Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Celia Kim-Davies was well aware that she wasn’t going to win any Pulitzers any time soon, thank you, but she wasn’t about to be bitter about it; there were worse beats than Buckingham Palace. Certainly she wasn’t rescuing children from hurricanes or pulling diplomats out of burning Jeeps as she had fantasized in j-school, and corporate conspiracies she could blow open with her intrepid reporting were tragically few on the ground at Windsor Castle. But she wasn’t unemployed, or worse, making lists for Buzzfeed. Her old classmates could make remarks all they liked, but none of them had a prince of England who knew them by name.

And what a prince of England, honestly; Prince William, Duke of Avondale, had two brothers, both older and closer to the throne, but he was better-known to the general populace as The Hot One. As in,

"This story had better be good, it's past deadline already—"

 "—Don't you worry, boss, it's on the hot one."

All three of the princes had received their fair bit of attention in younger days, but as the awkward years of young adulthood faded, it had become more and more apparent that neither George, Duke of Gloucester, nor Louis, Duke of Clarence, was anything more than ordinary-looking except to the eyes of the most partial of the royal-watchers. William was another matter. Celia had once written out the words “stupidly handsome” and gotten it into print somehow; apparently, her editors had agreed. He was, in addition to this, almost comically gallant, as if he was a dragon-prince of old. While his brothers spent their early twenties whirling in and out of exclusive London nightclubs, a royal custom that was becoming as much a new tradition as Eton, William had made straight for Sandhurst, where he had completed his officer training with high honors. For once Celia hadn't been able to detect any trace of puffery in the press release; military instructors with a hard reputation spoke spontaneously in praise of him, and one military aide she had collared had confessed, off the record, that their primary sense of concern with Prince William was his excess of courage; they were not certain that the sense of self-preservation they would ordinarily depend on seeing, in a royal, was entirely intact. He'd even deployed for a while to fly helicopters—sexy, safe, and traditional, a royal's wet dream—and come home covered in glory, only to then, quietly, join Her Majesty's Coastguard.

The move had made a stir at the time. William had already seen active duty, which was more than most royals could aspire to. No one would have been surprised to see him come back to London to take up family duties, become the patron of a few charities, show up to upper-class parties, meet some stunning girl to marry, and have beautiful babies with her. But—the Coastguard? Really? Really?

No one knew why the royal family had allowed it, and then word came unofficially from the Clarence House PR team, over beers, that no, no one in the palace had any idea what he had been thinking, and certainly no one had approved. The Prince of Wales was supposedly furious over it. Formally, Prince William was lauded on a brave and important career choice, but no one really believed it, not even the British public, which would believe anything.

William’s unexpected move inspired a week or so of puzzled congratulations and mockery in the redtops, none of whom seemed to know what to make of it. Pitiful headlines like OUR WATERY DEFENDER and A ROYAL...COASTGUARD?? proliferated. A few obligatory pictures of his training were published, but frankly, the Coastguard was not very heroic, or even interesting. At least if William had joined the firefighters they might have gotten some good puns out of it. His uniform wasn’t sexy, the training was boring, and his shifts usually involved being on a boat for days on end, far from any long-lens cameras. In the meantime, Louis had begun dating a South American bikini model, and the outraged gasps of old-guard English nobility nearly blew down Parliament. The media, including Celia, moved on. 

Then, a year later, well after the model had stormed back home to Sao Paulo, after a minor royal cousin started a fistfight in Ibiza, after a pap shot of George smoking a cigarette had inspired weeks of frenzied speculation over whether it might have contained, the horror, marijuana, a yacht full of drunk celebrities bound for the Mediterranean collided with a paparazzi boat just off the Channel. The yacht immediately began to flounder; the paparazzi, predictably, were just fine. The Coastguard were called in, and pictures of Prince William personally pulling Kate Beckinsale out of the water were everywhere.

That was a glorious time to be media. Anyone who had gotten even slightly damp wanted to be interviewed. Redtops ran pictures of the Hadid sisters looking at William adoringly while he handed them blankets with headlines like WET FOR WILLIAM!! STUNNING ROYAL RESCUE AT SEA while Celia’s own employer, a weekly mag and therefore more sedate, contented itself with no less than forty-six consecutive pages of coverage from every conceivable angle, gushingly detailed interviews, printed in full, with every celebrity they could get their hands on, and photographs that were lovingly edited to best capture the effect of the Coastguard rescue ship’s floodlights on William’s jawline. Best of all, Celia got the lead byline.

The story was like the second coming of Christ. Louis seized advantage of the distraction to run away to an elephant sanctuary in Thailand with his latest girlfriend. George struggled in vain to promote his new charity. No one had time for either of them. As far as the public was concerned, there was only one story in the entirety of the British Isles. 

William only issued one statement, tersely phrased, through Clarence House, insisting that he had only done as much as any one of his crewmates had, and asking for privacy. It was thoroughly ignored. The quiet of his past year was stripped away. The location of the modest flat he lived in at Dover when not on duty was leaked, and there were mobs of young women and men outside the door at all hours. So many private boats took to cruising around the Operations Centre at Dover that any rescue operation, if needed, would certainly have been impossible. William was obliged to make it publicly known that he was taking a leave of absence, and was spotted entering Westminster the next day.

Celia, watching it happen, couldn’t be completely happy over her personal fortune. She liked William, whom she had known since he was a teenager and she was a star struck intern not much older. Unlike his brothers, who had gone through phases both snappish and snobbish, William had always been unfailingly kind to her. She felt bad for him; but then, that was the life of a royal. He could have anything he wanted in the world, but the price of that was privacy.

Will was fairly certain that he did not need a new bodyguard for the occasion, but he had not the energy to argue with the Princess of Wales over it; he was fresh from Dover, where despite the many posted signs a family of tourists had gotten stuck in the sucking mud brought on by the incessant rain. Mud rescues were always undignified and exhausting, and he was certain that the mother of the family had gotten off a picture of him; a fine thing to be thinking about with her daughters trapped up to their thighs and her husband nearly passed out with fatigue. So Will had tiredly agreed to the proceedings without looking further into them.

His mother had been excessively careful of him, Will felt, ever since the incident at Dover two years ago. But feeling too aware of the fragile state of his career to want to risk further angering his father, he had chosen not to take issue. In any case, his mother could not have planned enough protection to satisfy Randle, the head of the security team, who often spoke as though he fully expected a war to break out at George’s wedding.

“A double barrier will line the parade route,” he said, going through the plan again. “Officers on foot will be stationed every fifteen feet for crowd control, and officers on horseback will stay with the cars at all times. In the event that a spectator should break through the barriers—highly unlikely, but possible—you must stay calm. Do not leave the vehicle at all. The sharpshooters will have orders to shoot to kill.”

“Why not just have Will up on the roofs, then?” said Louis, yawning. “I’m sure he can keep us all from harm. Or better yet, George can get hitched at a registrar’s somewhere, and we can stay home, safe as houses.”

Their mother turned around on her seat to give him an expressive look.

“We are very honored to have Mr. Randle take our safety into his hands,” she said, in a deceptively mild voice. “Do go on, sir.”

Randle, long used to various shows of royal petulance, was unperturbed. “Your personal protection officer will attempt to stay as unobtrusive as possible during the parade route and the ceremony. If there should be any disruption—such as an attack or sudden natural disaster—”

“A tsunami,” Louis suggested. “Right in central London—”

“—Your personal protection officer will immediately take you to one of several pre-arranged safe houses or safe rooms along the route or in Westminster Abbey. Out of concern for the safety of the public, it is vital to get the royal family out of danger; I truly—" he looked directly at Will. "—truly cannot emphasize how strongly I discourage heroics."

Will did not think that he needed the reminder, later; he felt very opposite of heroic in the military uniform he wore, which he was aware of not having really earned. He smiled anyway, as their Bentley passed through the frantically waving crowds: any other expression was sure to be photographed and analyzed to death, and in any case it was his brother’s wedding-day, a joyous occasion in itself.

“Nervous?” he asked lightly.

“God yes,” said George at once. “I’m convinced that Elizabeth will realize any moment what a colossal mistake she’s making. What woman in her senses would want to be Queen of the United Kingdom?”

“Mother,” said Louis immediately.

“Mother’s family is considerably older than House Windsor,” said George. “I’m fairly certain the Laurences still think of us as those uppity Germans. Any rate, she’s more prepared for Grandmother’s retirement than Father is, and he was practicing his coronation speech in the womb. Elizabeth’s family was only raised after the second World War.”

“Snob,” said Louis. “She’ll be fine. Or, worst case, she’ll leave you at the altar and you can marry one of the ten thousand screaming fangirls outside, there’ll be volunteers by the ton.”

“I haven’t had fangirls since Will hit puberty,” said George dryly. “Except girls desperate to be Queen, and like I said, no woman of sense.”

He sighed a little, but despite that his face retained an inner glow of happiness; against the floor of the limo his foot tapped, despite decades of ingrained etiquette lessons, and Will was sure that it was from excitement and not anxiety.

“I must tell you, I think very highly of Elizabeth,” said Will. “I’m certain the two of you will be happy.”

“Oh, I should hope so,” said George. “Since I’m likely to be the only married man in the family for some time.”

“I’d follow you in a heartbeat if I thought Grandmother would approve of any of my choices,” said Louis. “I haven’t dared tell her about the girl I’m seeing now.”

“I don’t know what you’re afraid of; you’re the spare. You won’t have to be like me and spend years proving that Elizabeth is sufficiently regal.”

“In that case, maybe Will is the one who’ll be celebrating next; he’s the spare of the spare, and regal enough for two, he can marry whomever he likes.”

Will was silent. He knew full well that was not the case. In the limo his brothers continued to bicker comfortably; outside of it, the noise of the crowd rose to a delirious pitch. The car drove without pausing through the security cordon and rolled smoothly to a halt before the steps of Westminster Abbey. George went white.

“Who has the ring,” he blurted out suddenly, as if he had only just remembered it. He looked at Louis, who didn’t answer but only rambled on about balls and chains, a vulgar Americanism he must have picked up from his actor friends.

“I have the ring,” said Will softly. George went limp with relief. “Everything else will follow. Go on, now.” 

The car door opened, and George stepped out to riotous cheers, a smile falling easily back on his face. Louis followed, waving to the crowd, and then it was William’s turn. The driver came around to the other side of the car. The door opened. For the first time, Will noticed the driver.

An angular face, so lean that Will could see the fine cheekbones pressing against skin, as if everything not strictly necessary for life had been carved out of him and discarded. Not a hard face, for all that. The dark eyes that looked back at him from beneath his chauffeur's cap were warmly amused, oddly captivating. No sooner had he met them did Will realize that he had been staring. He turned away smoothly, raising a hand to the cheering crowd, and followed his brothers into the church where his forefathers, kings of the past, had been buried and crowned.

He felt jittery and on edge throughout the ceremony, as if the groom's nerves had been transmitted over to him. He did not show it however; Will had been carefully trained since childhood for events such as these. Even Louis was standing tin-soldier still and proper beside him.

From his place behind George’s shoulder he could see the bride's face, beaming full of happiness as if love alone could recompense for what she was giving up. Above them, carvings of the long-gone dragons guarded the holy nave of Westminster Abbey and the crypts below. Will tried to imagine himself in George’s place, looking into the face of a woman he loved, and failed.

It was in some sense his duty to marry and have children. He had known that for so long that he could not remember having learned it; it was something he had absorbed through the skin, like the laws of primogeniture. If the crown did not come to George or his children, it would come to Louis, and if not to Louis, then to Will, and he would need to produce heirs against that unlikely event. But Will hoped, fervently, that it would not come to that.

If he had been born the son of a lesser father, he would have been married to Edith already. He had known she was the only woman he could marry since he was fourteen years old. But although the daughter of an earl in her own right, she had not wanted to enter the royal family; had not wanted to endure the constant scrutiny of her life, had not wanted to give up the free choice of her friends and acquaintances. He had proposed; she had rejected.

The ceremony went on. The ring was produced without difficulty, the veil was lifted, the bride kissed. Doves flew from the rooftops. Bells were ringing across London, Will had been told, and across the Commonwealth as well. Husband and wife were handed into a horse-drawn carriage. News cameras gleamed like eyes. They were live on a hundred million screens. Will had been raised to the spotlight, trained from childhood to wear attention as easily as a favorite coat; to accept adulation graciously, take criticism lightly, and always, always, put the public first. Crowds had screamed his name when he was still a child. People he had never met fought to bow over his hand. Everything, as his father liked to point out, had been given to him; but still he would have traded all of that to be on patrol at midnight in the English Channel, the salt wind playing in his hair, and the white cliffs of Dover rising behind him.

The bodyguard had been as unobtrusive as promised, and as the car took Will and Louis to Buckingham Palace for the wedding luncheon, Will was beginning to wonder if he would ever make an appearance.

“Your security will probably be ex-Israeli Special Forces, or something like,” Louis was complaining. “Meanwhile I’m still stuck with Mark who used to be with the Leeds police force. Mother really does have favorites, doesn’t she? Then again, I suppose no one is trying to steal my pants.”

“I believe you give yours away,” said Will, amused.

“Oh, a hit! Did you get a sense of humor from the Coastguard? Next you’ll be learning how to relax.”

“I like my work,” said Will, answering the question that Louis, in typical fashion, had not asked direct. “It isn’t the most glamourous of duties, perhaps, but it is honest.”

“That’s a criticism of me, I suppose,” said Louis with a sigh. “You do know that Father wants you to resign?”

“He’s asked me, several times,” said Will. “I have no plans on quitting my post, however.”

“I think he’s a bit more serious this time. You should be careful. He says it’s a disgrace and an embarrassment—he might even stoop to putting something in the papers.” Louis shook his head. “When I’m in the family and you’re somehow the disappointment, something has clearly gone wrong. Well, maybe your new security can protect you.”

“From any other Prince of Wales, perhaps,” said Will. “From Father—I doubt it very much.”

"Mother wants you to resign too, you know," said Louis, after a pause. "Ever since that incident two years ago—"

"I know," said Will. 

The car pulled through the gates and came to a stop. The driver came around again and pulled the door open. Will followed Louis out, determined to walk past the driver without looking, but the driver instead fell into step beside him.

“A beautiful wedding,” said the driver, in an accent to match any of Will’s uncles for old-fashioned plumminess. "Shall we soon have to congratulate your family on another, then?"

Will could not help but stare, then, but for quite a different reason.

"I beg your pardon," he said with astonishment. "Were you listening to every word we said?"

"I could hardly avoid it."

Will would have liked to argue this point, but in truth he had no idea: none of the palace drivers had ever commented on his private conversations before. Indeed it had never occurred to him that they would; a fresh worry to his mind.

"I do not think I have the pleasure of your acquaintance," he said instead. 

"Tenzing Tharkay," he said. "Not former Israeli special forces, I'm afraid, but I hope that my resume as a long-range reconnaissance scout in the war in Afghanistan and a hand-to-hand combat instructor for the British Armed Forces will prove sufficient."

A pause.

"You are my new personal protection officer."

"I am indeed." He made a short, ironic bow, as if Will was a prince from a time when they had commanded true fealty, with troops of knights and a dragon at his command. "I am given to understand that you ran off your last few."

"I can promise that I did no such thing," said Will, stretching his legs to catch his brother up. "The conditions of the post had not been sufficiently explained to them; once they were, they resigned."

Tharkay, keeping up with him without difficulty, raised an eyebrow.

"And what are the conditions of the post?"

Will waited until the guards at the entrance had announced him, and the grand foyer full of well-wishers safely navigated, before answering.

"The men previously in your position, Mr. Tharkay, had been falsely informed that I meant to immediately return to London and the royal household at Clarence House, which would, I imagine, have greatly eased the securement of my personal protection. My circumstances at Dover, however, were beyond what any person in their position could reasonably have been expected to resolve. I was happy to provide an excellent reference to their future employers."

"I assume you mean that you ignored their good advice, and they did not care to be blamed when you inevitably came to harm."

Will felt his mouth tightening into a severe line, a tell that his media tutors had tried and failed to train out of him.

"Their suggestions were incompatible with my duties as a member of Her Majesty's Coastguard,” said Will. 

“Ah, now I understand fully. No one could have expected you to neglect your duty.”

Will looked at him sharply. He was certain there had been mockery in the words, familiar to him after a lifetime of exposure to journalists and the English aristocracy, but he could not see it in Tharkay’s face, save perhaps a certain glint in the eye, which could have meant anything.

