flew a regular freight service into Ramal Hamrah, despite the fact that they remained stubbornly empty. No one would dare offend the Emir by using Kalzak Air Services and he made no effort to break the embargo. He did not advertise his services locally, or compete for business. He kept his rates equal to, but not better than his competitors. Took the loss.
This was not about profit but establishing his right to be there.
He’d been prepared to be patient, sit it out, however long it took, while he’d quietly worked on the restoration of his family home at Umm al Sama. But he’d continued to remain invisible to the ruling family, his family, a stranger in his own country, and patience was no longer an option. Time was running out for his grandfather and nothing mattered but bringing him home to die.
He’d do anything. Even babysit a wimp of a woman who wasn’t, apparently, allowed to cross the road without someone holding her hand.
He identified himself to Security, then to the cabin crew, who were putting the final touches to the kind of luxury few airline passengers would ever encounter.
His welcome was reserved, but no one reeled back in horror.
A steward took his bag, introduced him to Atiya Bishara, who would be taking care of Lady Rose during the flight, then gave him a full tour of the aircraft so that he could check for himself that everything was in order.
He was treated no differently from any anonymous security officer who’d been asked to escort Lady Rose on a flight that, historically, should have been his grandfather’s to command. Which said pretty much everything he needed to know about how the rest of the week was likely to pan out.
His aunt might pay a courtesy visit to Lady Rose, but even if she acknowledged his presence it would be as a servant.
Lydia rapidly exchanged clothes with Rose in the private room that had been set aside for her as guest of honour at the Pink Ribbon Lunch.
Lady Rose had walked into the room; ten minutes later Lydia, heart pounding, mouth dry, had walked out in her place.
She held her breath as a dark-suited security man fell in behind her.
Would he really be fooled? Rose had assured her that he would be looking everywhere but at her, but even wearing Rose’s crushed raspberry silk suit, a saucy matching hat with a wispy veil and the late Duchess of Oldfield’s famous pearl choker, it seemed impossible that he wouldn’t notice the difference.
But there was no challenge.
Smile, she reminded herself as she approached the hotel manager who was waiting to escort her to the door. It was just another job. And, holding that thought, she offered the man her hand, thanked him for doing such a good job for the Pink Ribbon Club, before stepping outside into the thin winter sunshine.
Rose had warned her what to expect but, since rumours of a wedding had started to circulate, media interest had spiralled out of control. Nothing could have prepared her for the noise, the flashes from dozens of cameras. And it wasn’t just the paparazzi lined up on the footpath. There were dozens of ordinary people hoping for a glance of the ‘people’s angel’, all of them taking pictures, video, with their cellphones. People who thought she was the real thing, deserved the real thing, and she had to remind herself not just to smile, but to breathe.
It was the photographers who saved her, calling out, ‘Lady Rose! This way, Lady Rose! Love the hat, Lady Rose!’
The eye-catching little hat had been made specially for the occasion. Fashioned from a stiffened loop of the same material as the suit, it had a dark pink net veil scattered with tiny velvet ribbon loops that skimmed her face, breaking up the outline, blurring any slight differences that might be picked out by an eagle-eyed picture editor.
Breathe, smile…
‘How was lunch, Lady Rose?’ one of the photographers called out.
She swallowed down the nervous lump in her throat and said, ‘It was a wonderful lunch for a great cause.’ Then, when there was still no challenge, no one pointed a finger, shouted, Fake!, she added, ‘The Pink Ribbon Club.’ And, growing in confidence, she lifted her right hand so that the diamond and amethyst ring on her right hand flashed in the sunlight as she pointedly touched the little ribbon-shaped hat. ‘Don’t forget to mention it.’
‘Are you looking forward to your holiday, Lady Rose?’
Growing in confidence—it was true, apparently, that people saw only what they expected to see—she picked out the photographer who’d asked the question and smiled directly at him.
‘Very much,’ she said.
‘Will you be on your own?’ he dared.
‘Only if you all take the week off, too,’ she replied, raising a laugh. Yes! She could do this! And, turning her back on the photographers, she walked down the steps and crossed to the real people, just as she had seen Lady Rose do a hundred times on news clips. Had done herself at promotional gigs.
She took the flowers they handed her, stopped to answer questions—she could have entered Mastermind with Lady Rose as her specialist subject—paused for photographs, overwhelmed by the genuine warmth with which people reached out to her. To Rose…
‘Madam…’ The security officer touched his watch, indicating that it was time to leave.
She gave the crowd a final wave and smile and turned back to the limousine, stepped inside. The door closed behind her and, within moments, she was gliding through London behind a liveried chauffeur.
At which point she bit back a giggle.
This wasn’t like any other job. No way. At this point, if it had been an ordinary job, she’d be heading for the hotel cloakroom for a quick change before catching the bendy bus back to work. Instead, she was in a top-of-the-range Mercedes, heading for an airfield used by people for whom the private jet was the only way to travel. The final hurdle before she could relax and enjoy being Lady Rose without the risk of someone taking a second look and challenging her.
It was a thought to bring the giggle under control. Not the fear of being challenged. The thought of getting in a plane.
Kal paced the VIP lounge, certain that he was wasting his time.
Lucy was wrong. Playing nanny to a woman known to the world as ‘England’s Sweetheart’, or ‘angel’ or even ‘virgin’, for heaven’s sake, wasn’t going to make him any friends in the Ramal Hamrahn court. Unless there really was an attempt on her life and he saved her. Maybe he should arrange one…
He stopped fantasising and checked the time.
Another minute and she’d be late. No more than he’d expected. She was probably still posing for photographs, being feted by her fans.
He’d seen her on the news—she was impossible to avoid—a pale, spun-sugar confection, all sweetness and light. He knew she was a friend of Lucy’s but, really, could anyone be that perfect?
He was about to pick up a newspaper, settle down to wait, when a stir at the entrance alerted him to her arrival. That she had arrived exactly on schedule should have been a point in her favour. It only served to irritate him further.
Lydia could not believe the
