‘What about dinner?’
‘I’ll ask Beatrice to bring something up. I need a nap if I’m going to be beautiful for photos.’
He didn’t want to go. She looked so alone. But she was waiting for him to go, glancing sideways at her dog, holding the door wide.
‘If there’s anything I can do…’ He said uselessly and she nodded.
‘Thank you. But there isn’t. Please, Max, just go.’
Max returned to his bedroom. He paced.
Then he went down to the sitting room Dolores had just vacated. The fire was still burning in the grate. The room was in darkness but he didn’t turn the light on.
He paced some more.
‘Will you be dressing for dinner, sir?’ Blake sounded apologetic, as if he knew he was interrupting serious thought.
‘No.’ He dragged himself back to the here and now. Blake was standing in the doorway looking worried. ‘I’ll skip dinner.’
‘Cook has prepared roast duck,’ he said reproachfully. ‘Miss Pippa has said she’s not hungry. I believe Cook will be hurt if no one eats her duck.’
Max closed his eyes. Obligations everywhere. Pippa’s obligations. His obligations. An obligation to duck.
This one at least he could fulfil.
‘Fine. I’ll dress and then I’ll eat Cook’s duck.’
CHAPTER NINE
MAX felt ridiculous.
He’d thought the uniform he’d worn the night they arrived was stunning. This one though was even more so. Deep blue and brilliant crimson, it was so startling that when he saw himself in the mirror he started to laugh.
‘Sir, it’s wonderful,’ Blake said with reproach. ‘You look so much more handsome than the old prince.’
‘I’m only Regent,’ he said, staring at the rows of honours on his chest. ‘This is crazy.’
‘You’re our sovereign,’ Blake said reproachfully. ‘At least until the little prince comes of age.’
Damn the man. He’d had it with the reproach.
‘Well, as long as Pippa has something to match,’ he growled, thinking of Pippa as he’d last seen her, a waif with tear-filled eyes and an ancient dog. She was as far away from this as it was possible to be.
‘Beatrice tells me Pippa’s dress is just the solution,’ Blake said reassuringly. ‘She says it will make us all smile.’
As she’d said, Pippa didn’t appear for dinner. He ate in solitary splendour in the grand dining room. Levout was absent as well-which made Max nervous, but he’d rather eat without him than with him. The duck was magnificent. He said all the right things, even though he was having trouble tasting.
He kept thinking of Pippa.
And Dolores. Dammit, he was worrying about a dog.
‘Ask Miss Pippa if she’d like us to call a veterinarian,’ He told Blake, and Blake looked at him with even more reproach.
‘Sir, we asked her that ourselves. She says no, there’s nothing wrong with the dog but old age.’ He gave a rueful smile. ‘There’s nothing a veterinarian can do about that.’
‘I guess not.’ He half rose.
‘Chocolate meringues, sir,’ the butler said reproachfully. ‘And then coffee and liqueur.’
Reproach, reproach, reproach.
So there was no time to return to Pippa’s room before the shoot. He made his way to the ballroom as requested at eight.
Beatrice was there, with the three children all rigged out as royal children had been rigged throughout the ages.
‘Wow,’ he said, astonished. ‘You look like something out of Hans Christian Andersen.’
‘We look beeyootiful,’ Claire said, pirouetting to prove it.
‘You’ve got a sword,’ Marc said with deep envy. ‘How old do I have to be to have a sword?’
‘Twenty-one.’
‘But aren’t I a Crown Prince?’
‘Yes, but I get to carry the sword.’
‘’ Cos Max is the boss of us,’ Sophie said, pirouetting with her sister. ‘Max fights the baddies.’
‘There aren’t any baddies,’ Beatrice said. ‘Let me fix your hair ribbon, Claire.’
‘Where’s Pippa?’ he asked. This was to be the official royal portrait. The photographer-a woman in her seventies-and her two spritely-only sixty if a day-assistants were set up and ready. One of the assistants was approaching him with a palette and brushes.
‘What’s this?’
‘Make-up,’ she said. ‘So you don’t shine.’
‘No,’ he growled. ‘I like shine. Where the hell is Pippa?’
The door swung open.
Pippa.
What the hell…?This was a transformed Pippa. She was a sugar-plum confection in pink and white and silver. She was a gorgeous apparition that made him blink in disbelief.
Her dress was a floor-length ballgown, with hoops underneath to make it spread wide. Her scalloped neckline was scooped to show a hint of her beautiful breasts. The pink and silver brocade curved in and clung to her waistline, as if the dress had been made for her.
She smiled at them all and twirled in much the same manner as the twins.
She had gossamer wings attached to her shoulder blades.
She was carrying a silver wand.
‘Who needs a wish?’ she said, and she giggled.
‘You’re a fairy godmother,’ Sophie said, awed, and Pippa chuckled.
‘You have it in one. I spent today trying to figure what my role tonight could be. I was feeling a little like Cinderella but then I thought, no, my role is already decided. I’m your godmother. I agreed to bring you guys here- with or without pumpkins-so that’s obviously who I am. We have two Prince Charmings and two Sleeping Beauties-’ she grinned at the twins ‘-only you’re not asleep any more. So here we are.’
‘We could bring Dolores in and she could be the horse,’ Marc said, entranced, and a touch of a shadow flitted across Pippa’s face. It was so fleeting that Max almost missed it. But he was sure.
‘How’s-?’
‘Dolores really is Sleeping Beauty,’ she said, cutting across Max’s question. ‘You wake her and you’ll be the Wicked Witch of the West. Okay, you guys, let’s get ourselves photographed.’ She twirled again. ‘Don’t you think this is just the right outfit?’
‘No,’ Max said, frowning. He was out of his depth here, he thought. But surely Pippa shouldn’t be the godmother. What the hell should she be?
Not Cinderella, that was for sure. No maid in tatters, this.
‘You look really, really pretty,’ Marc said stoutly, casting Max a look of…reproach.
‘You look wonderful,’ the photographer said, smiling with real appreciation. ‘The tabloids will love you to bits.’
‘You’ll win hearts,’ Beatrice said.
Everyone was smiling. Except him.
It felt wrong. Gossamer or not, she didn’t feel like a fairy godmother.
She felt…She felt…
She felt like Pippa.