“I think you are aware, Mr. Tharkay, that neglecting my duty is exactly what many people do expect from me. I do not know what the Prince and Princess of Wales have told you—”

“Tell me,” said Tharkay, breaking in. “Do you always refer to your family members in such a charming way? The so-called Princess of Wales introduced herself to me only as your mother, and referred to you by name, not as the Duke of Avondale.”

“How I speak of, and to, my own family is none of your business, Mr. Tharkay, and never will be,” said Will, very coldly. Unwillingly he thought of the tabloids, although he hated to be so suspicious of a veteran of Britain’s wars, but it was the sort of manufactured family quarrel that they would have leapt to exploit.

“Quite right,” said Tharkay, a little wry smile playing around the edges of his mouth. “Clearly I overstepped by asking such a personal question. That has put me in my place, I suppose.”

Another headline, potentially—that Prince William had been abusive towards his bodyguard—but one that he thought the palace staff could more easily bury. There was something terribly calculating in the thought, and Will was bitterly aware that he had never used to be so suspicious of every stranger.

“I’m grateful you have chosen to make yourself known to me,” said Will, forbearing to mention the wholly unnecessary bit of dramatics with which he had chosen to do it. “Whatever you may have heard of me, I do not intend to make your business more difficult. I hope you and I will get on cordially.”

“I imagine that is up to you,” said Tharkay thoughtfully. “But thank you for your concern.”

“You are very welcome,” said Will between his teeth, and showed his back to him before he could make further show of temper. Tharkay’s voice stopped him.

“What was the incident two years ago?”

Will turned.

“I’m certain you’ve already been told,” he said, forcing himself to stay calm.

“Perhaps,” said Tharkay. His face revealed nothing. Will wished he could stop looking at it. “It might, however, be helpful for me to hear it afresh.”

Will didn’t know why he was even answering him. He said,

“Two years ago, the media took a sudden interest in my work with the Coastguard station in Dover. I found it necessary to take a break from my duties and return to London. During my absence, a number of persons unknown attempted to escalate matters. They had found my flat and were able to climb up the outer wall. They broke in through the window.”

His personal protection at the time, such as it was, had come back to London with him. The first person to notice the intrusion had been a photographer for one of the dailies. Will had learned of it when the Clarence House PR team, with grave sympathy, sat him down for a media briefing.

He had gone back to the flat only once, to help palace aides collect his things. There wasn’t very much to collect. The intruders had done a thorough job scavenging the place.

“Did they take anything of value?” asked Tharkay, in a tone of professional interest.

He had had a framed picture of his crewmates at Dover station hanging on his wall: that had disappeared, leaving only the nail it hung from. Jane had given him a dog-eared copy of West with the Night that he would now never be able to return. His laundry hamper had been carried away wholesale, dirty clothes distributed to God-knew-where, and his bedsheets were stripped bare. The necklace he had given Edith, and that she had returned to him, had been coiled within his bedside drawer and taken along with everything else.

“No,” said Will. “I had nothing of value to take.”

Chapter Text

It had been like Christmas but better, and now it was over; the royal wedding had come and gone. Celia had spent months writing thousands of words each on the dress, the hair, the ring; talking to anyone who knew the bride even remotely during her school years, piecing together articles out of nonsense with headlines like GEORGE AND LIZ: THEIR INCREDIBLE LOVE STORY, taking front covers with ease while the other writers in the staffroom seethed. Now she had to work for her bylines again. She wrote a few obligatory articles speculating on the next royal wedding, laboriously pairing the royal brothers off with the two bridesmaids, a school friend and a cousin of the bride. Celia doubted very much whether William had even noticed the girl he had walked with at the evening reception, and as for Louis, the bridesmaids were upper-class and well-behaved: not his type.

Still, the story was filed, and then another one on some rescue William had apparently conducted just before the wedding; two hundred words, on a sidebar with a shitty phone picture, but William looked very good splattered in mud.

Celia was satisfied with the day’s work, and with the head start she had gotten on a fluff piece on the honeymoon for next week, but she could only keep the post wedding buzz going for so long. She needed to start talking to people, get a new narrative going—maybe come-lately Lizzy, with her nouveau-riche values, was mistreating the staff, that could be a crowd-pleaser—

Her phone buzzed, interrupting her thoughts. Jeremy, from Buckingham Palace PR, inviting her for drinks at the Savoy. 

“This had better not be a date in disguise again,” she said, as she placed her handbag down on the counter. “The Hanky-Panky,” she added to the bartender; Jeremy was paying, and it was the most expensive cocktail on the menu.

“Celia,” said Jeremy Rankin, with a very pleasant smile. “You look more beautiful than ever.”

“Sure,” agreed Celia. “Whereas your resemblance to Dorian Gray’s picture grows every day.”

“Oh, you’ve read Oscar Wilde, have you? Well done,” said Rankin. “It’s not usual to find a beautiful woman who’s also literary.”

Celia stirred the little straw into her cocktail with unnecessary violence.

“I try,” she said sweetly. “It’s like Sartre said, tu es aussi bête que tes pieds.”

“Ah, yes, Sartre,” said Rankin vaguely. “I headed the Philosophy Society at Eton, you know…”

“Wow, I didn’t know you went to Eton,” she said in a monotone. She checked her watch. “I’d love to know more, but I really have to get back to work.”

“Wait! I have a preposition for you.” 

Celia reluctantly sat back down. Rankin leaned forward. “The Prince of Wales,” he said dramatically, “has entrusted me with an errand, and let us just say that he doesn’t much care how it is done.”

“I find that unlikely, but go on.”

“He gave me carte blanche. What do the details matter? The crown prince is most desirous that his youngest son should leave Her Majesty’s Coastguard and resume his duties on behalf of the Royal Family.”

“Everyone knows that,” said Celia. “Everyone also knows that it won’t happen.”

“I happen to think it will,” said Rankin easily. “If enough leverage can be produced on Prince William.”

“If his own mother can’t budge him from Dover, nothing will,” said Celia. “And good for him, he's twenty-five, why shouldn’t he have his own life? He has plenty of time to start putting up engagements later. When he makes the news, it’s interesting, at least. Everything else from the royals is the same old, every day.”

"I'll give you an exclusive interview with him after he quits."

"I'm listening,” said Celia.

"Prince William is shy of the media, you know. I believe that his ability to avoid their presence in Dover is a strong incentive for him to stay there. If the media should go to him, however—"

"To Dover? I suppose, it’s not very far, but why? He makes enough appearances at family events that we don’t need to chase him, and frankly, his brothers provide more than enough news. If he did something heroic again, sure, but otherwise his life there is boring.”

"And you don't think William's acquaintances there are worth looking into?"

"Not really, no." She pushed away her half-finished cocktail. It had been disgusting. "Jeremy, you're a piece of shit and I don't know why I'm giving you advice, except that sometimes you meet someone so mediocre you want to help them just to bring the average of the human race up, you know? Whatever kind of guerilla journalism you're envisioning is certainly not what Prince Edward is looking for. He's old-fashioned, he's thinking an opinion piece from some grouchy countess will bring William back into the fold. And honestly, maybe he won't notice what methods you use, but given half a chance and Princess Augusta will, and then you can be sure that none of your father's golfing chums will save you."

Rankin gave her a pitying look.

"Oh, Celia," he sighed. "You're a very intelligent woman in many ways, but you know so little about your own industry sometimes. It does make me worry about you."

"Okay then, fuck you too," said Celia amicably, and left.

She did watch the mags for a while, cautious of competition, but when the first stories of William's life in Dover came out a few months later, they were in the lowest of the low tabloids, the kind even her mother would think twice about picking up. Celia had no reason to regret not taking Rankin up on his offer once she saw them; utter trash, even by the standards of royal reporters. The stories didn't even sell—no one cared about William's unremarkable friends in the Coastguard—until one day they hit upon a story that quickly spread to all the covers: Prince William, a laughing girl of perhaps seven riding on his shoulders, hand in hand with a woman as tall as he was with a scar running down her face; the headlines howled nonsense about love children and ugly trollops. Celia read it without really taking it in. She realized what this meant, of course. Prince William was coming back to London after all.

It was awkward to acquaint Tharkay to his crewmates at Dover, but Will had been making some version of the introduction since his first day at Ludgrove, at age eight. His crewmates, too, were getting used to it: they had seen several personal protection officers come and go in the past three years. They were all tolerantly pleasant to Tharkay, as they would be to any temporary passer-by.

Tharkay, however, seemed to have every intention of staying put. He quickly learned Will’s routine and inserted himself into it; driving Will’s car, entering rooms before him, staying within arm’s reach of him in public. Will could recognize by now the hallmarks of a true professional. Tharkay did not move like the ex-policemen or former soldiers who had guarded Will before; he had a curious way of adapting his gait and posture, chameleon-like, for the company he was in. The intent, Will suspected, was to make him invisible, but three weeks after his arrival at Dover, it had an unintended effect. John Granby, walking with Will down to the nearby Indian eatery for a bite, abruptly turned to Tharkay and said,

“Here’s something that’ll bother me until I ask: where are you from?”

Tharkay stiffened, but Granby added, “What county, I mean? Not anywhere south of Trent, I’m thinking.”

“I have a house in Northumberland,” said Tharkay after a moment. “—It’s where my father grew up.”

“A northerner!” Granby cried out, full of welcome. “I knew it from the way you walk. Nothing but the best to protect His Royal Highness, I suppose; I’m a northerner myself.”

“Yes,” said Tharkay dryly. “I’d guessed that.”

"I don't actually think northerners walk any differently, John," said Will.

"You're wrong," said Granby decisively. "Very wrong."

“He’ll start singing the Newcastle United fight song if we let him carry on like this,” said Will, amused. 

“Oh, them!” Granby complained. “No, Will, I’ve taken your advice and given up on sports; I’ll find another hobby, one which doesn’t involve losing to Norwich City of all teams.”

The topic carried them through supper. Granby found it endlessly entertaining to make Will explain the rules to polo or competitive sailing, even though Will had protested more than once that he had mostly grown up playing rugby with his brothers; it didn’t help much that he did know the rules to competitive sailing, and that the Prince of Monaco had taught them to him. Will was usually able to escape a fatal ribbing by asking an innocent question about the Premier League, however; Granby could and often did talk about football for hours. Tharkay, sitting where he could keep an eye on the front door and the kitchen both, did not contribute much, but Will, watching him, more than once saw the ghost of amusement pass over his face. 

“I didn’t know you were from Northumberland,” Will said to him later. They were in the lift, slowly rising to the penthouse his mother had insisted on after the incident. It was in the most secure building in Dover, for whatever that was worth. Tharkay was standing slightly in front of him as usual, shielding him from whatever might emerge from the opening doors.

“As it happens, I’m not,” said Tharkay. “I said I have a house there, and I do, and I said that my father grew up there, and he did. I said no more than that.”

Will was silent a moment. The lift doors opened, no assassins lying in wait outside, and Tharkay cleared the hallway with a single quick glance. Something about his manner did not invite further questions, although he had certainly provoked them. It seemed to Will that Tharkay was deliberately setting himself at a remove, refusing even the smallest gesture towards the polite socializing that might eventually have led to trust. If Will had thought he was hesitant out of some misplaced anxiety over rank, he would have gladly extended the first hand, but Will had just enough experience of Tharkay to know that was not the case.

“You have an inordinate amount of party invitations,” said Tharkay now, taking Will’s mail out of his pocket. “Are you planning to attend any of them? I’ll have to rendezvous with event security, if so.”

“If any of them fall during my days off,” said Will.

Tharkay eyed him skeptically, but said nothing. He laid the mail on the hall table and went on his customary sweep of the flat, making sure nothing had changed since they left. Will went to the sitting room to read the paper half-heartedly. His father had brought him up to believe that it was his duty to know what was happening in the Commonwealth, and so it was, but he disliked only reading about what he could not change. As usual he became only slowly aware that Tharkay had joined him in the sitting room, some change in the air, perhaps, alerting him. His skin prickled, and he looked up; Tharkay was kneeling on the floor, taking apart his pistol. 

He had brought out a special cloth for the purpose, and the parts were laid out neatly and correctly, ready to be oiled and cleaned. Will had done it himself many times, while he was in the Armed Forces, but somehow he could not tear his eyes away when Tharkay did it, his movements deliberate and quick, long fingers working efficiently, cleverly, without a single wasted motion.

Will dragged his eyes away from the shape of Tharkay’s hands. 

“If you’re going to stay here, I’d like to know more about you,” he said, instead of what might have spilled out of his mouth instead. “It’s hard to live with someone you don’t know anything about. I’ve done it all my life, so I’ve reason to know.”

Tharkay glanced up at him. His hands continued to work.

“Very well,” he said, easily enough. “What do you wish to know?”

“How long were you with the Armed Forces?” Will asked, after a moment of thought.

“Not very long, but perhaps the years should count for more when you are very young, and doubly so when you are foolish. I understand you served at around the same time."

His own service was a matter of published record, but Will answered anyway.

"Three years," he said. "From when I was eighteen. I was privileged to spend some months flying support helicopters."

Tharkay raised an eyebrow. "And you left it for the Coastguard?"

Will pressed his lips together but answered evenly.

"At some point it became clear that I was being used as a tool of recruitment, more than as a soldier."

"Did you expect anything different?" asked Tharkay. "I've surprised you, I see, but you needn't think that I will judge you for it. The Armed Forces makes great use of naive young men. I am only surprised that you did not volunteer for recruitment yourself; it seems as if it would have been your duty."

Again that edge of sarcasm, mockery moving slyly beneath an even voice and an impassive face. Will felt his temper ignite.

"You mistake me," he said hotly. "And you have done so, I think, on purpose. Britain was at war, even if unjustly, and I could not myself stay behind; but to be used to recruit young men and women, less fortunate than I, to fight and die in an endless war—no, that I would never agree to."

"But you agreed to it nonetheless," said Tharkay quietly. The mockery had gone out of his voice. "From the moment you joined. You had any other option in the world than to prop up a war you knew to be unjust."

"And your own options, Mr. Tharkay?" demanded Will, too roused now to consider the argument. "You yourself were not without choices, but you joined the same service that I did."

"Ah," said Tharkay, his mouth twisting. "You have me. Against such an argument I have no defense to offer." He picked up his gun, now fully cleaned and assembled, and slid it home into his holster. His eyes glittered. Will stared at him, his stomach twisting with an inexplicable prickling of shame and some other emotion, unnameable.

"Good night, your Highness,” said Tharkay. “Do keep me aware of what parties you decide to attend, so that I can make the arrangements; I would hate for you to come to harm while I am in your employ.”

Will did not, in the end, attend Lady Alice's charity gala, nor did he attend his cousin Princess Sophia's garden party, nor the first birthday of his second cousin, Timothy Harold Mountbatten-Windsor, who had the distinction of being the first born of the younger generation. He did not go to London at all, those months after his brother's wedding, nor did he visit his grandmother in Balmoral, nor join his parents and Louis on vacation to Mustique, despite his mother's anxious invitations. He settled back into his life at Dover instead, going out for drinks with Berkley and Granby, meeting with Jane when both their shifts would allow it, teaching himself to cook with varying degrees of success. Everywhere he went there was Tharkay, moving invisibly in the background, silent and watchful.

But slowly he came into the foreground. As it became clear that he was not leaving anytime soon, Will's crewmates began to include him in conversation whenever they were out together; they were not raised, as Will had been, to be grateful but distant towards the staff. At one point Little managed to draw him into an unexpectedly long conversation on dragons. Will had known Little to be a student of history, but he had not expected the same of Tharkay.

"I heard a rumor that they're not extinct after all," interrupted Chenery, coming back with more beers for the table. "There's a bunch of them in Tanzania, or maybe it was Tasmania, waiting to be discovered."

"They were perfectly intelligent creatures, from what I've heard, why would they wait to be discovered?" Harcourt pointed out. "They could fly to Sydney and discover themselves."

"Besides, I don't think you could hide a creature the size of a barn anywhere, even in Tanzania," said Warren.

"Tasmania," Little corrected. 

"The fact that they were intelligent only makes it less likely that they should seek us out," said Tharkay. "And the world is far wilder than satellites make it seem; there are vast places on this earth never seen by human eyes."

