Defeating the System, page 2
‘No, you won’t,’ Pippa told him through a yawn from the back seat. ‘It’s not approved for use and never will be.’
‘Beg your pardon?’ He flicked his gaze to Pippa in the rear-view mirror.
‘Convertibles are not approved for Royal Family use. Too easy for—’ Pippa, eyes still closed acted out the pumping motion on a shotgun before making a firing sound. She dropped her arms to her side, her tongue falling out of her mouth as her head lolled to one side.
Hattie sighed and resisted the urge to roll her eyes at her sister’s antics. ‘Assassination attempts are one of the reasons,’ she clarified for Roman. ‘The real reason is- Do you remember how Harold the Sixth was killed in his accident?’ Hattie asked, recalling the gruesome story. ‘Decapitated by a tree branch when he stood his drunken arse up in his imported Cadillac and didn’t duck?’
‘He’s one of our ancestors I never liked learning about,’ Pippa murmured. ‘Seemed like a child in a man’s body. Poor Queen Victoria having to put up with that.’
‘Well, she didn’t have to for long,’ Roman countered with a shrug.
‘Nope!’ Pippa agreed. ‘I hope she shagged the Prince Regent senseless when she got the news.’
‘So, I don’t get to keep my cars?’ he asked, momentarily casting his gaze to Hattie.
She shook her head, feeling another twang of guilt in her chest that he’d lost yet another thing to help her get everything she needed. ‘Damn, I liked them.’
‘We can get you another Volvo,’ she told him quickly. ‘A few of the family use them for their private vehicles, preferring them over these’—she ran her hand over the dark leather of the console between them—‘but I don’t think we have anything agreed with Jaguar.’
‘I think Spence once tried to have one made, but it was too heavy with all the security needs for it to be the toy he wanted,’ Pippa pipped up again. ‘Although, if you’re not after the speed and acceleration, they could definitely do something. But not in a convertible.’
‘It’s actually nice being able to talk to you,’ Roman reached down and took Hattie’s hand in his. He squeezed her fingers, bringing them to his lips for a fleeting kiss, and Hattie felt a little flutter of warmth deep inside her burst to life before he returned his hands to the steering wheel as they approached another hairpin bend. ‘If we’re able to drive this’—he patted the steering wheel—‘more often, we can stop sitting in silence.’ He gave her a pointed look.
‘That would be nice,’ she agreed. She hated sitting in silence in the cars, but she just couldn’t trust the drivers. ‘I used to use Daddy’s car service—it’s just as secure and I trusted them more—to get to places, but I couldn’t afford to after he died, and we weren’t allowed freebies under the terms of the inheritance. Now we’re married and I’ve got the damn money to use Daddy’s service again, I’m not allowed to because of, well, us and the whole…’ She searched for a way to finish that sentence without upsetting her husband.
‘Jensen being blown up?’
Okay, so she hadn’t needed to beat about the bush. ‘Yup.’
‘You don’t drive?’ Roman asked, and Hattie could hear the curiosity in his words. She scratched the side of her head as she turned away and peered out of the passenger window, trying to word the answer to that particular question in best way possible. One that didn’t make her look like an idiot.
‘Ha!’ The cackle from the back of the car told her Pippa clearly wasn’t going to let that one slip through her fingers. ‘She’s been banned from driving by the family.’
‘What?’ Roman asked, his eyes quickly glancing between the two and the road. ‘You can’t drive?’
‘I can,’ Hattie pouted, frowning at the red-orange stone of the mountain walls as they flew by. ‘I passed my test and everything! I’m just… not allowed.’
‘She nearly killed us all!’ Pippa exclaimed, suddenly eager to engage with them. She sat up and moved over to the middle seat, clipping herself back into her seatbelt before leaning forward and telling the sordid tale of how after passing her test, Hattie had taken her three sisters out for a drive.
‘…We skidded around the corner, narrowly avoided an oncoming car, slid back into our own lane, mounted a curb and then slammed to a stop, inches from a tree! Three tyres destroyed, two alloy wheels cracked, the front axle broken, and the chassis bent so bad it cracked the windscreen! The car was a write off!’
