His Royal Secret (8 page)

His path was again clear. He’d prepared for this job his entire life; finally taking up the duty would be more relief than burden. All would be well.

He only had to forget about Ben.

•   •   •

Great Britain Names Prince Regent

Ben saw the headline on his phone first, while hurrying the last couple of blocks to work, when he didn’t have a chance to read.

But what else was there to know? James had achieved everything he wanted in his life, save for the literal crown itself. Ben wanted to be sour about it, because becoming nothing other than what you were born to, living a life of idle luxury while spending money received from everyday taxpayers—well, he had no respect for that.

Still, he knew that he had frightened James badly, and unkindly, after an afternoon of intimacy that seemed to be as rare in James’s life as it was in Ben’s. The man deserved a good day after what he’d been put through.

When he went into the newsroom, he headed toward his cubicle same as ever—but this meant walking past the editor’s office, and the moment he came within Roger’s line of sight, Roger straightened, shot Ben a look that would liquefy steel, and crooked his finger.

“Step into my parlor,” muttered Ben, but he stashed his battered old satchel on his desk and went in to face his doom.

“Welcome back,” Roger said as Ben walked in. “I hope you enjoyed your Kenyan holiday, as apparently leisure was your top priority. All those hours lolling about in bed.”

His mind flooded with the sudden, vivid image of James lying naked atop him, kissing Ben with his open mouth. Ben forced himself to focus. “I ought to have been more vigilant. I wasn’t. I can only apologize and tell you it won’t happen again.”

“You’re bloody well right it won’t. They aren’t such pushovers in London, you know. If you think I’m bad, just wait until Fiona de Winter gets her claws into you. Edged in diamond, they all say. Well, all the survivors, anyway.”

London? Fiona de Winter headed up the London office. Ben could hardly believe what he was hearing. “You’ve put through my transfer?”

“As of one month from today. That gives you enough time to move, I should imagine.”

Ben could clear out in a day, but that was beside the point. “I can’t believe it. After a fuckup like that—”

Roger laughed. “Everybody fucks up once in a while. You were overdue. And I liked how you bounced back. The story you wrote wasn’t what I would’ve expected from you. Less cynical, but no less thoughtful. And the writing was extraordinary. We weren’t the first to post, but we were the best, and the page views reflect that more by the hour. You showed range and versatility.” More dryly, he added, “Besides, you’d pretty much have had to set the safari resort on fire not to get the London transfer at this point.”

“I can’t thank you enough.”

“Oh, that’s a pity, because I only do this job in the humble hope that maybe someday you’ll notice and pay me tribute, maybe in some emotional desk-hopping sequence like the end of
Dead Poets’ Society
. Or do I actually just want you to clear out of here so I can do some work? I think it’s the second one.”

“Thanks,” Ben said again, and he cleared out before Roger could change his mind.

The rest of the day was spectacularly unproductive, at least from a newsgathering standpoint. HR e-mailed him the countless forms he had to fill out for his transfer, and between that, negotiating with his landlord, and searching for potential flats in London, Ben hardly had time for anything else. Emotionally, he went back and forth between elation—London was one of the Big Two offices, and this was a huge move forward for him—and sticker shock, because,
dear God
, rents were high in London.

After work he went out for a round of congratulatory drinks with his coworkers. Only on his way home in the taxi did he seriously consider the fact that he was moving to the same city where James lived, and now ruled.

Which was a ludicrous thing to think about, really. The chances of running into any other single person in a city of eight million were fairly remote; given that this particular person lived in a palace, surrounded by security guards and sealed off from the world, those chances came near impossibility. Ben wasn’t going to see James again, ever, save on news reports.

Or, possibly, on the money. How weird to think about the face of someone you’d shagged staring up at you from a five-pound note.

Ben laughed at the idea and let it go. But the rest of the night, even after he’d gone to bed and lay drowsily in the dark, he couldn’t shake the thought that it was possible—not likely, but possible—he might somehow see James again.

387211

It was just another morning in the newsroom until Fiona de Winter leaned out of her office and said, “So, who wants a chance to meet the Prince Regent?”