"I suppose I can't argue with that," said Berkley. "And what would the poor creatures do, anyway; saving present company, there's no real royalty left for them to be companions to." He jostled Will's shoulder, grinning, and Will was able to grin back and drink with the rest of the table, despite his awareness of Tharkay's gaze, like a physical weight.

Jane thought it was amusing to have a third wheel on their dates, and submitted with good grace to having her flat inspected. Tharkay went no further than this, however, trailing a good fifty feet as they walked through the park, following behind in a separate car as they went for drives together, and disappearing entirely when they spent the night. Emily was fascinated by his gun, the first she had ever seen, and Will was alarmed to turn around, as they walked down a secluded avenue, and find Tharkay carefully showing her how the gun fired.

"I removed the bullets," he said in surprise when Will hastily removed Emily from the scene, setting her on his shoulders. "There was no danger."

"Please do not give me your excuses for exposing a child to a deadly weapon," he said, and then was shocked further when Jane, unconcerned, said,

"It's better for her not to be shy of weapons anyhow, though; she keeps telling me she wants to go into the air force after me, and she might as well get used to the idea sooner rather than late."

So Will gave it up as a bad job, and merely contented himself with keeping Emily up on his shoulders, bribed with an ice cream cone he bought her, until she could be safely removed from temptation.

Tharkay was a constant presence that summer and fall. He did not seem to mind that he was not allowed to accompany Will on patrol or on search and rescue missions. Will had no idea what Tharkay did when he was at sea, but he did know that Tharkay saw him off at the start of every shift, and was there waiting patiently every time the boat docked, no matter how late or unpredictable the hour. Will could not help it; he found himself looking forward to seeing Tharkay waiting on the docks for him.

It was on one of those returns that he found someone else waiting with Tharkay on the docks; the head of PR for Clarence House. He had driven down from London to hand him the tabloid in person. Will, scanning it quickly, felt hot color break into his face.

"John," he said, in a voice that despite his efforts had turned uneven with rage. "Will you come look at this, please?"

Granby obliged, peering over Will’s shoulder—and unexpectedly, burst into an enormous grin.

“Lads, I’m famous!” he said, taking the paper from Will’s hands. “Famous for being gay, no less—my mother will be so proud—”

While Granby delightedly showed their crewmates his face in the tabloid, Thornhill spoke seriously to Will.

“I doubt they’ll stop here,” he said. “If it was only the one I’d be less concerned, but there were four papers in total running the story this morning, even if they’re all of the lowest order. I’d warn your friends, if I was you; if they came after your friend Granby, here, they might ferret anything out.”

“Can’t the palace do anything?” Will asked, low. “Surely this cannot be tolerated. If John wasn’t already out—” He cut himself off, unable to even voice the thought, his deepest fear.

“I tried. Rankin at Buckingham refuses to do anything about them, damn him,” said Thornhill, scowling. “You know that Clarence House can only do so much.”

“I know,” said Will, pressing his hands together. “Thank you anyway, Gavin.”

He could scarcely bear to face Granby again, but Granby, quixotically, thought it hilarious to find himself featured in the type of tabloid that put words like homosexuality into quotation marks, as if dubious of their very existence, and which made out as if his identity was something he was shamefully keeping secret when in fact he was the president of the GLBT Kent Coastguard Association, which primarily existed, as far as Will could make out, to meet up twice a year and get smashed at the local. 

"Better than a full page dating ad," he said, delighted, and put a picture of it on his Grindr. 

Will was grateful for his understanding, but he could not be reassured. He was angry, even if Granby was not; angry at himself for making a target of his friends, angry at the world that would condemn any man for his preference, and angry at the press, whom he had rarely known to target a commoner in such a way. Will had barely even been a presence in the story; there had scarcely been any pretext for it at all. He could not work it out. Clearly some editor had learned that one of Prince William’s friends in Dover was attracted to men, and found the idea repugnant enough to write five hundred words on it. It barely made sense, but at the same time it made perfect sense, and the idea that this could be a story in the modern age chilled him.

He stayed away from his crewmates for some time after that, ignoring their texts and calls to the phone that Clarence House had reluctantly allowed him to acquire. He didn’t want any of them to suffer from his acquaintance. When off-shift he went straight home, only Tharkay for company, and their only visitor the delivery driver, when Will burnt dinner again; he was beginning to understand why his mother employed so many cooks. 

At first they did not talk very much, but as the days passed without company Will began to grow very bored. Friendly conversation was his favorite pastime, and it was hard to be without it when there was someone living in the second room of his flat. As every previous attempt at a conversation between them had ended in argument, Will did not have very high hopes at first, but he soon found Tharkay an unexpectedly good conversationalist. He had been all over the world, to every continent save Australia, traveling as personal security to persons of various importance. He had guarded a banker in Istanbul, and a diplomat in Beijing; he had gone to the Congo rainforest with a biologist, hell-bent on collecting samples despite the very present conflict, and with a rival biologist to the Amazon.

“Although in that case she was interested less in her personal security than what I could tell her about Dr. Fawcett; thank you,” he added, as Will refilled his glass of wine. “She was most disappointed when I told her I had been more preoccupied with avoiding security checkpoints than with bat droppings.”

“You’ve travelled a great many places,” said Will, amused. “You must be sorry to give it up for a flat in Dover.”

Tharkay shrugged.

“England is as much a foreign country to me as anywhere else,” he said. “I do not think it less strange, or more domestic, to walk into a pub by the English coast than a night market in Xi’an.”

“Then where is home for you?” Will asked. “You cannot be so rootless.”

“Why not? There is no one place so different from the others that I must call it home. It is only an accident of geography that I was born in Kathmandu, and only an accident of birth that my father came from Berwick-upon-Tweed; I have no family that I recognize, and there is no one whom I might be obligated to provide a home to. My citizenship is British, if you like to count that.”

It seemed to Will a terribly lonely existence, to belong nowhere and to no one; but as he was currently in hiding from nearly all the friends he had in the world, he could not bring himself to criticize. He poured more wine, instead, and changed the topic.

He needn’t have bothered with the solitude, as it turned out. Two weeks into his self-imposed exile, another article came out: this one was more nebulous, alluding vaguely to more of Prince Williams’s shady crewmates at the Dover coastguard, one with three children out of wedlock with different mothers, and one who had, the paper implied, taken her clothes off for money. Not very hard to guess who they meant; Berkley was raising his two adopted stepchildren and his orphaned nephew together with his girlfriend of fifteen years, and as for the other, Harcourt was the only woman of the crew, and the paper had pointedly used female pronouns. Granby and Chenery both immediately claimed the honor, however, and even squabbled a little over who had commanded the higher price.

“It was for an art class,” Harcourt confessed to Will miserably one day as they were at sea. “I don’t even know who could have remembered, they were painting different nudes every other week.”

He looked down at her, troubled. “I’m very sorry, Catherine,” he said, feeling it wretchedly unequal to the mess he was making of her life. “I hope they’ll at least keep your name out of it.”

“I hope they don’t,” said Harcourt sourly. “Then I could at least dispute it.” Then she sighed. “No, I don’t mean that. Will, I know that you don’t like to participate in the royal rigamarole, but can’t the palace do anything?”

“I’ll try,” promised Will, but that evening, before he could even make the phone call, another story came out.

...Sources close to the prince say that he has kept the child’s existence a secret since her birth. Since then he has regularly sent gifts of cash and clothing to Dover meant for the upbringing of the child, now seven. Ms. Roland often leaves the child alone for days at a time while she goes into the city.

“William would like to escape, but he feels obligated to the mother,” said a close friend in Dover. “Personally, I think he should ask for a paternity test.”

To some in the prince’s life, it amply explains why William left a heroic military career for a life as a Dover coastguard.

“To put it simply, he was seduced by the trollop when he was a teenager and put under her spell. No wonder he can’t move on,” the same source confirmed.

Will put the story down, unable to read any longer. He felt sick, and numb. Jane sometimes had Emily stay with her grandmother during particularly long shifts at the airbase; she was a captain in the RAF, and had a heroic military career in her own right. There was no mention of that in the article, of course, but plenty of sneering at her fashion sense, her build, and even her scar, the souvenir of an engine failure that only she had walked away from. As for Emily being his own daughter, he could not fathom how the dailies had the nerve to paint such a target on the back of a seven-year-old child.

Jane was furious, not at the insults, but that her daughter had been mentioned at all. She talked of suing, and she would have every right to. Will, his hand covering his eyes as he talked into the speakerphone, promised her every support from the palace, for what that was worth; she talked of flying to London and dragging every reporter there from the wings of her jet until they recanted the story, and Will felt fully capable of violence himself.

It was the end of the relationship, of course. He did not think Jane very broken-hearted over it, but Will found himself unexpectedly melancholy. He had not thought there would be another woman after Edith. Women who truly attracted him were so few and far between; he had been prepared for a decade or so of only those attractions which he would have to conceal, until time and the rise of the next generation made him a less appealing media story. But Jane he had liked very much; the way that her scar pulled her smile just a little crooked, the passion she had for flight, the straightforward way she had looked him in the eye, the night they met, and invited him into bed with her. She had known who he was, of course, but that hadn't attracted her, or even impressed her. He did not think there was any hope of reconciliation however, and the thought that he would not see Emily again was hard to swallow.

Granby showed up after the break-up, a bottle of outrageously cheap whiskey in each hand, and banged on the door until Tharkay finally let him in.

“Here, that’s for you,” he said, shoving one of the bottles into Tharkay’s hands. “Your bribe, if you like. Will! Stop being ridiculous and come out, you know that I’ll only get drunk in your kitchen without you if you don’t.”

Will had indeed been hoping he would go away if he was silent long enough, but he forced himself not to give in to the urge to find out. Consciousness of his duties as a host, which had been trained into him by his mother at a young enough age that they were nearly instinct, made him get up from his bed and find Granby sitting at his kitchen table, staring at his wine rack.

“So this is your wine collection, is it?” asked Granby. “Is this where my taxes are going to?”

“My maternal uncle is Lord Allendale,” said Will tiredly, slumping into the other chair. “They were a gift from him.”

“Meanwhile my uncle is an interstate driver who can’t stop going on about how much better life was when we were all on coal,” said Granby, inspecting the label of a twenty-year Cabernet Sauvignon. “Can I open this?”

“Please make yourself free,” said Will, not caring very much. He didn’t even flinch when Granby poured the wine straight into two coffee mugs, even though the red wine glasses were just over in the cabinet.

“Bloody mess, this,” said Granby after a moment. “Are you going to be alright?”

“I had better ask you that,” said Will. “John, I—” he struggled for words, and then Granby interrupted him.

“Oh, no you don’t,” he said firmly. “I came over to comfort you, I’m not going to stand for you apologizing to me. What do straight men do, by the way, after breaking up? If you were gay, I’d offer to—well, never mind,” said Granby hastily, not noticing that Will had gone very stiff and still. “For that matter, what do posh men do, after breaking up? You don’t happen to know, do you?” This last was directed at Tharkay, who was resetting the security system for the night.

“I imagine the same as poor men, only at a higher price point,” said Tharkay.

“Then we’re going to drink through your collection,” said Granby, with decision. “What’s your most expensive bottle, Will?”

“The d'Auvenay, on the second shelf, is five thousand pounds,” Will said dutifully. Granby choked on his swallow of the cabernet.

“Well, maybe we can just keep drinking this for now,” he said hastily. “What is it, only a thousand?”

Will felt his lips move into something resembling a smile. “Four hundred.”

“Oh, cheap stuff, then! Guzzle away.”

Will forced himself to have some of his coffee-mug wine. It tasted better for the company he was drinking it with.

“Thank you,” said Will quietly. “For coming and keeping me company; I’m grateful. Is there nothing else I can offer you, for refreshment?”

“A tour, maybe?” Granby suggested, hugging the now half-empty bottle to his chest. “I’ve never been in your flat before. And then I’ll see what else I want, another one of these bottles, for starters.”

It turned out that Granby did not want much else except to sprawl in Will’s sitting room and exclaim at him for not having a telly, and tell him the stupid things that Newcastle United’s overpaid striker had gone and done, and then, after copious amounts of £400 wine, make a half-joking pass at him.

Will could not honestly say that he was not tempted. It was not Granby himself that attracted him, exactly, but rather the thought of an indiscretion that the world would not have to know about at once, something he could have for himself and no other, something he could have, perhaps, with a man for once. That alone was more tempting than any other consideration—a man’s lips on his mouth and his neck, a man’s hands pulling on his cock and curling inside him—the thought made a fine tremble run over his skin. But Will laughed it off, as he was meant to do, and Granby only shrugged good-naturedly.

“Worth a shot,” he said equably. “Would you like to go out tonight? Some of the lads are in the pub already.”

Will found himself agreeing without really meaning to, and within moments they were out in the Dover night, pulling their jackets on against the slight chill, Tharkay keeping just within arm’s reach of him. The ‘lads’ turned out to be all his crewmates, milling around the bar waiting for them. Will suspected that Granby had only been recruited to go and fetch him, but he could not pretend to be sorry to see them all.

“Heard what happened,” said Berkley gruffly, sliding a pint into his hands. “Tough way to end things. Hard on the kid too, of course.”

“Yes,” said Will, and drank; he did not want to speak of it any more. 

They all got roaringly drunk, with perhaps predictable results. Berkley and Chenery got into a darts competition that threatened the lives of all standing by, while Warren and Sutton began reminiscing loudly of old Coastguard rescues to anyone who wandered into their orbit. Harcourt, less inebriated, made Will look at pictures of a Naval lieutenant she had started messaging on a dating app; she had some vague idea that he had breeding, and wanted to know if Will knew him. To his own surprise he did: Will had gone to Eton with Tom Riley.

"One of the best of the lot, in my opinion; I don't have anything bad to say against him. More than I can say about several other of my classmates," he added, thinking of Jeremy Rankin, who had somehow gotten a job with his own family. 

"Good enough for me," said Harcourt, eyeing the Bumble profile appraisingly before putting her phone away. "No insight into whether he's good in bed or not, I suppose? Never mind," she added, as Will started to choke on his beer. Harcourt eyed him with deep concern. "Are you all alright?"

Will did not think she was referring to his coughing fit. He turned the beer around in his hands; it had mostly gotten drunk somehow, although he did not normally care for the taste.

"I have only been very stupid," he said quietly. "I should not have thought that they would not find out, after three years, but I would never have imagined they would target Emily."

Harcourt patted his shoulder in consolation.

"No one blames you, you know," she said, while he stared down at the tabletop. "I doubt Jane does either, really. It’s a nightmare through and through, and the press are unredeemable assholes, but you can't blame yourself for them."

"Who should I blame, then? I’ve been around them all my life, I should have known what they might do.”

"You are very eager to assume responsibility for the sins of others," Tharkay remarked. “Or more to the point, to punish yourself for them.”

A great howl went up around the room before Will could make answer, louder than the music, with people pounding on tables and sloshing their beers. Will looked up and saw Little and Granby, sitting at a corner of the bar, kissing with great enthusiasm.

"Get it, Gus!" yelled Harcourt delightedly, and punched the air. Little pinked a little but appeared too thoroughly occupied to answer. Granby's hand was tangled in his hair, pulling it steadily out of its ponytail. Will felt his own spirits lift, watching them. Bets had occasionally been exchanged over whether Little would ever make a move on the oblivious Granby or not, but it was known that Little was not yet out to his family, and some had doubted whether it would ever happen. Will was happy for them, truly happy, and if he was envious he would not allow himself to feel it. He abruptly felt how needless it had been for him to shut out his friends to indulge in self-pity. His own troubles after all were very small in the scheme of things, and there was little he could complain about which could not be eased by the good cheer of his friends. He was determined to make it right with Jane and Emily Roland, but that was no reason to punish himself, as Tharkay had said.

Feeling lightened, he turned to Tharkay, about to propose a toast to the new couple. Before he could get the words out, however, he heard from across the room the sound that had haunted him from childhood, carrying clearly over the noise of the pub; the sound of a camera shutter snapping.

Will was on his feet before he even fully processed the sound, his eyes scanning through the dark pub. He recognized the man in the corner from a thousand media scrums, a freelancer who sometimes sold to the dailies; he was surreptitiously trying to get off another shot by hiding the camera beneath his hat, and did not notice Will’s approach.

One blow would have been sufficient to knock him over, but Will had his other hand firmly gripped around his collar, keeping him upright, and furiously shaking him back to his feet delivered another blow. He would have delivered a third, and even a fourth, but he abruptly found himself on the floor, completely winded; Tharkay, coming up silently behind him, had grabbed his wrist and somehow flipped him.

