“That was different. The Norwegian ambassador had brought it up himself in the context of Sami reindeer husbandry, and we had a very stimulating discussion about the ethics of pursuit-based hunting, which I won.”
“Yes, sir. Hence the note.”
Vidal had laughed at that, with his head thrown back, and patted Beauchamp on the shoulder as he came round to sit on the table itself, with one bare foot on the chair beside Beauchamp’s thigh.
“Beauchamp. I am going to spare you a great deal of work over the coming months. Put the pen down and look at me.”
Beauchamp had looked at him.
“I do notneedbriefing notes. Not for tomorrow, not for the Italian ambassador’s tea on Thursday, not for the lunch at the Spanish embassy whenever it lands. I read people, Beauchamp. I read them in an instant. It is a thing my Catalan grandmother taught me when I was very small, sitting on a stool beside her at the market in Cardona while she haggled over peppers. She would say to me,Vidal, my love, look at the woman selling thepeppers, and tell me before she has spoken three words what kind of week she has had.And I would. Perfectly.” He had bitten into the peach. “It is a parlour trick I have refined over twenty-six years, and I would no more outsource it to you than I would outsource the choosing of my own shirts.”
The words, taken by themselves, ought to have been a slap. He had spent the better part of an hour on those notes. But Vidal was sitting cross-legged on the kitchen table in a silk robe, eating a peach, and the only thing in his voice was the warm conspiratorial delight of a man letting a friend in on a secret. There was no way to be wounded by it.
“Take you, for example.”
“Sir, I don’t think — ”
“You cook the same four meals on rotation. The chicken, the chilli, the pasta, and on Sundays a roast that you eat across three days. I know this because I have looked at the lunches that you bring and place in the fridge, and I see a man who has decided that food is fuel alone rather than a source of joy. This is not natural to you, Beauchamp. This is a position you have arrived at because someone in your life was so chaotic about meals that you have built a fortress against it. A parent, I should think. Yes? Mm. Yes.”
Beauchamp had not answered.
“You areaggressivelyresponsible. You have the bearing of a man who became the adult in the household at an age at which he should have been being a child. You eat at consistent times. You arrive at consistent times. You have a favourite mug, Beauchamp, do not deny it, I have seen it is the green one with the chip on the rim, and you wash it by hand because the dishwasher is too rough on the glaze. You wear the same brand of sock every day, and you always carry a handkerchief.”
He hadn’t told Vidal a single one of those things. The man had clocked a lot about him over the last eight days.
“I do not need your briefing notes, my love. You may keep them in your file for your own reassurance, but I shall not be reading them. Now. Make us our coffee, and tell me what you think of the green tie or the navy.”
Beauchamp had made their coffees. He had landed on the navy tie. Then he’d folded the three pages of briefing notes in half and put them in the rubbish.
Beauchamp shook his head once, briskly, at the window above the garden wall. He capped the green ink, slid it back into its slot in the desk tidy, and turned to the next item in the tray.
The Princess had a letter to sign for the Royal College of Music that wanted his eye on the wording. He pulled it towards him and got on with the afternoon.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Thedoor of Princess Caroline’s home office hit the wall behind it with a loud bang, and every head in the room came up at once and turned towards the sound.
A press secretary at the long table stopped mid-sentence on her telephone. Vidal stood in the doorway in his camel overcoat, sling pressed to his ribs, and held the room in his thrall.
Beauchamp came through the connecting door from the ante-room with a highlighter capped in his teeth and a sheet of paper held up to the afternoon light, scanning a paragraph as he walked. He took the highlighter out of his mouth, looked up, and stopped.
“Sir.” His brows drew together as he took in Vidal’s breathless state, and the way that his chest was heaving. As though he’d just run through the corridors of Clarence House. “What’s happened?”
“I need to talk to you.”
Beauchamp’s eyes went past him to the open door, and to the secretaries who had not, between them, breathed freely sinceVidal’s unexpected appearance. He came across the room in four steady strides, set the paper face-down on the nearest desk, and lowered his voice.
“With respect, sir. I’m on duty. The Princess is leaving for the College of Music at six, and I’ll be accompanying her today. I can’t have this conversation now.”
“Beauchamp —”
“And, sir, with the greatest respect, I no longer answer to you in any capacity.” His words came out flat. “But I’m very glad to see you well. If you’d like to ring the office tomorrow, I’m sure we can find a time to talk. Was there something I might have failed to hand over to Captain Wallis?”
Vidal had been preparing for almost any version of this except Beauchamp’s careful politeness.
“I am not here as your principal. I am here as Mr Vidal Montcada.”
Beauchamp’s jaw set. The door at the far end of the room opened, and Princess Caroline came through it in pearls and a navy dress. Her auburn hair was pinned at the nape, and she had a pair of reading glasses pushed up onto her head. She took in the tableau in a single sweep: Beauchamp with his hackles raised, Vidal in his camel overcoat, and the secretaries who had now given up any pretence of work, and the corner of her mouth twitched.
