Page 58 of Scandal Queen

I had to believe it would; otherwise, hell, it was going to hurt unlike anything else.

Fourteen

“So, your big afternoon plans were to go shopping?” I turned to him in the backseat of the car. Bill, of course, had ensured a car was parked directly outside Harrods which we slipped into.

Oliver shot me a wide grin. “Nope. My plans were to distract you both from not going home for a while.”

I narrowed my gaze while the word home echoed around my head. No girl in the history of girls would ever turn down the chance to live in a palace—excluding me maybe. I’m that girl. The difficult one.

“I thought Nana was coming over and you were going to beg her to come and live with us at the palace?” I couldn’t stop my lips turning into a pout. Nana would never say yes to that; you couldn’t say I hadn’t warned him.

“True, true.” He leant over and kissed my forehead. The press waited outside the gates to the palace and judging by their calls, news had travelled quickly. “Daisy, how was your first trip to Harrods?”

Daisy shrunk against me and a deep frown scored Oliver’s face. “Ignore them, Daisy,” he muttered shooting a death stare through the darkened glass of the window.

“Daisy! How’s your new school? Have you made friends?”

“Idiots. Can you drive a bit faster please?” Oliver leant forward and tapped the driver on the shoulder, but the gates were slow to open.

I squeezed Daisy with my arm. “Don’t worry, sweetie, we will be home in a moment.”

Daisy lifted her chin and shirked out of my hold. “Don’t worry, Mummy; they will be bored soon.”

I met Oliver’s gaze and his scowl eased, turning into a smirk.

“Could you take us to Fenmore please,” he asked the driver.

I glanced at him in confusion as the car cruised past the main courtyard of the palace, past the front door to the apartment and slowly crunched over the gravel down a path that led away from the main building. “Where are we going?”

“Just wait, one minute.”

That car cruised further and his smile grew. “Maybe two minutes.”

I sat back against the leather seat and waited, counting in my head, because two minutes seemed to tick by tortuously slowly.

Eventually though we came to a halt outside a small cottage. Small and pretty with flint stones on the wall and green ivy climbing the walls, I peered at it closer. Dusk had already settled—that’s how long we’d spent shaking hands in Harrods—and the pathway was dark, but the front door of the cottage was illuminated with the help of two old fashioned gas lamps either side of the front path.

“What’s this?” I cast a confused glance at Daisy, but she returned my look with a questioning one of her own.

Oliver didn’t answer. He slipped out of the car and then walked around to my door, pulling it open and offering me his hand.

“Oliver?” My eyes narrowed.

“Okay. So.” He huffed a breath and the car drove off, leaving us what felt like acres away from the main palace. “I realise that I’ve maybe gone about things wrong. I expected you and Daisy to move into the palace, into my apartments, and didn’t really think too much of what you were leaving behind.”

I glanced at the cottage again. “Okay.”

“This cottage is the old gamekeepers. It’s been sat here for a long time doing not much at all.”

“And?”

He rubbed at his face, uncertainty flickering in his eyes. “So I asked if I could buy it.”

“What do you mean, buy it?” My heart beat a little faster in my chest. “I thought all of these grounds belonged to the crown?”

He nodded again. “They do. This belongs to you.”

The air whooshed out of my chest. “Pardon?”