Ben lifted his head, startled by the mention of James’s title. Even after two months in London, he hadn’t gotten used to the ubiquity of the prince’s face and presence. Yes, James was famous across the globe, but in other countries, he surfaced only during big scandals or slow news days. Here he perpetually graced tabloid headlines, was shown in swift clips on the nightly news, so on and so forth.

Every time Ben saw James’s image, it crashed through him like lightning.

Fiona brightened as her gaze lit on Ben; he realized, somewhat to his surprise, that he was the only one who had reacted to her invitation. She strolled to his desk, a large ivory envelope in one well-manicured hand. “Of course. The new man in town. Well, here’s a pass for you and a guest. Find someone easily impressed, take him along, get yourself laid.”

The envelope landed on Ben’s desk. He didn’t let himself look at it right away, much less touch it. “Is the event that swanky?”

Fiona laughed (a most unladylike snort) as she walked away, her patterned wrap dress making her as bright and unlikely as a butterfly in their drab newsroom with its cubicles and dozen frowning journalists in front of their computer screens. It was the reporter at the next desk, Roberto Santiesteban, who answered Ben: “Swanky only in a very dull way. Chamber music, overdressed people, two hours of small talk wrapped around some five-minute royal speech about the charity du jour. Your grandma’s idea of a good time, basically. But look on the bright side. The food’s usually decent, and there’s sure to be an open bar.”

“You went to one of these, then?”

“Sure, back when I first transferred from New York. Thought it would be something to tell everybody back home in Jersey City, you know? Instead I just wound up staring at the queen from about a quarter of a mile away, though seems to be about as close as you’d want her to get.” Roberto gestured at the rest of the newsroom, which continued typing and chatting as usual. “These guys all got it out of their systems when they were newbies. They’re over it by now.”

The envelope was of a paper as thick and creamy as linen; it contained two gilt-edged cards, each promising admittance to the Crimson Night Dinner for the Prince of Wales’s Creativity in Education Fund, which seemed to be about sponsoring arts projects for schoolchildren. Uncontroversial in the extreme, Ben thought. Then again, James liked to play it safe, didn’t he? “Do they just go distributing these invitations at random?”

“Hardly. The tables start at about two thousand pounds apiece. Global no doubt bought one as a tax deduction, and a few of the higher-ups will go to schmooze, but occasionally they need a couple more people to fill out the seats,” Roberto said. “That’s when we get the invites.”

“Ought to be something to see, at any rate.”

Roberto shrugged. “Something to eat, anyway. But you have to put on a suit. Not worth it for me.”

It was more than worth it to Ben. Over the past three months, he’d become increasingly convinced that he
had
to talk to James at least once more.

No, he didn’t think he could look James up for sex again. The prince would never, ever go for it after what had happened between them. But all the same, they needed to speak.

During the three months since that long, surreal afternoon in Kenya, Ben had often imagined meeting James again—speculative, improbable scenarios in which they found each other at some other isolated spot (Scotland?), or Ben recognized James incognito at a gay club (as though eyeliner and glitter would disguise the heir to the British throne). He even had a fantasy about secret guards arresting him in the dead of night and dragging him to something very like a dungeon where James waited for him . . . though that fantasy was mostly for the purposes of whacking off.

The thought of James shackling his wrists, arching one of those eyebrows as he saw Ben at his mercy—

“Earth to Ben,” Roberto said.

Ben pulled himself back to reality. “Sorry. You were saying?”

“I just asked who you were going to bring with you.” Roberto’s expression became conspiratorial. He was a fellow outsider among their Brit colleagues, a lanky African American guy in his twenties with super-short hair and a laid-back attitude. Because he’d moved to London more than a year earlier, Roberto served as Ben’s interpreter for everything from English slang to the interpersonal dynamics in the newsroom—which seemed to be coming into play now. “Rumor has it Geoffrey in copyediting wouldn’t say no if you asked him out sometime.”