He scrambled upright. The others gaped, but asked no questions; the camera, a clearly professional make, had dropped to the floor during the commotion, and the photographer had had a clear field of view of Granby and Little. Berkley unceremoniously took the camera and smashed it onto the tabletop until it twisted, while Harcourt, more practical, picked out the undamaged memory card and slipped it into her pocket. Only Granby and Little looked confused, looking around at the scene around them, and the silence of their crewmates, the pop song on the speakers too loud and too cheerful; then Little saw the camera, and paled.

The brief flash of panic in his eyes was enough to reignite Will’s fury. He turned back to the photographer, now nursing his broken nose on the floor.

“I’ll press charges,” the man said through bloody teeth. “You’ll see me in court—I’ll sell the story to every paper in London—”

Will made a violent gesture with his hand. Blood flicked off his knuckles and landed on the man’s shoes, and he flinched and was silent.

“Do it and be damned,” Will said savagely, and walked out the door. Tharkay slid silently at his shoulder as he went out into the night; he had forgotten his jacket, but did not feel the cold.

Will gave his resignation to the Coastguard office in Dover the next morning, and by that evening had arrived in London.

Chapter Text

Prince William’s media statements were often unintentionally hilarious, and this one was no exception.

“‘I would like to extend my sincerest apologies to the photographer, Mr. Chadwick Byfuglien, and I hope he is gracious enough to be able to accept them,” Celia read out loud to her rapt office. “‘There is no excuse for violence in any context, and I know the British public feels the same—’ No, don’t laugh, the best part is coming up next. ‘I am especially ashamed,’” she continued with relish, “‘that I have failed to live up to the Code of Conduct of Her Majesty’s Armed Forces, and have used the benefit of military training against a civilian, who was unable to defend himself.’”

“So basically,” said Dev, amidst the general schadenfreude, “Not only did he beat down the asshole, but he didn’t even break a sweat doing it.”

“I sure hope he broke out a sweat,” said Priya. “I’d like to see him glisten.”

“Chaddy probably had it coming,” said Celia. “It doesn’t surprise me at all that he was doing Rankin’s dirty work.”

“Alright, enough,” said her editor, coming out of his office long enough to dismiss the crowd, which had now devolved into swapping Chaddy stories. “You all have stories to work on, and you,” —pointing at Celia— “should be putting this effort into amusing the public, not your colleagues.”

“Low-hanging fruit,” said Celia, but dropped back down to her laptop without complaining. She beat out five hundred words on the incident and Clarence House’s response, added in a few paragraphs tying in William’s abrupt resignation from the Coastguard, and called up the Dover station to see if they had a statement. Nothing but a gruff voice requesting that she go fuck off when she identified herself, which she interpreted as no comment. Then she had some time to kill, and idly flipped through the most recent pap shots of Prince William for something good to go with the article, preferably something violent and brooding. Not hard to find, as it turned out; William had been wearing an expression like a thundercloud since he had returned to Westminster, and it made his face look terribly forbidding and serious. Celia flagged a few pictures for inclusion, and sat back considering them for a while.

The problem, in her view, was that he was a man obviously better suited for an older time. When princes still won or lost their kingdoms by sword and dragon, William would have been magnificent. But that time was long past, and the last dragon on earth, Ferdinand the Peaceful of Austria-Hungary, had died in 1914. It was easy to imagine him on the deck of a blood-swabbed ship, swinging a rapier, or on the back of a destrier, a platoon of longbowman ready for his signal. Instead it was the 21st century, and princes were mostly useful as an excuse for bank holidays. And selling copy, of course; Celia personally was very grateful that Britain still had a royal family, and that its sons occasionally knocked down members of the press.

She finished off the article by adding in the public response, which had been largely positive, aside from a few sadsacks crying out against violence against the free press. No one liked royal reporters, not even royal reporters, and Prince William was fairly popular. He had served in the military, and generally didn’t involve himself in the embarrassing kind of dumbassery that Louis and even occasionally George indulged in. He was hot, which helped a lot, and there was a certain segment of the population that approved of William getting himself a real job. Scanning a few random tweets she saw:

ManU Cant B Stopped @harry__jones Expecting to drag a guy’s girlfriend and not have him punch you in the face next chance he got. Classic RR #FreeWilly

Insert Rose Emoji Here @millllennnialkweeeen lowkey you would/should all punch paparazzi too it’s the new/old punching nazis #FreeWilly #FuckRR

thot and memory @royal_addict808 If Prince William punched me in the face I’d say thank u and harder, daddy #FreeWilly

gay elf needs dnd group @ntrlvrwdlf It’s two thousand whatever, let the prince punch the paparazzi #FreeWilly #FuckRoyalReporters

RKT96 @RKT96 The guy’s name was CHADWICK? Yeah punch him lol #FreeWilly

Amelia Johnson @AmeliaOnTwitter1 It is NOT okay to punch reporters, wtf! Sooooo disappointed in Prince William rn. I can’t believe I thought he was cute. Why is everyone saying #FreeWilly ? What he did was so wrong

It was mostly the really hardcore royal-watchers, Celia found, that disliked him. He didn’t show up to be photographed, he didn’t help his grandmother the Queen with her duties like his brothers did, he lived in Dover as if he was too good for the royal apartments in London, he kept low company. And now, of course, he was violent. Celia found it baffling, but writing to that angle did sell, sometimes. Some of her fellow royal reporters truly disliked him for similar reasons, however, which Celia considered a prime example of getting too close to the subject. 

Now finished with the first draft, she went down the list in her head. Chaddy would undoubtedly give an aggrieved interview on his traumatic experience, which she would have to write an article on, the ex-girlfriend in Dover would likely be filing suit against the tabloids any day now, Clarence House would probably like to push a puff piece on what duties Prince William would be taking up now that he was back in London, and she was pretty sure that Duchess Liz was pregnant and would announce soon, based on not much more than reporter’s instinct and a basic ability to count the months since the wedding. So that would be six months or so of covering the pregnancy, and then there would be an entirely new person whose outfits she could rate. The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee would be the next year, just as the royal baby would start getting really cute. So, not a bad slate, and maybe she could get started on pregnancy rumors early: she was sure she could find an unflattering picture of Duchess Liz out and about.

It all came to pass almost exactly as she predicted. Captain Roland won a settlement against the several tabloids she filed suit against, which should have barely merited a mention at the time; Duchess Liz was indeed pregnant, and her growing baby bump eclipsed every other royal story. Celia wrote a few paragraphs on it anyway, resentful of having to give up any space from wild speculation on the baby’s gender and name. But the palace had released an official statement on the matter supporting Captain Roland; a very unsubtle hint from Princess Augusta that anyone who wanted to get interviews during the Diamond Jubilee should clear the good name of her favorite son. So every royal reporter in the country turned out a very sober article concluding that Jane Roland was a military hero and inspiration who had been unfairly dragged through the dirt, and that the publications that had run the story—that is, all of them—had behaved very badly indeed.

There was a picture someone shot at the settlement. No one had dared print it, having now had a taste of Roland’s wrath, but Celia kept it on her desktop for no reason she could name. Emily Roland stood with her back to the camera, looking up into Prince William’s face. He had knelt down to talk to her, and the expression on his face—hardly describable—filled Celia with an emotion perilously close to guilt. It wasn’t very hard to guess how he might have felt about a child whose mother he had dated for three years, even if it was pretty clear by now that she wasn’t his daughter.

But if William was feeling any kind of way about it, he didn’t show it at events. He took over as royal patron of a couple of charities and threw himself into the work. He started showing up at parties and events where he would be expected to be photographed, presenting awards to those not sufficiently important to merit someone higher in the line of succession, going to public goodwill events on behalf of the Queen, making appearances with his brothers, interacting with the public. Most recently, reading to a classroom full of children, looking—according to the internet—like a damn snack. By this time baby Anne of Gloucester had been born, and between a new royal baby and Prince William's newfound enthusiasm for family events, Celia had plenty to write on.

She hadn’t expected to find the Diamond Jubilee very interesting. Prince William had declined to take part in the royal family’s tour of the Commonwealth, for which Celia couldn’t blame him. All the fetes and honors felt exactly the same in every nation; mostly speeches, a few curious crowds, some protestors, and yet more things renamed after the royal family. Ceila had to write about it, because that was her job, but she would much rather have ranked Princess Anne’s baby outfits in order of cuteness again.

She hadn’t expected the celebrations in the U.K. proper to be any more exciting. Good for selling copy, yes, but not exciting. As usual, however, Prince William proved her wrong.

His brothers were staying beneath the royal canopy, as he was himself meant to, but Will had found himself without conscious direction drifting towards the side so that he could keep watching the tall ships moored beyond the Wandsworth Bridge. Even with sails furled they were a stirring sight, an extraordinary reminder of Britain as she once was, in the days of her greatest glory and greatest shame.

But he wasn’t meant to think of such things, really—meant only to exist as a faded reflection of glory, to remind the public of innovation, abolition, and wealth, and not imperialism, slavery, and corruption. He was an extraneous member of a vestigial family, and lucky to be so. Will turned away from the tall ships, moving to join his family under the royal awning.

A commotion was taking place on Lambeth Bridge. The steersman had not yet noticed; the barge continued stately on, despite the line of policemen chasing a strangely bulky shape along the empty bridge. Will looked up, frowning; the nose of the barge was passing under Lambeth Bridge just as one officer, lunging, laid a hand on the figure. Instinct moved him; Will ran for the railing. He was too late. The crowd gasped; the figure on Lambeth Bridge shook off the policeman’s hand and jumped.

He had jumped too soon; the widest part of the barge was not yet crossing under the bridge, and he fell just shy of the rail, his feet scrabbling briefly for purchase and slipping. His momentum tilted him forward, arms pin-wheeling. His head struck the side of the barge with a wet-melon thud. Someone in the crowd screamed as the man fell into the water.

Will had already shed his shoes and jacket and was taking the rescue tube from the side of the vessel. Tharkay, who had been relegated to the lower deck with the rest of the staff, materialized at his side. 

"Throw the rope in after me," he said, and jumped.

The man had not drifted far, in the current, but that was not what concerned Will; the man was plainly unconscious, or nearly so. His head was dipping even with the waterline, and his absurdly heavy clothes would have him under in another heartbeat. Will reached him in barely a single stroke, placed the rescue tube beneath his head. He was aware of a tremendous noise from the banks, but he was focused entirely on the man. He was too heavy to even consider dragging to shore; it was all Will could do to keep him safely pillowed on the rescue tube. The clothes were weighing him down, bulky layers of fabric cut in a strangely old-fashioned way, as if he were wearing a costume.

Something landed in the water, very close to his hand, and Will grabbed for it on instinct. A rope, thrown as promptly as Will might have hoped. He attempted to loop it around the man’s chest, but he was growing heavier by the moment. He couldn’t hold on. He was beginning to grow very weary. The water turned choppy and uncertain, and he was forced to drop the rope. A wave hit him full in the face, and as he blinked the water out of his eyes he saw the approaching boat, one of the many police and rescue boats that were accompanying the Jubilee flotilla. 

Suddenly there were many hands reaching down to cut away the dragging fabric and lift the limp man up out of the water, paramedics immediately beginning their work on him. William accepted a hand up from a second rescue boat that had arrived on the scene. The entire rescue had taken only half a minute, but he was as exhausted as if he had run many miles.

“Thank you,” said Will, to the man who had pulled him out. “In a moment I would have needed rescue myself.”

“We’d probably have been hanged old-fashioned style if that happened, so thank God for small mercies, eh?"

"Will he be alright?" asked Will, looking towards the other boat, now rushing towards the far shore, where an ambulance had already been arranged.

"I wouldn't worry too much about that silly young fart, to be honest,” said another of the crew. “Not sure he had any right to be out protesting when he couldn't even hit the broad side of a barge. Not that you didn't do the right thing, of course," he added hastily, at the look on Will's face. "Now, I can’t quite see my way clear to putting you back on the big boat, sorry to say. Clearance and all. Unless you think you can climb the ladder, son?  Er, I mean, your, er, highness.”

Will glanced up at the royal barge, now stopped dead in the water. Louis was giving him an impressed thumbs-up, but George was making a resigned expression at him; their mother was pressing her face into George’s shoulder, obviously terrified, if she was visibly reacting where the public could see. His father’s expression was only very carefully blank; it promised retribution in his future. His grandmother alone was smiling, seeming to find it all amusing. She waved to Will, very regally, as she saw him look in their direction.

Will, sighing, waved back.

“You had better take me to shore,” he said to the rescue crew. "I’m sure the royal barge isn’t equipped for this scenario, and I may be better off waiting at Clarence House for this all to—”

He stopped. Without so much as a gesture of warning, Tharkay had dived off the edge of the barge and into the Thames, one clean, economical motion, full of grace. He entered the water cleanly and emerged directly next to Will’s boat. Will stared.

“Good morning,” said Tharkay, to the dubious boat crew. “I am Prince William’s personal protection officer, and must stay within reach of him at all times; will you give me a hand up?”

The crew turned to look at him, and Will managed to nod. The noise from the banks as Tharkay was hauled up was deafening. He couldn’t even begin to imagine what they were thinking. He managed words.

“Good God, man, don’t you know what’s in this river?”

Tharkay calmly dried off his hair with a towel handed to him by the boat crew.

“Don’t you?” he asked. “Fortunately, the physicians at Clarence House are excellent, and I’m certain they’ll see us both at once.”

“My cousin fell into the Thames once,” said one of the crewmen, turning the tiller around. “Had boils for a week and then went bald all over, smooth as an ostrich egg. I could shave my moustache by peering into his crystal ball. ‘Course, that was in the 80s. Supposed to be clean now, innit? Porpoises and everything.”

“Thank you, that’s helpful,” said Will. “How did you even know to come to the boat? You might have met me at Clarence House with the others.”

“As unhappy as I must be to disoblige, I had no intention of waiting, as you will apparently fling yourself off boats at the slightest provocation. As for how I knew: I read your lips.”

Will fought to keep on a neutral expression, even as unease coiled in his stomach.

“I see,” he said only, and then, reluctantly realizing that Tharkay was only doing his job, added, “Thank you.”

“You are welcome,” said Tharkay, lips twitching as if he knew that was in Will’s thoughts. Will turned his face away.

It had been like this, these last few months: Will reluctant, reticent, suspicious; Tharkay only incisive and amused. It maddened him. He didn’t know what to do about the knot of uncertainty in his stomach. He had come close to trusting him, in Dover, as he had rarely with anyone he’d met in the past two years. Certainly he trusted him with his physical safety. That was not in question: he had no other choice. Will wasn’t, and had never been, concerned with that.

He had tried not to regret the end of his life in Dover. He had been determined, in fact; it did not take much thought to realize how little he ought to have expected it to last even as long as it had. The only reason he had been given so much freedom to begin with was because his older brothers had still been in school at his age. But whatever freedom of youth he had been given, he had pushed it too far. Of course he had. He had known better than to begin skipping family events, to deny his presence to the media. That had only made them bolder, he had realized; that had to be why they had sought him out in Dover. 

But he wasn’t entirely satisfied, in his own mind, with that explanation. The names of his crewmates at Dover station was publicly available information, and perhaps the media had merely been lucky guessers, to know which of them were Prince William’s particularly close friends. But there was something insidious in the way that Granby, Harcourt, and Berkley had each been targeted, one after the other, and how the jab against Emily had come last, as a sort of coup de grace. The photographer had been in that pub that last night, when Will himself had not intended to go out until the very last minute; perhaps only a coincidence. 

There was a part of him that wanted it to be a coincidence, Will was painfully aware. It was a part of him that had not been allowed to be awake for a very long time—for all his life—and that he had always before been able to suppress. He was afraid that he could not be rational, when it came to Tenzing Tharkay.

The boat crew was gregarious, delighted to find themselves in company with one of Britain’s princes and full of stories about the Thames and old rescues. Will was happy to pose for selfies with them, when they had safely delivered him to the dock where security was waiting for him. They reminded him of his old crew, full of easy rough charm and no manners. He was sorry to leave them behind to be bundled into a security car, where Mr. Randle was waiting. Will prepared himself, but it was not to him that Randle spoke.

"I expected better from you, Mr. Tharkay," he said. "You should have been aware by now how difficult your charge is, and been better prepared."

