Little Lady Agency and The Prince (50 page)

I folded Piglet’s details in half and stuffed them in my pocket. ‘Right,’ I said, ‘I want you to hide these files somewhere so secure and cunning Nanny Ag won’t even begin to know where to look for them.’

Allegra wriggled her fingers. ‘My pleasure,’ she said evilly.

25

The day of Cuthbert Brad Lyall McDonald’s christening dawned bright and crisp, although this was in no way guaranteed to last the day, given the assortment of storm clouds heading into view, from one direction or another.

I got up early to check the chairs were set up in the chapel, and, for once, I had to admit that my father’s delusions of grandeur hit the spot. The set designers had managed to turn the semi-derelict building into a fairy-tale chapel, with ivy creeping around the empty arches and stained glass filling the large windows at the end, so that the clear morning sun filtered across the gold chairs in boiled-sweet pools of red, green and blue light. It didn’t matter that half the roof was missing, since forget-me-not-blue sky filled the gaps beautifully, leaving it open to bird song and the fresh smell of pine trees.

That might have been a tape of bird song and a pine tree candle since we didn’t actually have any in the garden, but I didn’t want to look too closely.

The crumbly old font that Emery and I used to wash our My Little Ponies in had been cleaned and treated with something so it looked like an Arthurian relic, and they’d gone round the worn plaques on the walls, restoring what they could of the long-gone Romneys, Romney-Joneses, another ‘unfortunate’ Romney-Jones who’d had three daughters and the smattering of Barclays who temporarily had the place in the 1750s.

I sighed, and felt a tiny pang of envy. Lucky Emery – with her husband and her baby she was making her own family dynasty. So was Allegra. Even Granny was getting another go at winding herself into a family tree.

All I had was myself, and my business.

I looked up at the fluffy white clouds moving across the broken roof beams.

And a flat to find, and a fresh start to make. On my own.

I shook myself. ‘And that’s plenty to be happy about,’ I said sternly.

I walked back into the kitchen to find a make-up artist and two hairdressers working busily on Mummy, Granny and Emery, while Daddy, with Bertie strapped to his chest as usual, was ordering the caterers about the priority the cheeses were to be offered in, according to various ‘private sponsorship arrangements’.

‘Ah, Melissa!’ he barked, as I walked in. ‘See if you can raise Nanny, will you? Haven’t seen hide nor hair of her since last night.’

‘No,’ said Emery. ‘She didn’t come to wake me up for my six o’clock milking.’ She put a finger on her chin and pretended to look concerned. ‘Poor Nanny. I wonder what’s happened to her?’

I winked. ‘Can’t think. Shall I go and find her?’

‘Do, darling,’ said Mummy, as well as she could with someone applying lip gloss and someone else tonging her hair. ‘She’s got the family christening gown.’

Emery’s eyes shifted from side to side. ‘Actually, William was wondering if we could maybe dress him in . . .’

‘Get the gown,’ said Daddy. ‘Every Romney-Jones baby since 1870’s been christened in that. Well, the legitimate ones, anyway.’

‘Any sign of Nelson yet?’ I asked before he could elaborate.

Everyone shook their heads.

‘He’ll be here soon,’ said Granny, giving me a reassuring glance. ‘He wouldn’t miss this.’

Better get any yelling out of the way before Nelson arrived. ‘I’ll go and find Nanny,’ I said, and steeled myself for some straight talking.

Nanny Ag was waiting for me in her room, and cut straight to the chase when I asked if anything was wrong.

‘Something has gone missing from my room, Melissa,’ she hissed, probing my face for clues with the searchlight gaze that had had me singing like a canary as a child. Not any more. ‘Something personal. I’m very disappointed in Allegra. I thought we’d dealt with those kleptomaniac tendencies after—’

‘It wasn’t Allegra, it was me,’ I said.

‘No one’s at home to Interrupting Ingrid,’ she began, then stared at me in shock. ‘
You
stole it?’

‘I stole your horrible files. Yes!’ I snapped. ‘I can’t believe it of you. I am absolutely aghast to think you could have let us, and yourself, down so very badly. Not to mention breaking the law. People go to prison for blackmail, you know.’

Nanny Ag glared at me, but I glared back, and I was used to training my disappointed gaze on recalcitrant bankers, not small children, and the extra power showed.

