Little Lady Agency and The Prince (6 page)

‘The boot room,’ interjected Daddy quickly. ‘That sofa needs replacing in any case. Emery,’ he said, leaning over her and over-enunciating right into her face, ‘hang on until you get there. Don’t do anything on the main carpet.’

‘If you don’t get a move on, I don’t think there’ll be much choice where the baby’s born,’ I said.

Emery made a faint moan of horror.

‘I’ll get the brandy,’ said Daddy, as if this would solve everything.

As he strode off to his study, William set off down the hall with Emery in his arms and me and Allegra following at a safe distance.

‘Oh, it’s on the way? That’s
wonderful
.’ Granny was winding up her conversation in the manner of someone discussing a weekend party invitation.

‘Anything I can do?’ asked Jonathan, leaning on the staircase.

‘Get everyone a stiff drink and keep Daddy out of the way until it’s all over – start him off on Scottish devolution or something,’ I said.

‘Shall I send your mother through?’

I considered.

‘Get her a couple of large gins first,’ I advised. ‘She’s pretty squeamish.’

‘Will do,’ he said. He started to walk away, then turned back with a huge grin on his face. ‘You know, I love it when you cope like this, Melissa.’

I smiled wryly. God knows I’d had enough practice over the years.

3

After helping to deliver my very first baby on Saturday night, then listening to the whole thing re-enacted down the phone by my father for the benefit of the local press, with himself in the new lead role of Modest But Capable First Aider, the rest of the weekend was naturally somewhat flat.

Or, looking at it more positively, nothing else happened.

Emery’s baby turned out to be a boy, much to Daddy and William’s delight. Daddy was actually more delighted than William, and went round saying he felt as if he finally had the heir he’d wanted for years, which made me, Emery and Allegra feel
great,
as you might imagine, especially when he said it six times to six different journalists.

Even so, we were all bowled over by the tiny, pink shrimp of a baby curled up in the drawer from a Chippendale chest, which was lined with Mummy’s spare pashminas and pillows.

But if his dark hair, balled-up fists and irked expression didn’t give away his Romney-Jones genes, his lungs confirmed them. When he wasn’t asleep, or plugged onto Emery, he screeched and screeched and screeched. Nothing would stop him. It was like being trapped in a house with the car alarms, the fire alarm and the burglar alarm all going off at once. In fact at one point, my car alarm
did
go off, and we only noticed when Mrs Lloyd came in and begged me to sort it out because the dogs were going crazy.

Emery, naturally, slept through most of it (or pretended to), and the district nurse ended up giving me the list of instructions and advice for new mums.

Not that anyone else seemed to be stepping forward to help. Lars and Allegra left after breakfast, arguing about who should drive back to their London house in Ham, and Granny bailed out soon after.

‘I’m absolutely hopeless with babies, darling,’ she sighed regretfully, pulling on her kidskin gloves and adjusting her fur hat in the hall mirror as the deafening roar continued upstairs. ‘One was quite enough for me.’ She leaned up to kiss Jonathan’s cheek. ‘So lovely to see you again, Jonathan dear. Take care of Melissa for me, won’t you? Now, Melissa,’ she went on, with a meaningful twitch of the eyebrows, ‘would you give me a hand with my luggage?’

I’d almost forgotten about the ‘word’ she’d wanted to have with me the night before, but when I’d loaded the monogrammed luggage into the tiny boot of her sports car, she took my hands and said, ‘Monday afternoon, tea at Claridge’s. I have something I need your advice on,’ and winked.

‘I’ll need to check my diary,’ I began. ‘I’m rather frantic right now what with working a—’

‘Splendid!’ said Granny. ‘Love to Nelson!’

And she zoomed off, sending gravel and small birds flying in her wake.

Jonathan and I spent a pleasant hour tramping through the woods around the house with Braveheart and the rest of the dogs before I was summoned back to the house to ‘sort things out’ for Emery. Maternity nursing isn’t exactly a Little Lady Agency service, but I did what I could, made some phone calls and some lists. Emery, obviously, hadn’t had a chance to lay in the normal supplies one needs when faced with a squalling infant, and so I did my best to raise a cot, steriliser, sheets, blankets, Babygros, bottles, and posset rags, while William busied himself with the vital task of researching the fastest possible buggy on the internet.

