‘Didn’t you see her when we were all playing Vikings this evening? She was never quite sure whether she was doing the right thing by joining in. Not sure we wanted her. Not sure she wasn’t pushing in and spoiling it. Wondering whether she ought to be making coffee while the rest of us did what people like us do?’
Bella sat down on her side of the bed. ‘No!’ she said. But not because she still disbelieved him. ‘Oh, poor Ma.’
Richard turned and gathered her up into his arms, as if he knew she needed comforting. ‘She’s like her daughter. She’s brave. She took a chance and joined in.’
‘You’re quite a psychologist, aren’t you?’ she said slowly.
But he shook his head. ‘I’m not anything. I just know what I see.’
Bella leaned against him, muzzy from wine and the pent-up anxieties of the last weeks. ‘And you’re kind. So very kind.’
He let her go, flipped down her bra strap and said in quite another voice, ‘Also a half-trained Viking and randy as hell. Get your clothes off, woman.’
14
‘What’s your worst New Year Ever?’ – Tube Talk
It was their last chance to be alone together in the run-up to Christmas.
Ian said he couldn’t give Bella the updated diary pages. She suspected that was Wormtongue’s doing. But she didn’t sneak on him to Richard. For one thing it seemed feeble. For another, Richard was desperately busy, rushing about all over the country and out of it. She knew that because she saw pictures of him in the papers and on the News.
He did a good-will trip to New York, with a bunch of industrialists in tow, and sent her a text from the dance floor of Bar Bahia: I’m boogieing for Britain here. Where are you when I need you?
She laughed and texted back: Ready to boogie any time.
It was really late by then, the small hours in London, and Bella knew she should have been asleep. Instead she was sitting cross-legged on her bed, with a pashmina shawl round her shoulders and thick ski socks on her feet, trying to sort out some files for the evil dentist. Work was becoming increasingly busy as people dashed in to sort out their dental problems before the holidays. She wanted to get the whole system indexed and in perfect order before she left on Christmas Eve. There would be no handover period with her successor.
Bella had rented a car and would be picking up Granny Georgia at the airport before driving the two of them and Lottie down to the New Forest for Christmas. Bella would spend the rest of Christmas week with Janet and Kevin, before heading north to Drummon House, the Royal residence on the edge of the Highlands, for the New Year.
She was not looking forward to the New Year.
On Richard’s advice, Bella had braced herself for another Little Talk with Lady Pansy in advance of the invitation. It was an afternoon gig and Lady Pansy had served up a terrifying list of traditions and customs for the New Year, along with China tea in cups of porcelain so thin that their contents were cold before the first sip. Bella liked builder’s tea with a good slug of milk, or Earl Grey if she was pushed. She nearly gagged at the smoky, herbal stuff that Lady Pansy favoured. It was, as she told Lottie afterwards, somehow slimy and sharp at the same time.
‘Vomitorious,’ said Lottie, repelled.
‘Tell me about it. And then she went on for ever about the Family Traditions and how they had been spending New Year there since 1839 or something. I tell you, Lotts, my head began to spin.’
‘I’m not surprised. The woman sounds a complete pill.’
‘I don’t think she means to be. She’s very gentle and pleasant. I think she’s doing her best to turn me into a good little courtier in the time available. But my family hasn’t done anything since 1839, and I can’t get worked up about traditions unless they have some point to them.’
Lottie grinned. ‘That’s my girl. Red Finn would be proud of you.’
Bella groaned. ‘Don’t talk to me about my father. I think he’s deliberately trying to make things worse. He was threatening to write to the Despatch about Royalty grinding the faces of the poor in the dust, the last time we spoke.’
‘One thing I’ll say for Finn – he’s consistent.’
‘So is Lady Pansy,’ said Bella, returning to her original grievance. ‘Just look at