by Avery Wilde
“Okay.”
That was different. I was British, and if there was one thing that every British person grows up knowing, it’s that there was absolutely nothing sexual about tea.
Inside, we chatted pleasantly and one cup of tea turned into two, the time slipping away in good company without either of us realizing it until all excuses for me to remain longer had been exhausted.
“I suppose I should…” I vaguely indicated the door.
“I suppose,” Keira said with a nod. She was silent a moment then spoke again. “You know what’s kinda funny?”
“Let me guess…my face?”
“That too, but that wasn’t what I was thinking of. I was thinking that since I met you I’ve been worried about you trying to get me into bed, and in fact, a bed is pretty much the one place we never did it.”
“That is funny,” I said.
“Yeah,” she said. Another pause. “Kind of a gap, don’t you think?”
I sat up straight. “I know what you mean. It makes the whole thing seem somehow incomplete.”
“Exactly!” Keira leapt on this interpretation. “Maybe the reason that we’re having trouble ending it, besides bad luck…”
“Obviously.”
“…is that it still feels incomplete,” she finished.
“Because we never did it in a bed.”
“Yes!”
“Well, shit, you’re absolutely right. It seems so obvious when you explain it like that.”
Though neither of us had been aware of it happening, we’d both stood up during this exchange, and now I was sweeping Keira off her feet and into my arms.
“Bedroom is…?”
Keira pointed.
“Right. But this is the last time.”
“Yes,” Keira said before adding, “last ‘time’ or last session?”
I considered the question; it had been a long day already. “Let’s see how it goes.”
I headed for the bedroom, Keira giggling in my arms.
***
Over the next few days, the ‘last times’ continued with a regularity that taxed both our energy and our imaginations in coming up with justifications for each ‘last time’. And yet we persevered. We both knew that it was a bad idea, but somehow stopping would’ve been an even worse idea. Letting go of something so good was fucking hard; way harder than it sounded on paper. Still, that specter of something bad continued to loom, and three tiring weeks after our initial agreement to end things, it finally descended.
We’d met in the library—purely by ‘chance’ of course—and after coming up with some tortured justification for why this was a valid ‘last time’, we were in each other’s arms with hands hastily trespassing into the other’s clothes.
Keira suddenly froze.
“Did you hear that?” she asked.
“All I can hear is the sound of you being sexy as hell,” I said with an exaggerated wink. I knew I wasn’t funny, not even in the slightest, but Keira seemed to love my sense of humor.
“I’m serious! Listen,” she replied before holding a finger to her lips.
We were both silent, and when the sound of our own hearts and heavy breathing had died away enough, we heard footsteps coming our way. We ducked behind a bookshelf just in time as the footsteps reached our aisle before coming to a halt.
“Hello?”
I tried not to make a sound, forcefully holding my breath, and I could feel Keira doing the same thing. The voice had been Michael’s.
“Is someone there?”
The footsteps now began down the aisle, and we tiptoed as quickly and silently as we could down the adjacent one. Fortunately the library of Richmond Palace didn’t have those slot-together shelves made of thin metal that you find in public libraries—these shelves were solid English oak, loaded with thick, heavy books, guaranteed to slow the speed of sound to a crawl and create a soundscape of echoes that made you wonder if you’d actually heard what you thought you’d heard and from which direction you might have heard it.
“Tch!” Michael tutted to himself as he reached the end of the aisle, where we’d been hiding mere moments before. “Hum.”
That seemed to indicate that he’d written the noise he’d heard off as one of the many creaks and whispers that emerge from any old building.
Keira and I listened to the footsteps as they went away, terminating in the opening and closing of the heavy library door. We both breathed a sigh of relief.
“We really do have to stop soon, don’t we?” Keira said, a dejected tone in her voice.
“I think maybe we do.”
“So…make this the last time?”
“Well, he’s gone now,” I said with a nod. “It’d be stupid to waste the opportunity.”
As I took Keira in my arms, I wondered if, despite all the good reasons to do so and all that we were risking, I was really capable of letting her go. I knew it would be the right thing to do, but a sneaky voice in my mind told me the truth as to whether I could really do it or not.
Not a chance in hell.
Chapter 13
Keira
“Wakey wakey!”
I woke up, blearily rubbing my eyes, and then I shot up in bed as I saw Andrew standing over me, holding a croissant and a takeaway cup of coffee. He was dressed in a casual grey hoodie, faded blue jeans and some sort of weird black wig, and I pinched my arm.
“This is a dream, right?”
“More like a nightmare, judging by what I look like in this outfit and wig,” he replied with a grin, setting the breakfast down on my small wooden bedside table.
“Why are you wearing it? And how did you get into my apartment?” I asked. “Thanks for the coffee, by the way.”
He held up a key, his eyes glimmering with mischief. “Well, seeing as these apartments are owned by the royal family, I can get master keys quite easily. But I didn’t even need one, because you actually made the age old mistake of leaving a spare key under the doormat. Not very safety-conscious of you.”
