His Royal Secret (25 page)

He arrived in the office slightly ahead of the rush. Ben helped himself to some of the swill the break room called coffee—really, it didn’t pay to be addicted to the stuff in a country more interested in tea—and went to check his e-mail.

Another note from
W.Clifton
.

Very carefully, as though the mouse itself could hurt him, Ben clicked on the e-mail.

My beautiful boy—

I’ll be in London two weeks from now. Just for a night or two, but that’s time enough, isn’t it? Time for a few glasses of wine, lots of conversation and a chance to see how much we’ve changed, and how much we haven’t.

Once you called me your “fate.” I don’t believe in any such thing. But you could still try to persuade me.

I considered simply showing up at your flat in the evening so we could cut to the chase. But you like hiding behind your walls, don’t you? Hide from me if you like, my boy. Or walk out bravely and meet me on the field of battle—a nightclub, a bar, anywhere you like. Let me know.

You always enjoyed our duels.

Warner

Ben leaned forward, his head in his hands. Sometimes he felt as though Warner Clifton had a skeleton key that allowed him to unlock something deep inside Ben’s soul, no matter how long it had been, no matter how much Ben had changed. Or had hoped he’d changed. Granted, the feelings Warner had awakened weren’t the ones he’d intended—Warner inspired anger instead of longing, hate instead of love. But the emotions were still powerful enough to erase every other thought in Ben’s brain.

This was the first time Warner had openly invited him to resume their affair. There had been other hints and flirtations, but always, before, Ben had thought Warner was more interested in trying to mess with his mind than in trying to seduce him again. Had something dramatically changed in Warner’s life? No telling. It was equally likely that Warner was just more interested in visiting London than he had been in going to South Africa.

At least in the past few years Ben had learned not to respond. He put his finger on the delete key . . .

. . . and did nothing.

Images flickered in his mind: taking Warner’s challenge. Meeting him in one of the clubs, letting Warner see the man he’d become. Going to Warner’s hotel and making him be the one to submit this time—forcing him onto his knees, fucking his mouth, proving he could do that and walk away, just walk away—

But Warner wasn’t the one Ben wanted to prove he could walk away from.

Ben hit delete, then sat very still at his desk for a long time, trying not to think about Warner, James, or anything much at all.

“Oh, man,” Roberto said as he came in. “Can you believe that girl?”

“What girl?” Ben frowned.

Roberto hesitated. “I’m getting too involved in British gossip, aren’t I? Damn. Next I’m going to start caring what happens to footballers’ wives.”

“What gossip?”

By way of reply, Roberto tossed a copy of the
Daily Mirror
onto Ben’s desk, and instantly Ben’s heart sank. The headline read CAUGHT AGAIN!, and although the cover picture was blurry, the woman pictured there was unmistakably Cassandra Roxburgh, locked in a passionate kiss with Spencer Kennedy.

James’s best defense, and his own, had just gone up in smoke.

•   •   •

The worst part was hearing Cass sob on the phone.

“It’s all right,” James said. “Really it is. We knew we had to call an end to this sooner or later. So, it’s sooner.”

“I just feel like shit,” she said. “I’ve dragged you through it again, and my family, and Spencer—he’s not used to any of this, you know. Tabloid headlines and OMG Royalty and the paparazzi camped on the curb outside his town house, the usual hell. He’s not taking it well.”

“Please pass along my apologies. We’ll get together soon, in private, so I can speak to him personally.”

“It might take him a while to calm down. Spencer’s angry with you, and me, and the damned photographer—oh, angry with the whole world, right now.
Why
didn’t we wait to snog until we went inside? Damned hormones.”

James made shushing noises over the phone, which he hoped would be comforting. For his part, although he was doing his best to be strong for Cass, he felt queasy and slightly lost. Cass’s unstinting support was the only reason he’d gotten away with being closeted for so long. Now she could no longer help him. But his personal problems had to take a backseat. “It’s over. All right? It’s all over. After a couple of days, we’ll put out a formal announcement, and that will be an end of it. After a few months more, you and I can reappear in public as friends. Not so bad.”