‘What would your charges think if they knew you’d been spying on them?’ I went on remorselessly. ‘After the trust they’ve put in you. I’m dismayed, Nanny Ag. Dismayed. If this is found out, you might never work with children again! Think of that!’

‘I hate children!’ she snarled. ‘Do you think it’s fun, being a status symbol for social-climbing snobs who think a nanny can turn their grabby brats into little angels, because they can’t stand the sight of them themselves? Getting a clapped-out Fiat Panda to drive while the parents swan around in a BMW? It’s just about the most miserable existence known to man. And as soon as they hit adolescence, you have to start all over again! Usually with their in-bred relatives!’

I stared at her, shocked, and not a little hurt. But I quickly rallied. ‘They’re children! It’s not their fault! It’s beyond mean to upset and embarrass people like this. I’m asking you to stop it, right here.’

‘Or what?’

‘Or I’ll get William to start court proceedings against you. I’ve got the lot, you know. And I’ve copied all your correspondence, so the various families can be informed and they can sue you too.’

Nanny Ag looked stunned, then devious. ‘This isn’t like you, Melissa,’ she said in a wheedling voice. ‘You don’t think I was including you in all this? Of course not. You were always my favourite.’

I narrowed my eyes. ‘And that was why you kept the picture of me as Boy George at a fancy-dress party, with “unlikely to do much” written on the back?’

Nanny Ag narrowed her eyes back at me. ‘Give me everything, or I accidentally put the iron through the christening gown.’ She nodded towards the back of her wardrobe, where the precious lace gown hung, then flicked a switch on the steam iron set up by the bed.

I took one look at it, then turned back to her. ‘Burn what you like. I have some burning of my own to be getting on with.’

And I left her to it.

Things started happening pretty quickly after that. The entire WI arrived in a minibus and nine cars, followed by seven cars’ worth of Cheese Diet publishers, two cars and a motorbike of photographers, three cars of journalists, reams of Emery’s vague friends, a gaggle from the Lamb and Flag, Nelson, Leonie, and the caterer’s van. As soon as Nelson arrived he was dispatched to patrol the makeshift car park in the paddock, a job he threw himself into with gusto.

Granny, Alexander and Nicky arrived in the Bentley, which I heard Daddy insist was parked as far away from his own car as possible on account of unflattering comparisons. This didn’t bother Granny in the slightest, as it gave her even further to walk, very slowly, turning heads in her enormous feather hat and matching royal fiancé.

After posing for a few photographs with Emery and the baby, Nicky slid over to where Leonie and I were making somewhat stiff conversation about the impossibility of finding a flat anywhere within the M25. When Leonie and Nicky spotted each other, they went through a very elaborate greeting ritual, in which, rather oddly, he claimed not to have seen her for weeks, at the same time as she claimed not to have seen him for days.

But Imogen’s imminent revelations were obviously bothering him.

‘I can’t put her off any longer,’ he said, his eyes flicking nervously to where Granny and Alexander were laughing uproariously at Mummy’s story about knitting a nude WI calendar for Charles Saatchi. ‘She’s out of the jungle or wherever she’s been and she wants to see me tonight. She’s talking about the
News of the World
, Mel!’ His face was pale beneath his tan. ‘Grandfather warned me there’s a year’s probation on the reinstatement! I’m seriously bricking it.’

‘Ah ha!’ I said, reaching into my handbag. ‘Brick no longer! I think I have your answer.’ And I handed him the Nanny File on Imogen. ‘She’s not quite the cut-glass socialite she’s been making out. In fact, I’m sure the
News of the World
would like to get their hands on some of
these
pictures.’

Nicky and Leonie gasped as the pre-nose-job, post-shoplifting-charge Imogen emerged. I know I should have felt more guilty than I did, but she was a repellent adult, and she didn’t seem like a very nice child, to be perfectly honest. Allegra’s sense of humour might be warped but at least she had one.

‘My friend Gabi says you can date the photos she’s got of you, by the way,’ I added. ‘She says digital photos have dates on, so you can’t even pretend they’ve been doctored or something. Ring her now!’

Nicky reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew his phone. I was pleased to see he was wearing one of the new English suits I’d taken him to buy, and with his hair less highlighted than usual and no sunglasses, he looked very godfatherly – in the lower-case sense of the word.

‘Hello, Imogen?’ he said. ‘Yes, I need to talk to you . . .’ Then he held the phone away from his ear and winced at the torrent of screeching.