Meanwhile, Jonathan manfully chatted to my father, then at six o’clock we escaped back to London where Jonathan had booked us into the Dorchester’s most honeymoon-y suite for the night, to save Nelson the bother of playing gooseberry in his own flat.

‘It has a spa,’ he said. ‘I reckoned you’d need some unwinding.’ He dumped my overnight bag on the gigantic bed, and massaged his temples as if to rub out the ringing in his ears. ‘What I really fancy is one of those hot oil body massages.’

‘Ooh, me too,’ I said, kicking off my shoes. ‘Should I ring reception and book?’

Jonathan gave me his most smouldering look. ‘Who says we have to go down to the spa for that? Come here.’

I must admit, Jonathan’s idea of room service was pretty blissful.

In the morning, I drove him to the Eurostar terminal at Waterloo, where we had an emotional goodbye (he ignored two calls on his mobile to demonstrate his extreme reluctance to leave me), and then I headed back to the Little Lady office in Pimlico to start the week.

As I crawled through the slow traffic, already missing Jonathan’s wry smile and his subtle aroma of Creed and maturity, I picked at a croissant and tried to think of three positive things about the day ahead.

It was my trademark cheering-up device: find three things to be positive about, and even the most dismal situation doesn’t seem quite so bleak. I knew it worked, since I’d had to resort to it many times over the years.

One
, I had plenty of work on at the agency to fill in the hours until I joined him in Paris on Thursday evening. Condensing my usual busy week into three and a half days meant I really had to focus my attention on exactly who I was dealing with. Once or twice, my mind had still been picking at the previous client’s problem while I was sorting out the next – which had given poor Rory Douglas a shock, for one, when he came to me for advice on getting rid of a lingering house guest and I’d absentmindedly started advising him on a more flattering haircut.

London drizzle began to obscure my view of the roadworks ahead. I flicked on the wipers and focused on my positive things.

Two
, I was seeing Granny for tea at Claridge’s this afternoon, and that was always a treat.

So long as whatever she wants you to do won’t turn out to be something awful, nagged a little voice in my head. I pushed it to one side.

Three
– and this really cheered me up – Nelson had his wine course on Monday nights, and that usually meant half a bottle of whatever they’d been tasting, plus Nelson in a ‘relaxed’ mood. He routinely claimed that he wasn’t even remotely drunk after these things (‘We don’t actually
drink
it, Melissa,’ he’d slurred the first night, ‘we ’
preciate
it . . .’), but on more than one occasion, I’d spotted him trying to boil the Magimix, thinking it was the kettle.

Just to prove that I was right to think positive, when I pulled up outside the agency, there was half a parking space right in front of my door and I popped the Little Lady Agency Smart car right into it.

The Little Lady Agency was on the second floor of a big Victorian white-faced terraced house, above an upmarket beauty salon so discreet it didn’t even have a sign on the door. I wasn’t entirely sure I knew what it was called, officially – it wasn’t the sort of establishment I could possibly afford to frequent myself. Most of its clientele were dropped off by drivers wearing dark glasses.

I waved to Serena the Botox technician, and removed my high heels to attack the stairs at a trot, as was my morning exercise habit. Two flights of stairs had certainly improved the state of my thighs over the past two years. Gasping very slightly as I reached the top steps, I reached into my capacious day bag for the keys and was delighted to see a vast bouquet of pink and red roses propped up against the post table.

‘Counting the hours,’ I read, unlocking the door and pushing it open with my hip, and my heart fluttered up into my throat as I buried my nose in the thick scented petals.

Jonathan had an unerringly old-school touch when it came to romantic gestures. He must have arranged it before he left Paris, and I knew he was absolutely rushed off his feet bending the new French office to his considerable will.

I closed my eyes to enjoy the musky fragrance better. Proper roses. At least three times a week I had to rush-deliver flowers just like these to get someone out of a missed-anniversary scrape. Jonathan didn’t even wait until he had making-up to do.

No, I thought, getting a crystal vase out of the cupboard, I really was a lucky girl.

My morning transformation from Melissa to Honey Blennerhesket always took at least fifteen minutes, and it was one of my favourite parts of the day. I hummed happily as I got changed in the spare room, and allowed myself a moment to note just how much longer my short little legs looked in black stockings, then slipped on the tight skirt, buttoned up the shirt, spritzed myself with perfume and applied a glossy layer of scarlet lipstick.

