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“I don’t care if you’regay,” Philip says, dropping that big fatiflike Henry hasn’t already specificallytoldhim. “I care that you’ve made this choice, withhim”—he cuts his eyes sharply to Alex as if he finally exists in the same room as this conversation—“someone with a fucking target on his back, to be so stupid and naive andselfishas to think it wouldn’t completely fuck us all.”
“I knew, Philip. Christ,” Henry says. “I knew it could ruineverything. I wasterrifiedof exactly this. But how could I have predicted? How?”
“As I said,naive,” Philip tells him. “This is the life we live, Henry. You’ve always known it. I’ve tried to tell you. I wanted to be a good brother to you, but you don’t bloodylisten.It’s time to remember your place in this family. Be a man. Stand up and take responsibility.Fix this.For once in your life, don’t be a coward.”
Henry flinches like he’s been physically slapped. Alex can see it now—this is how he was broken down over the years. Maybe not always as explicitly, but always there, always implied.Remember your place.
And he does the thing Alex loves so much: He sticks his chin out, steeling himself up. “I’m not a coward,” he says. “And I don’t want to fix it.”
Philip slants a harsh, humorless laugh at him. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You can’t possibly know.”
“Fuck off, Philip, I love him,” Henry says.
“Oh, youlove him,do you?” It’s so patronizing that Alex’s hand twitches into a fist under the table. “What exactly do you intend to do, then, Henry? Hmm?Marry him?Make him the Duchess of Cambridge? The First Son of the United bloody States, fourth in line to be Queen of England?”
“I’ll fucking abdicate!” Henry says, voice rising. “I don’t care!”
“You wouldn’tdare,” Philip spits back.
“We have a great uncle who abdicated because he was afucking Nazi,so it’d hardly be the worst reason anyone’s done it, would it?” Henry’s yelling now, and he’s out of his chair, hands shaking, towering over Philip, and Alex notices that he’s actually taller. “What are we evendefendinghere, Philip? Whatkind of legacy? What kind offamily,that says, we’ll take the murder, we’ll take the raping and pillaging and the colonizing, we’ll scrub it up nice and neat in a museum, but oh no, you’re a bloody poof? That’s beyond our sense of decorum! I’ve bloody wellhad it.I’ve sat about long enough letting you and Gran and the weight of the damned world keep me pinned, and I’m finished.I don’t care.You can take your legacy and your decorum and you canshove it up your fucking arse,Philip. I’mdone.”
He huffs out an almighty breath, turns on his heel, and stalks out of the kitchen.
Alex, mouth hanging open, remains frozen in his seat for a few seconds. Across from him, Philip is looking red-faced and queasy. Alex clears his throat, stands, and buttons his jacket.
“For what it’s worth,” he says to Philip, “that is the bravest son of a bitch I’ve ever met.”
And he leaves too.
Shaan looks like he hasn’t slept in thirty-six hours. Well, he looks perfectly composed and groomed, but the tag is sticking out of his sweater and the strong smell of whiskey is emanating from his tea.
Next to him, in the back of the incognito van they’re taking to Buckingham Palace, Zahra has her arms folded resolutely. The engagement ring on her left hand glints in the muted London morning.
“So, uh,” Alex attempts. “Are you two in a fight now?”
Zahra looks at him. “No. Why would you think that?”
“Oh. I just thought because—”
“It’s fine,” Shaan says, still typing on his iPhone. “This iswhy we set rules about the personal-slash-professional lines at the outset of the relationship. It works for us.”
“If you want a fight, you should have seen it when I found out he had known about you two all along,” Zahra says. “Why do you think I got a rock this big?”
“Itusuallyworks for us,” Shaan amends.
“Yep,” Zahra agrees. “Plus, we banged it out last night.”
Without looking up, Shaan meets her hand in a high five.
Shaan and Zahra’s forces combined have managed to secure them a meeting with the queen at Buckingham Palace, but they’ve been told to take a winding, circumspect route to avoid the paparazzi. Alex can feel a buzzing static electricity in London this morning, millions of voices murmuring about him and Henry and what might happen next. But Henry’s beside him, holding his hand, and he’s holding Henry’s hand back, so at least that’s something.
There’s a small, older woman with Bea’s upturned nose and Henry’s blue eyes waiting outside the conference room when they approach it. She’s wearing thick glasses, a worn-in maroon sweater, and a pair of cuffed jeans, looking decidedly out of place in the halls of Buckingham Palace. She has a paperback tucked into her back pocket.
Henry’s mother turns to face them, and Alex watches her expression flutter through something pained to reserved to gentle when she lays eyes on them.
“Hi, my baby,” she says as Henry draws up even with her.
Henry’s jaw is tight, but it’s not anger, only fear. Alex can see on his face an expression he recognizes: Henry wondering if it’s safe to accept the love offered to him, and wanting desperately to take it regardless. He puts his arm around her, lets her kiss his cheek.