Geoffrey. Was that the handsome guy with blond hair and a penchant for wearing black? Ben had had worse offers, but . . . “I don’t date coworkers.”

“The hours we put in? Hard to meet anyone else.” Roberto looked glum. He wasn’t wrong about their punishing schedule. “You sure?”

“Positive. I don’t shit where I sleep.”

Dating coworkers led to complications. To being tied down. Ever since Ben had severed the final emotional bonds that connected him to Warner, he’d relished his independence and had no intention of surrendering it for cutesy flirtations over the water cooler.

Roberto nodded. “I hear that. Does that mean you’re going to this royal thing stag? Pretty brave.”

There hadn’t been any men since James. Ben thought it all came down to the sound James had made when he came—that long, ragged cry. The desperate yearning and release Ben had heard there lingered in his mind, turning him on every time. He hadn’t gotten that sound out of his system yet. Until he did, good luck getting it up for someone else.

Despite his fascination, he’d never imagined deliberately seeking James’s company, thinking it impossible. But now that the opportunity had presented itself, he wasn’t going to let it slip away.

Ben said to Roberto, “Actually, I have someone in mind.”

•   •   •

James walked into his sister’s section of Kensington Palace without so much as pausing to nod at the footman standing by the door. As he headed up the stairs, the butler, Hartley, fell into step beside and slightly behind him. This meant James had to slow his pace so Hartley could keep up. The butler was seventy-eight years old and ought to have retired at least a decade ago; he stayed on because he was one of the very few people Indigo felt safe with, and because he was nearly as devoted to her as their parents had been. Though he still performed most of his traditional duties, Hartley had long since ceased to be a mere servant.

“How is she?” James said.

“Much the same as when we first called you, sir.” Hartley’s voice was cracked and rough with age. “No better and no worse.”

“She hasn’t hurt herself?”

“Not so far as we can tell. But that door’s locked tight, sir.”

“Understood. Leave me to it.”

Hartley acquiesced, accompanying James no farther than the second-floor landing.

James headed toward the suite where Indigo lived. Though technically it no longer belonged to her, even Richard had not been spiteful enough to insist that she move out. Indigo only felt completely safe in the rooms where she’d spent the earliest years of her childhood—and sometimes, like today, not even there.

He went through the formal areas to her bedroom. Their parents had allowed James and Indigo to decorate their rooms however they wished, gently reminding them that they’d have to be more “conservative” once the time came for the family to move to Clarence House. That was only one of the many small deviations from tradition that had so alienated Dad from the king and queen while endearing him to his children. So from a tasteful Georgian parlor, James walked into a sort of ruined splendor. Glossy black paint on the walls looked all the more striking against the scrolling white crown molding; Indigo’s bedspread was silver satin, onto which she’d tacked bits and pieces of antique lace. One of her mosaics had a place of pride on the wall, a thousand glittering bits of glass brought together into the image of wilted flowers. Between the tall windows hung some conceptual art from
The Corpse Bride
, which she’d purchased anonymously. Her laptop sat abandoned on an elaborate, nineteenth-century desk she’d rescued from an upper room in one of the minor palaces. He resisted the urge to see what she’d been reading online and perhaps learn what had set her off. Indigo needed her privacy, even now. Especially now.

The closet door was shut. She’d installed the lock on the inside herself when she was just into her teens, back when she’d first begun talking about hiding.

“Indigo?” James said quietly as he sat on the floor, careful to let one shoulder slide down along the door so she’d hear it. “It’s me.”

After a few moments’ silence, she whispered, “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize for your feelings to me or to anyone.” In all honesty, sometimes James wanted to shake her, to say,
You’re doing all this for attention!
But Indigo’s problems were both genuine and deep-seated. If she didn’t ask for assistance in the ways James wanted her to, he had to remember to help first and worry about the rest later. Attention was exactly what she needed, and that was what he tried to give. “What’s wrong?”

“I can’t stop thinking about Wednesday.”

