Chapter Four #2
“It is my second home, you understand. I went to school here from the age of thirteen. I should be entirely accustomed to it by now, and yet —” He lifted his shoulders in an expansive shrug.
“It never fails to astonish me. The English are a people of immense and committed peculiarity, Connor. Truly. Only yesterday, for example, I had a minor domestic incident which has confirmed for me, again, that you Anglos are not built as the rest of us on the continent are built.”
Connor folded himself onto the chair beside him.
Their knees, when he settled, ended up turned towards each other, just touching.
Vidal noted this, declined to adjust, and went on.
“I have a man who looks after me. A Major Beauchamp. He is a Sandhurst alum, and is in the Household Division, the works. You know the type.”
“I do.”
“Yesterday, my Major walked into my drawing room while I was…how shall I put this delicately, for the benefit of your East London sensibilities? Entirely naked, hair dripping wet from the shower, holding forth to my friend about the European Parliament in Strasbourg.” He paused to examine Connor’s mouth, which had gone very still.
“And do you know what he did, Connor? My Major? He went rigid. He went the colour of bad veal and dropped an entire bottle of Fonte di Foiano on the parquet. He has been unable to look me in the eye ever since!”
“That’s rough.”
“It is absurd. It is the most British thing I have ever seen, and I have been watching the British be British for thirteen years. Why can you not be more continental in your attitudes, Connor, the lot of you? The frigidity of the weather here does not mean that you have to take that on as a personality trait! Nakedness is fun. Nakedness is good and natural.”
Connor laughed and leaned a fraction closer over the gap between their chairs. His knee pressed harder against Vidal’s so that he felt the heat of it through the silk.
“Go on then. Get your kit off, and I’ll take a look.” His blue gaze didn’t waver. Most men, in Vidal’s experience, propositioned with either too much swagger or too little. Connor had found a clean middle that suggested a great deal of practice.
“Connor.” He laid one hand flat over his heart, and the other on Connor’s bare forearm, which was warm and slightly damp.
“That is a kind offer. A very kind offer. Truly, in another life, a life in which I had woken up this morning in my own bed, in my own country, I would have said yes before you finished the sentence, and we would be upstairs already, learning the shapes of each other.”
“But?”
“But my life is in a state of flux. And I cannot, in good conscience, take on any more complicating factors than I have already been issued. I am doing you a kindness.”
“Yeah?” Connor’s mouth was curving upward already. “What sort of flux are we talking about?”
“I am, Connor, a deposed prince. The third son of the sovereign house of a small Mediterranean principality that you have very probably never heard of, and which, until a fortnight ago, was quietly minding its own ancient business on a cliff above an extremely blue sea.” He lifted one hand in a flourish, the silk sleeve falling back from his wrist. “Then a man with an obscene moustache and a PowerPoint presentation persuaded fifty-three per cent of my countrymen that eight hundred years of Montcada sovereignty was enough, and now he is sitting in my father’s study, probably with his boots on the desk. ”
Connor’s mouth dropped open, but he didn’t interrupt.
“My father is in Geneva. My mother is in Wiltshire, with the horses, which is where the Sackvilles go when they are upset and would prefer not to discuss it. My brothers are scattered. And the rest of the world, Connor…the rest of the world has decided that what happened to my family is democracy, and that democracy is to be respected. The European Union sent my father a letter acknowledging the transition. That is all they had to say.”
Vidal lifted his chin, found his smile, and put it back on. “So when I tell you, Connor, that my life is in a state of flux, I am being, as the English say, understated.”
Connor laughed, loud and unrestrained. It made Vidal want to answer it in kind, but he kept his expression stern.
“Connor,” Vidal said evenly. “Is my pain funny to you?”
“That’s a hell of a chat-up let down, mate. ‘No thanks, some bloke with a moustache has nicked my family’s country.’ You can’t just spring that on a bloke.”
“No Connor, I am serving you facts.”
“You’re having me on.”
Vidal reached into the pocket of his robe and brought out his mobile. He thumbed through the photographs and turned the screen to face Connor.
It was a photograph from Princess Stella of Norway’s wedding last spring. Vidal was in beige and gold, his hair pushed back from his forehead, one hand resting on James’s shoulder. James was in full morning suit and looked acceptable.
Connor stared at the photograph, his eyes flicking rapidly between the mobile screen and Vidal. “Fucking hell.”
“Yes. That’s the King. He is a childhood friend of mine.”
“It is.”
Connor handed the mobile back with careful, two-handed reverence. A flush had risen along his cheeks. He bent his head over Mercè, who had transferred herself to his lap at some point during Vidal’s catalogue of woes, and ran one large thumb very gently down her quivering back.
“Mate. I’m so sorry. I thought you were doing a bit. I was going to ask whether the dog was deposed as well.”
“The dog is in fact the only member of my household whose position has not been materially altered. Mercè continues to be a princess in all the ways that matter to her, which are mostly nutritional.”
“I really am sorry.”
“Connor.” Vidal reached across and laid his hand briefly over Connor’s, where it rested on Mercè’s warm back.
“It is alright. I would also have laughed. It is, when you say it out loud in a London garden, an objectively absurd story. I forgive you. Mercè forgives you. Pet her ears, just there, behind — yes, like that, she is your slave forever now. You have made a very powerful friend.”
Connor petted her ears. Mercè closed her eyes and produced the ecstatic grunt that she generally reserved for foie gras. Vidal watched her, his attention sharpened on the way her back legs had begun to make a fidgeting motion against Connor’s thigh.
“Connor.”
“Mm?”
“You must put her down now.”
“What — ”
“On the ground, please. Hurry.”
The good thing about Connor, Vidal had time to note, was that he did not waste energy on questions when given an instruction. He lifted Mercè off his lap and set her on the flagstones in front of him. Mercè squatted down and pissed against the leg of Connor’s chair in a long, unbroken stream.
“Mercè!” Vidal was on his feet at once, both hands clasped beneath his chin. “Mi amor! My darling girl! Yes! Yes, that’s it, all of it, every drop, that is a triumphant stream. Bravissima, my love, bravissima — ”
He went on in this vein for some time, because Mercè flourished on extravagant praise, and Vidal had a duty of care. By the time he had run through his supportive patter in three languages, Mercè had finished, shaken herself out, and was looking up at him for her reward.
Vidal scooped her up, kissed the top of her bony skull, and turned, beaming, to share the moment with Connor.
He sat very still in his iron chair, with one bare forearm resting on his thigh and his eyes fixed on Vidal’s face. His mouth was open just slightly. He was not looking at Mercè, or the puddle that was now creeping under his chair, too focused on Vidal alone.
Ah, Vidal thought, with private satisfaction. Yes. People were so often overwhelmed when they were faced with royalty.