"I'll concede that perhaps I ought to have anticipated he would throw himself into the Thames," said Tharkay, easily enough. "I'm not sure how I could have prevented it, however, short of jumping in and rescuing the man myself, and I think we can agree that His Highness is better trained for that."

"You needn't talk about me as if I'm not present," said Will coldly. "I did what was necessary in the situation."

"Your Highness, the fact that I have given up on lecturing you about heroism does not mean that I approve. You of all people should realize the dangers of water rescues. Can you really claim that he could not have easily brought you down with him? Allowing the Princess of Wales to watch her son drown to death in front of a million spectators is certainly not in my job description.”

Will pressed his lips together. Randle was right, of course. If the man had not been unconscious, if he had been flailing or resisting, if the current or the wind had been even a fraction stronger, if the boats had been a little slower, Will could easily have been dragged down into the water, and then both of them would have been lost. Everyone in water rescue had a story about rescue drownings. Will knew, better even than Randle, how close-run a thing it had been.

“I can’t answer for what might have happened,” Will said, however. “But that man would certainly have died if I had not intervened.”

Randle met his eyes coolly. “That kind of thing is no longer your business,” he said. “You ought to leave that judgement to the professionals, of which you can no longer count yourself. Your job is to stay alive and to be inoffensive. That is what the British taxpayer has hired you for, so to speak, and that is what it expects.”

“I can promise that no one expected His Highness to stand idly by in any situation,” said Tharkay unexpectedly, while Will sat stiff-jawed. “The British taxpayer knows him that well, I think.”

Randle snorted. “You’re very likely right. I don’t suppose there is any point in forbidding this situation from occurring again; it’s hard to imagine how it would. But the Prince of Wales will decide that.”

They were silent for the rest of the ride. Will's expensive tailored uniform was still dripping water onto the floor of the armored car. Tharkay in his suit was not faring much better, when Will cast a glance over. He had taken off his jacket and shoes to dive into the water, and the white dress shirt he wore underneath had gone nearly translucent, revealing both the kevlar vest he wore underneath and the lean swell of muscle on his arms. His shoulder holster wrapped snugly over the muscles of his back, the butt-end of his pistols gleaming dully against his ribs. Will’s eyes traveled down the length of his legs, down to his ankle, where the clinging fabric clearly revealed the long angular shape of a knife holster.

Will felt his mouth go dry. There was something profoundly uncomfortable about seeing Tharkay with his weapons bared. Tharkay always dressed as nondescript as possible. When they had been in Dover, he had dressed in jeans and canvas jackets, indistinguishable from any other man on the streets. Now that Will was taking on the family duties, Tharkay put on plain black suits. Will was familiar with that uniform; it had surrounded him all his life, and he did not take any more notice of it then he would the furniture. He had never once thought of what might be underneath. It was like realizing that a pet songbird had always been a hawk.

Tharkay turned his head and met his eyes. His hair was still damp; it clung to the curve of his cheekbones. His eyes glittered. He looked, in a word, dangerous.

Will looked away quickly. He pretended great interest in the scene outside the window; Jubilee flags waving, and the streets closed for everyone except official vehicles. Randle was on his phone, giving orders and reports. He had not so much as looked up. 

It was a relief to enter Clarence House, where aides were already waiting with changes of clean fresh clothing. It was a greater relief to be alone. Tharkay had disappeared somewhere into the depths of the staff quarters. Will stepped into his shower gratefully. The water was pleasantly hot against his damp skin, and he was glad to scrub off the grime of the Thames. Dr. Keynes had begrudgingly listened to his lungs at the insistence of the Clarence House staff, and stalked off muttering about hero-complexes and perfectly healthy idiots. Will was forced to assume that meant he had suffered no ill effects.

He stayed longer under the hot spray than he had meant to. He was in no mood to have to face the rest of the Jubilee celebrations, to have to smile through speeches and banquets and toasts with everyone either calling him a hero or watching him mirthfully through the corners of their eyes, or both, by turns. He wanted only to be alone; in his flat in Dover, perhaps, with no staff and no courtiers. Will closed his eyes and envisioned it. Only somehow in his mind's eye there was Tharkay, cleaning his gun on the floor as Will read from the paper. His white shirt was dripping and translucent, and he wore no Kevlar vest beneath. The eyes that looked at him through the black tangled mess of wet hair were gleaming in blatant invitation.

Will opened his eyes, nothing in his vision now but blue shower tiles, but he was still suddenly, shockingly hard. He pressed his hands to his face, trying to fight it down. It was no use. He wanted to pretend that it was Tharkay's hands around him, gripping him, stroking surely up and down with his deft, confident fingers, making him gasp, god, making him beg—

Will turned the shower knob to its coldest setting. He sat down on the tile with his elbows on his knees, breathing slowly into his palms. He was beginning to shiver under the icy water, with cold and self-disgust.

It was wrong, and Will knew it was wrong. His mother had sat down each of her sons as they reached puberty to lecture them against taking advantage of the staff. He could still hear her voice explaining that they were owed more respect because they were paid, not less; she had told him that none of the staff should ever have to choose between their dignity and their livelihood, and Will had always remembered it. He shouldn't feel this way about someone in his employ. He shouldn't even indulge the thought. That was a path he could not go down, and he did his best to remind himself of  that.

It was several long minutes before he felt he could turn the cold water off. He left the shower and toweled himself off quickly, keeping his thoughts as blank as possible.

He kept his phone in a locked drawer next to his bed. He felt the need to unlock it now, and look at it. The groupchat that his Dover crewmates continuously insisted on re-adding him to was filling with texts faster than Will could read them. The general mood seemed to be of amusement. Will smiled to see them, and then he locked the phone away, and put on the clothes that had already been set out for him, to attend that evening's banquet.

The Prince of Wales, as expected, sent for him the next morning. Will avoided looking at Tharkay as he held the car door open for him. He had convinced himself that it was only a moment of madness, but still he felt completely raw. He looked out the window as Tharkay drove the short distance from Clarence House, to avoid seeing his eyes pierce him through the rear view mirror. He almost forgot to be anxious to see his father.

He quickly had reason to remedy his lack of concentration. The Prince of Wales was seated at his desk in his study, reading over some documents. Standing by his desk was Jeremy Rankin, handing him papers for his signature and murmuring something Will couldn’t hear.

Rankin nodded cordially at him as he approached, ever the friendly classmate. Will did not bother to respond. He had long since considered their friendship sundered. They had been in the same house at Eton, in the same year, and so naturally had become close. Will didn't remember the particular incident that had changed things between them; it was more likely the accumulation of small slights and petty torments against the scholarship boys, the local townspeople, and the cleaning staff that had so totally reversed Will's feelings for him, that by the tender age of fourteen he had engaged in a schoolboy brawl with Rankin on the racquetball court. Only the influence of their respective fathers had prevented punishment by the school. He had broken Rankin's nose, Will remembered suddenly; the Earl and Countess of Hatherford had had to fly in an elite surgeon from Seoul to have it reset to their satisfaction.

He rather wished he could do it again now, although he was aware that in this case, Rankin had done nothing to provoke him, and in any case they were a dozen years out of their brawling days. Or should have been, anyway. The look his father was giving him very much made him feel as if he were a misbehaving teen again.

“Not how I would have preferred you to take up your family duties again,” he said acidly. “Did you think that if you were enough of a hero, you might be allowed to escape to Dover?”

Will pressed his lips together.

“No, Father. I have no expectations of returning to Dover ever again.”

“Good. Not that it excuses your actions—”

“My actions saved his life!”

“That is what the police escort is for; it is not for you to fling yourself into the Thames in front of the entire world.”

“In the moment, I felt that I could do nothing less.”

“On the contrary, you could have restrained yourself a great deal more.”

“My restraint would have resulted in the death of an injured young man, a citizen, a Briton—”

“Yes, and an anti-royal protestor,” said his father impatiently. “With a criminal record, engaged in a criminal act, who had only injured himself by running from the police. You might have drowned yourself saving him, and put a black mark on the Jubilee and your grandmother’s 60th year of rule; it was enough of a to-do as it was. You ought to have considered your family first, and this stranger second.”

“I cannot agree with you, Father,” said Will coldly.

The Prince of Wales regarded him with decided disapproval. 

“Leave the room,” he said abruptly. The few aides and guards began filing out, including Tharkay.

“You’ve certainly picked a time to throw a fit,” said his father, once the room was empty. “I would almost wonder who your sources are.”

Will stayed silent, uncertain. His father looked sharply at him, and then nodded once.

“I see. So you merely have an exquisite sense of timing.”

“Father?”

His father looked at him over his steepled hands.

“Your grandmother is stepping down.”

“Oh,” said Will, feeling at a great loss for how to answer. “I mean, I congratulate you, Father.”

He made a sound of great skepticism. “Spare me. I am perfectly aware that the family duties mean little to you. Now that your brother has an heir, however, it is time to begin thinking of the next generation.” He rose and went to stand at the window. “Your grandfather will be going into retirement along with your grandmother. I imagine your great-aunts and uncles will soon follow. Most of my brothers, unfortunately, make Louis look the model of sobriety. You and your brothers are going to have to take on more of the family duties. Now do you understand?”

Will was thinking about his grandfather, who had been sick for some time now with a disease that the family refused to discuss or name. He would be glad to have his grandmother’s company more often. But that did not mean that Will was eager for his father to become King. He had known it must happen soon — Grandmother was well into her nineties — but he had hoped that there would have been more time.

It made no difference, really. He did not think he would be allowed to quietly step back from the fold until George and Elizabeth’s children were grown and ready to assume their duties, and that would not be for twenty years at least.

Will swallowed. “I understand, Father.”

“Then you may demonstrate your understanding in two days’ time. You are being sent to a series of engagements in the north; I think it for the best that you not be in London for the time being. There is a great deal to prepare for with the abdication, and I would thank you not to cause a distraction, if you can find it in you to practice some self-restraint.”

His father had no idea how much self-restraint Will really had. His lungs were bursting with the ugly urge to tell him. But he said, only,

“Yes, Father.”

He left without waiting for the Prince of Wales to dismiss him, letting the heavy door fall shut with a clang behind him. A small group of aides and courtiers were chatting in the hallway outside, waiting for the audience to be over so they could continue their work; they fell silent when they saw his face. Will walked away without saying anything to any of them. 

As usual, Tharkay materialized at his side before he had reached the next corner. He showed no sign of exertion or hurry, only striding alertly at Will's side. His eyes roved from side to side, scanning the hallway ahead. The memory of those eyes on his filled him with a sort of desperate frustration. 

“I suppose you also think I was a self-sacrificial fool,” said Will bitterly. “A would-be martyr that would have been better off on the sidelines. If you too would like to upbraid me for my act, now is the time. You needn’t fear reprisal. I have quite swallowed my lesson.”

Tharkay was unfazed.

“Not at all,” he said, still not looking at him. “I thought it heroic.”

Will looked at him, startled. If Tharkay was being sarcastic, he was hiding it well. Will genuinely couldn’t tell.

A moment passed. Will had no time to think of an answer. There was an aide at the end of the corridor, having apparently been waiting for him to emerge. She approached them at the serene, efficient pace shared by all of his mother’s retinue.

“William?” she said. “Your mother would like to see you, if you have a moment.”

“Of course,” said Will mechanically, although privately he only wished to go home. He did not think he could stand another lecture.

He found his mother by herself, working on a slim laptop at an elegant tea table, a decided contrast to his father with his large square commander's desk covered in papers and surrounded by his retinue of aides. Tharkay had stayed behind the door. Will and his mother were alone. She stood up from her work and looked at him. The light from the window picked out the silver in her hair and the fine wrinkles of her cheek. Faced with her, Will found it impossible to summon the defiance that had come naturally with his father. He couldn't imagine what it might have done to her, if he really had drowned. It was something that he had not wanted to think about, but now he was acutely aware that his mother must have been thinking of little else.

"I'm sorry, Mother," he said, his voice low. “I wasn’t thinking. I didn’t mean—”

His mother walked steadily towards him, her back very straight. She reached out her arms. Will was quite still. He had not yet understood what his mother meant to do before she had pulled him down into her arms.

She was surprisingly strong. Will could feel her clutching tightly at his shoulders, pulling him to her with all her strength, as if she was trying to crush the air out of his body. He stood frozen for a moment, and she hugged him all the more tightly, clinging to him almost desperately.

His mother had not embraced him like this since he was twelve. It was not that she was an unaffectionate parent. Will had always been conscious of her love, freely and bountifully given to him and his brothers; frequent shows of affection made up of long phone calls when they were away at school, kisses on the cheek when they were together, warm words and caresses and entreaties to visit, birthday cards to all of their various girlfriends, meticulous knowledge of the names and troubles of all their friends, small and thoughtful gifts to Emily Roland. Quiet, conscious acts of love. But his mother was always controlled, even more so than his father. She was not given to displays of wild emotion. Will had never seen her weep, had never seen her overcome.

It was strange to realize that she only came up to his shoulder now: she had always seemed to tower over him in memory. He had to bend down to bury his face in her shoulder, as he had done when he was a boy. He hugged her back, carefully.

Her shoulders below his hands were impossibly delicate. They belied the strength in her arms as she pulled away from him slightly. She gripped either side of his face, forcing him to look at her. He found it strangely hard to do.

"William," she said. "I am proud of you."

Chapter Text

It was her habit to be early to meetings at the Palace, which had the double benefit of getting her out of the torture device they called an open-plan workspace and giving her an excuse to snoop. There were all sorts of ne’er-do-wells lounging about the Palace who didn’t want to leave evidence of a phone conversation--generally courtiers pushing their own agenda through the media, but often enough gardeners or cooks who were willing to trade gossip during their smoke breaks. Celia always carried a pack or two in her purse for that exact purpose.

But she didn’t see any of the usual crew in their smoking spots in the courtyard. She did see, however, lounging by the entrance to the garages, Prince William’s bodyguard, the half-Nepali one--she couldn’t immediately remember his name, but she sidled up to him anyway.

“Tenzing Tharkay,” she said, the name coming to her right before she said it, just as she knew it would. “Celia Kim-Davies. How do you do?”

Tharkay eyed her, taking her in thoroughly from head to toe, before apparently deciding she didn’t count as a physical threat. He turned away without speaking. Celia wasn’t deterred.

“That was quite a maneuver at the Jubilee yesterday,” she said, side-stepping into his line of sight. “Some people are calling it heroic.”

No reaction.

“But on the other hand,” Celia continued cheerfully, “some people are saying it’s selfish. You’re in a unique position to comment, what do you think?”

Was that a sigh? A small sigh? Celia couldn’t tell for sure. She supposed a man didn’t become Prince William’s longest-lasting bodyguard by breaking easily.

“Must be frustrating for you,” said Celia, “being charged with the safety of a man who keeps jumping into rivers, running off to Dover, punching photographers. Hard work is never appreciated, is it?”

“Fair enough,” she continued, when he didn’t say anything. “You’ve got your job and I’ve got mine. You want my card?”

“No,” said Tharkay.

“So you can speak! Tell me one thing, then, and I’ll keep it between us. What’s Prince William doing at the Palace?”

“His family lives here,” said Tharkay, dry as the very devil. “What are you doing here?”

“Eight hundred people work in the royal offices,” said Celia, unbothered. “Some of them have occasion to talk to journalists. You know something I’ve always wondered? Don’t you find it awkward bodyguarding a crack shot?”

Tharkay looked mildly interested at this.

“Who?”

“Prince William,” said Celia. “You do know he qualified for the Olympics when he was twenty-one, don’t you? In two different shooting events. People at the time thought he had a good chance of taking the podium.”

“I’ve never noticed any medals,” said Tharkay mildly.

“Gave up his spot, actually, said he didn’t want to take it away from another Briton--you really don’t know this?”

The silent raised eyebrow he gave her served as his answer. Celia said,

"Oh, it was some propaganda thing; the Army asked him to represent them at a few shooting tournaments, and he said yes, like a good soldier. It was great press," she added, which was what she cared about. Clicks had gone through the roof that month.

"I believe I've heard this mentioned, yes," said Tharkay thoughtfully after a moment. He did not elaborate.

Hopefully Celia said, "There were rumors that he quit the Armed Forces because he wanted to go on the front lines and no one would risk it. Any truth to that?”

Tharkay only shrugged.

“Can’t make it easy for me, can you?” Celia complained. “Isn’t there a hapa code or something?”

