The block of flats was a 1960s concrete chocolate box, rectangular, with each floor looking as if it could be pulled out to make your selection. The stairwell smelled of elderly dog and slightly ripe rubbish, but there was a glimpse of river from the car park, two canoeists and a small triangle of far-off trees.
‘What floor does she live on?’ asked Scarlett resignedly, sitting in her chair as Alex loaded her with garbage bags of clothes. She was never sure if it was a compliment or insult that people so often forgot she could not climb stairs. She would have to wait here while Alex ferried his possessions upstairs, then bade her goodbye.
‘Ground floor.’ He was already leading the way along a concrete path.
Alex knocked on the door to the second flat, then inserted his key. ‘Grandmère?’
‘Alexi? You are late.’ The voice had a decidedly French accent. Its owner was small, dressed in stylish black, from shoes to sheer stockings to a well-fitted dress, with a scarf in shades of red and grey, hair that was too perfectly white to be entirely natural — she must soak it in cloudy ammonia — and was that a tiara?
Scarlett stared at the red stones. They could not possibly be rubies. The small room was crowded with Louis XIV antiques, the paint rubbed off here and there to show the plastic underneath. Fleur-de-lis wallpaper; a samovar up on a thin black cupboard; sepia reproduction photographs in gold frames — a portrait of what she supposed was the executed Russian royal family, and another of a handsome man with slicked-down black hair, a crown and a curled moustache you could sweep a floor with.
Alex’s grandfather looked both royal and faintly amused, as if he were about to wink and say, ‘We all know this is a joke, don’t we?’ And that the joke might even be that he was not a con man at all, but genuine royalty. Or genuine ex-royalty . . .
‘Grandmère, may I present my friend Scarlett Kelly-O’Hara? Scarlett, my grandmother, the Grand Duchess Maria-Theresa.’ There was no levity or mockery at all in Alex’s voice.
The Grand Duchess Maria-Theresa held out her hand. The rings matched the tiara. Scarlett considered briefly, bowed as low as her wheelchair would allow, then kissed the scattering of age spots on the back of the extended hand. It smelled of violets and was soft, the hand of an aristocrat. Or a pastry chef, skin softened by the butter . . .
‘Welcome, Miss Kelly-O’Hara. Alexi, tea is ready.’
Alex was looking at Scarlett strangely. ‘I beg your pardon? Sorry, Grandmère, I’ve got another load to bring in.’
‘It can wait. Miss Kelly-O’Hara, you will sit there. And may I introduce my husband, His Royal Highness Prince Michael Alexis?’
Scarlett blinked at the empty chair below the portrait. She ducked her head slowly, in a bow, carefully not meeting Alex’s eyes.
‘Excellent,’ pronounced the duchess. ‘Alexi, remove Miss Kelly-O’Hara’s chair, as she has her own.’
Tea was passed, in glasses with ivory holders, weak, with lemon. A glass was placed below the portrait. Death was no reason to banish a prince from afternoon tea. Small fluted cakes that tasted of roses; rolled pikelet things filled with cherry jam and sour cream; smoked salmon sandwiches. Scarlett ate. ‘This is wonderful!’
The duchess smiled. ‘More tea?’
‘Yes, please . . .’ Scarlett hesitated ‘. . . Your Royal Highness.’
The duchess inspected her again. ‘You may call me Grandmère.’ Scarlett heard Alex draw in his breath. ‘When you come again, I will make you a couscous. It is not French, of course, nor Russian, but it is excellent and I think that you would like it. It is good to see a woman who eats.’ She looked at Scarlett severely. ‘But it would be even more good if you wore a dress. A woman does not look truly feminine in jeans.’
‘My legs are ugly, Grandmère,’ said Scarlett, still carefully not looking at Alex. How could she tactfully tell this elegant old woman that she wasn’t Alex’s girlfriend and would probably never be back here again?
Grandmère turned to Alex. ‘Is this true?’
‘I’ve never seen much of Scarlett’s legs,’ said Alex evenly. ‘But I don’t think I could ever find Scarlett ugly.’
‘A good answer.’ Grandmère stood, her back gloriously straight, and beckoned.
Scarlett followed her into a bedroom. The bed was canopied in what looked like and probably was green velvet, the wallpaper was flocked gold and green, and the carpet was green as well. Through the window the river flowed greyly, as if all its colour had been taken for this room. Grandmère pulled out a drawer, hunted and then handed a bundle to Scarlett. ‘Try these on.’
They were black lace stockings: not pantyhose, but true stockings, held up with garters. Scarlett wriggled to the front of her wheelchair and then, well practised, slipped off her jeans and slid each stocking over her legs. They were too long, but the garters adjusted them. She stared at her legs, astonished.
