Read Little Lady Agency and The Prince Online
Authors: Hester Browne
‘No,’ I said. ‘I can’t say I did.’
‘Looks rather good, actually,’ Emery added, helping herself to a Tunnock’s teacake. ‘Daddy’s ordered a shedload of booze, and virtually everyone we know is coming. Will and I snuck off down to the pub with Allegra the other night, and invited some locals so, you know, if there’s anyone else you want to invite . . . Actually, shouldn’t we have a few extra sandwiches laid on, in case they stop for tea?’
I covered my face with my hands and tried to sound calm. ‘Shouldn’t
you
have told me this before now?’
Emery turned her most sympathetic gaze on me. ‘But you’ve been so busy! I didn’t think you needed more stress.’
‘Emery!’ I began, but then another Dalek voice barked, ‘Emery! Mummy!’
We froze, stared at each other, and Emery made a bolt for the door.
I hesitated for a moment, then followed her.
I went back to my room, shut the door firmly, and calmed myself down by making a list.
I bit my pen and felt guilty. I’d been saved so far by Imogen’s unexpectedly long run in that celebrity pirate show, but I still hadn’t thought about what I could do, aside from talking reasonably to her – which was sheer wishful thinking. Nicky would be arriving tomorrow, expecting me to come up with some magic solution, just as I had done with everything else.
I threw myself back on the pillows, utterly weary of being Deal-with-everyone-else’s-problems Mel.
As I stared at the same crack in the ceiling that had been spreading ominously towards the window since I was a child, the organisational part of my brain pointed out that I could maybe soothe my conscience a little bit by making sure Leonie would be there for Nicky. If it was a free-for-all, who’d notice an extra body?
I rolled over and rang her.
‘Hi, Melons!’ she said cheerfully. ‘I was just doing my accounts.’
‘Please don’t call me Melons,’ I said automatically. ‘You’re not really doing accounts on Friday night, are you?’
‘Yes?’ said Leonie. ‘Isn’t that when you do yours?’
‘Um, not usually. Are you doing much this weekend, apart from that?’
‘Just my pole-dancing aerobics class on Sunday morning.’
I choked a little. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Oh, you know, it’s a class I go to. Just thought it made sense to acquire a new skill as well as keep fit, and it’s always something I could turn to if needs be. Very lucrative, in time/recompense terms.’
The mental image of a spangly Leonie pole-dancing while briskly negotiating her fee with pissed-up businessmen somehow made total sense.
‘How sensible!’ I managed. ‘Um, well, it’s very short notice, but we’re having some people over for my nephew’s christening on Sunday – Nicky’s going to be a godfather – and you’d—’
‘Love to,’ she interrupted. ‘What time?’
After a few minutes’ chit-chat, I put down the phone and crossed ‘Nicky’ off my to-do list. Business acumen and pole-dancing in the comfort and privacy of your own home: Leonie got more perfect for Nicky by the minute.
Various Romney-Jones relations had started arriving on Saturday morning, so as to lay first dibs on the rooms with twenty-first-century mattresses. That was the trouble about having the ancestral pile, however falling down and leaky it was: the rest of the family assumed you had hotel-grade accommodation. Mummy’s immense jam stock, coupled with Daddy’s freebie cheese mountain meant that poor Mrs Lloyd, who’d been making mini scones since daybreak, wasn’t short of supplies as the crowd of ravenous Romney-Joneses built up in the drawing room.
Since these reunions had a habit of getting testy, I made the round of greetings, acknowledged that yes, I had grown and no, I wasn’t thinking of getting married yet, then scarpered to help Mrs Lloyd set up for the caterers.
Emery was collared by Nanny Ag as we were called into supper, and dragged upstairs for ‘Baby’s bath and bed’, leaving William to fend off the terrifying directness of my cousin Polly’s questions about why he and Emery spent so much time in different countries. She returned at eight with a face like thunder, apologised for not joining us, and went straight to the kitchen to eat her supper there.
I slipped away when the trifle appeared (‘Isn’t that Auntie Enid’s trifle bowl? She left that to me in her will.’ ‘No, she didn’t, it’s definitely mine!’ . . .).
Emery was sitting cross-legged in the vast dog basket by the Aga, scoffing rice pudding out of the tin while Mrs Lloyd made sympathetic noises. When they heard me come in, the pair of them flinched defensively, then relaxed.