‘Give it to me,’ said Leonie, snatching it off him. ‘Ms Leys? This is Leonie Hargreaves. I’m a libel specialist representing Prince Nicolas of Hollenberg.’

Nicky looked at Leonie, then looked at me with approval. She wasn’t dressed to impress particularly much – just a tweed suit and a furry beret – but I could see from her toned calves that she’d put in a fair amount of time on her pole.

‘She’s a pole-dancer in her spare time,’ I whispered to him.

Nicky’s eyes nearly popped out of his head.

Leonie didn’t notice. She was too busy giving Piglet the rounds of the kitchen, in fearsomely efficient tones. ‘I see . . . I see . . . While that is your legal right, I should also let you know that we have certain images within our possession which do throw new light on proceedings . . .’ She gave us the thumbs-up.

‘She’s very . . . stern, isn’t she?’ Nicky murmured approvingly. ‘It’s always the quiet ones that surprise you.’

‘Is it? I wouldn’t know.’

He cut me a familiar flirty look. ‘Oh, I bet you would.’

‘I
wouldn’t
. Anyway,’ I said, changing the subject, ‘your grandfather seemed to like her.’

‘Oh, yes. She had him at “international tax break”.’ Nicky turned to me, squinting in the sun. ‘He
really
likes you, though.’

‘Does he?’

‘He says you remind him of your granny. Which is about the highest compliment he pays women.’

Over by the table of drinks, Mummy, Granny and Alexander were laughing on their own. She put a hand on his arm, affectionately, and he lifted it to kiss in a deliberate gallant gesture.

‘He’s very keen to get to know you all better,’ Nicky went on, watching them. ‘He says it’s all down to you that he’s so happy now. Getting you to sort me out brought him and Dilys back together.’

‘Well, I think Granny’s the one to thank for that,’ I said. Granny was happy, Mummy looked happy, Alexander looked delighted.

‘And,’ he went on, ‘you’ll be pleased to hear that I have gainful employment at last! We’re opening a special tourism and investment embassy in Mayfair, and I’m in charge of events.’

‘Parties, you mean,’ I said.

‘Networking,’ he corrected me. ‘Very important for rebuilding international relationships. Guess who my boss is?’

‘Whoever it is,’ I said, ‘I feel intensely sorry for them.’

‘Your granny! Or should I say, my step-granny!’

Granny and Nicky. London’s champion socialisers. ‘Any job vacancies going?’ I asked, only half-joking.

‘Sorted!’ said Leonie, snapping the phone shut and handing it back to Nicky. ‘We might need to have a chat later, so I can bring you up to date on our position. I think I’ve made things quite firm.’

He winked at her, more like the old Nicky. ‘That sounds like my sort of date.’

Leonie giggled, in a most unLeonie way, and fortunately for everyone, at that moment Emery shimmered up in a confection of silvery lace that made her look like a beached mermaid, and dragged me and Nicky off to brief us on our roles in the ceremony.

For a ceremony organised by Daddy and Emery in conjunction, the whole thing went off extremely well. So well, I found myself wiping away tears as Emery and William promised always to laugh
with
Bertie, not
at
him, to keep their promises about Christmas presents, and never to dress him in clothes that would come back to haunt him later.

I thought they might have considered that last one more carefully, since Bertie had been dressed for his naming ceremony in some sort of hippy dungaree ensemble, chosen by Emery, topped off with a tiny pair of Nike trainers, chosen by William.

Allegra leaned forward and whispered, ‘I locked the old trout in her room. Didn’t think the christening robe was that important, right?’

‘Right!’ I whispered back.

Then Nicky and I got up and stood in front of the registrar-dressed-as-a-vicar, and promised to do our best to help Bertie be himself, whatever that turned out to be, and to surround him with love, support and lifts home from school.

It was a sweet service, and it was over too quickly, even with Emery’s schoolfriend Margot singing some godawful Whitney Houston song while the photographers got all their shots. Bertie didn’t cry once, except for when Daddy insisted on promising to look out for his little mini-me, and even then I think it was a howl of solidarity.

I hung back while everyone piled out of the chapel and headed for the enormous spread set out on tables in the dining hall. I didn’t think I could face another lump of Cheddar, after helping Mrs Lloyd spear foil-covered oranges with a ton of the stuff. Instead, I hugged my coat to me, and tried to put my finger on just why I felt so . . . brooding.