He finally bared his teeth at that, a very small, fleeting, unfriendly smile, and Celia instantly took the opening to flash her most brilliant smile back. Charm was half her game, even if she suspected that Tharkay was too cynical for it.

“Hard work is never appreciated,” said Tharkay, irony dripping from his voice.

“Oh, burn. You really got me with that one,” said Celia. “You know, I’ve been thinking of doing a profile--a little fluff piece, really--on immigrants in the royal world. What do you think? The only downside, really, is that the royal world is so blindingly white. It’s basically you, me, and Senjuti in Wardrobing.”

“Do you really count as part of the royal world?”

“Insult and deflection, in one! But no, I suppose from your point of view I wouldn’t be on the threat horizon in the least. Your job isn’t to protect Prince William’s heart, after all.”

A strange expression crossed Tharkay’s face. He raised his voice, looking beyond her, and said,

“Your Highness.”

It must have been guilt. Perhaps he had been on the verge of saying something he shouldn’t have, or would say it the next time they saw each other. Celia silently congratulated herself as she spun around.

“Prince William,” she said politely. “Good morning.”

“Ms. Kim-Davies,” said William, a little coldly, she thought. “I hope you’re doing well. Tharkay, we’re going back to Clarence House.”

“Yes, your Highness.”

“I am, your Highness,” she said, and excused herself without bothering him. She didn’t think William was aware of it, but these days Princess Augusta didn't seem to think highly of unapproved media hassling her youngest son, and Celia liked her access to Buckingham Palace right where it was.

But before she left the Palace that day, she already knew she had a story.

FLAMING ROW BETWEEN “HERO” WILLIAM AND DADDY EDDIE

“I saved his life” proclaims military dropout Prince William

Will had plucked the tabloid out of the newspaper bin in his private train compartment out of a sense of amusement. The London Star-Express had always hated him for some reason or another, and he was curious what they had invented this time. The headline had particularly amused him: unusual that they should guess so close to the truth, but nothing to be wondered at. Will and his father were frequently at odds.

By the second paragraph, Will was no longer remotely amused. There was no question that the tabloid had hit upon some version of the truth, beneath the editorializing. A quick glance at the rest of the papers in the bin showed many of the tabloids running similar stories, each with their own particular slant.

He pulled out the entire stack. Most of the articles on the argument had been printed that morning. There was only one magazine that had run the story yesterday. It was the first, and as far as Will could tell, the longest and most accurate, a nearly line-by-line recounting of the argument in full. This was a reporter who had gotten her facts from the source directly. This one was titled, sedately, Argument Between Prince Edward and Youngest Son Sends William North .

He scanned further down the article, but to his relief, there was nothing hinting at the abdication. He hadn’t needed his father to tell him that it was strictly secret. But of course, the abdication had only been mentioned after the aides had been sent out of the room. The aides, and the bodyguards.

Will already felt sick, but he flipped back to the byline anyway.

Celia Kim-Davies.

Will ceased to feel the vibrations of the train. He was floating just outside of his body, quite detached. He organized the tabloids and magazines in a neat pile and then back into the newspaper bin. He could not organize his thoughts nearly so well.

Tharkay had been talking with Kim-Davies the same day of the argument. Kim-Davies had been first to publish on the argument with his father, or at least the parts that had happened before his father cleared the room. Will struggled to draw a line between the two. He had been surprised, admittedly, to see Tharkay and Kim-Davies in conversation. Tharkay had never spoken to a member of the press before. He could still picture them as he had found them, their dark heads tilted slightly towards each other, clearly deep in quick conversation. Will had assumed that they had--that they had been flirting.

He didn't know which was easier to swallow.

Will shook his head to clear it. There had been plenty of others in the room, and it was known that the Palace was leakier than an inflatable dinghy. Kim-Davies was a smart reporter, she would have noticed that new engagements in the north had been put on his public schedule directly following his audience with his father, and he and his father had never gotten on well. It would not have taken much effort on her side to find out the rest. She could have learned it from any of the aides in the room. Some of them, like Rankin, had no reason to like him.

But none of those aides had been at Dover, he could not stop thinking. None of them had known Berkeley, and Granby, and Harcourt, and Emily Roland, who had all been touched by the media...

There was no point in thinking about it. He had nothing but suspicion. It was best not to consider the possibility--but such a resolve would have been easier if Will could entirely convince himself that he had no other reason to not want to suspect Tenzing Tharkay, that he had no ulterior motive to believe him wholly innocent.

He woke up from dreams, sometimes, that featured Tharkay. Will never could remember the details, only vague memories of hands, as gentle as hawk feathers, moving over his body.

It wasn't the dreams he minded. It was the waking world, where he ought to have been in control, that kept him on guard. He was constantly conscious of whether he was standing too close, looking too long, speaking too tenderly. There was always the unthinking urge to touch his hands, his shoulders, his face. It was hard to imagine that they had ever shared a two bedroom flat in Dover. That was perhaps the most convincing reason yet why he could not return there, Will thought with some amusement, although hearing of it would be unlikely to delight his father.

It was at these times that he missed Edith the most. She had known everything about him, and had ever since they had been children. Her calm acceptance, without judgement or insecurity, had been what made Will fall in love with her. In all things, Edith had been his best friend before she broke his heart.

Will wished he could talk to her now. He did not think that she would hold the fact that they had dated as teenagers against him, but it was impossible for other reasons. The press had hacked royal phones often enough that Will did not dare call or text her, and being seen in person with him for any extended period of time would only reignite rumours and make trouble for her at home; Edith was presently engaged to an investment banker, a jealous type by rumor. Will did not at all approve of him.

It was a pity. He could do with her advice right now. She had always thought that he should come out publicly-- maybe not now, she had said, seeing his alarm, but someday. Will was counting down the days until someday. 

The north was beautiful. Will always forgot that somehow. A light rain was descending upon the train station, giving the landscape a silvery hue, and obscuring the peaks of the looming Pennines, making them look greater than they were. He felt the rain touch his face like a cool, gentle hand.

Others on the platform were craning their necks and surreptitiously edging closer, trying to see him more closely. His brother George and sister-in-law Elizabeth might have approached them and made conversation, but Will was in no mood for gawkers. He shoved his hands into his pockets and let Tharkay keep them at a distance. The whistle blew, and Will, like the rest of the continuing passengers, boarded the train to go on to their destination. He entered to find that the serious young aide that Clarence House had sent with him had quietly invaded his private compartment.

“I thought we might take a moment to go over the agenda,” said Ferris, setting a tablet down in front of him. “Do you have an objection?"

Will could have none, of course. The schedule was laid out for him: a new hospital wing dedication in Manchester, an art gallery debut by some countess in York, and then back west to Lancaster, where he would be representing his mother, apparently on the board of some historical society, a guided walk through the Lakes District with the rangers, a fundraiser for a soldier’s charity in Newcastle, and then finally a jaunt to Edinburgh, to tour a few children’s homes in the company of some of the Scottish MPs. It wasn't Will's place to comment on the international politics there, so he didn't.

"A packed schedule for a last minute trip," noted Will. "Allow me to ask. Who would have been sent to do all this if my father hadn't lost his temper with me?"

Ferris shrugged. "Probably Princess Hilda, I suppose. Or the north might simply have had to make do without the royal presence for a while."

"I'm sure they would have gotten by," said Will. 

"There's a few days in between Newcastle and Edinburgh," said Ferris. "I've acquired the tickets you asked for, but is there anything else you'd like to see?"

"I shall leave it to your best judgement on the matter," said Will. "Wait," he added, as Ferris nodded and stood to leave. Ferris hastily sat back down. The Clarence House aides, left to their own devices, tended to schedule him for every lighthouse and maritime museum within a hundred kilometers, as if he were a child with a single obsession. "Ask Mr. Tharkay what he would like to do; I believe he hails from the north.”

Although that wasn’t quite right, Will reflected after Ferris had left. Tharkay had been clear that he didn't come from the north, or anywhere really. For all of their conversations in that flat in Dover, Tharkay hadn't ever talked of home, or his family, except to deny he had any. As far as Will could tell, Northumberland was merely a name on a map to him. Perhaps people, too, were only names on his paychecks.

The train was slowing; they were arriving in Manchester. A car had already been arranged at the station, and it would be waiting there along with additional security mustered from the Manchester police for the day. Clarence House staff would have traveled to Manchester as soon as the tour was put on his schedule, to pave the way and make everything as easy as possible for him. 

This was why he didn't like to travel. In London they were used to the security that the royal family demanded; Londoners hardly batted an eye at motorcades, except sometimes to make rude gestures at them for slowing traffic, and Will, as a youngest son, rarely merited even that much attention. It could all almost be routine, could almost be normal. In London he rarely had anyone other than Tharkay, chauffeuring him from place to place, shadowing him through every door and corner. Here in Manchester there were at least four uniformed officers waiting to escort him from the train, and several others in plainclothes stationed not very discreetly throughout the station. Will took it all in within a moment, stepping down onto the platform. 

"I hope you feel very protected, your Highness," said Tharkay in his ear. "I'm reliably told northerners make the best bodyguards, and I count fourteen of them here."

The warmth of his breath made a tremor go down Will's spine. He stepped away from him, as casually as he could.

"Good morning," said Will, offering his hand to the nearest officer. "I'm Will, it's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

The officer grinned and shook his hand, apparently pleased to be approached. "Captain Thomas Brogan, sir, very good to meet you yourself." His hair was so pale it nearly glowed. “I’ll be taking point on your security while you’re in Manchester; and I hope you will permit me to say, I hope you enjoy your time in the north."

"I'm sure I will," said Will, smiling back. He shook hands with the others in uniform, too, whose names were inexplicably Don, Jon, and Ron. Will was sure that they were having him on, but their faces betrayed absolutely nothing. None of the plainclothes officers evidently wanted their hands shaked, and they were able to make their way out of the station with minimum fuss.

Will had forgotten that Tharkay wasn't driving. Of course he wasn't: he was not familiar with the streets here, the way he was in Dover and London, and the Manchester police would have appointed one of their own to take the wheel. But still it gave Will pause, even though it shouldn't have. They would be sharing a backseat, for the first time since the Jubilee. Tharkay reached the car before him, and opened the door. 

Will forced himself to move smoothly, evenly, towards the car, betraying no hesitation whatsoever. He did not look at Tharkay as he slid into the car, past the door that was being held open for him.

When was the last time he opened his own car door? Probably in the military--that was the last time he had lived without personal security. He had not lived on his own since then, even in Dover.

Tharkay came around to the other side of the car, and let himself in. Will very carefully stared straight ahead.

"Have I offended you somehow?" he asked, as the car began to move. “I thought perhaps you were in a general temper, but you seem to be in a good enough mood for the blond police Captain.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. Tharkay smiled thinly.

“I wonder if it’s the same thing that’s been needling you since we left Dover. Undoubtedly there's some caprice that can be put at my feet. How much longer do you plan on conducting a trial composed of sideways glances? I admit it was amusing at first, but now it grows tiresome."

"I do not intend to discuss it while we are in the north," said Will shortly. 

"Ah," said Tharkay, his eyes glittering. "So there is something."

Will set his face and turned away. His father had all but ordered him to keep a low profile, and he did not imagine that sending his bodyguard packing in the middle of the peaks would qualify.

Not--not that he wanted to send Tharkay packing, exactly. It nagged at him to have a man that he could not trust, certainly, but Will was used to that. He had been surrounded by the untrustworthy since birth--one more could hardly make the difference. He could hardly confront Tharkay of his suspicions without making him feel obligated to quit, in any case.

Will was uneasily aware that he was convincing himself. He could not quite settle into his own skin. The car was too hot, too dry, too small. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Tharkay looking at him contemplatively through half-hooded eyes, his lashes thick and dark. Will closed his own eyes. He could have melted the car windows, in that moment.

It was, he thought, going to be a long fortnight in the north.

Another unpleasant surprise at the Midland Hotel: he and Tharkay were sharing a suite.

It was not substantially different, Will supposed, from the flat they had lived in together in Dover. There was a large sitting area with a large attached bedroom, visible through the French glass doors--his, of course. On the next wall, there was a plainer door that led into the second bedroom, smaller and slightly less grand.

The Manchester police had already ensured the security of the suite, but Tharkay was methodically sweeping it anyway. Laurence could see his silhouette moving through the thin, only barely-opaque curtains that he had drawn over the French doors. It was technically enough to provide his privacy, but still Will felt intensely exposed as he changed for supper. He wondered if Tharkay could see him the way he could see Tharkay. His hands trembled briefly on his buttons. He stilled them, and after a moment he was able to finish dressing.

There was to be a small, private fundraiser tonight for a charity connected with the hospital, and the organizers seemed to believe donations would be substantially increased by his presence. It might well be true, although perhaps for different reasons than they thought; Will was forever running into old friends of his mother at these events, and the mere reminder of her always seemed to open wallets wider.

This evening he found himself across the table from no less than three school chums of hers from their days at Cheltenham. Their reminisces demanded much of his attention.

"Of course, she was Lady Laurence then, technically,” one was saying. “Well, but we just called her Gus, didn't we?"

"That, or Gussy! Oh, she hated that so much. Still calls Marinette up in a huff if the broadsheets so much as hint at the nickname, so I hear."

The ladies all laughed.

"I've a friend named Gus," said Will without thinking, and then paused, surprised at himself. He generally tried not to think too much of his friends in Dover.

"Probably called after your mother, in your generation," said one of them wisely. "A lot of babies in your parents' wedding year ended up with horribly old-fashioned names…"

"Blanche, my dear, you are one to talk! But there, that does make me wonder. William, dear boy, when are you going to give the country another wedding? I could use an excuse to buy a new hat."

"I would not like to marry before my brother Louis has even gotten divorced," Will said lightly. "It is one of his dearest goals in life."

He took advantage of their surprised laughter to turn to the gentlemen sitting on his other side.

"And are you local to Manchester, Mr…?"

"Harold Fletcher-Lee," he said, offering his hand. "And no, we're not, unless you count our summer cottage in the Peaks, which I certainly wouldn't mind doing. Those born and bred seem to have rather strong ideas in that regard, though."

"And who can blame them," said the man on his other side. "Harold's snoring can be heard in Sheffield, it's no wonder we're hated wherever we go. Rico Fletcher-Lee," he said. "The husband. If your brother wants any tips on picking the wrong spouse, tell him to call me."

William looked curiously at them both, as Harold exploded with laughter. He could see their matching wedding rings now, both of them horribly encrusted with jewels. But there wasn't anything ostentatious  in the sly, fond smile on Rico's face, or in Harold's laughter.

"Have you been married long?" he asked.

"Oh, only about a million years," said Harold, recovering. "We had our ceremony before it was legal, you know, and we've considered ourselves good as ever since."

Will picked up the glass. "To your marriage," he said sincerely. "I congratulate you."

They drank more than willingly, and then Rico putting his glass down said,

"Not to admit to lowbrow tastes in my news, but your friend was all over the gay media for a while--the one in Dover,” he clarified, when Will looked blank. “I hope he’s doing well, now? Can't have been easy."

"No," said Will. "--No, it wasn't. John is doing well, however, and he did not seem too badly affected by the media attention." This was an understatement, if anything. Granby had sent him several pictures of the tabloid covers, all framed and decorating his wall. They hung over his toilet.

"Good to hear it,” said Harold approvingly. “I remember when we were young men, that sort of thing ruined you for life.” He winked broadly at Will. “There was certainly no chance that the old English aristocracy would acknowledge you--no matter how rich you were,” he added, in a slightly aggrieved tone.

Will was quiet as Harold and Rico reminisced, looking at their wedding rings, thick with diamonds and rubies. His mother had jewels like those, extravagant gemstones forged in the crucible of tradition. All of that wealth had not bought Harold and Rico acceptance into the highest echelon, and neither could any of it buy Will his way out.

If he were to marry, he thought, he should like only a simple band; something that told the world that they had needed no adornment, nothing more than what existed between them. If he were to marry…

He was quiet on the ride back. Tharkay had not accompanied him to the fundraiser, having judged the security provided by Manchester adequate for the occasion. But he was there waiting at the hotel, falling into place at Will’s side as soon as he exited the car. Whatever spirit of pique had moved Tharkay to confront him earlier had evidently been temporary; they rode up the lift together in silence, and Tharkay retired immediately to his room.

