Not Your Cinderella

by Kate Johnson

  “Finally,” said a third, “Prince Jamie admits what we’ve all known for ages: that he’s dating his childhood friend Lady Olivia Altringham.”

  “Oh what,” said Jamie, feeling the blood drain from his face, “the fuck is this?”

  Peaseman looked confused. “You did approve the press release, sir,” he said.

  “I did what?” Guiltily, Jamie recalled he’d just signed whatever Peaseman and his flunkies had put under his nose recently. “I—there’s been a mistake, I didn’t… I need to speak to Olivia.”

  She took a while to answer, and sounded sleepy when she did. “Jamie, it’s the middle of the night.”

  “It’s nine o’clock in the morning and you need to see the papers.”

  “Mmm? Who looks at papers any more, darling. I get my news from Twitter, like a normal person.” A male voice murmured something in the background and Jamie’s eyes nearly rolled themselves out of his head.

  “Is there someone with you? Did you hook up last night? You might need to get rid of him,” he said, pacing the floor of his Kensington Palace bedroom, “because according to the world’s press you and I are now a couple.”

  “We’re what?”

  “A couple. Dating. Shagging. I don’t know. Is that why Oll was invited?” he said to Peaseman.

  “Well, yes, sir… but I told you all this…”

  “Clearly I wasn’t listening.” He waved his personal secretary out and shut the door. “Oll, this is a disaster.”

  “Hang on.” He could hear a murmur and slight sound of surprise as she and her gentleman friend evidently looked up the news. “Oh dear. Where has that come from? Did someone approve it?”

  “Yes, me, apparently. I don’t know what I’m doing, Oll,” Jamie wailed, flopping onto his bed. “I didn’t even read any of the stuff Peaseman gave me. I can’t concentrate on anything. I can’t do this.”

  “Oh, darling.” She sighed. “All right, I’ll come round. We’ll figure something out. Damage limitation. If all else fails we’ll just keep quiet until it goes away—”

  “Goes away? When does this stuff ever go away?”

  “I could always Instagram me and Hugo in bed right now if that would help?” she said, and Jamie heard a growling noise come from his own throat. “All right, I’ll come round.”

  He’d no sooner rung off than his phone rang again. This time it was his brother.

  “You and Oll, finally!” he crowed.

  “Yeah, no,” said Jamie wearily. “It’s not happening. It’s a mistake. Wrong end of the stick.”

  “But there’s an official release—”

  “It’s a misunderstanding,” Jamie growled. “I’m not seeing Olivia. I’m not dating Olivia. I’m not sleeping with her, I’m not living with her or engaged to her or marrying her or anything. For the last fucking time, we are just friends!”

  Realising he’d yelled that last bit, Jamie forced himself to take a breath.

  “All right, little brother, if you say so,” said Edward. “Look, got to go, the chopper’s waiting.”

  “Chopper? Where are you?” Edward had been around yesterday afternoon. Annemarie was still in situ.

  “Oh, just popped over to see a friend. Shh, don’t tell anyone I brought the bird. See you later.”

  “Right,” said Jamie, and ended that call. He ran his hands through his hair and caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror.

  Vincent was right, he had lost weight. And it wasn’t just that, it was misery weighing him down. His eyes were hollow, and if he didn’t plaster on a smile every minute of the day his face kept falling into despair.

  He stood up and stretched out some of the aches of a bad night’s sleep. Then he took himself off for a shower and a shave, because there was no point facing a crisis looking like a scruff.

  “Oho, so that’s why we haven’t seen him!” said Stevo, tapping the paper.

  “Too busy shagging,” leered Paulie.

  They scrutinised the picture of Jamie and Olivia, both smiling down at an adorable small child wearing her father’s military medals. They made a handsome couple, and it wasn’t hard at all to imagine them smiling down at a child of their own.

  At least it’s Olivia, Clodagh thought distantly, gazing blindly at the TV. Olivia, who was kind and considerate and loved Jamie. She would make him happy, and she’d always be… appropriate.

