Not Your Cinderella: a Royal Wedding Romance (Royal Weddings Book 1) Read online

  “I’m getting paid,” she muttered when a large werewolf came up to the bar and snarled at her, his fingers ending in claws that dripped fake blood.

  “I’m going to eat you, little girl,” he said, and at that point Clodagh’s blood did run cold because the voice belonged to Lee, who wasn’t supposed to know where she worked.

  “Are you sure it won’t sweat off?” said Jamie, as the make-up artist applied the last false eyelash.

  “It doesn’t sweat off Elphaba every night,” she replied.

  Jamie’s eyebrows went up, which was a weird sensation since the face in the mirror didn’t have eyebrows in the same place as his own.

  “You work on Wicked?”

  “I have done. This is the same brand they use. Close your eyes now, and don’t breathe in for a moment.”

  She squirted some stuff onto his face that reminded Jamie vaguely of the fixative glue he’d sprayed on pastel paintings as a child in art classes.

  “You look amazing, darling,” said Olivia, as he opened his eyes.

  “Not as amazing as you.”

  She preened a little. It had been her idea to dress as Victor and the Corpse Bride, her little joke on the rumours everyone liked to spread. Jamie had agreed, mostly because Olivia was the one planning it all and he didn’t have to go very far. Also, as a major plus point, he was almost unrecognisable under the professional make-up job. So long as Geraint and the team could lose the paparazzi tail, he could probably get out of the car as just another anonymous Hallowe’en reveller.

  Tonight’s team consisted of Morris and Cutter, and Olivia had cajoled them to add dark sunglasses to their usual black outfits so they could pass as Blues Brothers. As it was a party night, Geraint and Farquerson would be following them in the car, with the others ready as usual for back-up.

  All this had been explained to Jamie in his weekly security briefing. He’d nodded and managed to take on board the particulars, whilst wondering at what point in the evening it would be best to mention the Prince’s Arms and how long he might persuade Olivia to stay there.

  Because his student friends would be there, of course. Not because of a girl with amber eyes and very curly hair. Nope.

  They hit the Lady Mathilda party first, of course, out of courtesy. University dignitaries looking uncomfortable in their costumes, and students who hadn’t met Jamie yet, trying to suck up. After that it was a party one of Olivia’s schoolfriends was throwing. Jamie kept an eye out for Clodagh amongst the waitresses, but she wasn’t there.

  A small group of people he vaguely knew gathered around them, people it was hard to hide his identity from. People who kept taking pictures. They straggled on to a couple of bars, one of the more upmarket pubs, and then someone suggested a club.

  Jamie looked at Olivia. One of the many things they’d admitted to each other over the years was that neither could stand clubbing. Here was their chance to escape.

  “Sure, we’ll follow you,” he said. “In the car. You know the PPOs, always so protective.”

  They agreed happily and tottered off down a street filled with costumed partiers. The car seemed blessedly silent as Jamie shut the door and watched Olivia trying not to smear make-up on the seats.

  “Home, James?” she said, because she’d never grown out of thinking that was funny. “Or do you know a watering hole where we’re terrifically unlikely to run into Serena Armstrong-Whitely?”

  “As a matter of fact,” said Jamie, checking the eerie slanted eyebrows drawn on his forehead, “I do.”

  The Prince’s Arms was busier than he’d ever seen it. A duo in the corner played popular hits, some of which even had a slightly Hallowe’en-ish slant to them, and he spotted his fellow postgrads occupying a corner table crammed with glasses and discarded costume items.

  “Ooh it’s such a dive,” said Olivia admiringly, adjusting one tattered lace glove. “I love it.”

  “To yourself,” Jamie muttered, pasting on his usual smile. The place had been decorated somewhat half-heartedly for Hallowe’en, the lights dimmed, and people were enjoying hamming it up in their costumes. He smiled as he saw his PhD supervisor, Dr Carlow, dressed as a mad doctor. “Go and sit down with those people and be nice. Tell them not to give me away.”

  Olivia beamed at him and passed him a fifty. Like a lot of people he knew, she had no real concept of how much things cost.