‘What the—’ Roman began then quickly bit his lip as his eyes landed on Hattie and spied her casting her patented death glare his way. ‘Was it raining?’
‘No!’ Pippa said, incredulously. ‘That’s the thing, conditions were perfect. We still don’t know how it happened.’ Pippa paused in her regaling and Hattie diverted her gaze from her husband. She curled up in the corner of her seat, face burning so hotly she wondered if she head-butted her sister would she also burn the bitch? ‘The worse thing was the oncoming car was… Marcus’!’
‘Ah, shit.’ Roman laughed, a warm rich sound that Hattie resisted delighting in. He was supposed to be on her side after all.
‘That’s why she got the ban! Daddy was totally on his side.’
‘At least I haven’t wrecked three cars,’ Hattie muttered, bitterly.
‘But none of them where my fault. First one, a deer ran out at me. Second one, a bus side swiped me at a roundabout.’ Pippa ticked the incidents off on her fingers. ‘The third one was a tyre blow out on the Continental Highway. Quite proud of that one,’ she told Roman, patting him on the shoulder before sitting back in her seat. ‘Closed the damn highway for four hours while they cut me out of the wreckage. Skidded sideways into the back of a truck and if I hadn’t thrown myself across the console, I wouldn’t be telling you this now.’
‘Whoa!’ he sounded stunned at the story. ‘And you were okay?’
‘I would have crawled out of the bloody passenger side if a dick hadn’t bumped me on that side. As it was, after they cut me free, I walked right out. Well, hobbled. I twisted my ankle, and I needed a lot of oxygen after being cramped the way I was,’ Pippa admitted.
‘Bloody hell. Wait, that was two-three years ago, right?’
Pippa nodded. ‘Three.’
‘I remember that. I was stuck waiting for hours. I was sat in the jam wondering what the hell had happened. I don’t remember it being reported as you being involved though.’
‘As if Dick would allow that,’ Hattie reminded him. ‘One of his grandkids causing havoc for the nation? No, no, no.’
‘How much do you guys do that doesn’t get reported on?’
Both Hattie and Pippa snorted at his question. ‘You have no idea,’ they said in unison.
‘Honestly, Roman, we’re the most controlled nation in the free world,’ Hattie confided. ‘The general public have lots of autonomy in their day-to-day lives, but if Dick doesn’t want them to know something, he will do everything in his power to stop it from getting out there.’
‘Harold’s going to be worse,’ Pippa quietly admitted. ‘For the grief we give Grandfather, he’s nothing compared to the tyrant Harold’s going to be.’
Hattie took a deep breath as she slowly nodded her agreement. Fuck, as Regent he was going to know everything about everything if he didn’t already. She was pretty certain that if he currently had any inkling of her and Roman’s deception, she’d have known about it at the wedding reception.
‘I heard he’s planning on doing one of those internet firewalls, like what the Chinese have.’
‘No!’ Hattie twisted around in her chair to gaze agog at her sister. ‘He’s not?’ Pippa nodded; her eyes wide as she stared back. ‘Well, fuck me.’
‘No thanks.’
‘Later.’
Hattie’s gaze swivelled between her sister and her husband before she burst out laughing. She smiled to herself as she scooted around again. She hadn’t seen this playful side to Pippa in such a long time. Whilst she didn’t appreciate being poked fun of, a deep sense of longing ached in her chest. She missed the bond she’d had with Pippa. Maybe…
Maybe she should be more open to her sisters. Just a tiny bit more than she had in the past. Victoria had been a bit bossy about the wedding but had apparently been a massive help to Roman getting everything ready for her surprise ceremony. And here was Pippa, driving all the way out here—something Hattie knew she hated doing—and not being a massive pain about it.
She stared at the road disappearing beneath them, the white lines lulling her into a relaxed state of mind. She pushed and prodded at the unexpected thought. It had been a long time since she’d considered her sisterly bonds as anything other than a weight around her neck, forcing her to remain tied to a family she had no interest in. However, instead of abandoning her when the shit had hit the fan, they’d not only come to her aid, but they’d rushed to be there.