  “The Queen is said to be pleased with the news. She has always regarded the Duke of Allendale, Lady Olivia’s father, to be a close friend,” read Paulie. “Another royal wedding then?”

  “We should start a pool,” said John the Milk. “Where are we now, May? I reckon… October.”

  “Nah. They’ll do it in the summer.”

  “Too soon, mate.”

  “Date for a while, announce the engagement in autumn, yeah, then get married in the spring,” said Stevo. “That’s what the last one did.”

  “Oh, you been keeping track, have you?”

  Clodagh paid them little attention. Friday, the Computer Science students tended to come in early, especially since it was a Bank Holiday weekend, and every time the door opened she got tense. Jamie had been disappointingly good about avoiding the pub, but there would surely come a day when he couldn’t avoid it any more.

  Here they came, the crowd much smaller now Jamie and his PPOs weren’t part of it. Clodagh told herself she was relieved about this. “Have you seen?” Ruchi said, waving at the newspapers. “He’s got a new girlfriend!”

  “That’s why we haven’t seen much of him,” said Hunter. “The dog!”

  “He has been pretty distracted,” said Zheng.

  “Did you know?” said Ruchi, and Clodagh shook her head so fast she made herself dizzy.

  “Nope. No. Why would I know?”

  “I thought you guys were buddies,” said Hunter.

  “Oh. No. Not really. No more than you are. Hardly know the guy. A Carlsberg, is it, Hunter?”

  Great. Not only did she have to get over Jamie without being able to talk to anyone about it, now she had his happiness thrown in her face too.

  Or was it his happiness? Was he actually dating Olivia, or was this another media invention? No, it couldn’t be. All the papers at the same time? Statement from Clarence House? This was real. Jamie was going out with Olivia.

  “I’m sure they’ll be very happy together,” she said, and the boys took their drinks to the table.

  Ruchi laid her hand on Clodagh’s arm. “I know you liked him,” she said.

  “What? No, I… I mean he…”

  “He’s a handsome prince,” Ruchi said simply. “Who wouldn’t like him?”

  A handsome prince. Yes, she supposed he was. It was so easy, when she thought about Jamie’s kind eyes and his amazing mind and his passionate kisses, to forget that he was a prince. If he was just Jamie, this student she’d met in the pub, how different would it have been?

  “Oh, hang about,” said Paulie. “What’s this?”

  “Breaking news? Turn it up,” said Stevo, as heads started to turn towards the TV. “Who’s got the…?”

  Clodagh looked around for the control, and because she was doing that she missed the news ticker flicking across the bottom of the screen. She heard the gasps, the sudden, disbelieving silence, and then she turned it up as her eyes caught up with her ears.

  “…around ten o’clock this morning. The cause of the crash is not known. It is believed His Highness was accompanied by members of household staff, whose bodies have not been recovered.”

  Ice clutched at Clodagh’s heart. There was footage of some kind of wreckage, the twisted metal remains of some kind of aircraft maybe, flames erupting from it as emergency services battled to get close.

  “The helicopter was travelling from Caernarfon on the Welsh coast to London, according to the flight plan.” The newsreader looked shellshocked. “Prince Edward himself filed the flight plan, as he is an experienced helicopter pilot. We do not have confirmation, but it is likely he was pi
loting the aircraft as it came down.”

  Edward. Not Jamie. It wasn’t Jamie.

  Clodagh realised she was trembling.

  “If you’ve just joined us,” the newsreader said, as if she was parroting words she couldn’t believe, “the breaking news is that Prince Edward, the Queen’s oldest grandson, has been killed in a helicopter crash in the Chiltern Hills. The Prince, who was 36 years old, has—had—three children, including one-month-old Prince Henry, with his wife Annemarie…”

  Her words faded into a weird blur. Clodagh kept staring at the ticker. Prince Edward is dead. Prince Edward is dead.

  Jamie’s brother is dead.

  “It can’t be,” someone said.

  “It’s awful,” said someone else.

  “Jeez, on such a happy day,” said someone.