  “White wine spritzer, darling. Hello everyone, I’m Olivia. I believe we have a friend in common…”

  Her voice faded away as she made herself comfortable next to Zheng, who looked at her like she was made out of cupcakes and rainbows and puppies.

  Jamie threaded his way to the bar. “Hi! White wine spritzer and… actually I’ll just have a shandy,” he said, mentally adding up the drinks he’d already had and getting somewhat fuzzy answers.

  It wasn’t Clodagh serving him but one of the other girls, who’d whitened out her complexion to match her vampire outfit, and added fake blood too. He saw Clodagh—his pulse leapt up although it had no right to—looking somewhat fed up in her tacky costume, serving a guy in a Steppenwolf t-shirt and werewolf mask.

  How do you drink in that? he wondered. How did he even make himself understood?

  Clodagh didn’t glance his way. She served the customer, took his money and gave him his change without a single smile.

  Maybe she was one of those people who didn’t like Hallowe’en. Or maybe she was fed up of being harassed about her sexy costume. He watched her tug at the skirt, sigh, and move onto the next customer, who was one of the old regulars, not in costume. She found a smile for him, but it didn’t reach her eyes.

  Frowning, Jamie went to sit down with his friends. But this time he wasn’t distracted from Clodagh by computer talk, partly because Olivia kept changing the subject. They were clearly all enthralled by her, which was the effect she tended to have, and she soaked up the attention, batting him on the arm when his wandered back to the bar.

  Clodagh had cheered up a bit now, he thought, laughing and smiling with customers and posing for a photo with the other girls. But it was a smile that only lasted until the werewolf went back up to the bar.

  Jamie didn’t recognise him at first, because he’d taken the mask off. But he still had the claw hands, and the Steppenwolf t-shirt he probably thought was funny, and he leaned over and said something to Clodagh that made her jaw go tight.

  Jamie was on his feet before he could think, and a hand on his arm pulled him back.

  “Sir?” muttered someone, and he looked round to see Cutter in his Blues Brothers shades.

  Jamie looked pointedly down at his arm, and Cutter let go of him. But the point had been made. Don’t do anything rash.

  He dug out a banknote as he approached the bar, despite having half a pint left.

  “Clodagh! Great costume. Could I have another pint, when you’re ready?”

  She glanced at him, irritated, then paused and looked again.

  “’Scuse me mate,” said the werewolf, a beefy guy with a red face. “I was here first.”

  “I do apologise,” said Jamie politely. “I’ll wait.”

  He gave them both a beaming smile which was probably terribly at odds with his eerie make-up, and waited for the werewolf to finish whatever he was trying to upset Clodagh with. He’d bet the guy would back off once he got an audience, and he was right. The werewolf picked up his drink and stalked off back to a group of rough-looking guys, and Clodagh let out her breath slowly.

  “Pint of Carlsberg?” she said, as if nothing was wrong.

  “Please,” said Jamie. “Are you okay?”

  “Yep. Apart from this stupid costume.” She didn’t look up.

  “Was he bothering you?”

  She shrugged in a way that was almost convincing. “He was just being a prick about the,” she waved a hand at her short skirt and exposed legs. “You know.”

  “Sure. He was being a prick earlier, too.”

  “I suspect he was born a prick.
Three seventy, please.”

  “Clodagh.” He reached out to touch her hand, and she drew it back sharply.

  “Don’t.” She closed her eyes momentarily. “I… look. I don’t know what happened the other week. I was…” She let out a gusty sigh. “I was overtired and acting stupid and I just got…”

  She still hadn’t made eye contact with him. Jamie realised she hadn’t had to look all that closely to recognise him, which was something everyone at his table kept doing. She knows me.

  “…confused,” she finished, looking unsatisfied with the answer.

  “Confused.”

  “Or something. I’m sorry if I embarrassed you. You were really kind and I was really weird and—”

  “You weren’t weird.” What happened was weird, but she clearly didn’t want to talk about it. “No apology needed. I…”

  Someone else came up to the bar, and Jamie sighed. It was too busy to talk to her properly here. “I’ll talk to you later,” he said, handing over a tenner and taking his drink away before she could give him any change.

