Battle Royal Page 8

  She began laying out the practical details, and Dominic opened his tablet to jot down notes. He inserted the occasional query and suggestion, but largely listened and let idea fragments coalesce in his mind.

  “For structural reasons, I’d suggest the chocolate fudge rather than the chocolate mousse,” he said when Rose expressed a desire for two layers of chocolate—score two and another bottle of Riesling to Pet.

  After a few minutes, the princess cleared her throat and looked at her mother. “That’s almost everything. If Johnny and I could have a moment, please, we’ll finalize the last details and leave Mr. De Vere be.”

  Despite her tone, so polite and deferent that the ultimate effect was anything but, it was a dismissal with no room for refusal. And judging by the undulating muscle in the duchess’s jaw, Rose would hear about it later.

  In front of her staff, there was nothing she could do but gather her regal dignity and leave.

  Father Christmas, however, looked more like an angry little prune with every passing second and apparently couldn’t resist piping up. “With all due respect, Your Highness, it’s my responsibility to oversee—”

  “And it’s our wedding, Edward.” Rose was sugar-sweet now. She checked her black leather watch. “Please do return here at five, but in the meantime, we would like ten minutes alone. Of course, you’ll be informed if anything of importance arises in that time.”

  No doubt Lancier managed to keep himself informed on all manner of things that arose in this building.

  When multiple bristling bodies had left the room, and the door had shut with a pointed click, Marchmont seemed to grow a good inch in stature. Dominic looked at him thoughtfully before he turned back to the bride. “Your Highness—”

  “Rosie.” She cut him off, and again her demeanor brooked no opposition, although she softened the terse word with a follow-up, “Please.”

  “Rosie.” Dominic flicked to a new screen on the tablet. “Go ahead.”

  “With?” She was watching him closely, carefully, her fingers still stroking Marchmont’s wrist.

  “The details that will make this cake personal and intimate for you despite its size and symbolism, and help to shrink a stateroom full of people you probably can’t stand down to a bubble of two.”

  A moment of silence, in which a twinkle appeared in Rosie’s eyes.

  “I told you he couldn’t be as much of a bastard as he seems,” Marchmont said with sudden, extravagant relief.

  Apparently, when the incoming member of the royal family wasn’t too petrified to speak, he operated with complete open honesty.

  A rare quality in any human being, and one unlikely to be prized by Lancier and his cohorts.

  Rosie cleared her throat and took the wise course of ignoring the last ten seconds of her life. “We each have one additional request for the cake.”

  “Although I’d like to speak to you about mine privately,” Marchmont added quickly.

  “It’s to be a surprise to me on the wedding day, that Johnny would like to be kept separate on the proposal.” Rosie’s eyes cast a fond look at her fiancé, before shooting back to Dominic with an explicit silent addendum. Include only if appropriate. Noted. “For my part, I’d really love it if the top layer of the cake—our layer—is the flavor of Johnny’s favorite drink.”

  As special requests went, that ranked high on the easy scale. “Which is?”

  He was expecting an alcoholic flavoring, Baileys, Kahlúa, Bénédictine—

  “Midnight Elixir.”

  Spoke too soon.

  The Captain’s Suite

  5:20 p.m.

  Meeting with Candidate: Ms. Sylvie Fairchild

  “Midnight Elixir?” Sylvie repeated, lowering her tablet. Johnny Marchmont couldn’t just be a lemon drizzle bloke, could he? “I’m sorry, I’m not familiar . . .”

  She had a sudden, horrifying hope that Midnight Elixir wasn’t on her own menu. It was a kitschy name for a beverage, flashy, over the top. Right up her street. And Jay had been adding new drinks right and left since he’d taken over the Dark Forest with unexpected aplomb. She was already too busy with Operation Cake commitments to keep up. Not a good look.

  “It’s a hot drink they serve at the Starlight Circus in Holland Park.”

  Oh, good. She hadn’t missed a trick.

  It was just the plagiarizing competition.