  I have to call him, Clodagh told herself desperately, and somehow had the presence of mind to stumble into the cellar before stabbing with shaking fingers at her phone. It took several tries, and she didn’t know what to say, but it went straight to voicemail anyway. Not even his voice on the recording but some automated woman asking her to leave a message.

  Clodagh hung up.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Jamie walked behind the gun carriage with his grandfather, father and brother-in-law. He read the piece that had been selected for him in the Abbey. He probably sang along with the hymns. If a gun were to be pressed against his head he couldn’t have recalled any of the details.

  Edward was interred at St George’s Chapel in the Lower Ward of Windsor Castle, in the same side chapel as his great-grandparents. Someone told Jamie the plan they’d used for the funeral was the one they’d been rehearsing for the Queen.

  Olivia was allowed to attend the funeral, but not at Jamie’s side. That honour was reserved for spouses and immediate family members. His parents kept close to each other, Victoria clung to Nicholas, and Annemarie to her bewildered children.

  London was draped in black. The only colour came from Edward’s personal standard, differenced from the Monarch’s by the three-pointed white label with its single blue caltrop. It hung wonky and weirdly irritating for the whole journey.

  Jamie kept his eyes on that standard. Twelve years ago, when he turned eighteen, Garter King of Arms had presented him with his own arms, differenced from Ed’s by having five points on the label and three caltrops. “When you become the son or brother of the king, it will be altered to three points,” he’d been told. Only he’d never be the brother of the king, would he? He’d be the grandson, the son, and then the uncle. Little Alexander should be the one with the three-pointed label now, only he’d probably never get his because by the time he turned eighteen he’d likely already be the Prince of Wales, inheriting his grandfather’s arms.

  When they arrived at St George’s Chapel there was a gap in the Quire where Edward’s standard used to hang, and whoever took his place in the Order of the Garter, the change would be a permanent reminder. It wasn’t supposed to look like this.

  There were people everywhere. Outside Buckingham Palace the flowers were laid ten metres deep. People left teddy bears and balloons, as if Ed had been a child and not a full-grown man with a military career and children of his own. They sobbed publicly about how he’d changed their lives. People who’d never met him, appropriating the family’s private grief, stealing it, making it about themselves.

  His anger grew, every time he looked at that damn standard, every time he saw the flowers, the people bowing their heads—without removing their bloody hats, because why bother to get the etiquette right?—as the cars passed, every time he took his place behind his cousins and ahead of Annemarie, walking alone with only his suffocating grief for company.

  Olivia broke with protocol and took his arm as they left the chapel to head into Windsor Castle. Her presence was a comfort, but it wasn’t the one he wanted.

  “I hate all this,” he said to her as they escaped inside. “I hate not having…”

  Clodagh. I wish Clodagh were here. She’d make it bearable.

  “She wouldn’t be allowed to be here anyway,” Olivia said quietly.

  “Christ, this family. And that lot,” he jerked his chin at the window, at the ever-present cameras, the weeping crowds, the masses desperate to show they were mourning the most and the best. “Bloody voyeurs.”

  “He lived his life in public,” Annemarie said. “Why should his death be any different?”

  “Do you have to be so… Dutch?” he said, struggling to keep in the tears his anger kept feeding him.

  “There’ll probably be more people watching this than the wedding,” said Victoria. She looked pale, thin, tired. She really wasn’t well enough for this. Jamie hated himself for not even realising it.

  “You should be resting,” said Nicholas. “Come on. It’s been a long day.”

  He escorted his wife away, out of the room they’d all gathered in. It wasn’t a wake, exactly. Ceremonial funerals didn’t have wakes. Royal families didn’t attend wakes. They just stood around Windsor Castle clutching glasses of whiskey and trying not to cry.

  “Jamie,” said Annemarie, who had been cuddling baby Henry since the moment they left the Abbey, “may I speak to you?”

  Jamie shrugged, preparing for a bollocking about his attitude. She took him into an antechamber and checked the door was securely closed.

  “It’s about Dai.”

  “Die?” Was her English failing her. “Dying?”

  “No. Dai. Edward’s boyfriend.”

  The wind abruptly vanished from his sails.

