The Runaway Princess

  “Amy? Amy, are you in there?”

  “Yes. I’m relaxing.”

  “So you should be—what time did you get in last night?”

  I sat up in the bath, surprised by the urgency in her voice. “Not late. About half twelve? What do you mean by that?”

  “I mean, I was worried. I didn’t know where you were. Badger didn’t know where you were.”

  “Neither did my mum, and she isn’t ringing me up to give me the third degree.”

  I knew that was my guilty conscience talking. You should have phoned, I reprimanded myself. I told you you should have phoned.

  “Hello?” I could hear Jo’s incredulous expression through the bathroom door. “You’re normally in bed with your electric blanket on by ten! I was a whisker away from ringing round the hospitals! And you were up and out before my alarm even went off this morning. I only knew you’d come back in because there was no milk left in the fridge.”

  Oops.

  There was a pause.

  “Can I smell your good bath oil?” Jo demanded. “Are you

  really all right? You’re not … trying to wash away a bad experience? Because you can tell me. Amy? Amy!”

  Jo had a very vivid imagination. If I left her to guess, it would escalate fast, and she’d have Dickon breaking the door down before we knew it.

  Although that might take some time.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “Honestly. I’ve been pruning all day, my back’s killing me.”

  “And the bath oil? You usually use that hideous muscle relaxing one when you’re knackered. Not that expensive one Grace gave you for Christmas that you’ve been eking out like truffle oil for two years.”

  Reluctantly—the water had reached the perfect temperature—I hauled myself out and pulled on the fluffy dressing gown Jo had pinched from the last boutique hotel she’d stayed in. It had stop: thief embroidered on the back.

  “Oh no, don’t get out of the bath on my behalf,” came the wounded response through the door. “I’m only your flatmate.”

  I opened the door and saw Jo standing there in her leopard-skin coat, with her arms folded and a hurt expression barely covering her blatant curiosity.

  “So?”

  “If you must know,” I said, unable to stop myself smiling, “I was on a date.”

  Jo’s jaw actually dropped. She’d done a course in mime at her drama school and reverted to it at times when words were not enough.

  “Don’t look like that,” I said. “It was more a work consultation that sort of turned into a date.”

  “No, no. Stick with date. It sounds good. Where? And who? Who? Do I know him? How do you know him? It is a him, right?” She was steering me into the kitchen, and toward the table. We chewed over most of our problems at the kitchen table. It was handy to the fridge. “Sit. Is there any wine needs finishing up?”

  “You know there isn’t. Just open a bottle. You might as well, because I haven’t replaced the milk, sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about the milk. You’ve been on a date! I should be popping champagne! Ooh! Shall I open one of the ridiculous bottles Rolf sent?”

  Jo’s tone had changed completely: she was genuinely excited for me, like a father in a Russian play whose eldest daughter has just found a gnarled suitor who also owns all the orchards in town.

  She opened the fridge door to reveal the magnums of champagne Rolf had been sending. They nestled next to normal bottles of wine like giant babies. There wasn’t much room for anything else in there.

  “Normal wine is fine,” I said.

  Jo had two glasses in front of us in seconds, and was leaning across the table before I’d had time to blink. “So? Spill the beans! Who is he?”

  “Well, his name’s Leo,” I started shyly.

  “Leo Hendricks?”

  “No, Leo—” I stopped, and suddenly realized that I didn’t know Leo’s surname.

  He must have mentioned it at some point, but I’d been too embarrassed to ask him again, in case it sounded like I wanted to Google him. I thought I’d heard the waiter say something like Mr. Prinz or Preece, but hadn’t liked to check.

  “What?” Jo scrutinized my confused face. “You don’t know his name? What sort of business consultation was this?”

  “I …” Oh, my God. I’d got into a car with a man whose surname I didn’t even know. Dad would pass out.

  Note to self: Never tell Dad.

  It didn’t seem to faze Jo. “Okay, we can work this out. Where did you meet him?”

  “I met him at the party, here. Last weekend.” There was nothing for it, I was going to have to come clean about my 180 degree turn on the posh boy thing. “He’s a friend of Rolf’s. Blond. Quite tall. Works in the City.”