Will settled himself on the couch and watched the news on the television, but there didn’t seem to be a point to it. He remembered a time, only a few years ago now, when the war was the only thing that filled the screen. It was on every front page and was every leading story. He remembered how urgent it had felt then, how viscerally he had felt the need to help his countrymen. And now the war, which had been everything at the time, was not even a memory. Will turned off the television and went to bed.

There was something odd about the suite. The room was in complete darkness, but somehow Will could still see the door that led to Tharkay’s room through the flimsy white curtains, some trick of the architecture making it particularly prominent from the master bedroom. Will was strangely aware that he could walk through his own doors, past the sitting room, and into the room where Tharkay slept. Tharkay would wake immediately, but even in the dark he would know who it was that had crept into his bed, and his hand would reach for Will’s face--

Will sat upright, furious at himself. After a moment to collect himself, he rummaged through his personal belongings for his phone. It was obvious he was not going to sleep anytime soon. He thumbed open the groupchat app.

J.Granby: Just learned that gus sleeps with his feet off the edge of the bed like??? that's how the devil gets ye

charcourt: jesus we get it you have sex congrats

J.Granby: don’t act like ur not getting it all night from ur sailor frienWILLIAM YOU PRICK I KNOW YOU’RE HERE

J.Granby: WE HAVE READ RECEIPTS UP IN HERE I KNOW YOU’RE SEEING THIS

J.Granby: IF YOU DON’T TYPE SOMETHING RIGHT TF NOW I WILL DRIVE TO BUCKINGHAM AND GET MYSELF SHOT BY HTE QUEEN

alittlegust: yes but which queen

Will sighed, caught.

will: Yes, I’m here. Hello. I hope you are all doing well.

charcourt: who taught you how to text, damn

Tyler.Warren: What’s wrong with typing grammatically?

chenergy: hu has time 4 dat neway will how r u ????

berkberkberk: My god do I feel old

berkberkberk: Will, I suppose you don’t know. John here made my screen name and I’ve no idea how to change it. But yes how are you doing old chap?

will: I am doing fine. I’m sorry that I don’t have much time to chat these days. 

berkberkberk: Who has time to keep up with these youngsters. Sipho, Demane, Gerry say hallo. Going to bed now. Must fix garden fence tomorrow. Good talk.

will: Tell them I say hello, too. Good talk.

J.Granby: I feel fifty years older just reading this exchange. 

J.Granby: When are you coming back to Dover:? for a visit

Will put the phone down. It wasn’t the first time he had been asked; he didn’t want to admit out loud that he might not come back for some time.

He picked the phone back up and opened a private chat with Granby.

will: Can I ask you something?

J.Granby: you know you can. What is it?

Will’s fingers stuttered on the keyboard. He typed out how did you know to come out and then rapidly erased it. He typed out I think I’m in and deleted it before he had even finished the thought.

will: Nevermind. Sorry. Good night.

The art gallery was extraordinarily crowded, women and men in sparkling cocktail attire laughing and milling while servers with precariously balanced trays swerved through the crowd. Frankly, Will was concerned for the art pieces; some of them did not look as though they would survive a wayward hors d'oeuvre, although privately he did not think any of them were very good. He was deep in contemplation of one anyway, hoping to stave off conversation through his newfound appreciation of art. The canvas was a dull, foggy grey, throughout which darker lines just barely hinted at differentiation, a subject. Will squinted, trying to make it out. He felt someone brush lightly against his arm and move quickly away. Tharkay stiffened beside him.

"I'll return shortly," he said, low and tense. He was gone before Will could speak to stop him. Will shook his head; he did not think a passerby brushing against him in a crowded room merited special attention. He turned back to the painting, grey-on-grey-on-grey suiting his mood.

"It's a bit of a Rorshach's test, you know," said the voice of his host, Lady Burke. Will turned to her with a ready smile.

“Is that so? What do people see most often, then?”

“Mountains, sometimes. People. Horses. I had someone yesterday who claimed to see sheet music."

"Sheet music? Really?” He turned back to the painting, tilting his head. “I’m afraid I don’t see it, but it’s an extraordinary work of art.”

“Yes, I know,” said the countess complacently. “I believe that which people see in the mist reflects them more than the art, however. I have merely created the mirror. Tell me what you see, and I can tell you who you are.”

Will didn’t see anything resembling mountains and horses. He stared at it. Only one thing came to mind.

"I see a face," he said.

Lady Burke smiled at him. "I think that means you're in love."

Tharkay emerged from the crowd, turning his mouth close to Will's ear.

"Your Highness, I believe you should make your excuses," he said. “The security here has been compromised.”

“Lady Burke, I’m afraid I must call it a night,” said Will immediately. “I thank you for the pleasure of touring your studio, and I wish your art gallery the greatest success.”’

“Oh, you mustn’t leave before you’ve talked to Walter,” said Lady Burke, in alarm. “I’ll go and fetch him at once, won’t take a minute--”

“That won’t be necessary,” said William, but Lady Burke was already gone.

“I don’t recommend waiting for her to come back,” said Tharkay as he listened to his earpiece. “The car will be ready very shortly, and we should not keep it waiting.”

“Very well. One thing, before we go,” said Will, on a sudden impulse, “what do you see in this painting?”

Tharkay glanced over without much interest.

"It's a portrait," he said. "I’m afraid it's not very good."

In the car Tharkay slid into the backseat beside him, rapping sharply at the glass to tell the driver to start moving. He reached into his pocket, and pulled out--Will’s phone.

Will foolishly grabbed at his pocket, where it ought to have been. It was empty, of course.

“Where did you--” Understanding dawned. “Someone picked my pocket.”

“I suspect they planned to clone it and return it to your pocket, undetected. I don’t believe they got any farther than taking it, but I wouldn’t advise that you use this phone again. Ferris assures me that he can dispose of it securely.”

Will’s stomach churned. He had come so close to spilling his soul to Granby a couple of nights ago. He put his head into his hands, even conscious as he was of Tharkay looking at him.

“Who did this?” he asked, after a moment. “Did you find out?”

“The thief was no one from the media that I recognized,” said Tharkay thoughtfully. “I suspect he was either a hired professional or a freelancer. The local police took him to their station, but of course I couldn’t let them have the phone for evidence, and he was careful not to take anything else. I suspect they’ll let him go.”

Will sat back against his seat, thinking. The one time he had brought his phone to a public event--he was usually so careful of it, but he and Granby had been chatting sporadically throughout the day. It was the most he had talked with anyone from Dover since he had left. How had they known he would have his phone? Was it merely a lucky guess?

He closed his eyes. Images of chatlog screencaps in the daily tabloids floated through his mind. It wouldn't happen, he tried to tell himself firmly. No one would print excerpts from commoner friends of Prince William, when he hadn't even seen them for over a year and barely talked to them...But then, he had been surprised before.

"I'll have to call everyone tonight," he murmured to himself. "And warn them…" 

“You had better get some rest tonight, your Highness,” said Tharkay. His voice was low and soft. “From here we go to Lancaster tomorrow.”

“And then to the Lakes, and then to Newcastle, and then to Edinburgh. I remember,” said Will tiredly. “Was Manchester only two days ago?"

"And London is only two weeks away," said Tharkay. He paused. "And then, of course, you can get rid of me."

Will's eyes flew open.

"Get rid of you?" He tried to keep his voice level, did not quite manage it.

"Yes," said Tharkay. "Quietly, in London, so you can avoid angering your father. You have a reputation for cycling through bodyguards; no one will think it remarkable that another one is gone."

Tharkay wasn't just another bodyguard. He should have been, but he wasn't. Will took in a steadying breath.

"May I ask why you wish to leave?" he asked.

Tharkay let out an astonished sound. It was almost a laugh.

"Your Highness, I expected you to be relieved! I am used to not being trusted by my employers. Usually they are glad to be rid of me. You, however, must take your pleasure in torturing yourself. Do you really prefer to have a bodyguard you neither like nor trust?"

"I might have done both of these things," said Will. "I might have, if you did not purposely set yourself at a distance from the moment we met. You know everything about my life, and I know nothing about yours."

"I do not choose to bare my soul to my employers,”  said Tharkay, with a sardonic smile. “And if I did, you would undoubtedly regret seeing it.”

“I don’t think you bare your soul to anyone,” said Will, quick and furious. “I think you prefer to be distrusted, so that you can have the pleasure of being martyred."

Tharkay's smile faded into a thin line.

“That may be so, but you needn’t think you will be the exception.”

By the time they had reached Newcastle, Will had gotten very tired of train travel.

The landscape was beautiful, of course. Just two days ago they had ascended the peaks of the Lake District, the beauty of the water and the English countryside spread out beneath them. But although the park rangers and even the media crew, with their hefty camera equipment, were in high and laughing spirits, Tharkay said not a word the entire walk.

Will had tried to apologize. He had had no right to demand Tharkay's reasons for leaving. But Tharkay had cut off his attempts at their head.

"There is no point, I assure you," he remarked. "You need not think I am so desperate for your apology as to accept it."

The chilliness between them was now palpable. Ferris, frowning, had picked up on it, and was looking in between them uneasily, as if he were not sure who could be trusted less to make a scene. It was in that atmosphere that Will and his retinue entered the Newcastle Wounded Heroes Gala.

They were, as intended, neither early nor late, but ideally timed for maximum effect; guests who had arrived earlier than attended, to bask longest in the reflected glow of royalty, milled towards him. Will shook hands and posed for pictures, his smile never faltering. He had been to a thousand such engagements, and could go through the motions largely disengaged from them. His last-minute addition to the gala meant at least that he would not be expected to give a speech, thank God.

Will had somehow gotten entangled into a circle of local politicians; he gave them every evidence of listening intently. George probably would have known the issue they were discussing, and would have an informed, carefully apolitical opinion to add; Louis would have effortlessly turned the conversation to something that better interested him. Will was less suited for his duties than either of his brothers, he knew: it had long been a source of contention between himself and his father. 

He was grateful when the president of the veteran's charity broke in, bringing a young man in uniform behind him.

“Gentlemen, may I introduce you to one of our wounded heroes? Peter here has been a real credit to our project. He’s a walking testimonial to the good that your contributions can do.”

“Well, sometimes I hop, sir,” said Peter, pulling up his uniform leg to reveal a prosthetic.

While the men shared an uncomfortable laugh, Peter turned to Will and stretched out his hand, entirely counter to protocol. Will took it with enthusiasm. 

“It’s a real honor to meet you, sir, it really is,” Peter said eagerly, pumping Will’s hand up and down. Ferris cleared his throat, very discreetly, but the young man seemed to realize what he was doing, and drew his hand back abashed. 

“Likewise,” said Will, smiling at his earnestness. “My friends call me Will, and you?”

The young man practically vibrated into attention.

“Lance Corporal Peter Ericksson, sir! Er, but you can call me Pete if you like. It’s not like I’m on duty. Or, er, even in the military anymore.”

“Peter went on two tours in Afghanistan,” explained the charity president. “Bravely defending Queen and country, as they say. Won the Military Cross for courage under fire--we’re very honoured to have helped him walk again. You see, the military hospital in Birmingham simply couldn’t provide the kind of physiotherapy Peter needed--”

The man launched into a clearly pre-rehearsed monologue, while the politicians murmured disparaging remarks about the NHS at each other. Will turned to Pete, who seemed far more interested in his glass of red wine.

“Where were you stationed?” Will asked. “I flew supply transport at Fort Bastion for a short period of time.”

“Oh believe me, I know,” said Pete. “That gossip was all over the barracks.”

Will’s mouth twitched. “I believe it was meant to be top secret.”

“Yeah, that’s how we knew it was true. Are you even military if you don’t believe everything you hear, though?”

Will laughed in what felt like the first time in days.

“Are you enjoying the gala?” he asked, with a doubtful glance at the president

“Beats playing Call of Duty all day, dunnit? And they feed me.”

“Better than MREs, I take it?”

“Christ alive, it’s been two years, and I still can’t get that taste off my tongue…”

Pete was talkative, and happy to tell Will about his life; he worked in stocking at a local Tesco and lived with his mother, so that his paychecks went mostly to his once-monthly skydiving habit; he was Newcastle born and raised.

“I’ll show you around town, if you haven’t a guide already,” Pete offered at one point, without any hint of awkwardness or obsequiousness; this naturally led Will to say that he was already attending the Newcastle United game the next day and, when Pete’s eyes lit up, offer to bring him.

“We reserved the box, so that shouldn’t be an issue,” said Ferris resignedly. “I’ll have a car pick you up.”

“So you follow footy, do you? What’s your team?”

“I don’t have one,” said Will honestly. “I generally don’t follow sports at all--but I have a friend from Newcastle, and I intend to make him jealous.”

Pete looked at him with new respect. “Friends with a Newcastle lad, are you? You’re alright.”

Will was regretful to give him his farewells; there was an entire list of people that Clarence House had for him to talk with, however, and Ferris was already looking anxiously at his watch.

The next day was ideal weather for a match. The crowd murmured and cheered as he entered the box; not as loud as they had for their star defender, but quite a bit louder than for their underperforming striker. Pete, next to him, was looking in every direction at once; he was a little hungover from the gala, perhaps, but seemingly in good spirits. He wasn’t shy about his past, when Will asked; the charity had helped procure his physiotherapy and upgraded him to a higher class of prosthetics than the ones he had been provided. He felt some obligation in return to help with their fundraising efforts, and didn’t particularly seem to mind being paraded like a rescued stray. 

"Oh, they like a few of us with metal parts to show up," said Pete unblushingly. "Helps open the wallets, you know. I don't mind at all, I really don't; if me missing parts can get people to help some of my brothers, you know, the ones that are really suffering, then I'm proud to do it, I really am."

He had lost his lower leg and hand in a firefight in Helmand Province. “Best day of my life,” he said, a reminiscent gleam in his eye. “Under heavy fire, right, but I crawled up onto the hill and lined up a wicked good shot, blew up their outpost--I was riding so high I didn’t even realize I was wounded until I woke up in the hospital. But I wouldn’t be saying this in public, no one wants to hear from a non-traumatized vet, yeah?”

“I don’t mind,” said Will honestly. “I like talking to soldiers.”

“Well, you were a soldier, too, at that, weren’t you? You get it. We get bored, we get diarrhea, we get blown up, we get fucked by command, and then we get bored again. Of the options, getting blown up is sometimes the good one. Uh, sorry. Language. Mam would scrub my mouth out.”

“And in front of an officer, too,” said Will, grinning. “I should confine you to quarters.”

Pete grinned back. "You're a real one, aren't you?" he said. "With most posh types it's all, thank you for your sacrifice, blah blah blah. Going on about my service. But then, you properly inspired me, you know. When I saw you had joined up, and you being a prince and everything, I thought the least I could do was the same."

Will paused. "You enlisted because of me?"

"I mean, it wasn't as if there were better jobs lying about. But yeah, it was definitely a push in the right direction, if you like. Oi, shoot the bloody ball! Shoot it!”

Newcastle’s striker missed spectacularly. The crowd hissed. Will had a momentary vision of Granby’s agonized face; he was sorry, in that moment, that he could not see it. His hand drifted to his pocket a moment before he realized that his phone was not there.

Will was silent. Pete, screaming himself hoarse at the opposing side’s relentless counterattack, did not seem to notice. Finally he dropped back down into his seat, disgruntled.

“I’m sorry,” said Will finally. He didn’t seem to know what else to say. 

“Don’t be, our management has sucked arse for bloody years now--”

“No--I’m sorry for the war. I’m sorry that you enlisted. I’m sorry I had any part in it.”

Pete turned to look at him. He raised his hand to his head, a gesture of confusion. Will could see the waxy plastic skin gleaming.

“But I loved being a soldier,” said Pete blankly. “Why should you be sorry?”

"You spent time in the front lines," said Will, later, on the train going north.

Tharkay didn't even look up. "I did, yes."

"Did you know many men like Lance Corporal Ericksson? Soldiers who enjoyed their time in combat?" 

"Adrenaline is a drug like any other. It has its addicts. Personally, I never had much use for it."

"I--I see."

Tharkay turned the page of his book. "I hope you do not think of it too much," he said coldly.

"How can I not?" Will said, low. He knew that Tharkay did wish to hear of it, did not want to be his confidant, but he could not stop himself. “That boy is 22 years old, and he will carry those wounds for the rest of his life. At least part of the fault must be mine. He would not have been on the battlefield if not for me.”

“It is a touch late for regret,” said Tharkay. "Or did you think blind patriotism was a substitute for forethought?"