Cass sounded tired—no, exhausted. Like someone who literally could not take one more step. “I always thought it would be good to get it done with. Instead I feel as though I failed you, James.”

“Never say that again. You did more for me than you should ever have been asked to do. Your only mistake was falling in love.”

I know how that goes.

After he’d finally calmed her down and hung up, James poured himself a brandy, took a few deep breaths, and called Ben. Luckily it was early enough in the evening that he’d managed to catch Ben at work.

Or at least it seemed lucky at first.

“We’ll have to take a couple of weeks off,” James explained apologetically. “They’ll be sniffing around like mad at first. The press, I mean. Nothing personal.”

“No offense taken.” Ben didn’t sound angry. He sounded . . . nonchalant. “Probably for the best. I’m due to get copyedits back any day. And I might take a trip or something. Fly down to Italy, Portugal, someplace like that.”

Someplace with brilliant sun even in wintertime, and beautiful men on the beaches. Ben didn’t say that; he didn’t have to.

James said only, “Should I give you a call when I think the coast might be clear?”

“Definitely. Yeah, of course.” Ben’s voice softened slightly. “Are you all right?”

“Shaken up. But it’s for the best. Cass deserves her freedom.”

“Hang in there, James. It can’t last forever.”

But of course it could, and it would. Ben just didn’t understand. Nobody could who hadn’t lived it for himself.

After they hung up, James drank the rest of the brandy in front of the fire. Their passionate night together on Christmas Eve had reassured James for a time, but he was reassured no longer. He’d been wondering whether Ben was cooling to their affair, ironically ever since that incredible weekend they’d spent at Ben’s flat. James understood why. He too had been forced to reckon with the distance between the closeness they’d shared there and the divided lives they had to lead. For James that reckoning had been painful; for Ben, who hadn’t desired a deeper relationship with anyone—much less a lover with James’s considerable baggage—it had to have been the beginning of the end.

Oh, God, Ben, don’t leave me yet. I know you’ll leave me someday, but not yet, please not yet.

James bit back the thought. He had bigger problems to worry about right now, surely. More imminent ones, at any rate.

Happy lay next to him on the sofa, her back along his thigh; James rubbed her belly, which made her legs twitch in her sleep. Her warmth was comforting, at least for a moment. Then he picked up his iPad and steeled himself.

Normally, after a gossip explosion like this one, James did his best to steer clear for a while. But he would have to work with Kimberley to craft an “official announcement” that got Cass as cleanly off the hook as possible. To do that, he’d need to see what people were saying, the better to refute it. At this point his best move would probably be to claim that he and Lady Cassandra had actually split back in late December, so she was in fact free to see Spencer. Wouldn’t that do?

He paused midway through typing bbc.co.uk, his usual first stop after the Global Media home page, and frowned as he remembered something Cass had mentioned and ran a Google search for OMG Royalty instead.

This turned out to be an online gossip site dedicated, as the logo said, to “all things royal.” However, while the royal families of other nations made token appearances, virtually all of the forums were focused on Britain. James occasionally read through the comments on the BBC or
Guardian
websites, so he thought he was reasonably well-versed in the idiocy of the general public, not to mention the many misconceptions about his family.

But he was wrong.

Most of the forums went by name:
King George
,
Queen Louisa
,
Princess Amelia
,
Prince Regent James
, so on and so forth. But there was one called
The Bitch
. He clicked on this to find thread after thread of venom about Cassandra.

•   •   •

How big a whore do you have to be to practically do a guy in public?

I bet she’d fuck Kennedy in public if it would get her any more attention. That’s the only reason she stays with HRH, the attention. Why he lets her get away with it I don’t know but maybe he’ll finally GROW A PAIR and get rid of the whore. But with his taste he’ll probably just find someone worse.

It’s obvious that Jamie’s one of those guys who gets off on seeing other guys fuck his girlfriend. If Cassandra doesn’t actually bring them around for him to watch in person, I bet they have something else figured out—like, she wears a mic so he can listen, or there’s a hidden camera around or something.

