The Princess Affair

by Nell Stark

  “You’re a charming and beautiful woman, Sasha,” he had said. “You don’t need to behave this way. But since you seem to need the reassurance, I’m sure I would have broken down long before now if you were my type.”

  It had taken several seconds before she’d comprehended what he was trying to tell her. Relaxing in his grip, she’d thrown her head back and laughed.

  “To be honest? You’re not really my type, either.”

  At that, he had smiled at her for the very first time. “I know.”

  Ever since that day, they’d had an unspoken agreement. Sasha stopped making Ian’s life a living hell, and Ian did everything in his power to protect her—not only from physical harm, but also from the prying eyes of the paparazzi. They weren’t friends, exactly. Ian’s sense of professionalism would never allow for that. But they understood each other.

  Their mutual trust allowed him to wait in one of the armchairs in the building’s atrium rather than being forced to stand in the hallway outside Ashleigh’s flat. As the elevator sped toward the thirtieth floor, Sasha wondered who would be in attendance tonight. Arthur’s innate charisma won him friends wherever he went, but his inner circle was actually quite small. She hoped he’d invited only his closest confidantes.

  When she rang the bell, he answered. Tall and broad-shouldered, he took up most of the doorway and immediately enveloped her into a bear hug. She ruffled his shock of hair to make him let go. As he stepped back, he had to push an errant lock out of his warm brown eyes, and she wondered how he would look when the Royal Air Force made him get a buzz cut upon reporting for duty tomorrow.

  “Thanks for being here,” he said as they walked down the short hallway that opened into Ashleigh’s sitting room.

  “You didn’t exactly give me a choice.” But she nudged him with her elbow to take any sting out of her words.

  Arthur turned into the kitchen, where Ashleigh was pouring champagne into several flutes on a silver tray. Long, blond hair flowed down the back of her white blouse, nearly touching the fabric of her shimmery black pencil skirt. She turned with a smile and embraced Sasha as though they hadn’t just seen each other a few days prior at a family dinner in Buckingham. But that was Ashleigh. She had a way of making each person feel like the most important one in the room. At first, Sasha had been suspicious of her cordiality, but after years of seeing her at Arthur’s side, she had come to recognize that Ashleigh Dunning was one of those rare, genuinely compassionate individuals.

  “Sash, hi! You look stunning. New frock?” Ashleigh held her at arm’s length and rubbed the material of one strap between her fingertips. “Velvet. Beautiful.”

  “It’s an Alexander McQueen. Quite comfortable. I’ll have one sent over for you tomorrow.”

  As Ashleigh protested, Arthur reached over her shoulder for the tray.

  “You may as well just say thank you,” he said, leaning in to kiss her cheek. “Once Sasha’s mind is made up, she becomes the immovable object.”

  “It’s true.” Sasha let Ashleigh precede her back into the hallway. “My stubborn streak is the stuff of legends.”

  As they entered the sitting room, Sasha realized she wasn’t the first guest to arrive. Devon Oldham, son of the prime minister and Arthur’s closest friend from Eton, was sitting on the loveseat near the fireplace. His new girlfriend perched beside him, looking a bit nervous, or perhaps just star struck. Sasha’s lips tightened. This changed things. She couldn’t exactly be herself in the presence of someone she barely knew. She trusted Arthur, Ashleigh, and Devon. Along with Miranda and Sasha’s younger sister, Lizzie, those three were the only ones who knew her secrets—and even they didn’t know everything.

  “Sasha! You look smashing.” Devon rose to kiss her on the cheek. “You remember Charlotte?”

  “Of course. Wonderful to see you.” She embraced Charlotte lightly before reaching for one of the champagne flutes. “Shall we have a toast?”

  Once everyone had a drink in hand, she looked across their small circle to Arthur, who was grinning happily with his free arm looped around Ashleigh’s waist. He seemed genuinely excited about this tour with the RAF, and no wonder. Arthur had grown to become a man of action, like their father. He wanted to be in the midst of important matters—to have a hand in making a difference among the people. Thankfully, he hadn’t also adopted their father’s temper and judgmental attitude.