  Jamie blinked, blinked again, and waited for her to continue. He hadn’t known, exactly, but… it just wasn’t exactly a surprise. Ed had always been raised to marry a woman and have babies with her, but that wasn’t the same as actually wanting to.

  Duty before everything.

  Tiny little bits and pieces fell into place. Jamie felt like an idiot for not realising it sooner.

  “You’re not shocked,” Annemarie said.

  “I… not really.” Ever since Ed’s helicopter had come down, Jamie didn’t think anything could shock him any more. “Neither are you.”

  “I always knew,” she said calmly. “Edward was never allowed to come out, to be himself, but he confided in me.” She shrugged. “Plenty of people have complicated marriages, Jamie. And people like us, we don’t have the luxury of marrying for love, do we?”

  A bitter laugh escaped Jamie. “That’s not what my parents told me.” They’d lied, because what was the whole family if not a series of lies and half trues and confidence tricks?

  “You’re lucky. You get to marry Olivia. She is appropriate, and you love her.”

  Jamie said nothing. He hadn’t spoken much to Olivia this week, not about their supposed relationship, anyway. She’d stayed with him, comforted him, supplied him with alcohol and helped him answer the endless questions people kept asking. He did love her, he realised, but she was his best friend. The old cliché of seeking to validate life after a death didn’t ring true.

  If there had ever been a time he might have got naked with Olivia, this last week would have been it.

  Instead, he’d wished, so desperately, that it was Clodagh by his side. Clodagh who held his hand and let him cry in her arms. Clodagh who listened to his stories about Ed, Clodagh who helped him decide between readings and hymns, Clodagh who told his staff to piss off when he was too overwhelmed.

  “Edward loved Dai,” said Annemarie. “They met when he was working on the Search and Rescue team out there. Do you remember him? Handsome boy, red hair, nice smile.”

  Jamie shrugged. He’d probably met the guy. What did it matter now?

  “Hah,” he said, suddenly realising. “All those trips to see his old colleagues.”

  “Yes, exactly. I don’t know what I should do about him,” she went on. “I can mourn publicly, I can visit Edward’s grave, I can do all the things one does. He can’t. I will always have a place here, with your famil
y and the people who knew him and loved him. What does he have? They were both so careful I don’t think there’s even a photo or a text message to remember him by.”

  Jamie couldn’t stand up any more. His body felt like a puppet with the strings cut. He collapsed into a Queen Anne chair and said, “I’m buggered if I know.”

  Annemarie looked down at the baby for a moment, jiggling him a little.

  “Are they his?”

  “The children? Oh, yes. Definitely. Can’t you see, they’re perfect little Windsors.” She gave Jamie an old-fashioned look. “I told you. It was a complicated marriage.”

  “Why are you telling me all this?”

  Annemarie shrugged. “I had to tell someone. Victoria wouldn’t understand, I think, and she has enough to worry about now anyway. My own family… no, this is not their problem. Besides, we are Dutch, we have different ideas about this kind of thing.”

  “You figured I’d be a sympathetic ear?”

  “You always have been before.” She sighed. “I’m sorry. I should not have burdened you—”

  “No, you should. It’s fine.” Why not? Wasn’t that his role in life, to come second to his brother, to support the family? “You want something for this Dai to remember Ed by? A legacy? A recognition?”

  She nodded. “Recognition could be dangerous though. You Brits still have sticks up your asses about this kind of thing.”

  Jamie snorted in a most unroyal way. “Yeah. Yeah, we do.” He tried to think. Dai had loved Ed but would never be able to tell anyone. He’d never be able to mourn publicly. Never be able to explain what had been taken from him. His grief had to be private…

  Jamie straightened.

  “Yes?” said Annemarie.

  “You should,” Jamie began, and narrowed his eyes at the distance as he thought. “You should go to him. You should tell him you know how much he loved Ed. You should share your grief with him. Let him meet the children. Be a part of his life.”

  “How? Move back to Wales?”

  “Maybe.” His gaze suddenly focused on her again. “Annemarie, when you heard the news who was the first person you turned to? Who was the person you needed to be with, more than anyone else?”