‘Bit for your thoughts?’ Roman asked as they began their descent through the mountain pass. Hattie blinked, surprised by how much time had gone by while she’d been caught up in memories of her childhood, of the time she’d spent playing in the tree house Daddy had built, how she’d cried when Mummy had told her she wasn’t going to be the baby of the family anymore and of Victoria comforting her afterwards, and how disappointed she’d been when Pippa hadn’t got into the Guildford Gifted Programme with her.
She stared back at her sister who had finally fallen asleep, her thick glasses slipping down her nose.
‘Was just thinking about family and stuff,’ she answered him truthfully as she turned her attention on him. ‘It’s not so bad, I suppose.’
‘’Pends on who your family is,’ he told her, his fingers flexing slightly on the wheel.
‘Well, for us, I guess that’s each other now.’
He smiled at that; one so wide it showed a hint of a dimple in his cheek. ‘I like that,’ he told her and there was only honesty in his words.
Or at least, Hattie liked to think so.
CHAPTER TWO
‘You have to stand to the side of the room when we go in,’ Pippa explained to Roman, using the tone that Hattie liked to think of as her big boss voice. ‘You’re only being allowed in as a courtesy.’
‘So, I guess I stand with you, buddy?’ Roman said to Cormac who, Hattie had to admit, had looked better. He was as white as a sheet and she was certain that if someone said to him you can go, he’d leave a puff of air behind him just as they did in cartoons.
‘No, Cormac will be with us,’ Victoria told him as she played with a tablet that never seemed to be out of her hand. ‘He’s now a lord and has all the trappings that come with it.’ She clicked on one last thing before flipping the cover on it closed and tucking it under her arm.
‘Fuck my life,’ Cormac bemoaned, running a hand down his face. Victoria leaned up and gave him a quick kiss before wiping away the evidence with a tissue.
‘And no matter what.’ Hattie turned to her husband. ‘No matter what you hear, no matter what he says to anyone or how he says it, do not, and I cannot stress this enough, move.’
‘Come on, I mean—’
‘No.’ Alexi quickly stepped in. ‘No, you cannot move, you cannot speak. Do absolutely nothing at all. You don’t understand what the Grand Dickhead is like.’ She saw Roman raise his brows at Alexi’s oh-so-affectionate term for their uncle.
‘Not heard you use that one,’ he said, gazing down at Hattie. ‘Thought that would be right up your street.’
‘Just wait until after this meeting.’ Hattie reached up and fixed the tie that Cormac had brought along for him. It had been a bit of a mad scramble to get them both presentable for such a meeting, and his tie was a little askew. ‘I’ll have so many inventive names to call him, you won’t know which one to pick as your favourite.’
He gave her a gentle smile. ‘I look forward to hearing them.’
Hattie ran her hands through her hair, trying to give her curls a little bounce before she faced Victoria. ‘Ready.’
Victoria stood before the doors, unmoving. ‘No. I need him to say he understands.’
Roman held up his hands. ‘I understand. No moving, no talking, no nothing. Be like a statue. A piece of décor.’
Hattie resisted the urge to huff as Victoria narrowed her eyes at Roman. She stared at him long and hard, studying his face before she final took a deep breath and nodded. ‘You better be. I’ve got enough to deal with as it is,’ she told him before spinning on her stiletto heel and reaching for the handles. However, before she could open them, they moved of their own accord and one of the giant doors opened.
Everyone stared in surprise, breaths held, waiting to see who was going to come through. A collective sigh of relief filled the small room as Hugh’s head, his long hair brushed back and tied at the nape of his neck—and looking a little strange to Hattie in such formal wear—popped through the gap.
‘We’re going in,’ he said, motioning for them to come through with his head. Hattie took a deep breath and grabbed Roman’s hand in hers as they stepped into the waiting area outside of the boardroom, as she called it. Her aunts, uncles, and cousins were all moving into a familiar formation, lining up in order of succession, ready to enter and be seated. As always, the Snape sisters were at the very end. The lowest of the low.
