Sturgess studiously ignored the offering. Didn’t these people know that bodyguards were not meant to be treated as social entities? But, then, Americans were such a funny sort. Whenever they encountered anyone with an accent—which included anyone who spoke at all differently from them, no matter whose native soil they happened to be standing on, home or abroad, it made no never mind—they immediately held the so-called foreigner one hundred percent accountable for any and all actions of that person’s homeland government and culture. “I do so love your country,” Anglophiles would say, as if the person whom they were addressing were William of Hastings or something. And, heaven forbid if they had found something that was not entirely to their liking, well…
Sturgess sniffed at the air above her head. “Thank you for your kind words. I shall endeavor, should the opportunity ever arise, to pass those sentiments along to the appropriate authorities.” He sniffed again, only this time it was from incredulity rather than, say, the affected snobbery that only the lower-rung members of a clear-cut class structure were ever any good at projecting. Could any woman really give off such a strong scent of barbecued chicken? The aroma of it was invading his senses and positively destroying the aftertaste that he had been savoring all day from the leftover satay that he had enjoyed for breakfast that morning. He couldn’t wait to get away from her.
For her part, Bonita squinted up at the bodyguard through her frameless spectacles, rather rudely eyeing with suspicion the man who had just snubbed her. Not much to look at, was he? Much more height to him than any practical person ever needed to get the job done. Could do something a little more imaginative with that lack of hair. What was wrong with the Royal Family anyway? Didn’t they care what they had to look at all day long? Go figure. Probably hang Warhols in the palace next. Thank God, not her problem. Conclusion: rumor proved as truth—good help was hard to find.
Charles had meanwhile taken a towel and was using it to mop at the perspiration that was still beading up on his neck. He took a healthy swig off of the bottle of limeade, before holding the bottle out to Daisy. “Care for some?” he offered, not entirely successful at stifling a most indelicate belch with his other fist.
Daisy, who had concluded in advance that, based on recent experience, it would not be wise to consume anything in front of the Prince for the time being, shook her head in polite demurral. Besides, it was all she could do to tear her eyes away from the draw of The Ear. She kept waiting for him to ask her a real question, so she could see how it worked.
But he was apparently too preoccupied. He was examining the remaining spectators and players who were still milling about, searching. His face brightened.
“Ah, yes… Over here, boys!” he beckoned loudly, waving his arms in the air. In a more subdued tone of voice, he spoke to Daisy. “There are a couple of people that I should like for you to meet as well.”
Two extraordinarily tidy young men made their way over to where Charles and Daisy were seated. The taller of the two was such a crisp thing, that he positively squeaked as he walked.
The Prince hopped down off of the Aston Martin. “Daisy Sills,” he announced, “I should like to present my eldest boy, William. The sloucher,” he added with obvious affection, “is Harry.”
And so it came to pass, that Daisy Silverman found herself face-to-face with The Heir and The Spare.
Were these things all really happening to her?
Amazingly enough, this incredible scene—much in the same way of many things that had transpired in the Prince’s life during the last twenty years—went wholly unremarked by the members of The Press.
Talk about a fairy tale.
2
A phone was ringing at the Hotel Russell.
“Hello?”
“You think that nobody ever sees you. But I was there today. And the rest of the world will not remain in the land of dreams forever, my dear.”
Ominous.
“Pacqui?”
But the line had already gone dead.
3
Defender of the Faith. Head of the Commonwealth. Supreme Governor of the Church of England. CEO of the largest tax-exempt non-charitable organization in the world. Queen. Call her what you will, but there were times when all of her titles weighed down on her as heavily as a crown.
Yes, it was sad but true; even queens sometimes got the blues.
Well into her morning routine—having already bathed, dressed, and quickly gone over her personal correspondence—she was now studying the card that contained the day’s agenda. She glanced at it only briefly, before discarding it in disgust. What she had beheld there prompted the Reigning Monarch (simply another, albeit more transient, way of putting it) to hope that she was correct in her religious beliefs and that there indeed would be a sweet hereafter, a day of reckoning, a justification—a final reward for a life well and dutifully lived.
There had better be, because she certainly wasn’t getting any here.
In fact, it was a good thing for the card that it wasn’t a real messenger, because, otherwise, it might have been shot. For the offending item carried the rather disturbing information that the Queen must soon begin preparing for her next birthday celebration.
But, was it her Real one or her Official one? Time, and the ceremonial duties that went hand-in-hand with the mantle of sovereignty, had managed to finally blur her mental answer to that internally asked question. She must take care to never give voice to such a notion. Why, if she ever did, people might begin to think that she was losing her hold on things. And there would ensue—again!—all of those unpleasant speculations about it being time to step down a little early. Perhaps give the next generation—or, better still, the one after that—an opportunity to carry on with the scepter of tradition.
Over her dead body.
If she just remained calm, and carried on with her morning routine as if there were nothing amiss, surely, in time, the entire birthday matter would sort itself out.
