.

  Liza Bachmann was properly, premiere-league beautiful. Everything about her face was perfectly even and symmetrical, from her almond-shaped eyes to her wide cheekbones to her generous mouth. When she smiled, it felt as if a very large light were being shone in my face. I blinked, amazed at the star quality she exuded, then twigged that she’d positioned herself with the sun behind her. What a pro.

  “Amy,” she said in a melodious low voice, as if I were a top new perfume by Estée Lauder. “How wonderful to meet you.”

  The Internet said Princess Eliza was a princess but not the Sovereign Princess and so I didn’t have to curtsy, but I found myself bending my knee a little anyway, and Liza seemed pleased.

  “Ah-ha, it’s the runaway date!” Boris was pointing at me, then did a weird boxing gesture at me which I guessed was meant to be a greeting. “Got your passport ready this time? You’re going to have a hard time getting away from us on this island unless you’re a good swimmer!”

  I turned red. Red-hot red.

  “I beg your pardon?” Liza inclined her head and a mass of mane tumbled to one side, revealing her small ear and her huge diamond earring. “Is this something I should know about?”

  Boris winked at me. “Gotta keep an eye on this one, Liza. She might decide to go home if we’re not being entertaining enough.”

  “No, no, that wasn’t what happened!” I protested, mortified. “It was—”

  “It was one hundred percent Rolf’s fault,” said Leo. “He’s lucky Amy is incredibly forgiving, as well as everything else. Are we in time for lunch? Because I want to show Amy the gardens while the weather’s good.”

  “Sure.” Liza seemed to be filing the runaway thing f
or later. “Come this way, honey.”

  My luggage had already vanished as we made our way into the castle, and I had to make a conscious effort not to let my wide eyes dart around me too obviously. Everywhere I looked there was something old and interesting: I guessed the massive swords and spears that usually hung on the walls of places like this had been kept for the main tourist areas, because these airy apartments were much more like a stylish art gallery. If the art gallery had stone-flagged floors and walls filled with medieval frescoes of various battlefields.

  “I thought we’d just have a light lunch,” said Liza as we swept down the corridors at some speed. Large oil paintings of blue-eyed blondes in hats slithered past in my peripheral vision. “I’ve got some appointments this afternoon.”

  “As have I,” Boris added.

  Liza shot him a look that said, “Yes, dear,” more acidly than words could have done.

  A liveried staff member ushered us into a bright dining room with a huge bay window looking down into the tiered beds and trimmed hedges of an English country garden. I wondered if there were any English-speaking gardeners who could tell me how they’d managed it, given that we were three worlds away from the soggy English climate here.

  “Is Sofia joining us?” Leo asked. “I heard she was around this weekend.”

  There was a microscopic pause before Liza smiled and nodded. “She said she’d try. She has some meetings herself today.”

  It was Saturday. Did everyone have meetings on the weekend?

  “Not work meetings,” Leo said, sensing the question threatening to burst out of me. “Sofia’s writing an article for Time magazine about our family. For the bicentennial. She’s doing some research this weekend with Uncle Pavlos and Granddad.”

  Boris let out a short bark of amusement, which Liza closed down fast.

  “But she’s very much looking forward to meeting you, Amy,” she added, with another gracious smile.

  The large table in the center of the room was set for six, and Leo held the elegant mahogany chair out for me, beating the two footmen to it by seconds. I was relieved to see just eight pieces of cutlery in front of me to negotiate. Jo had thoughtfully hidden a guide to social etiquette in my bag, in case they sprang any royal galas on me over the weekend.

  “Is Granddad joining us?” Leo asked, nodding at the sixth space.

  “We don’t know. He might just arrive. He’s so busy at the moment. Anyway, Amy, Leo tells me you’re a garden designer?” Liza began as a starter of scallops materialized in front of us, and with some discreet boosts from Leo, I managed to tell Liza and Boris about the wildflower mini-meadows now taking shape on Leo’s roof and my plans for (or, through the Leo-filter, my “fantastic transformation of”) the Trinity Square rose beds. I was halfway through a sentence about how the original designer had cleverly managed to create a subtly shifting cloud of fragrance all summer long, when the sound of high-speed marching ricocheted down the tiled corridor, and a woman dressed in several shades of beige swept into the room.

  Her narrowed eyes took in the scene at the table and settled on me. I had a very real sense of how Goldilocks must have felt when the three bears popped home unexpectedly, and found her mid-snore.

  “Ah, Sofia,” said Boris jovially. “Are we early or are you late? Actually, no, don’t answer that,” he added, as the smile faded from his face under the thundercloud of her gaze.

  Seventeen

  “Oh, please start,” said Sofia sarcastically, even before Leo and Boris could rise to their feet. “No, really. I’ll just jump in when the main course arrives, shall I?”

  Liza made an imperceptible motion to a footman, who produced another porcelain plate of scallops from nowhere.

  “Sofia, honey, do sit down, we’d barely started.”

  Sofia rolled her eyes but moved so the footman could pull out her chair, then sank into it with a dramatic sigh. Even without being introduced, I’d have known who she was. She was the image of Liza, but not quite as polished; her eyebrows were quite bushy, for a start, and she wore a pair of stern glasses that reminded me of Jo’s “don’t mess with me” prop glasses she put on to bully architects. I wasn’t 100 percent sure Sofia’s had prescription lenses in either.