  “To Arthur.” She raised her glass. “You great lug. Don’t break anything expensive, and come home in one piece.”

  Once the laughter had subsided, Sasha chose the comfortable armchair closest to the fireplace. She sipped her champagne lightly as the conversation turned to the topic of the not-for-profit Ashleigh had launched a few months ago—a micro-financing company that worked to provide start-up capital to women in Third World countries who hoped to open their own small businesses.

  When Charlotte asked her a question about the living conditions of her clients, Ashleigh reached for a book on the coffee table.

  “In a few weeks, I’ll be traveling to East Africa to see for myself. I just finished reading this memoir of a man whose life’s work has been to build schools in the region. It’s very well written and paints a disturbing, though hopeful, picture of what daily life is like.”

  She passed the book around as the conversation continued. When it came to Sasha, she flipped it open and did her best to feign interest in the jumble of words. Her focus was particularly bad tonight, and once she’d handed the text over to Charlotte, she drank more deeply of the champagne, hoping it would relax her.

  “While I’m there, I’ll also be supervising the filming of a documentary,” Ashleigh was saying. She turned in Sasha’s direction. “Which reminds me, I want to throw a party in London for the film’s premiere. Would you be willing to organize it? This wouldn’t be until sometime late next year, but I know your services are in high demand.”

  Sasha just barely stopped herself from betraying her surprise. While certainly popular amongst London socialites, her year-old party planning company had yet to be patronized by anyone within the inner royal circle—probably because her father hadn’t hid his displeasure at her choice of career. Now Ashleigh Dunning, who would one day be Queen and was already the darling of both the people and the media, had enlisted her services.

  “I’ll be happy to,” she said. “I’m already meeting Miranda for brunch tomorrow. Would you like to come along so we can talk preliminaries?”

  “Perfect.”

  As Sasha was explaining the café’s location, Arthur’s cell phone rang. “It’s the King himself,” he said before moving to the far side of the room to take the call. Even as she continued to pay attention to Ashleigh, Sasha kept her ears open to the sound of Arthur’s conversation.

  “Hi, Father. Doing well, thanks. At Ashleigh’s, yes. Just a small gathering. At 0800, that’s right. Yes, I’m looking forward to it. Sasha? She’s here. Yes, all right.” He returned to the sitting area and held out his phone. “Father would like to speak with you.”

  His expression was sympathetic, and Sasha worked hard not to noticeably grit her teeth as she took the phone and walked back toward the kitchen. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a conversation with her father that didn’t somehow take a turn for the uncomfortable.

  “Hello, Father.”

  “Hello, Alexandra.” He used her full name—always had and always would.

  “How are you?”

  “Fine. I can’t speak for long right now, but I wanted to remind you of the reception at New College in Oxford on Wednesday evening—the one your brother was originally supposed to attend.”

  Resentment soured the taste of champagne that lingered on Sasha’s tongue. He could never resist an opportunity to put her in her place. Always a bridesmaid and never a bride.

  “Yes, I remember.”

  “I expect you to be punctual and professional. Please don’t do anything to embarrass this family to the Rhodes Trust or to Oxford, Alex
andra.”

  Sasha gripped the kitchen counter until her knuckles turned white. “Good night, Father.”

  She turned to find Arthur leaning against the wall. Without a word, she pressed the phone into his palm.

  “I take it he was an ass?”

  “Isn’t he always?” She crossed her arms beneath her breasts and exhaled slowly, as if by doing so she could deprive her anger of its fuel. “I know you’ll be off doing the right thing, and that it makes you happy. But selfishly, I wish you weren’t deploying. Without you here, I have no buffer.”

  “Sash. I’ll be doing Search and Rescue in Scotland, not MI6 in Afghanistan. I’m not going far. You’ll be fine. Lizzie will help.” The buzzer rang, and he smiled. “Speak of the devil. That must be her.”

