Little Lady Agency and The Prince by Hester Browne Read Free Book Online

sides of my family.
    I excused myself on the grounds of needing the loo, and scurried upstairs to put our overnight bags in the four-poster room. Despite the spring weather, the house was like an icebox. If I was going to wear the gorgeous new Parisian silk pyjamas I’d packed, the electric blanket would definitely need to go on now.
    While I was hurrying back downstairs to deal with Granny, I heard an odd groan from the window seat on the landing.
    I approached it with some caution, having had a bad experience with pulling back the curtains as a child: my parents threw some quite debauched parties in those days. In addition to the faint moaning, there was a pool of water trickling down the panelling and soaking into the carpet.
    Gingerly, I pulled the curtain aside, to find Emery clutching her stomach and looking ashen.
    ‘Oh, my God,’ she said, widening her eyes. ‘I’ve, like, seriously wet myself. It’s so . . . embarrassing.’
    ‘Emery,’ I said, feeling the time had come to be frank. ‘Might you be a bit further on than you thought with the baby?’
    ‘Honestly, Mel, you know I don’t keep a diary!’ she snapped.
    I gave her a searching look. Emery had spent most of her adolescence in a state of constant pregnancy scare, due to her inability to remember when her last period might have been. I distinctly recall visiting the doctor with her on one occasion, using my diary to jog her memory.
    I didn’t think we had time to embark on a similar debate now. I’d seen Casualty . These things could happen very quickly, and Daddy would go berserk if it happened on the one good carpet in the house.
    ‘Emery, we need to get your jeans off,’ I said firmly.
    ‘Why? It took me half an hour to get them on.’ Her face suddenly contorted into a grimace of agony and she grabbed her stomach. ‘Oh, God, that’s like . . . Argh.’
    I tried to unbutton the jeans, but I couldn’t even get my finger behind the button. Emery seemed to have poured herself into them by sheer force of will.
    ‘I’m going to have to cut you out,’ I announced, looking around for a suitable implement.
    ‘You’re not coming anywhere near me with scissors, Mel!’ wailed Emery. ‘These are Earnest Sewn! They’re limited edition!’
    ‘Trust me, I’m a dressmaker,’ I said grimly.
    ‘What’s going on?’
    I spun round. Granny was standing on the stairs.
    ‘Phone for an ambulance,’ I said. ‘It’ll be quicker than arguing about who’s sober enough to drive her to A & E.’
    At this point, Emery let out a loudish moan – about as loud as Allegra would make on discovering her toast was burned – and somehow I managed to yank her jeans open, to reveal a small, round bump, about the size of one large Christmas dinner.
    Emery and I both stared at it in shock.
    ‘OK,’ she admitted, ‘I might be a bit further on.’ Then she gripped my hand so tight the bones cracked. ‘Don’t let Daddy take over! Please!’
    ‘Hello? Yes, hello. Good evening! I’d like an ambulance, if you’d be so kind,’ Granny was purring into the downstairs phone. ‘Well, right away, if you could do one. You see, my granddaughter appears to be having a baby . . . Oh, thank you! Yes, I suppose I am terribly excited . . . Well, no, not really . . . Goodness me, I absolutely do sound old enough to have a granddaughter, you awful flirt!’
    ‘Granny!’ I yelled. ‘Hurry up !’
    A clattering of feet on the parquet and a gust of cigar smoke suggested that the men’s port and cigar break was now over, just in time for the main show to begin.
    ‘Good God!’ bellowed Daddy’s voice from the hall. ‘What the hell’s going on up there?’
    ‘Em?’ William bounded up the oak staircase three stairs at a time.
    ‘I’m feeling rather . . .’ murmured Emery, waving unspecifically at her kaftan.
    ‘She’s in labour,’ I explained. ‘We need lots of towels and some old blankets. William, help me get her into the drawing room. Lars,