Page 34 of The Grosvenor's Ghost
“I’m going to St Ormond Street to visit some children.”
“Anyone in particular?”
She chokes a bit, laughs quietly. “Leukemia patients. You know, my sister, Alexandria died from it when she was eight. It’s very close to my heart.”
I pull back, shocked. I didn’t know that, actually. Well, I did. But I must’ve been about five at the time? I get weird—how you usually do when confronted with death but also a bit comforted. My brother died, her sister died. Probably the only thing we have in common which is sad but also death is such ahuge thing that it feels like we now have a million things to talk about.
“It’s okay,” she touches my arm. “You don’t have to say anything.”
I shift in my seat, loosen my bow tie—yeah, it’s like, the full thing this afternoon. Buckingham Palace, grand dining hall lunch—and shift through my brain for something else to bring up.
“Do you do a lot of charity work?”
She sighs, thinks about it. “I try to but I’m very busy with school, I’m in my last year of achieving my PhD in mathematics.”
“Oh, wow.”
See, could never be with someone like her. I passed my maths A-levels by the skin of my teeth. I mean, a whole fucking PhD? I know a handful of people with a doctorate my age. She’s too good. You can see the gold gleaming from her heart with every swoosh of her hair.
“What do you plan on doing after?” I ask her so she doesn’t ask me what I’m doing.
“Nothing,” she shrugs. “My parents wanted me to be educated but I can’t do much with my degree. I’ll probably get married.”
I want to ask who because it’s not going to be me but that feels like prying too much.
I start to feel a bit sad for her. She’s pretty, well educated, polite yet where is that going to get her? A girl without a title who held those same qualities would be set for life. The world would be her oyster. Not Astrid, though. It’s a shame for people like us. Even if I was Six Nations level with rugby, I’d only be allowed to play on the weekends.
And I know you’re probably laughing. What sad lives we live but I don’t mean that. I know we’re royalty. I know we don’t pay taxes, I know we can have anything we want at the touch ofa button but outside of that, we’ve been pushed into a box. A big box, sure but we can’t leave that box. We’re born in there and we’ll die in there. You don’t have to have any particular skill sets to be a monarch so it’s easy and when things are easy they’re not really fun anymore. I’ve left school, it’s too late for uni so now what do I do? Sure, I could get a job—that isn’t uncommon for royals but what is uncommon is for them to come with a background like mine. I mean, who’s going to want to hire me?
Being a prince, being a princess, being a duke or duchess, it’s boring. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be. I’m just walking aimlessly until one day, I trip and stumble onto the throne.
The lunch drags on well into the late afternoon. We talk, we drink (we being everyone else. I stick to water), Nan says a few words. Sebastian glares at me from opposite the table, begging me not to breathe a word of the scandal we’ve all seen and heard about. I’m not sure why he came, to be honest. No one sitting here likes him much after what happened. I thought it was going to be me they wouldn’t like but that’s not the case, apparently. Yeah, they’re all looking at me like some science project—never seen someone like me go through addiction, have they?
We smile for pictures before we leave. Astrid and I are probably center stage for most of them, though. And I can’t help but wonder what Phoebe’s thinking. I know she’s got a boyfriend but will she read into this too much? She’s always been good at understanding so maybe she won’t? Should I go and visit her? Probably not, that sounds like a bad idea.
Just as I go to walk off with my family, Astrid grabs my hand, pulls me into her.
“Don’t worry,” she says in my ear, hugging me tightly. “I don’t plan on marrying you and you don’t plan on marrying me. I’m in love with my professor and you’re in love with Phoebe—it’s okay.”
And then she pulls away, smiles at me, nodding as if we’ve just had a conversation about the economical state of the world.
I walk away feeling a bit lighter.
Her professor, though? Didn’t expect that.
∗ ∗ ∗
That evening, I’m standing in Connie’s kitchen, making myself a light dinner of beans of toast. Not my go to but his cupboards are in dire straits. It was either that or tinned pineapple and an out of date chicken breast.
“Can you stop staring at me,” I tell him for the tenth time while I butter my toast. “It’s putting me off.”
Connie tuts, leaning on the cabinet behind me. “But I just love watching you—I mean, look at us, eh. It’s a Saturday night and we're cooking homemade meals.”
I turn around, give him a look. “It’s beans on toast, Con.”
“More than what I can do,” he shrugs.
Shake my head, smile, because I missed him and living with him is no worse than what I would imagine university being like. He’s actually not that bad at all. He gets up early, does his own washing, keeps his room as clean as someone like him can. Sure, he sleeps when the sun comes up but so do I.