  Delight suddenly trumped Sasha’s frustration. “Lizzie came down from Cambridge? Just now?”

  “Left a pub crawl with her mates and hopped on a train, just for me.” Arthur flashed the megawatt smile that always charmed the media.

  As they waited for Lizzie at the door, Sasha resolved to tamp down the remnants of her anger. This was the last night in many months when she’d be able to share the company of her siblings and their closest friends. For the next few hours, she could put aside her frustrations and celebrate her brother’s accomplishments among people who truly saw her—who loved her for who she was, not who they wanted her to be.

  The trick was believing she deserved it.

  Chapter Two

  Mist shrouded the city streets, lending a ghostly touch to the orderly lines of the neo-Georgian façades lining Grosvenor Square. As she stood in the loose crowd of her peers that had gathered beneath the hotel awning, Kerry Donovan watched the fog curl its tendrils around stone balustrades and Corinthian columns, claiming the buildings for some ethereal, spiritual realm. Smiling at her flight of fancy, she sipped from the steaming coffee cup that warmed her palms.

  “How on earth can you be happy at this ungodly hour of the morning?” Harrison Whistler was clutching his own, larger cup as though it could hold him upright. A mop of shaggy dark hair curled around his ears to brush the sheepskin collar of his coat, and his bloodshot eyes testified as to how he had spent his night.

  Like him, Kerry had begun the previous evening at a reception for the incoming class of Rhodes scholars sponsored by the American embassy, where she’d had the chance to meet the American ambassador to England and several other high-ranking consulate officials. The event had been her cohort’s official sendoff; having completed their initial orientation in the capital, they would continue on to Oxford. There, they would be greeted by members of the Rhodes Trust who would help them to settle in to their respective colleges before the start of the academic term.

  Kerry patted the muscular shoulder of her new friend in a show of sympathy. “I called it quits after dinner. Where did you end up?”

  Harris flipped his hand over to reveal a club’s imprimatur just below his knuckles, and Kerry felt a twinge of regret that she had chosen to miss the group’s festivities. Friendships and allegiances were being formed without her, and while she didn’t want to become embroiled in the group’s burgeoning politics, neither did she want to be pegged as a loner. Not the easiest of balancing acts.

  “The Lightbox, apparently.” Harris grimaced. “Don’t ask me where it is or what it looks like. Though do tell me if you have a surefire hangover remedy.”

  “You’re not going to like it.”

  “Try me.”

  “Sweat. An hour on a stationary bike, though I imagine an erg machine would work just as well.”

  He let out an explosive sigh. “You’re making me queasy.”

  Kerry shrugged, grinning. “Told you.”

  “Masochist. That’s what I get for asking the goody-two-shoes.”

  Her smile evaporated, ephemeral as the mist. Harris was joking, but even so, the moniker stung. Since arriving in London almost a week ago, she had kept herself firmly in check. While most of her peers had made a favorable first impression, she still barely knew them. Even Harris, who had pulled her into an embrace and called her “sister” at their very first reception in New York, was still too much of an unknown for her to risk letting down her guard.

  She was no goody-two-shoes. The restlessness felt like mercury rising, like cumulonimbus clouds building in her brain. She needed a night like the one her peers had just experienced, but first she needed to be settled. Secure.

  Kerry inhaled the mist into her lungs, willing it to soothe her nerves. Soon. Tonight, she would fall asleep in her room at Balliol, the college that would be her home for the next three years. In the morning, she would meet members of the university’s architecture program. She would buy the right books and get a pass to the library. She would learn the lay of the land. Then, she could relax.

  A charter bus pulled up to the curb, “Oxford” emblazoned on its marquee. After handing her bags to the driver, Kerry climbed up the steep steps. The odor of exhaust mingled with the tired smell of the upholstery inside, and the collage of scents catapulted her back in time to high school. Sophomore year—the last year she had taken the bus before inheriting her grandmother’s long-nosed Buick. For a moment, the world shifted sideways and she became that girl again: the tall, broad-shouldered girl who could only find grace on the soccer field. The intense, studious girl ridiculed by teammates for her large vocabulary. The model child who habitually bewildered her family by excelling at everything.