The previous Wednesday she had made one of her rare public appearances, showing up to applaud yet another official portrait of the king. These events inevitably terrified her, and one of the ways she coped was by taking diazepam. James didn’t like that—but the call wasn’t his to make now that she was of age. Most of the time, he had to admit, it seemed to help. However, this had been one of the occasions where she’d either eaten too little beforehand or taken too much, because she’d giggled and stumbled and set off another round of tabloid speculation about “Mellie’s” drinking.

“Indigo. They’re just newspapers. Just stories. Like the stories about me and Cassandra.”

“The lies they tell about you aren’t awful. They love you. They make fun of me.”

“They don’t even know you,” James said fiercely. “You did your best. I know that. You know that. Nothing else matters.”

“My best isn’t good enough.”

“It doesn’t matter. It
doesn’t
. A lot of fuss and bother about a bloody painting on a wall. A painting nowhere near as good as your own work, either. Nothing more than that.”

“Shouldn’t I be able to get through it, then? If it’s so simple?”

James could have cursed himself. He took a deep breath and tried to answer her better. “We’re all good at different things. It’s a cruel joke that you were born into this family. You have so many gifts, Indigo. You’re intelligent, you’re creative, you’re sensitive to the feelings of others—so many wonderful things. I don’t know what I’d do without you in my life.”

Silence on the other side of the closet door.

He plowed on. “It’s not your fault that you’re stuck in a role that doesn’t suit you. It’s an accident of birth, only that. But it doesn’t make you worthless. You’re as talented and good as anyone I’ve ever come across anywhere, and the people who love you,
we know that
. All the tabloid lies in the world can’t take that away. We know who you really are. I just want you to see it too, someday.”

Still silence. James glanced around the room, looking for any telltale droplets of blood. He saw none—this time. Indigo had explained to him before, in calmer moments, that sometimes causing herself physical pain was the only thing that numbed the emotional pain inside. The cutting was rare, thank God, but her thighs were still crisscrossed with scars. Just because he hadn’t seen blood today didn’t mean she hadn’t slammed her hand or arm in a door, or thrown herself against a wall, or engaged in some other form of self-torture. It made his heart hurt to think of it.

If only their parents had lived a little longer. James believed if his father had seen how serious Indigo’s problems would become, he would have stepped aside out of love for her, and in a way that would cut them all off from the succession. Richard could’ve had the throne he desired so badly, and the rest of them might’ve been able to live as a halfway normal family, and certainly a happier one. But it was too late for that now. If James attempted to step aside, or were cast out, the burden of the monarchy would fall on Indigo’s shoulders. That was a burden she could not bear.

Indigo’s voice was hardly more than a whisper. “If I unlock the door, will you not make me come out? Will you come in here with me?”

“Of course.”

Metal clicked against metal as the lock slid free; James pushed himself away from the door so she could open it for him. No light was on inside. Once he could crawl through, he did so. Already Indigo was again lying on the floor, so he spooned himself around his sister and wordlessly held her for what seemed like a long time.

She had several rooms’ worth of clothes, but this smaller closet held her most common daily wear. On the left were the modest dresses, demure suits and high heels deemed appropriate for family gatherings; on the right were plaid shirts, jeans, various bizarre T-shirts and Doc Martens. The two of them lay in the middle.

“Sometimes I think I could do it if they just couldn’t see my face,” Indigo whispered. “If I could wear a mask, or a veil. It’s the thought of them
seeing my face
that kills me.”

“I know.” He closed his eyes as he rested his forehead against her shoulders.

Her laugh was devoid of any real joy. “Hey, maybe that’s the answer. I can start wearing a burqa.”

“You are not wearing a burqa,” he said, mock-sternly. “Insulting to Muslims, and dear God, if you believed the tabloids were rabid before? You might as well throw raw meat to a tiger.”

“Only a joke.” Indigo sighed, then stiffened. “Oh, no. Don’t you have an event tonight? You do! I’m keeping you from it—”

“Shhh. Not for hours yet. And it’s just a charity dinner. All I have to do is change in to a new suit.”

“Change. That’s what I want to do, James. Change. If I could shift my skin, transform into someone else completely—then I could face anyone.”