Not skinny now but slim, and well shaped from all her exercises.
‘See? Most beautiful. I will give Alexi more stockings for you, and you will wear skirts.’
‘I . . . Yes, Grandmère. The stockings are beautiful.’ Scarlett bent to take them off.
‘No, no! Put your jeans back over them.’ She smiled. ‘But you may show Alex before you leave. Who taught you how to dress, child? I mean what to wear, not how to put it on.’
‘The matron at River View, where I used to live, Nancy, Jed — she’s my adopted sister.’
‘Do any of them dress well?’
Scarlett hesitated. ‘Jed’s clothes are . . . interesting. Matron always looks neat . . .’
‘Neat!’ As she might have said, ‘Crocodiles!’ ‘We will go shopping.’ The old woman smiled under perfectly shaped eyebrows. ‘Do not worry. I do not wear the tiara on errands. But we will find dresses that make you beautiful, not fashionable. And it is time I had a new dress too. A woman must have a new dress each season to feel her best, eh?’
Scarlett nodded cautiously. Would she have to pay for Grandmère’s new dress? It would be worth it. But she had to make things clear. ‘Grandmère, I’m just a friend of Alex. Nothing more.’
‘Ha!’ said Grandmère. She winked at her. ‘Will you stay to dinner? It is boeuf bourguignon, Alexi’s favourite.’
‘I would love to stay . . .’ and not just because it would mean more time with Alex ‘. . . but I want to get home tonight.’ Though at this rate it would be midnight at least before she got there. ‘My sister is nine months’ pregnant. She sounds like she needs company.’
‘Then I am sure she does. You are a very good girl indeed. I will see you soon.’
‘If . . . Alex brings me.’
The old eyes smiled. ‘He will bring you. Do you know he has not brought a friend here since he was fourteen? She was a girl with permed hair — permed, at fourteen. Alex introduced her to me and she laughed.’ The old woman shrugged. ‘Her ancestors were digging potatoes while Alexi’s ruled an empire.’
‘I think mine probably dug potatoes too,’ admitted Scarlett.
‘And you have risen above them. Some are born to greatness, and some achieve it for themselves. You and I,’ said Grandmère, ‘achieve it.’
She opened the door for Scarlett’s wheelchair. ‘Scarlett must leave,’ she informed Alex. ‘I will say goodbye now and retreat tactfully so you can kiss her before she goes.’ The old woman bent down, the violet perfume clinging softly. ‘I am glad to have met you.’
‘And I am glad to have met you, Grandmère. And honoured to have met His Royal Highness Prince Michael.’
‘A very good girl,’ said Grandmère, going back into the bedroom and shutting the door behind her.
Scarlett looked at her feet rather than at Alex. The lace stockings were visible below her bell-bottoms.
Alex looked at them, then at Scarlett’s face. ‘May I see them?’
Still embarrassed at the mention of kissing, she pulled up one leg of her jeans. Alex inspected her shin solemnly, then smiled. ‘Grandmère has good taste.’ He paused. ‘Don’t let her . . . eccentricity . . . fool you. She is one of the most capable women I have ever known. And you are another.’
Scarlett flushed. ‘I . . . I had better go.’
‘Then I had better obey Grandmère’s orders and kiss you,’ said Alex.
‘Really, you don’t have to —’
His lips were gentle and tasted of cherry jam. She had been kissed before by Mark, before he noticed Leafsong, and by an idiot she’d let take her to the movies in first year. This was . . .
Just a kiss, thought Scarlett as her whole body flushed. Not passionate at all. And surely just a kiss was all it could ever be, because it would not be fair to shackle Alex, brilliant, wonderful Alex, to a girl not just in a wheelchair but with the questionable genes that had made it a necessity.
‘I’ll walk you to your van,’ said Alex. ‘Or, rather, to your mutated artwork on wheels.’
‘I call it Big Red.’
‘Appropriate.’
Scarlett wondered if he would kiss her again. And if Grandmère would watch from her bedroom window and assess his technique and hers.
Probably both, she thought, then came to a decision. She was going to make this last kiss one that Grandmère would approve of. For there was no future for her and Alex, beyond friendship and possibly a few visits here — not even a charity ball.
But Alex had kissed her. And she was going to make this last kiss one that Alex Romanov would never forget.
And nor would she . . .
It had to be enough.
Darkness slid across the mountains, deepening in the valley first. The fire’s flames were hidden behind the cliffs, and though the smoke flowed freely now, it was too dark for anyone to see.