Princess Adeline of Wales

Chapter Fifty-One: Something There

20th of May 2006 - FitzClarence House, London

"Thank you, Gerry," Adeline said with a smile as her protection officer as she climbed from the car making sure that she had her bag as she peered up at the building that Simon had given her the address to.

FitzClarence House was the residence of the FitzClarence family when they were in London, it had been built by the first Earl of Munster as a London base for his family after his marriage and further estrangement from his royal father.

Simon had reassured her that they would be alone here with his mother tending to his two school age siblings back at the country estate while his father was away in America on some business trip.

That left his younger sister, who Simon usually shared the residence with she was currently away on some girls trip until the end of the summer before she started university in the autumn.

Adeline took a deep breath before she nodded to Gerry who she'd sworn to secrecy about her date, he'd promised to stick around in case she needed him and Adeline was a little relieved about that.

The last date she'd gone on was with Oliver, it had left a bad taste in her mouth for the longest time and Adeline didn't even want to think about what could be worse than that.

Shaking off the nerves, Adeline approached the front door and pressed the buzzer as she had been instructed to do; she glanced down at her summery dress for a moment before smoothing it out.

It didn't take Simon to answer the door, an easy smile on his face as he allowed Adeline to step inside the foyer before offering a polite wave to the protection officers that had occupied her.

He used to having to deal with them after spending years around Harry, he wouldn't have been surprised if they had some sort of file on him at the Palace because he ran in the same circles as Harry.

"I was almost expecting a bachelor pad," Adeline teased peering around the beautifully decorated halls, this certainly wasn't what she had expected when Simon had discretely informed her of their dinner plans.

Neither of them wishing to alert Harry to their plans, when they both knew that he could be a little hot tempered and Adeline was in no mood to argue with him at this time.

"I don't think my mother would allow me to do such a thing, she picked out most of the furnishings when she married my father," Simon laughed signalling for her to follow him towards the kitchen where he'd spent the morning prepared for her arrival and ensuring his menu was perfect.

If this was to be their first date then he wanted to make sure that it was perfect, nothing could be left to chance nor would he allow her to compare their date to the one she had shared with Oliver.

From what he had heard from Harry, it had been a complete disaster and Simon couldn't imagine what had gone through Oliver's mind when he had made Adeline wait like that then turn up in the state that he had.

Entering the kitchen, the smell of food made Adeline's stomach grumbled as she peered around the spacious room that could put the kitchens at Clarence House to shame.

"And you cook?" Adeline said not sure why she was so surprised, it seemed to her that it was only her brothers that were lacking in the kitchen department.

Catherine had shared with her on their last ski trip now much William had struggled when they'd moved out of their dorms and into a shared house with some friends for their second year of university.

There had been plenty of tales that Catherine had shared about William nearly setting the kitchen on fire and someone having to come and save dinner unless they wanted to live on take out food for the entire week.