Page 60 of The Heir Apparent
“Colin texted you,” Demelza added with the quirk of a bladed brow. “And some Jack character also texted to say he’s out late tonight, so you should call him when you’re free.”
I snatched my phone from Birdie. When I shot a dark look at Amira, she only shrugged.
“I can’t exactly wrestle the phone out of their hands when we’re hurtling down The Mall while the BBC watches our every move, can I?”
Amira and I had reconciled after the state banquet, but there was still a slight distance between us. It was clear that we were unable to discuss the past without one of us being gripped by rage and the other being deeply hurt. After our fight, I had offered to move into Cumberland 3 so we could have space from each other.
“But what about Chino?” Amira had asked in a small voice. “He thinks we’re a family now.”
I thought fleetingly of the little family I had made for myself at the bottom of the world. But family was the one thing I had in short supply, so I stayed. Every morning, Amira and I ate breakfast together and took Chino to the park to wear him out. After that, I went off to the meetings and engagements that used to be hers and Louis’s responsibility, while she did Pilatesor visited Vikki. I gently suggested that she perhaps reach out to her patronages or even start a foundation for young people dealing with loss. She gave me a polite, if enigmatic, smile.
“I will,” she said. “Just not yet.”
I was trying to keep her busy, but her new favourite diversion seemed to be the mess I’d made of things with Jack and Colin.
Ever since the state banquet, speculation that Colin and I were a couple had been feverish. The images of us walking arm in arm towards the ballroom made us look like an inevitable bride and groom. But it was the picture taken as he escorted me to my seat that had become a tabloid favourite. He was beaming down at me while I gazed up at him with my mouth parted and pouty. I looked positively feral in my low-cut gown, ready to pump out a bunch of his aristo babies. The day after the banquet, I had woken to a dozen texts from Finn, most of them a cascade of fire emojis and question marks.
Who’s the hot ginge?????????he wrote above a link to aDaily Poststory with the headline, “Sparks fly as Princess Lexi openly FLIRTS with UK’s most eligible bachelor, Colin Bellingham, who will one day be a Duke worth BILLIONS.”
There was also, I noted with alarm, no text from Jack that morning. It was the first day since I had returned to London that I didn’t wake up to a photo of Ragu, or an update from Jack’s day.
Omg lol, I had responded to Finn, mindful he would relay this message back to Jack.That’s just one of Louis’s friends. I don’t really know him. He was awful to me when we were kids. I bashed him over the head with a croquet mallet once.
EVEN HOTTER, he wrote back immediately.Enemies to lovers, my fave x.
I had been tempted to keep going with my denials, but I knew Finn loved nothing more than revelling in the drama of someone else’s life. Exhausted, I’d stuck the phone back under my pillow, pulled the duvet over my head and languished there for the rest of the morning. By nightfall, I was still hiding from Amira in myroom. I finally relented and texted Jack:What are you doing?But I didn’t receive a response and went to sleep feeling friendless, repulsive and alone. Jack was not a game-player. He had been raised in a house where people said what they meant and went to sleep with their disagreements sorted and their consciences clear. The Jennings farm was a weird place for me and Finn. We had grown up in homes where the only way to voice your displeasure was to go so quiet that your silence was like a scream.
The next day, I’d awoken to a notification from Jack: a photo sent without comment. It was Ragu lying on the gravel road. It took a few days until the tenor of our conversation returned to normal. By then, Colin was texting me too. It had started with a few photos of Louis from their junior school rugby days.Found these the other day. Thought you might like them, he wrote. I responded to thank him, and from there he began to text me every other day.
“Look at you, stringing along all the boys,” Amira had said a few weeks later when we were friends again and she watched my phone pulse with messages from Hobart and Belgravia.
“I’m not stringing anyone along,” I said, worried that I was, in fact, doing exactly that.
“String Colin along all you like, he’s a nightmare,” she said, sipping her wine. “But you might want to be more careful of the farmer’s feelings, don’t you think?”
“He’s not a farmer,” I muttered. I had talked Amira into letting me make spaghetti bolognese for dinner—with proper pasta instead of zucchini noodles—and the sauce was giving me trouble. “Also why do you hate Colin?”
Amira looked surprised. “I don’t hate him.”
“You just said he’s a nightmare.”
“Oh, well he is. I mean, he’sfine,” she’d said, her face twisting in contempt. “He’s just kind of a nightmare for women.”
She hesitated and then looked away.
“One time he was seeing a girl in our circle, but after a few months he met someone else. Rather than break up with her,he just brought the new girl to a dinner party at our house. So we had to sit through a whole meal with Colin and his new girlfriend on one side of the table and the poor woman he’d been sleeping with on the other side.”
“Jesus,” I said, though I hadn’t been particularly surprised. It sounded like any other dinner party at a Norfolk estate—Elton Park included.
“Anyway, I wouldn’t worry about that if you like him. You’re the big prize—he’s not going to screw that up.”
Surrounded by my family in the gold leaf and brocade opulence of the Central Room, I glanced at my phone and saw that Colin had invited Amira and me to his family seat for a weekend over the summer. Jack had texted as well, but I decided to save those messages for when I was alone. I was wedging my phone in the waistband of my skirt when Stewart appeared in his charcoal suit, a sedate pocket square folded like origami at the breast.
“Make sure that phone doesn’t make an appearance on the balcony, ma’am,” he said gently. “When you’re out there, stand to Her Majesty’s left. And try to smile.”
“I won’t cry this time, Stewart, I promise.”
We smiled at each other. Louis and I had made our balcony debut at the age of three, but I was so overwhelmed by the carpet of people before me, followed by the scream of the planes overhead, that I had burst into tears, and Mum had to take me inside. The next year, Stewart had arranged for the balcony to be opened up the night before the parade so he could lead me onto the narrow stone ledge and describe all the things I would see the next day. Together, we watched the night traffic swirl around Queen Barbara’s memorial, the workmen setting up barricades for the people who were coming to see us in the morning, and Stewart explained that there was nothing to fear. I’d never really got used to the feeling of all those eyes on me, but with his help, I always managed a smile and a wave.