It was 8:45, and she proceeded to her breakfast of sausage and kippers. She was halfway into it, when she decided to go the whole nine meters, opting for toast with Harrods’ marmalade as well. Might as well enjoy it while she still was able to. Before one knew it, it would be March again—whenever that might be—and time for Parliament to publish the Civil List, in effect informing the Royal Family of what their allowance would be for the coming year. They had become increasingly tightfisted of late (things certainly had changed considerably from when she had first started out) and it was anyone’s guess how long the favorite marmalade would survive as a necessity rather than a luxury. Why, it could fall prey to the assessor’s axe any year now. Really, how anybody expected a woman to be able to afford pins on only $13,000,000—per annum—was quite beyond her.
She spread an abstemious quantity on her toast (so much fuss about nothing, really) and put on her reading glasses, so that she might peruse the latest racing news in The Sporting Life. As she turned the pages, a reference to the upcoming events during Royal Ascot Week caught her attention. Ascot was always held in June.
This was good news indeed, for it gave answer to the thorny birthday question. If the month were June, then that meant that April 21st—and her Real Birthday—had already passed (which made abundant sense, since it hadn’t seemed as though it were that long ago since the last brouhaha had taken place). The bad news, then, was that she was, in fact, already older and had been for almost two months’ time.
She put aside the racing news and reached instead for the card with the day’s agenda again. Ah, yes, there it was. If she had looked at it more carefully the first time… but that was neither here nor there. Besides, surely it was somebody else’s responsibility to more prominently display the fact that she would be required to don her uniform for the occasion. Had she seen that tidbit of information earlier, she would have known instantly that it was the Trooping of the Color Ceremony, performed annually in honor of her Official Birthday and mounted by the Brigade of Guards, that she
was to be preparing for.
Yawn.
She sat back and listened to the bagpipes being played by the man who paraded up and down the walk outside of her window every morning for fifteen minutes. While the rest of the palace groaned with its displeasure at the sounds, the Queen gave a satisfied sigh, her equilibrium restored.
First, she would take her nine corgis for their daily walk through the gardens and on to see the lake and the flamingos. Then, only after that pleasant task had been completed, would she return and commence worrying about what to wear.
For the Trooping of the Color Ceremony, it was essential that she appear in appropriate regimental dress, depending on which regiment of the Guards Brigade was being so honored that year. It was always so important that she get everything just right. As the Queen mentally reviewed her vast uniform wardrobe—really, that Michael Jackson character had nothing on her—she sent a mild thanks to her own sovereign power that the card had also informed her that this year it was to be a regiment of Scots coming under review. She had always found the Scots, in spite of an inordinate amount of bad press, to be a most forgiving folk. Not at all like the Welsh, for example.
A few years ago, when it had been the Welsh, there had been one button on her uniform that had been stitched on to the wrong spot. Why, the resulting furor had almost equaled that of the Boston Tea Party, she remembered with a certain degree of asperity, holding on to the leash firmly in one hand as the corgis yanked her across the lawn behind Buckingham Palace. With her free hand, she adjusted the scarf that she was hoping would protect her coif from a most inconsiderately persistent drizzle.
The Welsh… hah! One would have thought that she had tried to unlawfully seize their lands or something!
4
Back at the palace, the Duke of Edinburgh had been roused from slumber by his wife’s bagpipe player.
Damned palace walls were so thin that there was simply no avoiding that wretched noise, he thought. No wonder the Empire was crumbling.
He tried to return to bed, but, in the event, the ensuing barking made any thoughts of further sleep impossible.
The Duke threw the covers back and, rising, strode to one of the long windows in his own chambers. He pressed his fists firmly onto the sill, doing his best Yul-Brynner-in-the-King-and-I imitation—except he wasn’t—and glared out into the cold, gray drizzle. In the mist, he could dimly make out the tenacious little figure trotting along.
Yes, there went his ever-loving wife and her armada of yapping Corgis again.
5
Much later in the day, following the ceremony, all of the Royals who happened to be in residence at the time stood on the balcony of the eastern facade, with its forecourt view of the Victoria Memorial. They were waving to the vast crowds of the birthday well-wishers.
Hearty wave.
Andrew wondered why, if they were going to move his mother’s birthday around in the hopes of getting better weather for it—much in the same way that the Americans now believed that every holiday should occur on a Monday; really no telling how long it would be before they decided to replant Christmas there—the very least they could do was spring for July or August, when there really was a better chance of seeing the sun shine. It always seemed to be so damp on the second Saturday in June.
Good-natured wave.
Edward was hoping that there would be Yorkshire pudding with the birthday supper afterwards. A tiny frown crept over his features, when he thought that the overwhelming worldwide preoccupation with heart-healthy eating might prevent such a glorious eventuality. But he shrugged all such nasty notions aside.
Wistful wave.
Anne thought ruefully how her time could definitely be better utilized with riding or working on one of her many charitable missions instead. Definitely the last year.
Slightly tozzled wave.
