Page 82 of The Heir Apparent
“So Amira and I are going into town today to go shopping, just the two of us,” Finn said.
He and Amira were now bosom buddies—phone numbers and Instagram handles exchanged, the past forgotten.
“Okay,” I said. “We might go for a drive. There’s something I want to show Jack.”
We borrowed a Range Rover and drove to the outer edge of the estate. There was a cliff out there that had been Mum’s favourite place, her retreat from the family as summer dragged on, and old grudges and jealousies started to surface. I would often come along, bouncing in the back of the car as she drove over rough terrain. The cliff was the highest point of the estate, and the view was incomparable. It was a starker beauty out there than the plush pastures along the river. It reminded me of Tasmania.
After a long, wordless drive, I parked the car and we walked among the rocky outcrop to the cliff’s edge. Mist had pooled in the valleys and the wind brought more vapour than air. But it was clear enough to see the abundance of my family’s lands. Those green hills that rolled all the way to the horizon belonged to us. Jack looked out over everything I would one day own and his eyebrows stitched together.
“This was my mum’s favourite place,” I said, my heart uneasy. “I wanted you to see it.”
He nodded. He was wearing a Barbour jacket bought for him with Mary’s palace credit card and he wore it well.
“Lex,” he said finally, “are you going to be the queen?”
He asked it so freely, so casually. But I could see in his eyes that this question had been humming inside him for as long and as intensely as it had been in me.
“I… have until the end of the year to decide,” I said weakly.
He squinted at me, confused. “Yeah, but you’re meant to be on holiday this month, and Amira said you’ll be spending most of it travelling around Scotland to shore up your support here. And she said you’re about to shift your office’s agenda so it’sin line with your philanthropic goals instead of your dad’s. It sounds to me like you’ve already decided and just haven’t told anyone. Me included.”
I looked down at my feet. He was right, of course. I had been telling myself that I could go back to Australia at any moment, but as each week passed, I was planting my roots further and further into the familiar soil here.
“I know it’s difficult to understand, but I was born into this family, and that means I’m meant to serve. It’s just the way it works. The crown is landing on my head and—”
“Lexi, I don’t give a shit if you want to be the queen,” he said sharply, running his hands through his hair the way he did when he was stressed. “I knew you’d made up your mind when we talked about the reception for the African hospital. And I was happy for you. If this is what you want, you should do it.”
“It’s not about what I want,” I insisted. “It’s a duty. People find it hard to understand, but—”
“I don’t find it hard to understand. I really don’t. I may not have all this,” he said, throwing his arm towards the hills around us, “but I know what family loyalty is. I know what it is to have a legacy. Fixing up the vineyard was all my dad wanted to do, and then he died, and it became mine. I’m keeping those vines alive for him. I get it, Lex, I do.”
“So what are you asking me?”
I could see that I had hurt him then. He looked out at the same timeworn valleys and breathed the same air that used to cleanse my mother.
“I’m asking where I fit in,” he said. “I haven’t wanted to ask for eight months because I didn’t want to push you, but I’m here now. I’m wearing the clothes you picked out for me and I’m trying to impress your family. I need to know what you want. Because everyone thinks you’re undecided about the crown, but I think maybe you’re just undecided about me.”
The wind was starting to pick up and I was grateful for the gusts that gave cover for the tears forming in my eyes.
“Jack,” I said, “what am I going to do? Ask you to move here? So you can be my consort and follow me around—a few paces behind—for the rest of your life? You know what it would be like for you here, don’t you? You’d be shadowed by servants, hosting tea parties and cutting ribbons. The press would be awful to you. You would hate it here. Eventually you’d hate me too. I know you hate the monarchy—”
“I don’thateit, Lex,” he said. “I think it’s got some things to answer for, like, I don’t know, slavery? And causing so much pain for so many people? But youagreewith me on that. I know you do.”
“I still have to do this,” I snapped. “It was meant to be Louis, but now he’s gone, and I have to do it for him.”
It was the first time I’d ever said it out loud, and the first time I realised it was true. I would never go back to Tasmania. I would never practise medicine again. The throne was waiting for me, and when my time came, I intended to take it.
Jack walked perilously close to the cliff’s edge, breathing deeply with his hands on his hips. Part of me wanted to go back to the trees along the river, where he’d trail his fingertips along my jawline, the real world somewhere else, somewhere very far away.
“I think we should go back,” he said. “I have to pack for tomorrow.”
“Jack,” I said, “please don’t be angry at me. You said it yourself. You have your father’s vineyard, and I think that’s so special. But I have to be here and you have to be there. When Georgia asked you to go to New York with her, you wouldn’t do it. I’m not going to ask you to do something you can’t.”
He turned then and his eyes were blazing. “I didn’t go to New York with Georgia because I was in love with you. After that mess with the photographer, she realised how I felt and that’s why she applied for that job. She tested me and I failed.”
I opened my mouth to speak. The whole time he’d been at the estate, I’d been terrified he would say it. I could see it in hisface when he kissed me, when we woke up together, when he looked at me across the table through candlelight. I had willed him not to say the words because I had always known that his love would humble me. It would make me soft. It would make me need him. And once the connective tissue that bound us grew so intricate and so fibrous that I could no longer live without him, he would finally see me for who I was, and he would recoil. I refused to trap him inside palace walls with me while I watched that happen, so I turned and started walking back to the car. I wanted to be out of this place. I wanted the granite walls of the palace around me, the endless ticking of the grandfather clock keeping time with my heart. I had to get home.
“Lex,” he called but I kept walking to the car. “Damn it, Lexi, this is why I’ve never told you before. I knew you’d do this. Why can’t you ever just be honest with me? Why can’t you ever just tell me what you’re thinking?”