‘She’s got to go,’ said Emery fiercely. ‘Mrs Lloyd was telling me she’s been snooping around the kitchen, counting the empty bottles in the recycling bags.’
‘And telling me what to do,’ said Mrs Lloyd. She shut the dishwasher with a bang. ‘Not that I mind having a list of instructions.’
I knew this to be a fib, but even so.
Emery pointed her spoon at me. ‘Since Bertie’s asleep half the time under her evil regime she’s got nothing to do, so the old witch has taken to bossing everyone else around! Even Bruce who comes to do the garden. Can you believe it?’
‘Telling me what to cook for dinner, running her fingers round the grill pan,’ muttered Mrs Lloyd grimly. ‘I could go on, but I shan’t . . . And then the bins, and where I keep the bleach . . .’
‘Right,’ I said. ‘The time has come. Where is she?’
‘In her room. Preparing her spells for tomorrow.’
‘Great. Emery, go up there right now, get her down here, and ask her about soft foods or something.’
‘What?’ Emery looked blank.
‘I don’t know! I’m not the one with the baby! Ask her about how you can turn tonight’s leftovers into baby food or something. Anything that’s going to keep her occupied and down here for as long as it takes me to get that file . . .’
Emery put her hand to her mouth. She looked thrilled. ‘Gosh!’ she said. ‘Just like Nancy Drew!’
The baby monitor in her pocket crackled as Bertie let out a preliminary squawk. Even I recognised it as a warm-up to something more ear-shredding. Emery’s face puckered with concern, and she looked up at me. ‘I’m not allowed to go to him. Not until he’s been doing it for about fifteen minutes.’
I felt sorry for her. Clearly, Em’s initial lack of interest in Bertie had turned into something much more maternal, possibly as a direct result of feeling he and she were on the same side against Nanny Ag.
‘I’ll take my mobile,’ I said. ‘Text me the second she starts heading upstairs . . .’
I hid in the cloakroom under the stairs while Emery returned with Nanny Ag in full flow.
‘You can never get yourself and your staff prepared too soon,’ she was saying. Above my head, her feet clumped emphatically. ‘That was always the problem with your mother – always had lemons for her G & Ts, never Milupa . . .’
‘Still . . .’ said Emery. I could practically hear her biting her tongue.
Once they were safely out of earshot, I ran up the stairs, two at a time, and let myself into Nanny Ag’s room, avoiding all the creaking steps.
Everything was obsessively tidy, to the point where I half expected red laser beams to shoot out as soon as I moved anything and I barely had time to register her worrying ‘tell-all’ bedtime reading –
Fashion Babylon
,
Hotel Babylon
,
Air Babylon
– before pulling open the bottom knicker drawer and starting to rifle methodically through the layers of Damart for the file Em and I had found.
But my hands weren’t finding anything solid. Well, not more solid than a couple of reinforced corselettes.
My blood ran cold. The file wasn’t there. It was gone.
Damn! I thought, rocking back on my heels. She must have noticed we’d found it!
I probed frantically with my fingers, but there was nothing in there except pants and the odd lavender bag. Shaking, I shut the drawer and tried the others.
Socks. Blouses. Millions of underskirts. Nothing I wanted.
My legs nearly buckled as I stood up. I knew I didn’t have very long, but my brain suddenly went blank as to where else she might have hidden it. I looked around frantically. The wardrobe?
As I was moving pair after pair of stout walking shoes, to no avail, a furious Welsh voice suddenly bellowed in my ear.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’
I promise you, I nearly wet my pants. Bloody Emery! I’d told her to text me as soon as Nanny Ag was on the move.
I spun round, gabbling, ‘Oh, God, I’m so, so sorry, Nanny, it’s not what it looks like, I was just—’
Allegra was standing there, a huge smile splitting her pale face, her arms folded across her chest. She was wearing her usual long black dress, with trumpet sleeves that hung down halfway to her knees. What with the smug grin and the red lipstick, the effect was very Elvira Munster.
‘What are you up to, eh?’ she demanded. ‘Not like you to be getting into trouble.’
I clapped a hand to my exploding chest. ‘Allegra! You nearly killed me. Where did you spring from?’
‘Just got here. Saw the light on my way up to the loo – then I saw your fat arse sticking up while you were investigating Nanny’s drawers so I thought I’d pop in. I see her taste in quasi-nun’s outfits hasn’t changed since 1985,’ she observed, flicking through the rails. ‘Think she’s got a Madonna and whore complex?’