IDK, maybe it’s a cuckolding fetish but it could just be a humiliation kink? And maybe we should be kink-positive instead of demonizing them. If their arrangement works for them it’s none of our business.

Kink? Sure. I bet Randy Sandy does something for HRH so filthy he wouldn’t ever dare ask anybody else for it. So we’re going to be stuck with her as our Queen, no matter how big a slut she is.

•   •   •

It went on and on in this vein. James read every thread, alternately shocked, amused, angry, and ashamed. Shocked at the sheer levels of venality people could dream up and ascribe to him, his family, and the people he loved. Amused at the contrast between the posters’ confidence and their ignorance.

Angry when he saw that there was a thread speculating that his mother had cheated on his father out of boredom. When he saw the names being thrown at Cassandra. When he found “Mellie’s Death Clock,” a thread where people cheerfully wagered on how long it would be before Indigo overdosed because of her imaginary drug addiction.

And ashamed of himself.

The hours drew on, turning afternoon into night. James hadn’t forgotten his plans for the evening, knew they were in fact more important than ever, but still found it hard to rise from the computer. He walked through his preparations as though in his sleep, hardly able to pay attention to a task as mundane as making soup.

So this
, he thought,
is how the impossible becomes inevitable.

On the hour precisely, Glover opened the door and said, “Her Royal Highness the Princess Amelia.”

Indigo, unlike Cassandra, always chose to be announced; she didn’t care for surprises herself, and so didn’t want to surprise anyone, even the big brother who had invited her for dinner.

“Hello there,” she said softly as she walked in. In the weeks since Christmas, she’d calmed considerably, but she was still subdued. Indigo wore jeans and an old threadbare jumper, one James recognized as having belonged to their father. But the Converse trainers on her feet were the ones she’d decorated herself, painting them silver and bronze with steampunk gears and swirls, and he took that as a positive sign. Indigo smiled unevenly as she came into his embrace. “Something smells good.”

“Chicken soup.”

“Mum’s recipe?”

“Not quite. I’ve been playing with it.”

“Oh, Glo,” Indigo whispered as she knelt on the floor, the better to accept the dogs’ adoration. “And Happy, I missed you too. They’re getting fat, James.”

“Their Christmas treats, probably.” The memory of Ben buying presents even for his dogs cut through James like a knife, but he kept smiling.

They sat down to eat in the kitchen, where the dogs could doze in front of the Aga, and where brother and sister could sit together at the table they’d shared as children. When James had invited Indigo to come to dinner a few days ago, he’d thought only to get her out of her rooms, but in a space she’d still think of as safe and comforting. Now, though, he was grateful they had privacy to talk this through, with no danger of being overheard.

“I saw about Cassandra,” Indigo ventured, after a few moments. “Sorry. I know it’s a mess.”

“More than a mess. It’s an end.” He folded his hands together over his bowl, almost as though he were a small child saying grace. “I can’t ask Cass to go on like this any longer, or Spencer either. They’re in love. They shouldn’t have to be demonized like this just because they find it hard to live a lie.”

“Of course not. I know Cassandra loves you, and she wanted to help, but it couldn’t have been for forever.”

“No. It couldn’t have been.” His long-ago imaginings of Cass winking at him at the altar, of him crowning her as queen to be both his best friend and protector for life, vanished into so much smoke. They’d only ever been daydreams, and he’d been a fool to cling to them for so long.

“And your friend—Ben? This makes it more difficult for you two, doesn’t it?”

He took a deep breath. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that. Not just that—all right. Bloody hell. This is hard.”

“James?” Indigo paused, spoon hovering over her bowl.

“It’s like you said.” The words came out in a rush. “We’re constantly pretending. We’re all of us living a lie. So no wonder the public suspects us, makes up these horrible stories. They don’t know the truth, but they know it’s not the image we put before them. They
know
we’re liars and they treat us that way. I don’t have the right to condemn any falsehoods while I’m living one of my own. And I’m tired of it, Indigo. I’m so damned tired. I can’t go on any longer.”

“What do you mean?” Her voice was hushed; she suspected what was coming.