  She stared at me. “Leo Wolfsburg?”

  “I don’t think so. He doesn’t sound German.”

  “He isn’t German. He’s half-Nironan.”

  It vaguely rang a bell. “Is that a description? Like Sagittarian?”

  Jo seemed to be vibrating with excitement. “Was he quite serious? Amazing blue eyes? Incredibly wealthy? Hotter than a nuclear fondue set?”

  “Er … yes to the eyes. We went to a members’ club for drinks, so … I guess quite wealthy? We didn’t really talk about that. We mostly talked about trees, and gardens. And London.” I turned red. It was hard to remember exactly what we’d talked about, but I knew there hadn’t been a second’s pause in the conversation all night.

  “Don’t say it,” I warned her. “I know he’s quite posh. But he’s also normal. He agrees with me about the ludicrous social kissing situation.”

  Jo threw her head back and laughed. She hit the table a couple of times for emphasis—again, the mime classes.

  When she’d got it out of her system, she straightened up and grabbed her wine. “You are the funniest person I know. Amy ‘I don’t like rich guys, I have nothing to say to them’ Wilde. Ha!”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning, you had dinner with a prince and you didn’t even notice.”

  “Leo’s not a prince, he’s a fund manager.” I grinned at the rare chance to correct Jo on a point of social standing. “Rolf’s the prince. Duh.”

  “Well, duh yourself. Leo’s Rolf’s older brother.”

  “He’s what?” I was so shocked, it didn’t even register as shock. More disbelief. “No. They don’t look anything alike.”

  “Neither do Prince Andrew and Prince Edward, but you try telling them they’re not brothers.”

  My brain furiously tried to process clues that Leo might have dropped, but I couldn’t remember a single one. I wasn’t stupid. I’d have picked up on it.

  Wouldn’t I?

  More pressingly, distinct memories of some of the things I’d said about his own brother swilled back like flotsam. “Oh, my God.” I put my hands over my mouth. “I was so rude about Rolf.”

  “Forget about it. Everyone is. Leo’s the rudest of all. So, where did he take you? The Ritz? Nobu?”

  “We had a picnic. In a private garden.”

  Oh, that had been a clue right there. You’d have to be a member of a royal family to afford a house like that. I must have looked like such a yokel. What else had I said? I moved my hands up from my mouth to cover my whole face. It was hot to the touch.

  “You’re so sweet,” said Jo. “You really had no idea? Who did you think he was?”

  “I thought he was just Rolf’s mate,” I wailed from beneath my fingers. “I thought he was the sensible friend idiots like that usually have in tow to stop them driving Rolls-Royces into swimming pools, you know, like a butler or something. …”

  I trailed off. Leo was clearly not a butler.

  “Rolf could do with a butler.” Jo topped up her wine. “Suggest it to Leo. See if you could get him a Jeeves. Or even a Nanny McPhee.”

  I sat up and gave her a straight look. “Jo, are you having me on?” I demanded. “Just because I don’t know anything about this sort of thing …”

/>   “Royals don’t walk round with crowns on all the time, you know.”

  “So why aren’t you giving me the big lecture about not touching royalty with a ceremonial barge pole? How come Rolf’s awful and Leo’s not?”

  “Because, off the record, Leo Wolfsburg is the one royal personage I’d make an exception for. He’s nearly a normal.” Jo narrowed her eyes so I’d know she was making a big concession. “Nearly. But he has a cocktail named after him at the Casino Del Rois, and he’s something like the twelfth most eligible prince in the world, so not normal in the usual run of things. Haven’t you Googled him?”

  “Of course I haven’t.”

  Jo pulled a “what are you waiting for?” face and flipped open her laptop. She pushed it over to me with a wicked grin. “Go on, type his name in and see what comes up.”

  I hesitated. I didn’t like Google. I was the only person I knew who’d never Googled herself, because after the whole thing with Kelly, even though it was years ago, I didn’t want to see what came up about me or my family. I’d never even told Mum about Google; she’d have been straight back on her anxiety meds. Ted said Google was like walking into a room where everyone was bitching about you, but they didn’t stop bitching when you opened the door, and that was enough for me.

