The next morning was Saturday, so after breakfast, cleaning our rooms, going down for registration, attending chapel and two long hours of study followed by lunch, we all decided to take taxis into Windsor for an afternoon of Eades boy spotting. All of us, apart from Honey, that is, because she was gated.
This was the first year that we could actually go off on our own into Windsor, so we took quite a lot of time dressing in our most casually stunning outfits and applying and reapplying lip-glosses. I almost felt sorry for Honey when we left her sitting on her bed, her arms folded, a pouty expression on her face.
When Portia asked her if she wanted anything from town she replied archly, ‘Why, are you offering to bring me back a fit boy?’
I didn’t say anything apart from muttering goodbye.
Sister Constance and her agents (also known as the teachers and House Spinsters) were always reminding us of the school rule for trips into town – ‘Go out in threes, stay in threes and return in threes’ – so I can’t say I was surprised when Star, Georgina and Indie came tumbling into our room and breathlessly announced that they’d meet us in town. I mean, they shared a dorm together, so it was natural that they’d all go into town in a group; and even though local taxis can take four passengers, no one wants to sit next to the driver. So it would be childish to take something like that personally, but I did.
This meant that Portia and I had to find some random horsy girl called Anastasia, who we really didn’t know that well, to go to Windsor with us. The whole two miles were spent listening to her endless tales of how many polo players she’d pulled that summer. ‘I am such a slut, darlings,’ she told us, as if being a slut was a talent. ‘But honestly,’ she said with a sigh. ‘I can’t help myself, they are just so gorgeous in their tight jodhpurs. I think I like the Argentineans best, but some of the Australians were rather nice this year. I really am the most dreadful slut, aren’t I, darlings?’
Portia and I muttered agreeably and as non-judgementally as we could. Star would have pressed her elbow into my rib to try and make me laugh but Portia was too aloof for that sort of thing. And I was trying to be.
We had the taxi drop us off at the stone bridge that curves over the River Thames and leads to the castle walls. As Sod’s Law would have it, as we walked over the bridge into Windsor, the first Eades boys we spotted were Billy and a bunch of his fit friends. I was determined to be aloof – as serene as a throne – but my face was going to betray me. I knew it as we approached them and the blood started travelling up my feet towards my head. Then Billy’s posse peeled off, and it was just Billy walking towards Portia, Anastasia and me, like one of those cowboy showdowns.
Portia offered to leave too, but I begged her not to. I needed her aloof demeanour as backup, in case my own fell flat on its face. Also, Anastasia was still with us. I think she was still babbling on about her polo pulling score over the summer and groaning about what a slut she was.
All thoughts as to why Billy hadn’t sent me a text since Monday flew right out of my head, replaced by all the steamy texts he had sent me. As my legs grew weak from lack of blood, I envisioned myself swooning into a faint like a Victorian heroine, and Billy sweeping me into his arms and snog-aging me into a blissful reality.
My heart was pounding and my pulse was racing as I introduced Anastasia, but once she’d established that Billy wasn’t a polo player she strode off on her own to find her polo buddies.
Billy was as fit looking as ever and wearing really cool trousers and trainers. He was also wearing a charity band like mine, but in green. Maybe that was a sign?
‘Haven’t heard from you in a bit,’ he muttered, shoving his hands in his pockets, seemingly unable to make eye contact with me. This was bad. The blood was rushing round my head but I kept my cool(-ish).
‘Funny that,’ I remarked idly, as if I didn’t care in the slightest about his recent lack of texts. I wasn’t going to give him the pleasure. Also, looking at him, as a light drizzle started to fall, I realised something else. Now that my initial nerves had subsided, I couldn’t help noticing that while my blood may have been displaced from one part of my body to another, my tummy wasn’t doing funny tumbly things and my palms weren’t sweaty. Could it be possible that I had only imagined that I fancied him all this time?
I suppose when a boy saves you from the jaws of a girl-eating dog, it’s more or less inevitable that you’ll feel a certain amount of emotion, I told myself, as he looked up at Portia and asked her about her sabre form. He and Portia knew one another through fencing, and also her brother Tarquin was in his year; so while they chatted away like old friends, I began to feel like a bit of a spare leg. I bet Billy was just doing it out of his shame at not texting me, but still, it wasn’t very cordial of him and they were virtually cutting me out.
‘Busy week?’ I interjected, in a tragic attempt to turn attention on to myself.
Billy stared at me like I’d interrupted an important board meeting. ‘What?’
I looked to Portia for support but she looked out across the Thames.
‘Busy week?’ I repeated, as my aloof demeanour deserted me and dived into the Thames – perhaps that was what had caught Portia’s notice.
‘Pretty much,’ he replied, in an almost irritated tone. ‘You?’
‘Seriously busy.’ I rolled my eyes in what I hoped looked like a sexy way but I’m pretty sure just look looked freakish.
He still wasn’t looking at me. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and rocked back and forth on his feet, which annoyed me. I know that Portia was there so he was probably not in a position to explain things, but still, he was really making me feel rotten.
Portia muttered something about heading off to find Tarkie, but I wasn’t going to make it so easy for Billy.