“Well, I wasn’t exactly expecting someone to try and get in. Nothing really worth stealing in here,” I said, gesturing around to the bare-bones apartment. Seeing as I was hardly ever here, there really wasn’t much—just the furniture that came with the place, and the things I’d brought over from home.
“You’re worth stealing,” Andrew said with a wink. “And that’s why I’m here. I checked the palace staff roster, and you’ve got a day off today, so I’m stealing you for the day before anyone else can make plans with you.”
I arched an eyebrow. “And the wig and hoodie?”
“Well, do you think I can just go out in public and have a nice time with you, looking like myself? We’d instantly be mobbed by reporters and the like.”
“I know. But…do you really want to go out somewhere with me?” I asked hesitantly. “Somewhere that isn’t either here or on the palace grounds?”
“Yes. I thought you could show me one of those museums you love so much.”
My heart swelled at the prospect of sharing something I loved with Andrew, and the fact that he’d even suggested it showed how much he cared about me and my ambitions.
We’d tried to tell ourselves that our relationship was just a playful fling that needed to come to a halt after our near miss with Michael in the library, but we both knew that wasn’t going to happen. We simply couldn’t end it, no matter how much we told ourselves we needed to. There was something between us; something that couldn’t be stopped no matter what, and it felt like we’d already known each other for an eternity.
I just wished we could really be together, in public and with the knowledge of our friends and family. Then we’d be complete.
“Are you absolutely sure no one will recognize you?” I finally asked.
“It’ll be fine. I’ve done this before.”
“Broken into women’s apartments?” I asked in a teasing tone.
“Gone incognito, I mean. That’s how we met, after all.”
“True.”
“So what do you say? Show me around the museums?”
I grinned. “Just let me shower first.”
I hopped out of bed, and a smirk crossed Andrew’s handsome features. “I think I’ll join you…”
***
An hour later, we were looking at my favorite painting in the National Gallery, and Andrew spoke loudly in an unconvincing Texan accent, trying his best to disguise who he really was as another couple approached the painting.
“Howdy, partners,” he said, nodding at them. They shot him strange looks and turned away.
I nudged him. “You know Texans don’t really say ‘howdy, partner’ every five seconds, right?”
“This Texan does,” he replied, scratching his wig, which almost made it come askew. I hastily fixed it for him. “Thanks, partner,” he added.
I grinned and rolled my eyes. “Anyway, as I was saying…see the brushstrokes there? And the way he’s perfectly captured the expression on the girl’s face? She looks serene at first glance, but when you look closer, you can see how much more there is going on in her mind. Especially in the eyes. The eyes say it all.”
Andrew grinned. “Come to think of it, I do see it now. Like there’s two different layers to what’s happening in the scene.”
I nodded, glad that he was understanding me. “Exactly.”
“You know, I always used to think art was quite boring, but you explain it so well. I actually kinda get it now.”
I smiled. “Well, this is just a really good example to show first-timers,” I said, gesturing to the painting again. “It’s actually one of the first paintings that made me fall in love with art.”
He looked down at me, squeezing my hand. “I think this painting is making me fall in love too,” he said softly, his eyes conveying a clear message. “With art, of course.”
“Of course. Art,” I said, trying to suppress the urge to grin and cheer as an unspoken sentiment passed between us.
I knew how I felt about him, and now I knew exactly how he felt about me. It didn’t need to be said; not yet. It was too early, and although I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that we were both feeling it, it wasn’t the best time to say it, not while we were in disguise in a crowded museum. A better time would come along—a perfect moment—and when it did, I’d be happy to admit what I’d just realized out loud…
I was really falling for him.
Chapter 14
Keira
On the morning of my next day off a week and a half later, I woke early and lay in bed, just thinking. It was a happy pursuit, and I did it with a smile on my face. Actually, I found that I did most things with a smile on my face these days, especially since the moment Andrew and I had shared at the museum. It wasn’t that life was perfect—our situation was far from ideal, seeing as no one could know about us—but perhaps the secret was to stop worrying about life not being perfect.
That just made everything easier.
I wasn’t entirely sure how things were going to progress between me and Andrew in the future, but I liked things the way they were right now, and I was happy enough for them to continue in this vein for a while. We couldn’t ‘date’ in the usual meaning of the word, so we’d invented our own form of dating, a form which I was currently enjoying far more than I’d ever enjoyed dating in the past. It wasn’t just the sex—although the sex was amazing—but also the fact that our attempts to find time and places for surreptitious sex had inadvertently led to us talking.
A lot.
There’d been the nights at my place and the day we’d sneaked off to the museum together, and yesterday, there’d even been a clandestine picnic in the hedged off gardens beyond the stables of Richmond Palace. Come to think of it; maybe we were dating like normal people. We weren’t really in a position where we could go out to dinner, go to see a movie or go dancing every night, so instead we sneaked around in disguises, had sex and talked endlessly. And although we essentially did the same thing every date, I was in no way tired of it.
