Page 25 of The Unlikely Heir
My phone vibrates against my thigh, the noise piercing my skull.
It’s Scott again.
Did you watch it???
I try to swallow my hurt, but the lump is too thick in my throat. It’s like I’m trying to swallow a cactus.
Yeah, I watched it.
I’m sorry he did that.
What can I say to Scott now? I can’t cuss Cliff out like I normally would because what happens if someone hacks our messenger chat? What happens if Scott decides to talk to the media too?
The truth coils into a cold, hard ball in my stomach.
I can’t trust anyone.
“Are you ready for your jacket, sir?” I’d forgotten Herbert was standing right there. He must have heard the whole recording, but his face remains stoic. He probably has seen and heard it all in this job. Friends betraying a royal, selling their story to the media, it’s been done so many times before that it’s a cliché.
Herbert’s professionalism helps me regain my equilibrium.
I have a job to do. I have to represent the monarchy, help my grandmother in her mission to move the public’s attention away from my family’s scandal. Nothing is more important than that.
I stand and let Herbert slip the perfectly tailored suit jacket onto my shoulders.
* * *
The Commonwealth banquet is held at Windsor Castle, a fifty-minute drive from Buckingham Palace.
I’m numb all the way to the dinner.
Raymond tries to talk me through a Who’s Who of the dignitaries I’ll be meeting tonight, but I barely hear him.
Instead, I stare out at the soaked streets of West London, the raindrops on the window reflecting a distorted world back at me.
I thought Cliff was my friend.
It’s such a simple, childlike hurt. I thought someone was my friend, and they’re not. It’s a sucker punch to the gut, a stab of betrayal right in the heart. I like Cliff. I’ve always liked Cliff. It turns out he doesn’t like me in return. What I thought was friendship was just tolerance of my presence because he likes Scott.
Trying to distract myself, I tune back into Raymond.
“Her Majesty is the current head of the Commonwealth, but that title will not automatically go to the British monarch after she passes. So you need to demonstrate to these leaders that you will be a capable person to lead the Commonwealth.”
Great. A job interview. Just what I feel like. I, an insurance call center operator from California, will have to make small talk with the prime ministers and presidents of the Commonwealth countries while trying to convince them I should lead them.
Will the leaders have seen Cliff’s interview? It feels ludicrous to assume that important people are remotely interested in me, but the unease gnaws at me like a persistent rodent. It’s horrible knowing the whole world can view my humiliation.
Some people will feel sorry for me.
Others will mock me.
I tug the sleeves of my tuxedo, my cufflinks cold under my touch.
Windsor Castle looms ahead of us, dominating from its position on the hill.
What did William the Conqueror think when he first gazed at his newly completed castle in theeleventh century? Did he have any idea it would still be standing, inhabited by his descendants, this many centuries later? With the duration of the royal houses of England until that point, the longevity of his lineage wouldn’t have seemed possible.
But thinking about the longevity of William the Conqueror’s lineage as monarchs only leads me to the inevitable question, the one occupying the media right now.