  “Don’t bother, Mom, Oprah’s gone home,” she huffed. “Yeah, yeah, hi.” She waved a hand in my direction. “Carry on.”

  Everyone’s eyes turned back to me, but I’d totally lost my place. “Um, I …”

  The ormolu clock ticked loudly on the magnificent sideboard behind me.

  Silence. Silence in my head. Horrible silence in front of me. Say something. Anything.

  For one awful second I was back on the balcony with Jo, listening to her Max Barclay chat tutorial and fighting my mental shutdown.

  “So, Sofia, are you named after Sophia Loren? Or is there a special connection with the city?”

  Oh, God. That was my voice saying that. I wanted to sink my head into the scallops.

  “Are you asking if my parents conceived me in Bulgaria?” asked Sofia with a deadpan expression. “I don’t know. You’d better ask them. Mom? Can you remember where you conceived me?”

  Boris roared with laughter. “Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! What a question! If it was down to that, we should have called you HMS—”

  “Boris!” snapped Liza at the same time that Sofia yelled, “Have you people never heard of a rhetorical question?”

  “Sofia is named for our great-great-grandmother, Anna-Sofia Diedrich, the opera singer,” said Leo over the chaos. “She was a famous diva.”

  “Oh, go on, say it,” snapped Sofia. “Too. She was a famous diva too.”

  “I had no intention of saying that. Would you like me to?”

  “Kids! Kids!” Liza raised her hands and laughed a lovely caramelly laugh with just a hint of steel underneath. “Honestly! I know it’s healthy to be able to tease each other with love, but come on! You’re going to make Amy think we need family therapy!”

  “Not at all,” I mumbled.

  “Pavlos’s kids don’t argue like this,” Liza carried on, making a cute pointy gesture with her fork.

  Jo’s book said you weren’t supposed to gesticulate with your cutlery, but I supposed royalty got a pass on that one. As Sofia had so correctly observed, Oprah had gone home.

  “That’s because they’re not allowed to talk unless it’s all been cleared by Pavlos’s Speech Police,” replied Sofia. She polished off all her tiny scallops as if they were scampi in a basket. The second she stabbed the last one, our plates were removed and replaced with the main course of perfectly cooked white fish and tiny vegetables carved out of the original-size ones. “Oh, my God, I was talking to him for an hour this morning and I can’t remember a single thing he said. I hope the people of Nirona are looking forward to their robot leader and his tiny robot army.”

  “Sofie!”

  “Well, it’s ridiculous. I know you’re twins, but did you get all the charisma as well as all the hair, Dad? Did you suck it all out through the umbilical cord?” She wriggled her fingers at him.

  Boris shrugged modestly. “He got the crown, I got the personality. That’s how it goes in most royal families, my darling. Only fair to share things out between the siblings.”

  Leo glanced at me, and I quickly closed my mouth, which had dropped open in surprise.

  “Well, Rolf certainly got all the personality in our family,” he said with the amiable charm that seemed to defuse tension at a stroke. Well, usually. “What did I get?”

  “A penis,” snapped Sofia. “And because of that, everything else.”

  Liza’s eyes widened so far I thought her cheekbones would crack.

  But Boris seemed to be considering. “Hmm, I’d have said Leo got the empathy, and you got the smarts, Sofie.” He nodded. “But yes, a penis. Who could ask for anything more?” he added tunelessly.

  My eyes darted from Sofia to Boris to Leo and back again to Liza. I wanted to imprint it all on my brain to text Jo later, but t
hey kept talking so fast. What was it like when there were more than four of them here? At least the relentless back-and-forth meant I didn’t have to say anything. I’d never be able to keep up with this.

  “Sofia’s spent the morning chatting about the rights of succession with her Uncle Pavlos’s advisors,” Liza explained across the table. “For her wonderful Time magazine feature, which is coming out around the time that my television series premieres. You’re going to stress how important support and unity are in a modern royal family like ours. Right, honey?”

  Sofia turned her attention toward me, and I leaned back involuntarily in my chair as she addressed me directly. “Don’t you think it’s ridiculous, in this day and age, that women are passed over in the line of succession?”

  I swallowed. This wasn’t the sort of lunchtime conversation I was used to, even when those lunchtimes were spent sitting with my feet on a prince’s knee.

  “Um, yes?”

  She turned to Liza, flicking her hand in dismissal. “See? Even the gardener thinks it’s ridiculous.”

  There was an uncomfortable pause, in which I wondered if I’d heard her right. I heard Leo take a sharp breath, but I didn’t want to make things any more awkward, so I spluttered, “Is that not the case here?” in as intelligent a tone as I could muster.

  “No, it is not.” Sofia looked about to launch into a long speech but Leo coughed before she could get going.

  “And even if the gardener is ethically correct, it makes no difference, because the lawyer would have to knock off not just her Uncle Pavlos but Serge, Will, and her own father before she got anywhere near the throne. And that’s quite a food-poisoning incident to engineer,” said Leo. He patted his lips with the crisp linen napkin and pushed his chair back, even though he’d eaten only half his fish.

  “Would you mind if Amy and I took our coffee into the garden?” he said, turning to his mother. “I’d really like to catch the groundskeepers while they’re there, so they can answer any questions Amy might have.”

  I hurriedly put my knife and fork together.

  “Have you finished, Amy?” asked Liza. “Don’t let Leo rush you out!”