  He sat down, took his phone out of his pocket and hesitated for a moment. Then he glanced over at Steppenwolf and nodded to himself as he sent a text to Geraint.

  The band had played a dark, eerie version of Rockwell’s Somebody’s Watching Me and it kept snagging in Clodagh’s brain as she walked home. Of course, even this late there were still plenty of people around, their costumes and fancy make-up jobs flagging in the heat of so many old, low-ceilinged pubs and party venues.

  Jamie’s make-up didn’t flag, she thought as she passed a vomiting Harley Quinn. Probably got a pro in to do it. Or maybe his girlfriend had done it for him. Whoever she was, the girl with blue skin and a tattered dress had looked stunning, and the way she kept touching Jamie on the arm was terribly proprietorial.

  More than once Clodagh had felt the Corpse Bride’s gaze on her. “You’re welcome to him, love,” she muttered as she cut through Christ’s Pieces with its glowing blue paths.

  It was quieter here, away from the pubs and clubs. Clodagh didn’t usually head through the parks at night but this was a faster route and she’d bargained on there being more people around.

  The song bounced around her head as she glanced over her shoulder. No, she was being paranoid. Nobody was watching her. There was a guy fifty yards behind her but so what, there was a guy fifty yards ahead, too.

  The itchy feeling between her shoulder blades was all Lee’s fault. How he’d found her, she didn’t know, because she’d deliberately never mentioned the Prince’s Arms to either him or Hanna. Maybe he’d just been in there on the off-chance.

  Thank God he’d left the pub. Wherever the hell he’d gone, he hadn’t been in the pub at closing time. Neither had Jamie, he and his gorgeous girlfriend having vacated when the band finished, probably for a posher party. Or maybe just to go back to whatever palatial little bit of Cambridge he called home, where they’d shag royally.

  How do royals shag? she wondered. Politely? Wearing tiaras? Insisting their partners call them ‘Your Royal Highness’ throughout?

  She laughed quietly to herself, and a man dressed as a zombie leered at her.

  Clodagh felt in the pocket of her cross-body bag for her keys, transferred them to her pocket and kept her hand in there, slotting the cool metal between her knuckles the way she’d been doing since she was a teenager.

  Bet Jamie’s girlfriend has never keyed a mugger in the face, she thought darkly as she passed a couple snogging on a bench. A taxi passing on Emmanuel Road illuminated them and she picked up the pace to leave the ill-advised darkness of the park for the comparative busyness of Short Street.

  She relaxed a little as she navigated the roundabout and headed up Victoria Avenue. This was the home stretch, and as long as she ignored the bench where Jamie had been so kind to her that morning, she’d probably get home without imagining too many more ridiculous things.

  She felt irrationally angry with him. How dare he be so kind, so considerate, and how dare he touch her hand like that when he had a girlfriend? A girlfriend he’d never introduced to her—although she’d been getting on well his his PhD friends, who were clearly a cut above.

  Muttering under her breath, Clodagh crossed the road and rounded the corner, flipping up her hood against the cold and the leers of late-night partygoers. There was still a party going on in one of the pubs nearby. Sound thumped out, music and laughter reaching her on a tide of cigarette smoke.

  She really hoped Lee wasn’t there when she got home. He’d creeped her the hell out earlier, making sleazy comments about her outfit, and racist ones about why she wasn’t as white as the other vampires. She’d entertained fantasies all evening of smashing a glass into his face.

  The lights were on upstairs in the flat, which meant someone was in. Clodagh sighed, and let herself in the front door. She could hear Lee shouting from the top of the stairs. The flat door must be open. Well, this was just swell.

  Clodagh steeled herself and started up the stairs. Her fist clenched hard around the keys splayed between her fingers. She’d punch him if she had to. If he laid a finger on her she’d have the police on him. Might report him anyway for hate crimes—

  “The fuck?”

  The flat had been totally turned over, furniture on its side, clothes thrown everywhere. Cushions ripped apart, the TV smashed. Her bedroom door had been kicked in, the cheap plywood splintered. Oh God, it wasn’t Lee, it was a burglar! Clodagh stepped back, feeling for her phone, and made to creep back down the stairs. Maybe a neighbour would let her in to wait for the police.

