“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 pointduring 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 atriumphantstream.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.
Chapter Five
Vidalflung open the door of Mayfair & Belgravia Veterinary Associates and turned in the same motion, his eyes finding Beauchamp on the pavement behind him. “Quickly, quickly, Major! She has had a long morning and her nerves arefragile.”
Beauchamp followed him in with the canvas dog carrier hooked over one wrist, Mercè’s skull just visible through the mesh window. The waiting room had been designed to look like a Soho House outpost, the decor dominated by muted greens, brushed brass, and a vast arrangement of dried hydrangeas. He took up his post by the door and watched Vidal work the room.
It had taken him no time at all to identify the most promising initial target: a whippet owned by a woman in her fifties wearing an impeccable cashmere jumper. In eleven minutes, Vidal established that the whippet was called Ottoline, that Ottoline had a heart murmur of no real consequence, that the woman’s late husband had bred whippets in Cambridge, and that there was a particular butcher in Marylebone who would, if askednicely and in person, set aside marrow bones of a quality that no high-street chain could match.
“You must give me his name, Penelope, you must, because Mercè has been suffering on a diet of supermarket biscuits since we arrived. A lady of her constitution requires proper nutrition or she begins to lose her hair, which, as you can see…” he gestured at the carrier in Beauchamp’s grip, and Penelope leaned forward to peer through the mesh, “is already a delicate situation.”
Penelope made a soft cooing noise at Mercè. Ottoline, who had so far maintained a certain whippet stand-offishness, deigned to put her long nose against the carrier and breathe in. Mercè breathed back, and diplomatic relations were established.
