I stared at my hands because if I looked at her I might cry, and that would be a different kind of humiliation.
“Bryce is getting flayed alive,” I said.“I’m sure his Secretary is threatening recall.”
“Of course he is,” my mother said.“He’s a small man who mistakes severity for strength.He will overreach, and then he will backpedal because he likes his job.But he will make it hurt first.”
That, somehow, was worse than her anger: the cool, bored assessment of a predator she’d met before, probably at a boring state dinner.The stone in my stomach shifted and sharpened.
“I asked if you knew what you’ve done,” my mother repeated.“Do you?”
I lifted my chin.“I’ve made it harder.For everyone.For you, Bryce, and for me.”
“And?”she prompted, because she’d never accepted half-answers from anyone.
“And I don’t regret dancing with him,” I said, voice shaking.“I regret the picture.I regret the world.Not us.”
A muscle flickered in her cheek.Then she came to the armchair opposite mine and sat.Rain ticked at the window in the briefest little taps, like a nervous fingernail.
“When you were nine,” she said, “you went missing for forty minutes at Balmoral, and I thought I would die.You were found under a rhododendron with a fistful of biscuits, feral and delighted.Do you remember what I said to you?”
“You said, ‘If you’re going to run away, leave a note.It’s only polite,’” I replied, and the memory put a stupid, involuntary grin on my face.
She snorted.“I said that after.First I said, ‘There is a difference between freedom and thoughtlessness.One is brave, and the other is selfish.’”
I could have argued the fairness of applying that to a dance floor.I could have made an elegant case about double standards and why must our lives be kept small to keep other people comfortable.Instead, I stared at my hands again because they wouldn’t stop trembling.
“What do you want from me?”I murmured.
Her gaze softened by a millimetre.It was as much as the world ever got from her, and I’d learned to translate the whole sentimental dictionary out of it.“What I have always wanted,” she said.“For you to be clever.And careful.And kind.To yourself and to the Crown.Those are not mutually exclusive.”
“They feel like it,” I said.
“Of course they do.You are in love.”She sighed.“Loyalty feels like a noose when your heart belongs to someone else.”
It hit so cleanly I had to press my fingers to my mouth not to make a sound.I loved Mummy for the accuracy and hated her for it too.
“You’re not a working royal,” she went on.“You do not draw a salary, and you don’t carry out engagements.Arthur, you have more freedom than most people with your surname.That freedom is real.You can live a life that is mostly your own.But you do not get to pretend that your name isn’t attached to everything you touch.The perks and the prison are the same building, Arthur.”
All the perks flashed through my brain — doors opening, waiters laying out tables, private museum tours that made me feel like the only person alive inside a painting — and alongside them the prison: drawn blinds at noon, some officious man I hadn’t hired deciding I mustn’t be seen because my face might upset tomorrow’s front page.I saw children at the charity clinic, palms trembling, then grinning because I’d shown up; I winced at my selfishness for liking the roar when crowds called our names.And beneath it all was Bryce, walking into a ring of cameras like a soldier into fire.
“What happens now?”I asked.
“Now,” my mother said, “you keep your head down for a few days and you do not feed the wolves.You don’t sneak out to see him tonight no matter how much you want to, because that will make it worse for Mr.Lewis, and you know it.You answer no questions.Just let the story exhaust itself.And privately, you decide whether you can live like this.Not for a week, but for a very long time.”
I pictured it with ugly clarity: clandestine cars and coded messages; holidays not in the sun but in borrowed houses with covered walks; Bryce’s staff frowning, mine sighing; the first time a camera caught us again because it always does, and the story getting even sharper teeth.
“And if I can’t?”I asked, and I hated how my voice wobbled.
“Then you do the honest thing and end it before you ruin both your lives,” she said, and if there was cruelty in it, it was the kind I’d asked for.“You don’t drag him through years of this to prove a point about modern love.He has a country to serve.You have… a different kind of life.A good one, if you want it.Don’t throw it away to live in a bunker.”
“I don’t want a bunker,” I said.“Mummy, I want to dance with my boyfriend in a room without worrying whose hand is in whose pocket.”I laughed, a wreck of a sound.“Isn’t that ridiculous?A prince wishing for a bad DJ and a good night.”
“Not ridiculous,” she said.“Human.”She leaned back, tracing a crease in her glove with a thumb.“You know I’m not the enemy here.”
“I know,” I said, and meant it.“I just wish the Crown weren’t sometimes.”
She smiled, brief and bleak.“I’ve wished that longer than you’ve been alive.”
We let that sit, the two of us on our opposing chairs like players who’ve finally admitted they’re on the same side and still don’t know how to win.
