present anyway. That’s why I’m so important, The Monster tells me. All her godparents are relatives except me.’
‘I look forward to meeting her.’
‘You won’t enjoy it unless you’ve brought her something,’ Richard warned. ‘But she’s very entertaining.’
He was right on both counts. In fact, Bella was surprised to see how cool, courteous, dignified Richard got down and dirty with the make-up kit of Tilly Lenane’s Suki doll.
‘There is an irresistible appeal to a grown man sitting on the floor wearing pink lipstick and gold dust,’ she told him. ‘Do you think perhaps some rouge on his cheeks, Tilly? Nice round spots, about the size of a tenpence piece.’
His eyes promised vengeance but he sat calmly while the small girl polished his face to a shining carmine. The child’s mother, coming in with the Queen to put Tilly to bed, was taken aback. Queen Jane, however, was as charmed as Bella.
‘Very nice, Tilly. I think he looks very handsome. Don’t you, Bella?’
‘Stunning,’ she said gravely.
His lips twitched. ‘Do you think I ought to stay like this for dinner then?’
Even the Queen did a double take at that.
Bella, however, considered the suggestion, ‘Could be a bit rococo for a simple family meal?’
He allowed his shoulders to droop. ‘I’m really sorry, Tilly,’ he told his goddaughter mournfully. ‘You’re an artist but supper is no place for your art.’
But she didn’t mind at all. ‘I can do it again tomorrow,’ she offered generously.
Bella swallowed hard. ‘Maybe it’s time I changed for dinner,’ she said unsteadily.
‘Good idea, I’ll come with you. See you later, Mother, Nicola. Goodnight, Tilly.’
They escaped together. ‘How do you get this stuff off?’ hissed Richard as they ran up the stairs.
Bella was bubbling over. ‘No idea. That make-up is toy stuff, intended for dolls. They’re plastic. I don’t know whether ordinary make-up remover will take it off skin. You might have to use a blow torch.’
‘Alternatively, a good long session in the shower with an expert might do the trick,’ he said, whisking her inside their bedroom and locking the door. ‘Let’s go to it.’
They came down to dinner a little late but very, very clean.
The next day everyone went off to the slopes. Bella didn’t really like ski-ing and had only done it a couple of times, so she was glad to see that there were lots of easy runs and a relaxed family atmosphere to the place. The cousins, a dispossessed Grand Duke turned industrialist and his wife, were hospitable and the Lenanes jolly. Prince George treated Bella in exactly the same way as he treated his sister, giving her his spare stuff to hold while he shot off to buy a burger to fill the gap between mid-morning coffee and late lunch.
‘What? I’m still growing, you know!’ he said when Princess Eleanor called him a greedy pig. ‘I burn up a lot of energy.’
‘Not on the ski slopes, you filthy porker,’ she said, prodding him. They were clearly great friends though Bella suspected that they were both a little in awe of Richard. Of course, he was five years older than George, seven years older than Eleanor. It was a big gap, even if he wasn’t also carrying all the responsibilities of being the Prince of Wales.
Eleanor was not as cheerfully accepting of Bella as George was. She seemed friendly enough but remained distant, almost as if she were embarrassed.
That afternoon the cause of this became clear.
‘I’m glad that you’re with Richard,’ Eleanor said, awkwardly, when she and Bella found themselves drinking warming soup together while Tilly proudly showed off what she had learned that morning.
‘It’s been a bit difficult. Everyone thought he was going out with Chloe again.’
‘Again?’
Eleanor looked surprised. ‘You might not know but he’d been dating this Deborah person. We all knew it wouldn’t last. She was always looking round for the cameras. When that finished, he took Chloe to some party and then they went on to a nightclub. I don’t know the details. But he had a little walk out with her years ago, just after he left university and before he did his year in the Navy.’
Eleanor looked up at the mountain.
‘I don’t know how serious it was. You know Richard, he doesn’t talk about his feelings, and I was only a teenager. But Pansy said that Chloe was waiting until he came back. And when he did …’
‘Deborah?’
‘No. Nobody for a long time. Then there was Anastasia for a bit.’
Bella looked blank.
‘Princess Anastasia? Of Finland? She married last year. Big spread