  The Starlight Circus, a coffee shop in a city with more pollution than stars, was owned by Darren Clyde, a colossal fuckwit with a habit of sending spies into Sugar Fair to buy their food, reproduce it poorly, and change the names. They’d first met in a class on advanced sugar craft, and he’d clearly been sent by Satan to test her.

  “Johnny loves it,” Rosie went on. “His assistant buys him one every day.”

  Sylvie was petty enough to be glad he wasn’t going in person. He was already enough of a public figure to give Darren a boost in sales. She was always glad to see good things happen for good people, even if they operated in her professional sphere, but outside of the bedroom, nobody liked a bigheaded dick.

  She rested her stylus pen against her tablet, ready to fill in the details. “And what is the flavor profile of Midnight Elixir?”

  “No idea,” Rosie said with all the cheerfulness of a woman who wasn’t now going to have to spend time and money at the fucking Starlight Circus. “Apparently, it’s a house secret. If it helps, I can definitely taste some sort of berry.”

  “I think there’s spice in it,” Johnny piped up, and after a pause, Sylvie wrote down exactly that on her iPad.

  Spice (?). Some sort of berry.

  Well, she’d always enjoyed a mystery. All those nights listening to Agatha Christie audiobooks while she worked were about to pay off.

  “I’m not sure how you knew about I, Slayer,” Rosie said suddenly. “But we adored the pitch cake. You’re so clever.”

  “If it w-were up to us”—on the odd word, there was just a hint of a stutter in Johnny’s deep voice—“we’d keep the theme on the big day.”

  “Obviously, that would be a step too far,” Rosie added drily. “Although I’d pay a good deal of money to serve a slice of Caractacus to the Archbishop of Canterbury.”

  The duchess and her coterie had got to their feet a few minutes ago and abruptly departed, after a pointed remark shot in her daughter’s direction—“I believe this is the part of the proceedings where we vacate the room.” Otherwise, Sylvie wouldn’t bring up—

  “I hope I didn’t invade your privacy in making that cake. You mentioned the video game one night when you were—”

  “Falling down drunk in your business premises?” Rosie filled in the blank with a faint grin. “Amazingly, I do remember the night in question, although I have no recollection of boring a complete stranger with personal anecdotes. I belatedly apologize. I also belatedly thank you for never saying a word about it. It was my dearest friend’s birthday. And I wanted to . . . get out. Be out. In hindsight, it was appallingly reckless to ditch my PPOs.”

  Personal protection officers. Thanks to the covert pair who’d driven her here, Sylvie had that acronym down. It was the only question they’d deigned to answer.

  “The reality is that whatever I do in life, I’m always going to be a security risk, to myself and to others around me.” Fleetingly, Rosie’s look at Johnny was taut. Concerned. And clearly, not for herself. “But that night . . .” A small smile hovered. “Worth it.”

  “You ditched your PPOs?” Before Sylvie’s fascinated gaze, Johnny—Bertie Wooster incarnate—seemed to physically expand. He stood taller, his shoulders dropping and squaring. As worry carved stern lines into his face, he looked both older and temporarily effectual. “Rosie . . .”

  “Point noted and agreed, my love.” She spoke softly, her fingers still linked through his. “It was foolish. I won’t do it again.”

  Johnny’s reply was so low-toned that Sylvie barely heard it and wished she hadn’t. She felt as if she’d pried open a doorway into
someone’s most private refuge. “I wish you felt free. But I need you to be safe.”

  Again, they looked at each other, briefly, as if there were no one else in the room.

  Sylvie liked this pair very much. As young working royals, criticism and rumor were going to dog their every step. She truly hoped that the bond between them proved stronger than all who would test it.

  Rosie cleared her throat. “And now I’d better take a cue from my mother and vacate the premises so Johnny can deliver his own request.”

  When the door closed behind her, Sylvie looked at Johnny with raised eyebrows.

  She lifted her stylus, ready, waiting.

  And, after the Midnight Elixir request, slightly apprehensive.

  The Captain’s Suite

  4:50 p.m.

  Meeting with Candidate: Mr. Dominic De Vere

  “Rosie was very close to her great-uncle before Prince Patrick’s death.” Marchmont’s eyes met Dominic’s and held gamely. The groom-to-be still looked ill at ease, even with the room depleted of every other occupant. “She saw him as something of a kindred spirit.”