‘I’ve got something to do, actually,’ I said importantly. ‘Why don’t you help Portia find Tarquin, Billy?’ I suggested bossily, half expecting that he’d fall on his knees and beg me not to leave.
But he didn’t. Instead he said, ‘Absolutely,’ with a bloody annoying degree of enthusiasm.
‘Right then,’ I muttered, adding, ‘off I go,’ just to make my seriously cringing embarrassing exit complete.
I wandered off sulkily on my own looking for the others. Star had suggested we all convene in a tea shop past the castle walls, so I made my way along the cobbled streets, weaving my way through the throngs of tourists and students. I regretted not bringing an umbrella as a light drizzle began to fall, but not as much as I regretted a lot of other things. Bloody boys.
And that was when it happened. I walked slap bang into Freddie and Billy’s younger brother, Kevin, as I was turning down a narrow cobbled lane. And not only was my face red but my tummy was doing back flips and tumbles as Freddie smiled at me and said . . .
Well, I don’t know what he said actually, my heart was pounding so loudly I couldn’t hear a thing. Also my palms were sweating and all I could think of was how fit he looked with his wet hair plastered on his forehead, and then all I could think of was how hideous I must look with my wet hair plastered down my forehead. So instead of saying ‘Hi’ or something sensible like that, I just stood there like an idiot, watching his lips move and only barely controlling an urge to kiss him.
Kevin asked where Star was, so I told him that I was on my way to meet her in a tea shop further down the main road. I could tell he wanted more detailed directions, but Freddie took me by the elbow and led me around the corner and Kevin peeled off, as if some secret signal had been exchanged.
I couldn’t see Freddie’s security men but they must have been about somewhere, probably disguised as tourists. I didn’t get a chance to have a look around for them, because once we were out of the rain in the shelter of an awning, Freddie took my face in his hands and kissed me long and slowly.
It was so lovely, just like the last time we’d kissed, only without Honey taking a photograph of us with her mobile and selling it to the tabloids. As his hands wove their way through my hair, I closed my eyes and allowed myself to relax, when suddenly Kevin was back again and coughing awkwardly in my ear.
Freddie ignored him and carried on kissing me but I opened my eyes.
‘Sorry, Calypso, sorry, Freddie, but which tea shop did you say Star was in?’
Not only did Freddie not open his eyes or take his lips off mine, he made ‘piss off’ signals at his friend and kept on kissing me. Which is the most marvellously cool thing that has ever happened to me.
‘Sorry,’ repeated the now-sodden Kevin, who shuffled off back into the rain which had picked up force during our kissing. The awning wasn’t offering us much respite any more.
‘Let’s make a dash for it,’ Freddie suggested and we ran into a pizza place nearby that was popular with both Eades and Saint Augustine’s students.
Freddie ordered a pizza, half pepperoni (him) and half Hawaiian (me), but the best thing was, even while choosing and ordering, he didn’t take his hand away from mine.
‘It’s so great to see you,’ he told me earnestly. ‘Why haven’t you been responding to my text messages, Miss Calypso Kelly?’ he asked, opening my palm and running his deeply tanned fingers along my life line and up to my wrist.
Mesmerised as I was by his touch, I couldn’t help being a bit cross about his accusation that I was the one not texting him! Boys are always doing that.
‘Me?’ I asked indignantly. ‘You haven’t sent me so much as one text since Monday.’ I didn’t mention that Billy was guilty of the same crime.
‘Rubbish, I’ve sent several. Dozens. Hundreds possibly.’
He said it so confidently that I couldn’t really argue. Probably he’d thought he had and been really busy at school, I told myself and changed the subject. Anyway, Sarah and Bob have said I can go to La Fiesta. Star, Georgina and me all bought our outfits in LA. I’m wearing the most adorably short little . . .’ I hesitated, hoping his imagination would take over. ‘Well, anyway I won’t describe it completely and ruin the surprise, but let’s just say that it’s more on trend than the tragic dress I wore to the Eades social.’
‘That’s the best dress I’ve ever seen on a girl,’ he teased, referring to the last dress he’d seen me in which was several sizes too big and safety-pinned up the back by Sister Regina.
‘But anyway, this particular dress is sooo seriously phenomenal.’
Instead of laughing or showing any curiosity, he didn’t even look up. He just kept tracing his hand along my wrist and up my arm. I felt all tingly and excited because here I was, an ordinary regular American girl — a commoner — sitting in a pizza shop in Windsor having my hand stroked by Prince Freddie outside one of his very own family castles. It was just so madly cool I was blushing, and even though sometimes the best things are expressed without words, after a while I became desperate for him to respond to my news about being able to go to the ball and say something like how excited he was that he was going to see me at the ball.
But he didn’t.
So eventually I pushed the issue myself. ‘You are going to La Fiesta, aren’t you?’ I asked, looking deeply into his ink-blue eyes.
He looked away as if wondering where the pizzas were and ran one of his long-fingered hands through his jet black locks.
‘No, actually, I’ve got a prior engagement.’
