Page 66 of Scandal Queen

“Oliver, maybe.”

“So what do you do with your time? While Oliver is being your Dad’s ambassador and being sent all over the place”—and yes, I was still sulking about the empty bed this morning.

“Stuff. I ride the horses. I see my friends. I go to things with Mother.”

I watched the youngest princess, still older than me, but filled with a naïve innocence that I knew I’d never possessed.

“You’ve seen in the papers about what my childhood was like?” I asked. “I’m guessing you were all briefed before I turned up.”

She nodded but her cheeks tinted with a faint stain of rose.

“You escaped though. Didn’t you leave when you were fifteen? The night your mo—” she cut herself off, that rose tint deepening.

“When my mother killed herself with heroin? I found her in the kitchen, slumped on the floor, her body sinking into a puddle of congealed sick.”

“I’m sorry. You must think we are all a bunch of utter tossers.”

I laughed loudly. “I think that’s pretty much what I told your brother the first time I met him.”

“No wonder he liked you so much. Has he told you the serious dressing down he got for touching you in public like that and causing all that publicity?”

“No.” I remembered his pinched expression in the car, the way he’d told me he couldn’t bear not seeing me again. The expression made more sense now. It wasn’t the press he fought to see me, it was his family.

My heart swelled and raced.

We truly were unlike anything that had ever been before.

“Do you fancy coming out with me for a couple of hours?”

Isabella eyed me suspiciously. “Are you going to try to make me not drink again?”

“Do you need to not drink again?”

She shook out her dark hair. “No.”

“Then I won’t mention it.” I stood from the sofa and glanced down at my outfit. “I’d better get changed.”

“Why? I think you look amazing.”

“That’s not funny. I might break protocols, Isabella, but I’m not going to go out in my tracksuit.”

“Please, just so we can watch Marcus turn that funny shade of purple.”

“Not a chance. I’m going to get changed and then call Bill. We will need security.”

“Where are we going?”

I grinned, a reckless urge pulsing through me. “Outside the palace walls, Princess.”

Sixteen

“Hi, Bernie.” I called out as we slipped in through the door. Bill’s team, led by a man who looked like he ate a whole cow for breakfast, had been unwilling to wait outside. “Do you need any help today?”

Bernie Williams spun around on the grey chair she had pushed against an old-fashioned desk. Nothing in this building was new. Everything had been donated, even down to the office furniture. A wide grin split her face. “I don’t know whether to flick the kettle on or curtsey.” Her heavy-set frame rocked a deep belly laugh.

“You can put the kettle on for me, but maybe curtsey for her.” I pulled Isabella out from behind me and Bernie’s eyes widened.

“Apologies, Your Highness.”