  Dominic did a rapid mental collation of everything he knew about Prince Patrick, one of the king’s younger brothers. Not a lot. Conventionally handsome, but not particularly charismatic. A poor public speaker. Lifelong bachelor. Talented musician. Unlike his siblings, who’d marched dutifully along to military college or straight into royal duties, Patrick had attended a music school. He’d studied classical piano but had pursued a weekend sideline in rock. Pierced his nose, picked up a few tattoos, made a short-lived attempt at putting together a band. The prince had penned several songs about the plays of ancient Greece and one or two about his favorite foods. Apparently, his work had enjoyed fleeting popularity in the more artsy nightclubs in Chelsea, and appalled palace courtiers and the more tedious members of the public, who’d clearly had too much time on their hands. On the scale of royal rebellions, it barely registered. There had been a member of European royalty dabbling in satanic cults back then.

  “Patrick and Rosie shared a common viewpoint on many aspects of this life. And that way of thinking can result in friction with other members of the family. But Patrick was important to Rosie. She would have loved her great-uncle to be at our wedding.” Johnny hesitated before he added candidly, “In the true meaning of family, he was the closest thing she had to a parent. It’s common knowledge that the king’s relationship with his brother was strained, but I’d like the cake design to include a special and specific nod to Patrick, even if it’s recognizable to no one but Rosie.” A faint smile. “Perhaps especially if it’s recognizable to her alone.”

  Dominic waited for a moment, but Johnny seemed to have reached his verbal limits. “Nothing more specific?”

  Johnny blinked. Then shrugged. “You’re the artist,” he said. Blankly, not pointedly. “I thought you’d know what to do.”

  A longer pause.

  “He did like bees,” Johnny offered thoughtfully.

  Mystery spices. Berries. Bees.

  And the most important underpinning fact: one hell of a paycheck.

  Dominic closed his iPad cover with a snap. “I’ll figure it out.”

  Johnny beamed.

  At exactly 4:55 p.m., he left the Captain’s Suite. Right on schedule, he surmised by the satisfied expressions on every staffer’s face. The door was held open by one of the biggest human beings he’d seen outside of a Marvel film. Dominic was not a small man, but Johnny’s PPO was built like a fucking Airbus. Shaved head, smashed nose, a face so extraordinarily ugly it was conversely fascinating. He might have just walked out of Game of Thrones after single-handedly decimating an army. He looked Dominic dead in the eyes and didn’t say a word.

  If it was Rosie who’d chosen her fiancé’s source of frontline protection, she wasn’t messing around.

  Jeremiah and Arabella reappeared in the space of a blink and with no prior noise, thanks to either the thick pile of the carpet or teleportation. They escorted him back through the corridors. Just in case he was tempted to bundle a few antiques under his arm and make a run for it. Everyone kept efficiently checking the time and murmuring into phones. Presumably, the other name on the short list was also being shunted through the Cone of Silence at St. Giles this afternoon. The as-yet-unknown competition being kept carefully out of his path.

  He still had a very strong suspicion as to the identity of his mystery rival.

  He hadn’t heard so much as a whisper she was putting in a tender for this, and her shop floor wasn’t exactly a bastion of secrets.

  But considering the personality of this particular bride, her presence on the short list wouldn’t be entirely beyond belief. Yet another what-the-fuck in a day that had also included scones with the consistency of schist and custard that fizzed on the tongue like popping candy—but just within the realms of possibility.

  “Dominic De Vere!”

  He looked up as a heavyset man in military uniform broke off a conversation and came toward him, hand extended.

  An old acquaintance of his grandfather’s, whose name was either Bill, Will, or Gil.

  Or Cyril. As opposed to Sebastian De Vere, who had rarely wasted words, Major General Cyril Blake was like a faulty tap once he started talking. Spilling out everywhere and impossible to turn off.

  To the foot-tapping agitation of the bodyguard dolls, Dominic was still standing in the corridor at 5:32 p.m., when a second black-clad escort rounded the corner and he found himself face-to-face with Sylvie Fairchild.