Did it bother me that a lot of it seemed to revolve around sex? Not really. First because the sex was, as previously reported, amazing. But also because that was what it was like at the start of a relationship: that passion, that desire, that craving to be with the other person. And ‘relationship’ was a word that I was now comfortable using to describe what Andrew and I had, and I was sure that he’d comfortably do the same. Sure, we’d jumped a few steps in the normal relationship, but maybe that was what happened when you met the right person. The bottom line was that, while to anyone observing it might have looked like two people enjoying casual sex on a regular basis, there was nothing casual about it.
Not at all.
Perhaps, if I was forced into a corner and put on the spot, I’d admit to disliking all the sneaking around and hiding, because it made me feel that I was doing something wrong…although I guess I was. But had it not been for that unfortunate necessity, then our relationship wouldn’t have developed in the way in which it had, a way that I was very happy with. I tried not to think about the future, about being found out or coming clean ourselves, but I was increasingly sure that when that day came, Andrew would be beside me. I trusted him.
Life, I considered as I lay back in bed, was pretty damn good.
A moment later, I leapt out of bed, ran to the bathroom and hurled my guts out. It wasn’t the best end to a nice morning, but life was still good aside from that. There’d been a bug going around the staff at the palace recently, and it seemed I was the latest one to fall victim to it. Luckily, I’d heard that it was a twenty-four hour thing—one day of horrible vomiting and diarrhea, and I’d be back to normal.
When the vomiting and nausea happened on and off for the next three days, however, I became unsure. I looked back over what I’d eaten in the last week, and I checked to make sure my fridge was working and got rid of a bunch of food. But the next morning I was sick again, and an unpleasant feeling claimed my stomach that had nothing to do with my nausea. After a grueling day of work while feeling nauseated, I Skyped with Sarah.
“Do you think I’m just sick?”
“I think you wouldn’t be talking to me if you thought you were just sick. You’d be talking to a doctor.”
There was some truth to that, and I fought to suppress the real reason that I’d called my friend and not a doctor.
Sarah, however, preferred to take the bull by the horns. “You guys have been using birth control, yeah?”
She was evangelical about birth control, for obvious reasons.
“Of course,” I replied.
“What kind?”
“Condoms.”
“And you guys use them every single time?”
“Yes. I even keep some on me every day just in case he doesn’t have one.”
“You’re telling me man-whore Prince Andrew isn’t always packing condoms?” asked Sarah. “Not buying it.”
“Well, he’s been getting through quite a few recently.”
“And I admire and respect you for that, but…well, you know the things aren’t one hundred percent effective, Keira. I think you need to do a test.”
“Yeah. I do.” I’d pretty much known how this conversation would end, but I’d still wanted to talk to my friend. “Sarah, what am I going to do if it’s…you know…”
Sarah smiled as best she could. “Well, shit…you always said you wanted kids, right? I know this is earlier than planned, but you’ve still got some time to go look at museums, then…”
“I meant what do I say to Andrew? Or anyone else? He’s a friggin’ prince, for god’s sake, and I’m just a palace maid! The media would have a field day with the news…or more like a field century.”
“Just do the test first. You could be worrying about nothing. So get that out of the way before you start to worry about any massive royal baby scandals.”
I knew that was good advice, but I couldn’t help thinking that once I took the test, the whole thing was so much more concrete. For
the present, the possible baby was in a state of simultaneous existence and non-existence—Schrodinger’s baby, as it were. Once I took the test, and if the test was positive, then its existence became an absolute. I knew that if it existed, it existed whether I took the test or not, but the uncertainty made it much easier to ignore for the time being.
On the other hand, this wasn’t the sort of thing I could ignore forever. I found myself wishing that Andrew was with me, and with that I realized that that was what was missing—I didn’t want to take the test alone.
I wanted to take it with the potential father.
And with that thought came an unexpected glimmer of happiness. As unbelievably messy as this whole debacle was, and as hard as it could be if I really was pregnant, part of me actually liked the idea. I’d always wanted to be a mother—it had always been part of my life plan—and perhaps I hadn’t planned on it happening now, or in this way, but nothing about my relationship with Andrew had been how I’d imagined relationships were supposed to be. Given how many steps we’d jumped already in our burgeoning relationship, jumping a few more seemed like it might actually work out. I recognized that this wasn’t how either of us would’ve wanted our relationship to progress, but that didn’t mean that it couldn’t be wonderful. The modern world was a different place than it’d been a hundred years ago, and it wasn’t unheard of these days for a royal family member to be with someone who, in the past, would’ve been considered a ‘commoner’.
Maybe I was just being naïve as hell, but the idea of having a family with Andrew made my heart swell…the royal thing would be an adjustment, but as long as I had him by my side, I was sure I could take any of the punches the tabloids might throw at me.
My mind made up to my next course of action, I headed for Richmond Palace. After I arrived, I wound a quick path through the maze of servants’ stairs and corridors and bumped into Margo, one of my fellow maids.
“Hey, Margo, have you seen Prince Andrew?” I asked, keeping my expression neutral.
“Try the yellow drawing room,” she replied.