Ready to go! I thought, smacking my lips in the mirror.

My two morning clients went smoothly – a wardrobe consultation and a preliminary chat about a party I’d agreed to help plan – and at two o’clock I went off to Claridge’s to see Granny.

She was ensconced in a deep easy chair in the corner of Claridge’s lavishly appointed lounge, flicking through a copy of
OK!
magazine. Not for the first time, I fervently hoped that I’d inherited Granny’s anti-ageing genes. Sitting there in her slinky Chanel suit, her silver bob swinging around her cheekbones, Granny didn’t look a day over fifty-five, despite the fact that her real age was somewhere between seventy-three and seventy-seven, according to which of her passports you looked at.

Nelson claimed I had her way with men, though I didn’t see it myself. There’s a difference between working
with
men, and plain working them, and even if I was pretty good at the former, I knew from family lore that Granny was an expert at the latter.

When she spotted me, a broad smile crinkled up her bright blue eyes, and immediately she slapped the magazine closed and sprang to her feet.

‘Melissa! Darling!’ she said, spreading her arms wide, and hugging me. ‘How lovely to see you! I’ve ordered tea and cakes, if you don’t mind. Do you?’ She held me at arm’s length as I started to demur. ‘Oh, no! Don’t say you’re on one of those ridiculous diets? Haven’t I told you a million times, men like a little something to get hold of?’ she went on, as I settled myself into an armchair.

‘Well, they’ve plenty to get hold of with me,’ I said. Not as glumly as normal, though, because if there’s one thing having a boyfriend does for a girl, it boosts the confidence no end.

‘Quite! I mean, what’s the point of a corset if you’ve got nothing to winch into it?’ retorted Granny, as the tea tray arrived, and the young waiter poured us both hot cups of Earl Grey. ‘Oh, I could do with this!’ she said, seizing her cup and taking a sip. ‘I’ve been run off my feet.’

Granny shook her head at the offer of lemon slices and her hair shone glossily. However ‘run off her feet’ she was, she’d obviously managed to fit in her Monday morning hair appointment.

‘Have you heard the latest from home?’ she enquired.

I shook my head.

‘Well, William’s put his back out shooting something, poor Emery’s stuck there till the baby’s old enough to fly, and so your father has sprung into action.’ She hovered a long finger over the cake stand, wavering between an eclair and the pristine pink fondant fancy I’d been eyeing up myself. Then she picked both and put them on her plate. ‘He’s quite the doting grandfather. Anyway, he’s dug up that dessicated old nanny of yours from retirement.’

‘Nanny Ag?’ I exclaimed delightedly. ‘How lovely! Is she still working?’

I adored Nanny Ag. Her real name was Agatha Dunstable, and we were meant to call her Dunstable, but we didn’t. Allegra called her Nag. Emery was far too scared of her to address her by name in the nine years she was with us. I
loved
her, though. When I was a child, Emery got most of the attention because she was an adorable baby, and what little was left went on Allegra, three years older, and her amazing, dinner-stopping tantrums. Allegra would refuse to breathe until she got her own way, which made for some dramatic soup moments. Nanny Ag had come to us via a very troublesome family of Scottish lairds so there wasn’t much she hadn’t seen, heard, then trampled down with quite disproportionate ferocity for her size.

Even now, she always seemed to know what we were up to, and I still sent her Christmas and birthday cards; in return I got short spidery postcards detailing the weather in Grange-over-Sands, and a Blue Peter annual every Christmas. ‘She must be about a hundred and twenty by now, surely?’ I added wonderingly.

‘Nannies start at seventy and don’t age. She’s arriving at the end of the week,’ said Granny. ‘Either your father has a short memory, or he’s very keen to keep Emery at home for some nefarious reason.’ She raised her eyebrow. ‘I wonder what that could be?’

‘That he’s keen to spend some time with his grandchild, and help poor Emery out?’ I responded stoutly. ‘You don’t have to look for nefarious reasons all the time. Anyway, what’s this mysterious favour
you
want me to do?’

She had the grace to look slightly abashed, but before she could speak, her phone rang.

I gave her a look. ‘Granny,’ I said in shock, ‘didn’t you turn your mobile off when I arrived?’