  “Fine. I’ll do it,” said Jo, and started to take the laptop back, but I hung on to it.

  “No.”

  I took a deep breath, struggling with the idea that if Leo had wanted me to know any of this, he’d have told me himself.

  But then he hadn’t, pointed out the chippy voice. He let you make a complete arse of yourself.

  “I feel like a stalker,” I complained, typing Leo’s full name into the search engine. “What if I find something I don’t want to know?”

  “Leo’s family pays good money to make sure that can never happen.” Jo scooted her chair round to get a better look.

  “Even for Rolf? Have they got someone working round the clock with a big Internet red pen?”

  “Liza Bachmann has a full-time press agent,” said Jo darkly. “There’s an incident with two racehorses and some pink paint in Dubai that I don’t think ever made the papers. Anyway, no need to be squeamish—it’s perfectly sensible to check your dates out online first. I do. It’s when they don’t have any history that you want to start worrying.”

  “Isn’t that a trust issue?” There was plenty Jo didn’t know about me, for a start. “That maybe you should wait till they tell you?”

  She didn’t respond because the screen had loaded with page after page after page, all about Leo. Some had photos, and his shiny blond hair caught my eye. I was transfixed despite myself. Was this why he felt familiar? Had I seen him before in the papers?

  “Oooh, look,” said Jo. “Is that the Little Black Book eligible men list? Open that.”

  I clicked on the fourth link down. It was some society gossip site called YoungHot&Royal.com, featuring a list of the World’s Most Eligible Young Royals. Leo was at number nine; there was a photo of him smiling broadly and shaking someone’s hand with an explosion of flashbulbs around him. He was with an older man who looked like a film star and one of those glamorous, sharp-clavicled Hollywood women whose faces set at forty-four and don’t change until they die. She was wearing an impressive diamond tiara in her tawny hair, and she too was working the adoring crowd like a pro.

  Rolf was lurking in the background, also in black tie, but with his hair slicked back in a style that even I knew was really only acceptable on superyachts.

  “His parents,” said Jo helpfully, although there was a caption. “Prince Boris of Nirona and his lovely wife, Liza Bachmann, who is so famous she tends to be known as that rather than Princess Eliza.”

  I wasn’t listening. Now I knew, Leo really did look royal. That was the man who’d shared a bag of crisps with me last night, in a glorified garden shed. And then washed up. And I’d more or less accused him of being a date abductor.

  My insides clenched with embarrassment.

  “He’s up to number nine!” said Jo. “Good for him. What was he last year?”

  I peered. “Twenty-one.”

  “Ah. That would be while he was dating Flora Hardy-Torrence, you know, the jeans model?” said Jo, as if I’d say, “Oh, yeah, Flo-Har-Tor, of course!” “Everyone thought those two were halfway down the aisle.”

  “And she’s fine to date him, being a supermodel?”

  “Oh, she’s mad on her own account—her dad’s an earl. Is Rolf on the list?”

  “Rolf?” I started to scoff, “If Leo’s only number nine, Rolf isn’t going to—” But I choked when I saw that Rolf was ranked even higher than Leo. His deeply tanned face shone out of a photo that seemed to have been taken at a zoo. Or a private party with a lot of free-range monkeys. “No! He’s number seven! Down from number five last year! How is that even possible?”

  “Because Rolf is everything these prince-hunting types want.” Jo counted on her fingers. “He’s rich, he’s good-looking, he’s got absolutely no responsibilities whatsoever. All the glamour of dating a prince with none of the irksome tours of duty in Afghanistan.”

  “I don’t get that,” I said.

  “Don’t worry,” said Jo, “plenty do.”

  I was trying to keep my voice casual while my eyes widened at the details scrolling up the screen: Leo’s net worth (considerable, from his banking job alone), his previous girlfriends (the aforementioned Flora plus one Swedish princess and two “philanthropists”), his bronze medal for skiing …

  It was like reading about someone totally different. Some of it fitted with the friendly, unassuming, yet focused man I’d met, but most of it felt almost surreal. I never met people like that. People who dated Swedish princesses.