‘A prior engagement?’ I repeated, just because, well just because I was floored and I say dumb things when I’m floored.
He started holding my hand again, which was nice but then he said, ‘The pizza’s taking a while,’ as if he wanted to change the subject or maybe he thought eating pizza was more interesting than my tiny skirt and cashmere top with jewels on it, or the ball.
‘What sort of prior engagement?’ I probed lightly, looking around as if I was really desperate to get to the bottom of the slow pizza mystery as well.
He looked distracted although still managing to look distressingly fit. When I’m distracted I look mildly insane and addled. ‘Sorry, what do you mean?’ he asked, smiling his easy I’m-the-heir-to-the-throne-and-nothing-bothers-me smile.
‘You said you had a prior engagement on the night of the La Fiesta ball?’ I reminded him, but all he said was, ‘Oh, at last, here comes our pizza.’
As they placed our pizza in the middle of our little table, I wondered how on earth he could even contemplate eating after dropping a bombshell like that on me. All my school life at Saint Augustine’s I had longed to attend one these balls and now that I was actually going to one, my prince charming (I’m being sarcastic) was off on a ‘prior engagement’, whatever that means.
He was already chewing on a piece of pizza but sort of grinning at me at the same time. So I took a slice of the Hawaiian side and pretended I was just as hungry and not churned up inside in the least.
As we ate, he spoke of his holiday and asked about mine. I fell into the trap of pretending nothing was wrong and the afternoon slipped by in companionable fake conversations. All I really wanted to discuss was this wretched prior engagement.
So why didn’t I press him?
Why were we acting like I wasn’t gutted?
Was I actually becoming English?
After the pizza we ordered tea, and as I was squeezing the lemon into mine (I normally take milk but I was enjoying the symmetry of drinking my Earl Grey just like Freddie) he said, ‘My prior engagement . . . It’s a sort of Annual Euro-Royal-Bash thing we hold every year. Hellish, but it goes with the job.’
Bloody royals, I thought to myself grumpily as I looked outside at the rain.
Freddie laughed.
‘What’s so funny?’
‘Bloody royals,’ he mimicked and I suddenly realised I’d actually thought out loud. I sooooo had to stop doing that. ‘Sorry.’
‘Don’t be, I say it all the time,’ he teased.
As much as I wanted to stay with him, I was beginning to get seriously worried about the time and about getting back to school. Our curfew was four thirty, and if we were late we’d get a gating, which would mean no more kisses and pizzas with Freddie. I began to panic about where the others were and whether I should call them. It’s amazing how quickly time flies when you’re with a prince downplaying a topic that’s practically burning an ulcer into your stomach.
I didn’t get a chance to probe further because just then, Kevin, Star and Georgina burst in on us. ‘Calypso, quick,’ Star insisted crossly. ‘We’ve ordered a taxi and it’s picking us up at the tea shop where you were meant to be meeting us! Indie is waiting there on her own.’
Star didn’t even look at Freddie. She’s never really forgiven him for the way he treated me over the tabloid photograph Honey took. At the time he actually believed Honey’s story that I was some sort of Mata Hari-type girl, just dying to get my fifteen minutes of fame.
‘What about Portia?’ I asked. The rain was bucketing down now.
‘She’s probably spending some time with her brother,’ Georgina replied.
‘I can call Tarkie and check,’ Freddie offered, pulling his BlackBerry out.
‘I think we should,’ I pressed. So Freddie made a quick call on his mobile and confirmed that Tarkie and Portia were together and that Tarkie was dropping his sister off at school in a bit.
So that was that. I said an awkward goodbye to Freddie, no kiss, not even an air kiss. More importantly, he made no promise to text or call. I know we were with a whole pile of friends but still . . .
Georgina, Star and I flew out the door, into the rain and legged it to the tea shop.
I understood that Freddie had a prior engagement and that as heir to the throne, that went with the job, but I couldn’t help wondering how Billy would have behaved in the same situation. Maybe I’d been a bit too hasty in dismissing Billy? Maybe he’d been awkward with me on the bridge out of guilt? He was in the Lower Sixth studying for his A-Levels so it was hardly surprising he was busy. Freddie, on the other hand, wasn’t even doing GCSEs, because Eades was too grand to even pretend to follow the National Curriculum so he had no excuse at all. Bloody boys.
Indie was already sitting in the back of the local taxi and I ended up being the one in the seat beside the driver, so I had to keep turning around to speak to the others. Georgina pressed me for details about my afternoon with Freddie, so I told her how he wasn’t going to La Fiesta due to a prior engagement.
I made the words ‘prior engagement’ sound like some sort of weird, sordid activity, when Indie piped up, ‘He’ll be going to the ball at Windsor Castle. It’s a sort of Annual Euro-Royal-Bash Thingamee. Daddy always makes me go.’ She groaned, as if it was the most taxing evening imaginable. Only I bet it wasn’t.
I looked at her stunning face framed by the long corn braided hair and wondered how long I could go on pretending that I wasn’t sick with jealousy.
‘Poor you,’ I told her as if I really, really meant it and then the taxi driver let out a little windy pop.