No. No, fuck this. I need to get to her.
At some point, I move. Down the corridor and down the stairs until I’m in the foyer. The lights are all wrong, practicallyblinding me, and my ears are ringing again. There’s a steel pot over my head and somebody keeps whacking the side of it with a pole. Lobby. Carpeted floors followed by marble. Security assists me but I can’t manage more than simple gratitude.
Then I’m outside, following Anthony, and the cameras start going off. Flashes capture my hollow stare as I move straight ahead. I can barely hear the ruckus, can barely take in the sight of the crowd. Some locals, some press—nobody I care for.
“Shame!”
“Justice for Charlie Henderson!” yells one woman, but Anthony just shoves me into the back of the SUV before I can turn around. The doors shut and my head’s still spinning. Anthony slides into the driver’s seat, glaring at the woman currently slamming her palms against his window.
I ignore the commotion as the car starts, pulling out my phone just as a link pings through from the top. From a new unknown number, blue and underlined, which takes me to a Google Doc that isn’t available for editing. The tab is untitled, and the little lock informs me that this is restricted access: only those with a link can view. The headline robs me of what little breath my lungs could manage.
INSIDE THE CROWN’S DIRTY WAR ON SHEFFOLK: CROWN PRINCE’S “AFFAIR” WITH THE DUCHESS-HEIR SAID TO BE PART OF A PLOT TO WEAKEN THE DUCHY.
The letters swim before me, sliding away from each other and dodging every attempt I make to understand. My brain stalls the way it used to, dropping two sentences whilst trying to make sense of one. It’s pathetic how my body remembers its training, forcing itself to pin down the words. I’m still that boy staring at a report, reminding himself not to stutter, not to fail—not to givehis father a reason to hit him. They make me sound like a dog my father unleashed on purpose.
Dirty war. Affair. Plot.
As if every second spent with her was strategic, a means of gaining access to what Sheffolk has long concealed. No, the title sounds like something my father’s PR team would stitch together. They have to be behind it because he needed a clean, public reason to recall me. He never did like the idea of my contentment—not with books, or university or anything that wasn’t chosen for me—and I happened to find a sliver of it in the land the Crown doesn’t own.
“What the fuck is this?” I question Anthony, thumb hovering uselessly over the screen.
My voice doesn’t sound like my own and the only thing that fully registers is the ache against the side of my leg. The taps have turned into what feels like individual punches.
“You tell me, Your Highness,” he answers with a heavy, disappointed exhale, turning the SUV into a confessional booth.
What follows is probing, disguised as concern.
“I was under the impression you’d overextended yourself again. Another middle finger to the palace. Another rebellion. Thought you’d done this to ruin your father’s little reconciliation tour he’s sent you on—but then I hear you on the phone with Lady Francesca, promising things you can’t deliver on…” He bites down on a smirk. “Now I’m thinking you finally stepped on the toes of the wrong bastard, somebody who doesn’t care how many titles come before your name.”
This bears Godwyn’s fingerprints, or the fingerprints of whoever was rageful enough to let him have them. The SUV rolls over a pothole and I swallow down bile. There’s no breakfast to even hack up, but I can feel something crawling up my throat. The whole of Sheffolk suddenly feels porous. Police sirens ringthrough the air as they escort us to the airfield, and every passing citizen tries to look through the tinted windows.
Too much attention, too many eyes—there might as well be a magnifying glass hovering over me.
Anthony tilts the rearview mirror enough that our eyes meet. “Read on, sir,” he says over the sound of a cyclist yelling at the police car blocking his path. “See the full extent of what this person’s willing to do if you don’t get your ass out of Sheffolk.”
I scroll past the mention of different anonymous sources that have decided to speak out. Yesterday gave Redford’s guests the attention they needed because these words sound more like an audience who’ve confused themselves for witnesses. Everything I’ve done since stepping off the jet is described as being premeditated. Each word strips me of personhood and turns me into another of the king’s strategies.
The attack on Charlie is framed as retaliation against a man only concerned for his childhood friend. My teeth grind when I see the quote from Edmund, claiming that I isolated Francesca from her family.
It’s not true. None of it’s fucking true but it’s close enough to the reputation I nurtured with my own fucking hands—and I know how easily people will believe it if it goes live.
The words blur, and I scroll right until the end, where the embedded media block sits. At first, I don’t even realise what I’m looking at. It comes in pieces. On the windowsill in one of the pictures is the tutu-shaped mug Francesca got for Tommy. Beyond it, I can make out the stove, the island with a bottle of water and my phone on it.
But on the counter, I spot Francesca’s bare legs around my hips, her head tipped back with my face buried in her chest. They’ve blurred the bits that would make it unsuitable to post. Anyone with eyes can see what we’re doing, though, and I can fill in every missing piece from memory.
I’m going to throw up all over the back seat. Someone was there. Someone was watching us just like on the night of the ball.
EXCLUSIVE: Leaked stills show Prince Eric Atherbourne engaging in explicit activities with the duchess-heir in her private residence. Sources say such behaviour was frequent and encouraged by palace officials to destabilise an already vulnerable woman.
I stare harder at the main image and see myself fully clothed in comparison, between the legs of a half-naked Francesca. That moment of trust, reducing her to nothing but an explicit image for the public to dissect. The cruellest thing is how ordinary it is too. Sheffolk is built on abnormality, on drowned women, curses and ghosts. Every single thing I ever experienced was outrageous, to say the least, so much so that my want for Francesca is almost boring in its simplicity.
My most human motive, and they’ve contaminated even that.
STAY, STAY, STAY. If I don’t keep spelling it, I’m going to burst out of my skin.
The sirens roar as we pull up at the airfield. Anthony slides out to convene with Hartlynd and his company, but I’m glued to the seat. All I can see is Francesca in her cottage, seated on her little couch as she reads this same thing. It isn’t a wonder why nobody at Redford is answering me.
Why would they if they received the same email Anthony did? They’ve had hours to sift through this filth, to call in representatives and do damage control in case this leaks.
