The Prince's Proposal

So she called him.

Peter Heller had not gone back to New York but he was clearly at lunch. Somewhere expensive, thought Francesca, hearing the echo of vaulted ceilings as glass and cutlery clinked. Still, that went without saying. Her father enjoyed his wealth with enthusiasm.

‘Hello, Dad,’ she said, struggling to forget their last encounter. ‘How are you?’

‘Francesca,’ he said, pleased. ‘So you have forgiven me for being right.’

Francesca gave up the struggle. ‘Thank you, I’m well,’ she said coldly, in reply to the question he should have asked. She became as direct as he was. ‘I need a favour.’

‘Ask. But ask quickly. I have a guest.’

She cut out all explanation. It reduced her request to a single sentence. There was silence.

‘You want to meet Prince Conrad?’ said her father slowly.

You want an explanation, you ask for it, thought Francesca vengefully. ‘Yes,’ she said aloud.

Another, longer pause. She heard a waiter murmur something; her father’s clipped assent; the sound of wine being poured into crystal. She maintained stubborn silence.

Then her father said abruptly, ‘I can arrange that. I will be in touch later.’

And cut the co

She would not have been so philosophical if she had seen her father after he snapped his digital phone shut and slid it into his jacket pocket.

He sat back in the generous carver chair and beamed across the table. He looked, thought his elderly luncheon guest, like a cat who had found its way into a cream plant. The guest was not used to it. It made him uneasy. He looked over his shoulder, as if expecting the heavy mob to materialise from the Ritz’s impeccable kitchens.

His troglodyte host gave him a wide, wide smile. He leaned forward.

‘Now, have I got a deal for you…’

‘No,’ said Conrad Domitio firmly. ‘Absolutely not.’

He had been taking a stand against his grandfather’s wackier schemes ever since he was twelve. Experience had taught him that you had to say no early and keep on saying it. Any hint of negotiation and you were lost.

‘But you haven’t even heard my idea,’ said his grandfather. His squashed toad’s face managed to look both hurt and hopeful at the same time.

His tall grandson looked down at him with a good deal of understanding. The wind whipping across the urban playground raised Felix Domitio’s thin hair. He shivered. Conrad fished some gloves out of the back pocket of his tracksuit and passed them across. But he did not relent.

‘I don’t need to,’ he said, ever rational. ‘You got out of bed before eight on a wet Saturday morning to blag me into it. That means you know I won’t agree willingly.’

‘You are so suspicious,’ mourned his grandfather. He pulled the gloves on and stamped his feet a bit to warm them. His highly polished shoes were not designed for the puddle-strewn concrete. They seemed to be letting in water.

‘Learned from experience,’ said Conrad drily.

He had a dark, secretive face. But, during these Saturday sessions, most of the time it looked as if it was on the edge of laughter. Just at the moment, it had tipped over the edge into outright amusement.

Amusement, Felix Domitio knew, did not bode well for his grand design. He banished thoughts of a warm fire, at least for the moment.

Instead he folded his newly gloved hands over his old-fashioned waistcoat and said virtuously, ‘But it’s such a good cause.’

‘Sure it is. That’s why I’m going out to Montassurro with the relief expedition just as soon as we can get that mobile hospital equipped.’

‘Well, then, my idea is such a tiny thing to do, in comparison,’ said Felix in triumph. ‘All you have to do is climb into the Mountain Hussars uniform and be polite to people.’

The dark face hardened. ‘You mean prance around like something out of a Strauss operetta wearing a lot of medals I’m not entitled to.’

When he wasn’t laughing Conrad Domitio could look quite forbidding, thought his grandfather.

‘You’re entitled,’ he protested. ‘I confer them on whomever I want.’

Conrad shook his head. ‘You don’t understand, do you? All right, Grandad. Medals I didn’t earn. Does that make it clearer?’

His grandfather hunched his shoulders pettishly. ‘You’re such a puritan.’

But Conrad was laughing again. ‘Sorry about that.’

Felix huddled his coat round him and stamped his feet some more.

‘Take this place, for example,’ he said, momentarily distracted. ‘You know your aunt offered you the big room in the house at Prince’s Gate for your class. You don’t have to trail out to a wretched housing estate. So dreary.’

There was a slightly dangerous pause. I wish I hadn’t said that, thought Felix.

‘You need to get out more,’ Conrad said at last. But he was not laughing any more. He spoke curtly. ‘It’s a perfectly OK housing estate. It’s where the children live. I teach them the language of their grandfathers. I know why I do it. I’m never quite sure why they do. They would much rather be watching television or playing computer games. If I didn’t come to them, if they had to struggle up to central London, it might just tip the balance. And then they wouldn’t come. OK?’

Felix backtracked fast. ‘Of course, you’re right. I wasn’t thinking. Put it down to the early morning and wet feet. Now, about the people you need to be nice to. Peter Heller’s made me an offer to fund the mountain clinic for the first year—’

There was an odd silence. Felix found Conrad was looking at him in disbelief.

Eventually he said, ‘You do need to get out more. Heller’s as cu

But Felix thought that was not the first thing he had intended to say.

‘Well, maybe,’ he admitted. ‘But this time I think he genuinely wants to help the relief effort.’

‘No, he doesn’t. Peter Heller has never had a disinterested urge in his life.’

The children were begi

Felix gave a sharp sigh. What a king Conrad would have made, he thought wistfully. So shrewd, so tenacious, such an excellent judge of character. He pulled himself together. Might still make, if things turned out as Felix hoped and pla

But Conrad was not thinking about his potential future subjects. Conrad was being as uncooperative as he knew how.

‘You can’t trust a word Heller says. If he’s signing a cheque he’ll want a damn sight more for it than a photograph of me in my gold trimmings, shaking his hand.’

Felix’s eyes slid away. Fortunately Conrad was looking at a couple of boys who had just arrived and were quartering the playground like secret-service agents, so he did not notice.

‘He’ll want to make money,’ Conrad said, following their progress with hawk-like vigilance. ‘What does he think we can do for him? Get him the inside track on the cigarette franchise?’

‘Er—no.’

‘Well, he’ll want something.’

Felix studied the grey sky as if he had just been appointed to the weekend-weather bureau.

‘Maybe he’s just a patriot,’ he suggested to the cloud cover.

Conrad was unimpressed. ‘Patriot? Peter Heller? He went through the patriots in London twenty years ago and left most of them poorer. He’s a fixer.’

‘A rich fixer,’ murmured the ex-king ruefully.

‘So he backed the right generals.’ Conrad shrugged. ‘He was a wide boy when he got out of Montassurro all those years ago. And he’s a wide boy now. We shouldn’t have anything to do with him.’