The Royal Romance - The Valtoria Diaries

Twenty thousand Lauras

Okay, picture the scene. Guy turns up in a foreign country, just about to start his first year studying Estate Management and Business Studies, because that's what Bertrand had started to study before he'd had to quit to come back to look after his thirteen year old brother in his hour of need - while actually managing an estate and studying some business. Real world lessons for Bertrand, not such real world lessons for Maxwell. But I digress.

I'm lucky enough to be in a large shared house with six other students. I've got my own bathroom - not for me an accommodation block with toilets and showers off corridors, I do witness such monstrous places on my travels, but that's another story. Immediately, we all get along. Confusingly, the first guy I meet is called.. Max. So we then go and introduce ourselves to everyone else. Max and Maxwell, yeah. How do they tell us apart. Well, I'm not about to drop the bombshell that I'm a member of the Cordonian nobility. But, after a couple of nights, and a drunken game of truth or dare, Jack, Amy, Greg, Harry, Laura and Max all know I'm a Lord, and have abandoned my forename in favour of His Lordship. Brilliant.

But it does have its advantages. Heading into those first student parties with a group of friends who are telling everyone that their friend is a Cordonian Lord who needs to get laid did the trick. Within a week I've not only got off the mark but notched a fair few more marks – who knew life could be so good away from Bertrand's watchful gaze? This goes on for some time, thanks to a grapevine of appreciative lovers, the copious amounts of alcohol in the vicinity and the never ending generosity of the sexual health clinic.

As you can imagine, my hedonistic lifestyle is not only a source of amusement for my close friends (we now collectively call ourselves the Sexy Seven) but a distraction from my studies. I somehow manage to scrape through that first year without dropping out. I come home for the annual Beaumont Bash, and bring my friends with me. House Beaumont can still afford that sort of thing right now! They have a ball and get into the spirit of things. They meet Rick, and Drake, and Leo, and they all get on fine. I seem to think Amy and Drake got on very well once, although whether either of them remembered it afterwards, I'm not so sure.

So yeah, life is good. In the second year, I hit a happy medium, still having fun with the ladies, but trying to keep my head above water so I didn't flunk the whole course. I join StreetDanceSoc, and BreakDanceSoc, and make more friends that way, doing what I really love best. And this carries on into the third year. Can I tell you now anything I learned, studies wise? Don't be silly. But I learn how to really write, I guess. Which may well come in useful, somewhere down the line..

I get on with everyone. But in the third year, I particularly bond with Laura. She'd been going out with Max on and off for most of the first two years, but over the second summer, they split up, quite amicably actually. They remain friends. They'd never been that serious really. Laura and I have always been good friends, but now she becomes my best friend, my sidekick, my sounding board, my dance partner, my truest defender. Let's face it, she becomes my Jen. Just.. maybe like a lesser Jen. Maybe Jen version 1, the beta version before all the bugs have been ironed out. Jen lite? Whatever, you get what I mean. She isn't you.

She's also my wingwoman. We'll both go out on the pull together. Legend tells of the night that we managed to seduce a couple apart. I cannot confirm or deny that rumour, but it was convenient as we both ended up in the same flat the next morning so could share a taxi home.

But, one night, we have a house party. I've made my signature drink, the Pineapple Paradise Punch. And rather a lot of it. Laura and I are the last ones standing, we drink and talk together late into that night, but then I get the shock of my life when she kisses me. And things immediately go further that night. And the next morning. And most of the next day. We can't get enough of each other.