He put down his knife briefly, leaned forward and kissed the tip of her nose. But he did it, she noticed, rather carefully, as if he wasn’t quite sure how she would take it. Well, good.
‘You’re a forgiving woman.’ It wasn’t quite a question, but he wasn’t absolutely sure of himself, she saw.
But Bella was more shaken by that casual caress than she wanted to admit, or even to think about. So she just said, ‘Aren’t I just?’ and dived into her red wine.
Richard went back to slicing courgettes. He was very fast.
She said curiously, ‘Have you trained or something?’
He smiled. ‘Imagine you’re a child, in a draughty castle you don’t really know, which is full of adults being terribly serious. It’s too wet to play outside and people keep telling you not to run around or disturb your parents because they’re sad. Your nanny is looking after the little ones and says a big boy like you ought to be able to keep himself amused. What would you do?’
‘Run away to sea,’ said Bella flippantly.
‘Right. I ran to the kitchen. And a wonderful ex-army chef, who had no stupid ideas about keeping small boys away from knives, taught me how to chop vegetables and pluck and draw a pheasant.’
He diced carrots, with equal expertise. Then onions, with no sign of eye-watering.
‘The skills have stayed with you, then.’
‘When I start something, I like to finish it. And do it properly, too.’
‘I can see that.’ She sipped her wine. ‘When was this grim time?’
‘When my grandfather died. My grandfather the King.’
‘Oh.’
He took chicken thighs out of the fridge and dusted them lightly with seasoned cornflour.
As he worked, he said, ‘When girls ask what it’s like being a prince, of course, I don’t know, because I don’t know what it’s like not to be one. But I do know what it’s like suddenly to realise you’re King. I watched it happen that week. I was nine. I saw it all. My mother went on doing what she always does: looking on the bright side, being constructive, doing the next thing. My father – froze.’
It was a desolate little world he was describing. Bella had a sudden vision of the isolated nine-year-old and his grieving, overwhelmed parents.
‘Was it unexpected? And were they close, your father and your grandfather?’
He didn’t answer, turning on the small oven and putting a casserole dish in it to warm. Then he poured oil into a pan and heated it up. When the oil was smoking, he picked up the chicken joints and placed them carefully in the pan. Minimum splatter, Bella noticed. He was right: what he did, he did properly. More than that, he did it with attention to detail and precision. Bella did not cook much, but whenever she did something like this she regularly coated every flat surface with a fine spray of oil or fat. She looked at him with increasing respect.
But had she overstepped some Royal boundary by asking about his father?
She said hastily, ‘Don’t answer that if I shouldn’t have asked. Sorry, I was just interested.’
He turned away from the food and took both her hands in his.
‘You can ask anything you like,’ he said with surprising intensity. ‘Anything. Whenever you want.’
‘OK,’ she said slowly. ‘But I don’t want you to think you have to answer. I mean, not if it’s private or some deep family secret or something.’
Richard turned back to the pan, adjusting the heat, cooking tongs at the ready, concentrating on the food.
He said levelly, ‘It’s no secret. My grandfather was a bully and a bigot. He had all the vices and a low boredom threshold. Which meant he made everyone’s life hell, just because he could. Everyone who was able to avoid him, did. That included my father. My mother was particularly good at arranging our lives so that there was minimum opportunity to see the old bastard. My mother has honed dutiful busyness to an art form.’
There was something in his voice that made Bella sit up and pay very close attention suddenly.
He sent her an odd, almost shamefaced look.
‘You know the first time we met? When you fell into the foliage and I pulled you out?’
She nodded.
‘You must have forgotten but you said something that night that I really recognised.’
‘Me?’ She couldn’t think what it was.
‘You said, “My mother’s much too busy running a Charity Ball to have me home.” My mother has never organised a charity do in her life. But, well,