  But before she could turn around Lee came crashing out of her bedroom, his face red with fury. Spittle flecked as he advanced on her, snarling.

  The one and only time she was glad to see him!

  “Were we robbed?” Clodagh said, and he snarled at her.

  “Where is she?”

  “Who? Hanna? I don’t know—”

  “You know, bitch!”

  “I don’t! I’ve only just got home, what… happened…”

  It dawned on her far too slowly. They hadn’t been burgled. Lee had done this, because Hanna had left. Finally.

  “Lee,” she said carefully, looking around at the wreckage of her crappy flat and holding tightly to her keys in her pocket, “were we burgled?”

  His face went purple. “Who you calling a fucking burglar? Where’s Hanna?”

  “I don’t know. She was here when I left.” Clodagh started moving backwards.

  “Bitch, you helped her escape!”

  “I didn’t—”

  Lee darted sideways, and she flinched, but then he grabbed a small table with a broken leg and hurled it at her.

  “Jesus!” Clodagh ducked, but it caught her arm and knocked her off balance. She crashed into the doorway, reeled and turned to run as he came after her.

  He grabbed her by the arm, bellowed something she didn’t understand, and shook her like a wet rag. Clodagh swiped at him with her keys and that infuriated him further, his big hand letting go of her arm to clutch at his face and his other hand coming up to hit her, hard, right in the eye.

  She felt herself fall, unable to stop it, grabbing helplessly at the wall and finding no purchase. The stairs rushed up to meet her, hard, and she tumbled down, a dozen points of impact before she came to rest, crumpled on the cheap lino outside the downstairs flat.

  Lee bellowed something at her but she couldn’t quite take it in. Her head rang, her vision blurred, and a sharp pain shot up her leg.

  Then the front door crashed open and a Blues Brother flew in.

  Clodagh passed out after that.

  Chapter Five

  “So that’s the girl you like,” Olivia said as they left the pub, swaying slightly.

  “There is no girl,” Jamie said automatically.

  “There’s so a girl! The one with the hair.” Olivia mimed lots of curls with the hand she didn’t have tucked into his arm.

  “Most g
irls have hair,” Jamie said, trying not to think about Clodagh’s.

  “You know the one I mean. That werewolf guy was hassling her and you were a knight in shining armour. Don’t pretend you weren’t, I saw you.”

  The werewolf guy had been twice Jamie’s size and mean with it. He’d still happily have punched his lights out, given half the chance.

  Except he wouldn’t, because princes didn’t punch people. No matter how much they deserved it.

  “I’d step in if I saw a guy like that hassling anyone,” he said nobly.

  “But especially someone you fancy.”

  He sighed. “Look, I think she’s pretty. We’ve hardly spoken. I barely know her.”

  I know what she looks like when she laughs and when she sleeps and when she’s angry.

  “I’d go for it if I were you,” Olivia said as they rounded the corner of Bene’t Street. “You’re a handsome prince, Jamie. She’s hardly going to say no.”

  Jamie frowned at her. He’d never knowingly used his position to get girls, and anyway, the sort of girl who just wanted to say she’d slept with a prince held no attraction for him. But he was horribly aware that there was no separating Jamie from the prince. Everyone knew who he was.

  If he came on to a girl, any girl, would she say yes because he was a prince? Would she be scared to say no? Would Clodagh?

  “Do you ever use your title to get guys?” he asked Olivia.

  She snorted. “Darling, it’s a bit different for me. I don’t usually tell them for a while. Never quite know if they’re after the house and the money and all that.”

  Of course it was different for her. Outside of their limited social circle Olivia wasn’t all that well known. People might think she looked a bit familiar and the sharper-eyed readers of a certain type of magazine might recognise her, but if she wasn’t with Jamie the general public didn’t usually put two and two together.

  Cutter and Morris took them to the gatehouse, bid them goodnight and watched them totter across the lawn to the front door of Jamie’s little house. Well, it wasn’t that little, but to someone who’d grown up in a palace it was like a doll’s house. He loved it.