  But, thinking about it, had I met Leo? I felt as if we’d clicked, but he hadn’t told me about any of this. It was almost as if he didn’t want me to know. Maybe it hadn’t been a date. Maybe it had just been a very informal meeting about his garden.

  With a very gentle kiss on the cheek at the end of the night.

  They all did that, I reminded myself, crossly. Kiss kiss kiss kiss. What else was he going to do? Shake my hand?

  But the fact that he hadn’t tried to take advantage and go in for a big snog suddenly seemed more romantic than not. It was gentlemanly. I couldn’t decide if I was flattered or disappointed or what. It was all incredibly confusing.

  “Your eyes have glazed,” Jo observed. “You’re thinking, aren’t you? What are you thinking?”

  “I’m not sure I want to see any more,” I said slowly.

  “Why not?” She clicked on photos of Leo skiing. I’d never skied. The closest I’d come to skiing was sledging down Weatherburn Hill on a tea tray.

  There he was at a ball in Vienna with a stunning girl-woman in a tiny slither of a silver dress and not a hint of side-boob. Flora Hardy-Torrence. Of course. And again, with her in Verbier. She was barely wider than the skis she was carrying, and her teeth were whiter than the snow.

  “Because …” I couldn’t finish. I knew Jo was going to wheel out the whole chippy thing again, and it wasn’t that.

  She stopped scrolling and turned to look at me. “Because what?”

  Because I didn’t want to get excited. Because I didn’t want to get carried away. Because this funny sparkly feeling inside me, like champagne bubbles, wasn’t going anywhere—I was starting to feel flat already.

  “Because I’ve clearly got the wrong end of the stick,” I said. “Stop it.”

  Jo seemed on the verge of disagreeing with me, and then changed her mind. She pushed my wineglass nearer to me and I took a big swig, but my marshmallowy happy mood had gone. I felt cold inside my bathrobe.

  The wine wasn’t as nice as last night’s either. I’d probably been knocking back Châteauneuf-du-Pape and not even realized.

  “I can’t believe he didn’t tell me,” I said unhappily. “Why did he let me make a fool of myself? Going on about Rolf …”
/>
  “There are all kinds of reasons why he wouldn’t want to tell you.” Jo’s voice was gentle and reasonable. “I mean, maybe he assumed you knew? Most people he meets know exactly who he is. Maybe he didn’t want to embarrass you when it was obvious you didn’t.”

  That made me feel even more of a clueless bumpkin. I squared my shoulders and tried to find something positive to cling to. “It doesn’t matter anyway. He wants me to plan a garden for him.”

  “That’s great!” Jo’s enthusiasm made it sound not that great. “Maybe it’s better that you’ve found a new client. Weren’t you looking for someone with a really big garden to use for this bee thing? Imagine how much garden space Leo’s family’s got!”

  I forced a smile; that was exactly what I’d hoped she wouldn’t say. It was such a runner-up prize.

  “Don’t take this the wrong way,” Jo went on. “I don’t really know Leo, but from what I’ve heard about him, he seems like a nice guy. I just think you’re a nicer girl. I wouldn’t want you to get sucked into the madness.”

  “I’m not that nice,” I said. People were always telling me how nice I was. You’d think it would be a compliment, but it was amazing how sometimes it just felt like a kinder way of saying “blah.” “I just keep my horrible side well hidden.”

  “Shut up. You’re a peach. I mean, the Wolfsburgs are weird,” said Jo. “And coming from me with my family, I think you can tell how weird that means they are.”

  “In what way?”

  “Well, Rolf’s pretty much your typical Wolfsburg.” Jo sat back in her chair and swirled her wine. “Wolfsburg men do crazy, pointless things like land speed record breaking or extreme hot-air ballooning, and they usually marry singers or models or actresses who are madder than cats. Marigold had her second honeymoon on Nirona—even she was shocked at what used to go on in the marina. I mean, there were so many shenanigans there in the eighties that the whole monarchy nearly got kicked out. It was only thanks to some serious financial wheeler-dealing that they didn’t.”