  They stared at each other against a background of stone-faced protection officers and Cyril moaning about his grandkids and the price of cheese.

  Then: “‘Dragons. Good God,’” Dominic quoted in a drawl. “I knew it.”

  Chapter Seven

  De Vere’s

  Twenty-Four Hours after Dominic Finally Escaped the Clutches of Major General Bill Will Gil Cyril

  (His grandkids are still a disappointment to an old man.)

  (Cheese remains expensive.)

  The salt-and-pepper truffles—dark chocolate with notes of sea salt and chili—were a De Vere’s bestseller. They were also intricate to produce, mirror-glazed by hand and finished with a precise swirl of gold-tinted white chocolate. Dominic was halfway through a batch when he smelled a whiff of burning sugar.

  Fortunately, he didn’t need to lift his head to see who was responsible.

  “Where’s Aaron?” He completed a wisp-fine curlicue, moved on to the next, and another. “And somebody please take that pan off the heat.”

  A quick clash of metal before his sous-chef crossed his line of sight with a steaming pan. More ingredients going straight in the bin. “Aaron’s . . .” Liam looked around the busy kitchen and grimaced. “Well, he was here.”

  Dominic completed the tray of truffles and slid them onto the racks for packaging. Pulling off his gloves with a snap, he gestured Liam toward the remaining sweets on the assembly line. “Finish up, would you?”

  He found Aaron in the back hallway, just coming in from the alleyway. He was clutching his phone. “My office. Now.”

  They were short-staffed in the kitchens today and the busiest they’d been all month out front, thanks to a blasting of promos for Operation Cake. No complaints about the increased foot traffic, but he’d already endured five hours of mostly mediocre bakes in the TV studio this morning, culminating in the elimination of Byron. He of the clown phobia, lethal scones, and today, a shortbread sculpture of the Victoria Memorial that looked like a toddler had got into the biscuit tin and emptied the contents onto the floor.

  The kid had cried. Tears dripping down the peach fuzz on his cheeks—before he’d double-checked which camera to sniff into and delivered a speech straight off the cutting-room floor of a third-rate battle flick. The wounded hero, reluctant to abandon his comrades to the encroaching evil.

  Insert clip of Dominic.

  Unless there was a genuine reason for Aaron’s increasingly poor
efforts, he was not in the mood for this.

  He perched on the edge of his desk and eyed his employee, who was currently demonstrating both shifty eyes and shuffling feet. “Aaron,” he said, his tone obviously not what the other man was expecting; Aaron stopped fidgeting and looked at him. “I shouldn’t need to point out that your work is not up to standard. You’re struggling. If it’s a health issue, either physical or mental, we can offer multiple avenues of support. Life deals a fucker of a card sometimes, it happens frequently, and with respect to work it’s not a big deal. We’ll help you through it. If it’s the work itself, again there’s assistance available, but if things don’t improve soon—”

  “I’m sorry,” Aaron interrupted miserably. “It’s my nan. My grandmother. She’s not well, and I’ve had to move in with her. There’s no one else. And I’ve asked her not to call me at work unless it’s an emergency, but . . . but she forgets . . . And I’m tired. God, I’m so tired.”

  “Right.” For a moment, Dominic said nothing. Then he nodded at a chair. “Take a seat.”

  When Aaron left the office ten minutes later, some of the strain had left his features.

  Dominic wished he could say the same. And when he opened his emails and read the message from his lawyer, any hope of salvaging this day from the scrap heap went out the window like a rocket.

  He jerked open his door, ready to stalk out in search of his sister, but at least the universe was prepared to offer the sop of hand-delivering his target. Pet stood with her hand partly raised. He’d give her the benefit of the doubt that he’d interrupted her midknock, but her style was more shove-open-and-sail-merrily-on-in.

  “Hello!” Her smile faltered when she saw his expression.

  A few seconds ticked by.

  “I genuinely can’t tell if you’re pissed about something, or if that’s just your face now.”

  “I just received an email from my lawyer. Regarding a substantial financial deposit.”