Page 92 of Scandal Queen

She nodded. “Thank you.”

The words I needed to say stung my tongue. “I’m sorry for your loss. I truly am. And he looks like a good guy who got out of this hell. But, Mrs Patten, what do you want from me? I’m not supposed to be here. I’ve broken all sorts of rules because I didn’t want you to think I don’t care.”

Her eyes clouded for a moment and she glanced at the pictures of her son. “I wanted to tell you I was sorry. Sorry you lived through what you did, sorry I didn’t help. And I’m sorry that my son never got a chance to know that his little talk with you might have made something quite perfect.”

My chest pushed with the weight of a double decker bus. “You know, I don’t even remember that night. It’s one of the reasons I never came back after Daisy was born and I’d decided to keep her.” I could have left it there, but I didn’t want to live with half truths. They only led to destruction and they exacted a heavy price on your soul, one I no longer wanted to pay. “And I was worried that someone would take her away from me, that they would see a fifteen-year-old girl who knew nothing about being a mother, didn’t really know very much about being a daughter, and they would think they could do it better.”

Her cool and thin fingers reached for my hand. “It looks like you’ve done okay.”

“I tried. It was hard.”

“First rule of parenting, never expect it to get better.” She looked with longing at a picture of Jacob. Stood in front of a bright blue sky, on a cliff, his arms thrown around friends he looked young and carefree. A smile I saw every day. “Would you like a cup of tea?” she asked.

I nodded, my throat thick. “I’d love one.”

By the time the palace gates opened, and Bill’s black car crunched over the gravel, snow had started to throw itself from the sky.

A white Christmas?

I expected there to be a hive of activity as the family got ready to leave for Wales, but the courtyard was empty, just wintery white blasts sheeting across the open space.

The car cruised around to Fenmore and Ollie must have heard the approach of the tyres because he opened the cottage door and stamped his boots outside, wedging his hands under his armpits to keep them warm; well that or it was a new dance he’d decided to invent.

For one painful moment I welded myself to the seat of the car. When he realised I wasn’t getting out he ran through the snow, white flakes landing in his hair. He ducked down to pull open the door, his eyelashes wet with blobs of slush, his top secret freckles standing in stark contrast to his wet black hair. “It’s freezing.”

I still couldn’t move.

Crouching down, his navy jumper turning white, he reached in to the warm recesses of the car and grabbed my hand. “Leia.” His voice rumbled, deep and reassuring. “I know where you’ve been. You don’t have to hide.”

“You do?” I flicked my gaze at Bill who met my stare in the rear-view mirror and gave me a shrug.

“Sorry, Ma’am, but your safety is paramount. I’d have been foolish to take you somewhere that His Highness didn’t agree to.”

I pulled a face. “Remind me to take you off the Christmas card list.”

Bill’s shoulders lifted with a chuckle. “It already arrived yesterday. My wife was touched by your note.”

“Hmm.”

“Leia, come on.” Oliver grasped my hand. “I might not approve of you skulking around, but I understand it. Can we get in before we catch our death? I’d like to be able to eat my dinner on Christmas Day, not be in bed with the flu.”

Sighing I shuffled out of the car. He was being kind. There would be repercussions for me breaking the protocol the King had insisted on.

“Where is everyone? I thought we’d be heading back out now.” I could hardly keep the sour expression off my face; talk about spoiled little princess. But the thought of Christmas with the royal family on their estate in Wales instead of with my nana and her friends, my friends, filled me with despair.

“Have you not seen the news while you’ve been out gallivanting?”

“I wasn’t gallivanting.” I had been. I’d waltzed down Kensington High Street like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman just so people would see me. All of that effort, and he’d known where I was the whole time. I felt like a dick. I was a dick.

As usual at the mention of the news, I shuddered. What had I done wrong today? “Not yet.”

He arched an eyebrow, the impact of which was seriously undermined by a snowflake darting in his eye. “They’ve called a weather warning.”

“Who, the palace?”

He snorted and his breath plumed with mist. “No, Leia. The Met office.”

“Oh.”