Hattie hated these types of meetings. Usually, they happened every month to synchronise the family’s calendars for the following month and hand out work assignments—who wanted to open what, who would perform any state visits, which charity events were they interested in supporting if there was no formal patronage… Luckily, Hattie only had to attend such events once in a blue moon when something big was happening, like a visiting dignitary or a wedding… Which meant she’d been to a few more recently than she liked.
She hesitated in her step when she entered the boardroom behind her sisters. Usually, the seat at the head of the table was empty as they waited for the King, but today Harold was already sat there, his fingers tapping on the table as if he were losing patience. His eyes narrowed as they landed on her, and Hattie returned his gaze in kind as she took her position standing between Pippa and Alexi behind Victoria, who waited to take her seat at the table. For the first time, Cormac stood within their family unit group. He hadn’t even attended in Roman’s way before today, and Hattie knew he must be terrified.
Each Avalonian Duke or Princess stood at their respective seat, waiting to be given permission to sit. Their family behind them, a symbol of their unwavering support, the people who would help them complete their assignments and ensure that the Royal Family was as perfect in the eyes of the public as always.
Hattie wanted to tear the whole thing down for its ridiculousness and formality. This stuff could be sorted out on a group email or a message chat app. They didn’t need to do this bullshit routine every month. Hugh had actually thanked her for last month’s meeting being her engagement party instead of this and having everything conducted digitally through their private secretaries. Hattie didn’t understand why it wasn’t just done that way in the first place.
‘Sit down,’ Harold ordered, his patience clearly wearing thin. Hattie noted that while Aunt Sophie stood at his right shoulder, Alistair was not at his left, as usual, but instead occupied a seat at the table—where the Grand Duke normally sat.
Her cousin looked wrung out. His skin was pale, his eyes were sunken and framed with purple bags beneath them, and for the first time she could remember his outfit looked sloppily put together. It was rumbled and wrinkled, the knot of his tie on the small side… Hattie glanced towards his father, wondering what the hell had gone on between them—it was only Harold who could ruffle her cousin in such a way.
It was weird not seeing Dick sat there; she couldn’t remember her grandfather ever being ill before. She couldn’t really recall him taking a holiday either. She had no idea how her Grammy had coped.
Or maybe that’s how she coped, her brain chuckled. Got away without him. Hattie would certainly have done the same. She cast her eyes towards where her Grammy usually sat and hoped she was okay. Was she at the hospital or here at the palace resting? Her eyes continued on, looking for another familiar face, the Head Secretary of the Royal Administrative Division.
‘Where’s the secretary?’ Hattie asked, immediately breaking every rule she’d just given to Roman. She heard her sisters’ collective inhale of breath, saw Victoria’s shoulders stiffen, and as one her entire family turned their attention to her, fixing her with their gaze.
The Grand Duke narrowed his eyes at her. ‘Well, as you all know,’ he began. ‘His Majesty took a tumble last night and was found first thing this morning.’ He refocused back on the room in general, his smug tone suggested that he knew he was finally getting his dream handed to him on a platter. Hattie’s eyes darted around the room, taking a quick glance of all her cousins to gauge their reaction. Everyone’s focus was completely on the Grand Duke, their faces impassive and giving nothing away as to their true feelings on the King’s injury.
‘He’s broken his hip and is undergoing surgery as we speak. He’ll be in the hospital for two weeks before, all being well, returning back to the palace. The Queen is with him, of course’—his eyes met hers again before moving on—‘and will remain so until he awakens from the anaesthetic.
‘After which, and if he is stable enough, she will return to duties here at the palace. In the interim, I will take over these meetings and will field any calls from foreign bodies regarding the King’s health. Alistair will step up and take on…’
And Hattie blanked out the rest of the conversation. It would be the same as always; the good stuff going to the likes of Aunt Helena and her children, with the jobs getting less attractive the further down the chain they went, until her sister got the dregs that no one else wanted to do. Hattie was secretly proud of how well Victoria always turned these undesirable jobs into successes. She was also impressed that Victoria didn’t gloat, just kept her head down and got on with the next batch of tasks the others would reject.