‘Allegra,’ I said, taking advantage of her experience in stashing contraband in a hurry, ‘if you were trying to hide something in here, where would you put it? Quickly!’
She raised her plucked eyebrows at me, and stalked immediately over to the panelled fireplace. With one practised shove of the nearest carved rosette, a hidden panel opened, to reveal not one but three box files, and a bottle of Baileys.
‘This what you were looking for?’ she asked, as I grabbed the lot.
‘How did you know that was there?’ I demanded, stacking them in my arms.
‘Oh, known for ages,’ she said. ‘One of the cleaners told me about it. How do you think I got rid of that snivelling au pair Francine?’
‘You didn’t get rid of her,’ I said, momentarily distracted from my rescue mission. ‘She left because the room was haunted.’
‘She left because there was a tape recording of you and Emery playing your recorders hidden in the fireplace,’ Allegra corrected me.
‘You conniving cow!’ I breathed. Then a sudden doorbell ring from my pocket made us both jump.
THE EAGLE IS LANDING
, Emery had texted.
‘Quick,’ I said, ‘you know how fast she gets up stairs. Leave the Baileys,’ I added. ‘She’ll need it when she realises these have gone . . .’
‘What are you talking about?’ asked Allegra, as I hustled her out of the room as fast as I could, turning off the lights as I passed. ‘You could at least tell me what you’re up to . . .’
Nanny Ag’s flat shoes hit the squeaky step I knew was three down from the landing, and in desperation I opened the nearest door and pushed Allegra in.
It was the green guest bathroom. Hastily, I locked the door, put a finger over my lips to silence her and opened the first box.
Quite by chance the first photograph was of Allegra in her school netball match, clearly fouling the goalkeeper by holding her back by the pigtails while kicking the goal defence. It was during her ‘heavy thighs’ phase. On the back, Nanny Ag had written: ‘Allegra Romney-Jones – might one day be arrested – father MP, mother possible sex scandal.’
‘Bloody hell!’ she roared, in outrage. ‘Bloody, bloody hell!’
There was a sharp knock on the door. ‘Are you all right in there?’ barked Nanny Ag. ‘Is that you, Allegra? Are you constipated again?’
I made ‘No, no!’ faces.
‘Of course not,’ she yelled back. ‘I’m just . . . waxing my legs.’
‘I expect you’re not doing it right,’ Nanny Ag bossed through the keyhole.
‘Oh, I am,’ growled Allegra, ripping up the photograph into angry shreds. ‘I’m just having trouble . . . getting rid of the annoying little ingrowers!’
Nanny Ag coughed.
‘Bye!’ shouted Allegra. ‘I’ll see you downstairs!’
Meanwhile I was sorting through the photographs, cringing on behalf of the many friends and acquaintances I now recognised. I say recognised – some of them were nearly unrecognisable.
But this one was familiar. I stopped dealing out the photos and stared more carefully at one in particular, clipped to a printed sheet of notes.
The dumpy little brown-haired girl, enjoying a McDonald’s Happy Meal – didn’t I know her? There was something about the way she was snarling at the camera, with three boxes lined up in front of her, while everyone else just had one . . .
I checked the form underneath – a printed checklist with tick-boxes of popular problems, which Nanny Ag had obviously compiled for ease of gossip.
Oh, my God.
The notes, as compiled by Nanny Barnes (heretofore known as Nanny B., Nanny Ag had noted in her plain handwriting) revealed that it was one
Chanel Imogen Leys, of Mon Repose, Esher, Surrey
; brat rating
10;
born
12 April 1980
(so not twenty-three, as Nicky thought); worst habit(s):
fibbing
,
stealing, biting
; school:
home schooled since expulsion from third school for blackmail
. Under ‘other details’ Nanny B. had noted:
Insists that she is not Malcolm and Denise’s daughter, but is adopted love child of a princess
.
Wants to be a princess or an international showjumper
. ‘See file 2 for more pics, inc. shoplifting folder.’
A sudden feeling of glee and relief began to rise in me.
‘Someone you know?’ asked Allegra, showing me a photograph of the world’s fattest angel in my prep school nativity play ie, me. ‘Was there ever a cloud big enough to hold that angel? What’s all this for, anyway?’
I opened an accounts book, and boggled at the figures listed. ‘That give you a clue?’ I asked Allegra, showing her.
‘Good Lord.’ Allegra grabbed it off me. ‘If I’d known people would pay that much to keep things quiet, I’d have hung on to my school diaries.’