Princess Margaret was wondering what the hell she was doing there, when she’d much rather be back at Kensington Palace. Why did Mother always have to insist that she be there for Lizzie’s parties? It might be nice to stay at home every now and again. And it wasn’t as though anyone ever made such a great do about it when it was her turn.
Much more tozzled wave.
The Queen Mother was thinking how simply lovely it was to have children.
Grim wave.
The Duke of Edinburgh was mentally figuring out just exactly how much poison it would require to kill that bagpiper. Would a similar quantity prove sufficient to take care of the corgis as well? And, most important of all, could the crimes ever be traced, beyond the shadow of a doubt, to him?
Tired—but pretending not to be and with determined cheerfulness—wave.
Couldn’t they ever just get on with it, the Queen thought.
Absentee wave.
Where the devil was Charles?
Come to that, nobody could recall having seen him for days.
Just what the devil was he getting himself up to?
6
In the stands, women carrying racing cards were seen to come and go; not one of them gave a flying fig about Michelangelo.
• • •
It was the second of the four days in late June set aside for the Royal Ascot Week Race Meeting in Berkshire, signifying the beginning of the English summer social season, and the Prince of Wales could be seen to be traveling incognito. In addition to the expected top hat, lengthy morning coat, and cane, he was also sporting a full set of phony whiskers. Combined with the fact that the round sunglasses that he wore managed to camouflage the true color of his eyes, the entire effect of the costume went over as being just a teensy bit Lincoln-esque.
At his side, and doing her part to uphold the traditional dress of the lady spectator at Ascot, Miss Silverman was wearing the requisite pumps—amazing how much spectating was going on in her life all of a sudden. The pumps matched the salmon-and-white summer frock that, in turn, matched nicely with the wide-brimmed hat that—Daisy had learned much to her horror the day before—was de rigueur for the fashionable at the Race Meeting.
An emergency call to Bonita back in London on the previous evening had elicited the domino effect of a call from Miss Chance to the lovely people at Harrods, thus proving to the staff there that the Americans could serve just as effectively as tormentors over the wire as they could in person. (Equally amazing to Daisy was the speed with which accessories were becoming necessities; if Charley looked like Abe, then she was beginning to feel like a dwarfish Barbie.)
In addition to Bonita, Sturgess had remained in London as well. By using the persuasive argument that provided he kept his disguise on in all public places he would be safe, Charles had managed to prevail upon his protector to stay behind for once. For the first time in years, then, the Prince was out on a date with a woman whom he had not known practically since pram days, and there was not a chaperone in sight.
“God, I hate horse racing. Always was more of Anne’s thing, really.”
“Why are we here then?” was Daisy’s question, but the Prince’s mind could only seem to operate on a single track at the moment.
“And the absolute utmost in dreadfulness is the Royal Windsor Horse Show in May. Fortunate you,” he added, giving her hand a patronizing pat, as though she were a child who had barely and obliviously escaped a fate worse than boarding school, “you just missed that one. They hold these awful Gymkhana Championships and Father insists on participating in the National Carriage Driving Competition. It always puts him in such a foul mood when he loses.”
Prompted by the bemused expression on Daisy’s face, he quickly explained just what exactly the sport of National Carriage Driving entailed.
“I hate to play the philistine,” she responded, her stupefaction having dissipated not one iota, “but I just don’t get it. What’s the point?”
The stark expression on the Prince’s face indicated that, clearly, Honest Abe had never been quite able to fathom it all either.
As the day wore on, Charles, having apparently forgo
tten all about his disguise, proceeded to proudly introduce Daisy to any and every passing lord and dignitary who, for their part, cast many a startled backward glance upon the unusual pairing.
Daisy was fast learning that whom you knew was far more important, in this world, than what you knew. For example, in doing her research, prior to attending Ascot—and armed with the knowledge, gleaned from the Times, that a visiting legation from the relatively new country of Butterundi would, in all probability, be in attendance—she had boned up on the politics of that minuscule protectorate and its efforts to gain a toehold in the lucrative field of exportation of palm products. Feeling confident that her recent acquaintance with the shipping methods employed for the palm items would stand her in fine conversational stead with the best of them, imagine then her consternation when upon being presented to the Marquis of Butterundi, he proved to be far more interested in learning if—being from the U.S.—she were a personal friend of Kevin Costner.
As yet undaunted, however, Daisy was never one to feel that any information, acquired when her two hands were firmly wrapped around a book, was ever a total waste. While doing her digging at the British Museum on the topic of Butterundi, she had also taken the time to sift through some material on the Royal Family. True, like all of her fellow countrymen, she had preconceived notions about the Royals, but this was the Real Thing. And the People magazine version would, quite simply, no longer do.
And, as Charles introduced her to a seemingly endless stream of the nobility, she was glad of the reading she had done. She was easily able to identify Princess Michael of Kent. And Charley’s aunt, while she looked as though she could use a few cups of coffee perhaps, was also a snap. But as the hours ticked by, and with the titles still flying fast and furious, her head began to swim.
Falling for Prince Charles Page 7