  On the bus rides to school, she’d made a habit of going over her notes from the previous day’s classes. On the bus rides home, she had gotten an early start on her reading assignments. Every once in a while, she had allowed herself to look out the window at the rolling hills and daydream about what it would feel like to go away to college. Her parents had stopped their own schooling after high school. Her sister had done a year at the local community college before getting married. Her brothers had forgone higher education altogether to join their father in his roofing business. Kerry couldn’t explain her ambitions, and they made her feel like a changeling. But she could as easily stop dreaming as she could keep herself from breathing.

  Really, she’d been about as perfect as it was possible for a daughter to be. There had been no boyfriends for her mother to fawn over, but between school and soccer, Kerry hadn’t had the time to date even if she’d wanted to. She had worked hard, played hard, and earned a spot on both Princeton’s campus and its women’s soccer team. Loans, financial aid, work-study, and several outside scholarships had made it possible for her to attend.

  At Princeton, she found Gothic spires and acclaimed faculty and new teammates. She also found Virginia. Virginia, who had taken the seat next to hers on the first day of their humanities class—who had admired the doodles in her notebook as their professor droned on about Plato’s allegory of the cave. Virginia, with her spiky, pink-tipped hair and outrageous T-shirts and infectious laugh. Virginia, who had kissed her under the budding cherry tree outside the School of Architecture on the first day of spring. Virginia had endured life in Kerry’s closet for almost two years before finally walking away. And who could blame her? She deserved someone who would hold her hand in public and invite her home for Thanksgiving.

  Virginia’s absence accomplished what her presence never could. The loss of the only person who had truly seen her—and loved what she’d seen—shook Kerry to the core. Her closet was no shelter from the storm; it was Plato’s cave, full of shackles and shadows.

  Finally, she found the inspiration to confess herself to her Irish Catholic family. In the time it took to speak four simple words, she fell from grace. Her mother quoted Romans. Her father quoted the Pope. Her sister proclaimed her “disgusting.” Only in her two brothers did she find some measure of compassion.

  But at least she was free.

  Kerry slid into the seat next to Harris, who groaned as he pressed his forehead to the cool window. The cascade of memories had set her own head to pounding and she leaned
back, closing her eyes. She was not that uncertain, frightened girl—not anymore. She had faced her fear. She had lost Virginia, but won the Rhodes. She had purpose. She had loftier goals now, along with the means to fulfill them. Life stretched before her, a corridor of open doors extending past the horizon. So what if she was lonely?

  She opened her eyes when Harris stirred beside her. As the bus pulled away from the curb, he swallowed down the dregs of his coffee in a series of noisy gulps, and she had to smile. Built like a bear but gentle as a kitten, he reminded her in many ways of her brothers. Had he suffered when he’d finally come out? Had his fellow rowers ostracized him or joined ranks around him?

  Only when he blinked his red eyes and said, “Do I look that bad?” did Kerry realize she was staring.

  “You’re fine.”

  “Liar.” Harris massaged his temples. “I’d better pull it together by tonight. We’re meeting Princess Sasha, remember?”

  Kerry nudged him with her elbow. “I think you’re supposed to address her as ‘Her Royal Highness Princess Alexandra.’”

  “I like Sasha better. Sassy Sasha. Try saying that ten times fast.”

  “You’re incorrigible.”

  Harris laced his hands behind his head. “Actually, by all accounts she’s incorrigible. The gossip rags claim she’s bi.”

  “The gossip rags also claim the Rapture is happening next week. For real this time.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Does that mean you’re not going to let me try to fix you up?”

  Kerry had to laugh. “Me? With a British princess? You’re delusional.”

  “Why not?”

  “For one thing, I’m utterly plebian. A commoner. Besides, isn’t there some kind of prohibition against the royals carrying on with Roman Catholics? Even lapsed ones?”