"You think so little of our military--" Will began hotly.

“You would think so, too, if your comrades in arms, your so-called brothers, refused to accept you, if they jeered at you to your face, if you were forced to fight, at once, the war against Britain’s enemies and the contempt of your own unit, if you were regularly accused of being a traitor and a spy, for the crime of your face and your name!”

This gave Will pause. Tharkay had spoken with a fervor that he had never seen in him. 

“Tenzing is a Nepali name, not Afghani, as I understand it,” he ventured, after a moment of thought.

“You have a very high opinion of Britain’s soldiers to think that they understand the difference,” said Tharkay.

“Sir, that is enough,” said Will sharply. “I have never brooked any criticism of Her Majesty’s Armed Forces to be made in my hearing by anyone, and you are no exception.”

“And if they deserve to be criticized?” said Tharkay. “What reason do I have not to doubt you, when you make such blind defenses of what you know to be wrong?"

Will stilled.

"I can't," he said. "I can't--I am not permitted to, to criticize, to speak against, nothing could be more ungrateful, or less welcome, I am not--I am not my own person," he said, struggling to explain, "I was born into this duty, to this duty I have to the state, and in exchange it gives me everything; I cannot--I have my duty."

"We are none of us born into duties," said Tharkay, low, and Will realized that he was furious. "It is not my duty to endure the taunts of my countrymen, and it is not yours to overlook it.”

There came a tapping at the compartment door, and Ferris entered, looking hassled.

“We’re approaching the station, Highness. Tharkay, we were able to acquire the cars, but--” He hesitated.

“Whatever your bad news is, I won’t faint upon hearing it,” said Tharkay bitingly.

“The security that was supposed to arrive from Scotland has been held up,” said Ferris. “We won’t be seeing them until we reach Edinburgh.”

Tharkay was silent.

“Where are we stopping?” asked Will. “I had been under the impression that Edinburgh is our next destination.”

“You asked me to see if Mr. Tharkay had a destination in mind,” reminded Ferris. “He expressed a desire to see Berwick-Upon-Tweed. I had arranged for additional personal protection officers so that he might have the day off while we toured the coast. I’m sorry to say that is not to be.”

Beneath them, Will could feel the train beginning to slow. The town name was familiar to him; Tharkay had once named it as the town where his father had been born. He had said it was merely an accident of geography.

“It hardly matters,” said Tharkay coldly. “I am happy to accompany his Highness down the coast. I hear it is particularly beautiful this time of year.”

“Can you not go anyway?” said Will. He looked at Ferris. “If I were to stay within our lodgings for the duration--” Ferris was already shaking his head.

“We have no other personal protection officers with us,” said Ferris.

“None?” said Will sharply

Ferris flushed and mumbled something about budget restrictions and taxpayers.

“This is ridiculous,” said Will. “Tharkay has a right to a personal visit.”

“Don’t you worry yourself over it,” said Tharkay. His eyes were flashing. “I will have plenty of time in the future for personal visits.” It was a reminder Will didn't need, that Tharkay would leave him as soon as they reached London.

“I do apologize,” said Ferris, sounding as if he meant it. “But Mr. Tharkay must accompany you.”

“Then it’s decided,” said Tharkay shortly. “Let’s not speak on it any more--”

“What if I went with you?” Will blurted out.

Will determinedly did not look at Tharkay. Ferris seemed uncertain.

“Well--you’re not officially expected anywhere--I suppose that as long as he’s with you--”

“Then it’s settled,” said Will. “You can have your personal visit, Tharkay, as promised.”

“How magnanimous,” said Tharkay, still very cold. The train had stopped. “Shall we go, then? I expect they will be waiting for us to descend the car first.”

The station had indeed been emptied for their arrival, except for the mayor and the town council, who all insisted on greeting Will formally, although they had been told that the retinue were merely switching vehicles here. Will went through the formalities with an enormous sense of disconnect. Tharkay was a cold presence at his shoulder. Will didn't know what he had wanted. He knew Tharkay better than to expect gratitude, and he wouldn't have wanted it. 

They reached the cars. Will shook hands with the mayor and the town council, and Tharkay held the car door open for him, as he had done many times before. In a few days it would be someone else doing this. Someone else would be standing at his shoulder, guarding his sleep. After so many months of suspicion, it should have been a relief. Will didn't know why it wasn't.

Tharkay got behind the wheel, and the car pulled away in silence. Will watched the village of Berwick-upon-Tweed pass by outside the windows; ancient stone walls and gardens with tomato plants overflowing their trellises, women walking arm-in-arm outside the used bookstore, the river Tweed, dipping in and out of view as the road turned and twisted. And then, startlingly quickly, the town gave way to green fields and ocean.

Tharkay was right. The coast was exceptionally beautiful here. Billowing fields of wild sea-grass gave way abruptly to rocky cliffs, and the ocean threw itself against them over and over again. Sea birds floated high above, white against the overcast sky; the clouds had been threatening to burst all day, and Will did not think they could avoid the storm much longer.

Their car followed the main road for a several miles, past signs for seaside golf clubs and boat tours, before turning onto a road so faded and unused that Tharkay must have known where it was by heart. Hedges grew on either side, so close that the car could not have turned around. After a moment, looking closely, Will realized that beyond the hedgerows was an apple orchard, worn down and untended, trees twisting out of their neat rows, fruit rotting on the ground. The car turned; the hedgerows disappeared, and Tharkay pulled into an open field, driving quite carelessly over unpaved ground and scattered apples. There was a house up on the opposite hill--but Will had not time to do more than glimpse it. They made another turn around a shaded copse of trees. Beyond them were a set of gravestones, rising blankly out of the grass. Will realized that this was a family cemetery--Tharkay’s family cemetery. This was what he had wanted such privacy for.

Tharkay came around, as he always did, and opened the door. Will swallowed. He could scarcely bring himself to look him in the eyes.

"I can give you privacy," Will offered.

"I cannot leave you alone in the car," said Tharkay curtly. “Even in such a godforsaken place as this.”

Will came out of the car. He felt almost meek. He walked only as far as the end of the car, so that Tharkay could still see him easily, and turned his back. 

The cemetery was at the top of a hill; from his vantage point Will could see the ocean. A patch of sunlight had broken through the overwhelming clouds and was shining down on the water. It felt very far away.

Tharkay said nothing to the graves, offered no prayers or sentiments. He occasionally let out a small grunt of effort, but was otherwise silent. After a moment Will heard his footsteps approaching. He turned, but Tharkay only walked past him and opened the boot of the car, withdrawing a brush, as one would use to sweep leaves off the windshield. He returned to the graves--to one grave in particular, Will realized, and used it to sweep off the tattered remnants of weeds and wild plants that had infiltrated the gravesite. He had been pulling them up out of the ground. Tharkay glanced up, and caught him looking.

“My father,” he said, gesturing at the tombstone. There was no epitaph, only the name THOMAS WATT and the years of his life. “No need for condolences,” he said, cutting Will off. “I believe I have seen his grave more times than I have seen him in person. I must confess that I do find him a nearly ideal father, in his way.”

“And your mother?” Will ventured, after a second.

“I imagine her ashes have long since settled to the bottom of the Bagmati river,” Tharkay said, without inflection. He stared at Will. “Were you eager to be in the front lines?” he asked abruptly.

“What?”

“In the war. You once told me you had left the military because you were being used as a recruitment tool. I want to know if you were telling me the truth, or if you had left because you had wanted more glory than you were given.”

“There’s no glory in combat,” said Will sharply. “You fought; you ought to know that.”

Tharkay’s eyes glittered. “I knew many men who disagreed.”

“No,” said Will. “I never saw combat.”

“A pity. I understand you might have been an outstanding sniper.”

“It’s not in my temperament to be a sniper,” said Will, as calmly as he could.

"I've learned that one can learn the temperament to do anything, given enough incentive."

"And what incentive was enough for you?" asked Will, his temper flaring. "What sum was enough for you to sell me to the press?”

Tharkay looked at him sharply. “I beg your pardon?”

“You called the press to Dover, and you leaked the details of my meeting with my father. You knew I would have my phone on me at the art gallery for the pickpocket to find, when I normally leave it in the safe. Who else was present for all of these occasions? Who else could it have been?”

“So this is what all of those sideways glances have been for. How disappointing.”

“Have you nothing else to say for yourself?”

Tharkay breathed out slowly, a long hiss.

"If I wanted to make my fortune," he said, low and cutting, "there are more ways for men like me to earn dirty gold than you can even conceive of."

Will didn't know what that meant, or how to respond. Tharkay's eyes were narrowed--Will saw genuine and unmasked anger there, for the first time he could remember.

"I speak seven languages. I've been in warzones. I've hunted Britain's enemies on foot, in their own territory, alone. There are things I've done for Britain's wars that I won't speak of, but believe me, your Highness, my resume is long. There are warlords in every corner of the globe that would pay a ransom for my services, and some of them are quite a bit richer than your family, and their fortunes nearly as honestly made. And you think I have been selling gossip to the press? For money?"

“The blood on your hands doesn’t impress me--”

“The blood on my hands? Mine?” He held up his long, brown fingers. “You should consider whether yours are entirely clean.”

Will stiffened. “I know they aren’t.”

“Do you? Then why don’t you face it, instead of being a good soldier!”

They were silent for a moment, and then Tharkay shook his head. “I’m done here. If you would get into the car, your Highness, we can leave.”

“Wait.”

Tharkay only looked at him.

“I was wrong,” said Will. He swallowed. “Earlier, what I said then. You gave me the gift of your honesty, and I was thoughtless with it. It was my reflex to defend the wrong people, when it ought to have been to understand you. I was wrong to try to defend the indefensible. I am sorry for it.”

A look of absolute surprise dawned on Tharkay’s face. “Are you?” he asked. He scanned Will’s face, seemingly perplexed by whatever he saw there. “I admit I had not expected this. You seem singularly attached to the military.”

“There was a time in my life when it was the only place that I could be more than a child, to be protected and coddled by the state all the hours of my life,” Will said. Tharkay said nothing, and he continued. “The independence was intoxicating. A strange kind of independence, when I was told when to eat, sleep, how to make my bed and fix my uniform--but independence nonetheless, of a kind I had not had before. I was blind to the evils. I was blind to the price my freedom had--paid not by myself but by others. You were right. I ought to have known better than to believe I could serve Britain without helping to feed young men to her unfounded wars, and I ought to know better now than to blindly defend what I know to be wrong. I thought I was being a soldier like anyone else; instead I was recruiting others to go into the kind of danger I would never myself be allowed to be exposed to.”

He looked up. Tharkay was staring at him, his expression strangely uncertain.

“I have been unfair to you,” said Tharkay, at length. “I of all people have no right to criticize others for naivety. You are far from the only one who had to be cured of childish dreams."

“After all this, you are more than in your right to remove yourself from my presence,” said Will. “I am ashamed of myself, and my conduct towards you. But I must know. Why? Granby, Jane, Emily--they had done nothing to you. You could have filled the papers with stories about me, and it wouldn’t have mattered. But Granby was publicly outed, and Little nearly so. Jane is a woman in the RAF who had her private affairs splashed over the news. The damage to her career must be incalculable. I will never see Emily again--” Will managed to keep his voice steady, “--but she will grow up knowing her face was on the cover of tabloids for strangers to see. What that does to a child--” he stopped. “I know you didn’t do this for money. That was always abundantly clear. So why? Did you hate me so much, all along?”

Tharkay said,

“I don’t hate you, Will.”

Will stared. The corner of Tharkay’s mouth tugged up slightly. “And I never sold you to the press.”

It was the simplest denial imaginable, no alibis, no explanations. There was nothing there that Will should have believed--and yet Will did believe it, entirely. He didn’t know why. He only knew, somehow, that Tenzing Tharkay was not a liar. Aloof, sardonic, secretive, but not a liar. Will knew it from the pit of his body.

He sat down with a thump in the grass.

“Then I am doubly ashamed,” he said. “I willingly thought the worst of you, when you have never shown me anything but steadfastness and courage.”

“You are not writing a letter of reference for me, so do give me some credit for provoking you.” Tharkay cocked his head at him. “It's an old habit of mine. I must admit that I hadn't expected your response."

Will shook his head. "I should have paid closer attention to your actions, rather than the things you would or wouldn't say. I've acted poorly." He worked through the knot in his throat. It was hard to lose a good man, having finally found one. Many hours of practice before the media allowed him to speak without his voice trembling. "We will reach London soon, and the end of our journey together. Allow me to say, that now I have finally seen your character, that I will be sorry to see you leave."

“You know,” said Tharkay consideringly, as if commenting on the weather. “Your mother said you might do this.”

“--I beg your pardon?”

“Not this specifically. She thought you would do your best to push me away. She mentioned a complex you have that makes you hateful of receiving protection, or in any way treated as though you deserved safety more than anyone else. I was forewarned of the lengths you would go, and still it very nearly worked."

“How on earth does my mother come into this!” demanded Will, ignoring the rest.

“You already knew she hired me. She takes an active interest in you; I don't know if it's as true as they say that you're her favorite, but you certainly give her the most trouble."

Will scarcely knew how to respond to this outrageous portrait of himself. Tharkay continued on, overriding his attempts to interrupt.

“Your mother has a particularly deft understanding of human nature," he said. “She found me when my faith in Britain was at its lowest point, and offered me a job protecting one of Britain’s living symbols.” He smiled thinly at Will’s expression, hearing this. “Yes, I do mean you. Perhaps I was still a romantic child at heart, idealizing his absent father’s country, still the wide-eyed boy who renounced Nepalese citizenship to enlist in Britain’s military. I took the job, and now here I am.”

Will looked at him steadily. “I am sorry to have failed you.”

"Well, you haven't yet."

Will stiffened. "You mean--"

"If I have this correct, the reason you have distrusted me is because you believed me to be talking to the media, and the reason I intended to leave was because you distrusted me. Now you and I both know the truth; what reason do I have to leave?"

Will could think of every reason, but for the moment he could only stare. Tharkay had spoken lightly, even jauntily, but the expression in his eye was oddly solemn. Will got slowly to his feet, and then began to smile.

"If you are willing to give me another chance, I can only try to be worthy of it," said Will earnestly. "I would like us to start again, and I hope we will be better to each other than we have been before.”

Will held out his hand, but Tharkay only looked at him. The way his eyes searched into his face made his heart pound wildly, but Will managed to keep his face still, and his hand outstretched.

"I warn you,” said Tharkay, “I'm not very good at keeping people in my life. But I suppose that if you are willing, then I cannot refuse you." He took Will’s hand. "So. Shall we be friends?"

Tharkay's hand was more callous than flesh, but it was warm and lean and it gripped his own hand firmly. Will was vividly aware of how much he wanted to kiss Tharkay, at that moment.

"Yes," he said. "Let's be friends."

Chapter Text

It was shaping up to be a lovely reception, all told, and it gave Celia a decent excuse to look very good in her green silk number. Plus, free food. It was odd that the public always seemed to think journalists could be bought with money when there was free food already lying about absolutely everywhere. Celia stuffed another dumpling in her mouth and looked around.

The Nepalese embassy was on a fashionable address, but it had a rather less fashionable lack of funds. But this was an event in honor of the new ambassador to the United Kingdom, technically the only thing an embassy had to actually do , socially speaking. So they had shelled out for a band, decor, catering, lighting that was good but not good enough to highlight the cracking plaster on the walls. There was a moderately good turnout. Socialites, a few MPs, a Nepalese-British singer who had won one of those competition shows recently. And of course, Prince William.

He was keeping a low profile, chatting quietly with some of his old friends from Eton. Edith Galman was here, too, on the other side of the room; her fiance had business interests in Kathmandu. Celia kept hoping they would drift close enough to each other to appear in the same photo, or if they really wanted to make her day, have a conversation. But no such luck; they were both old hands at this, and were cordially ignoring each other. Celia would just have to get creative about what counted as a "longing glance" later, when she was writing the article.

The ambassador had been making his way around the room, being introduced to various politicians and fellow diplomats. Celia watched with idle interest as one of William's school friends, currently in the Foreign Service, gestured Ambassador Suman over. The reception would be done in a couple hours, and then she could pour herself some wine and watch Netflix until bed, provided William didn't do anything so unexpected she would have to write something on it immediately. That was the nice thing about him, he kept one guessing.

He didn't do anything too shocking, this time. He and the ambassador shook hands, bowing slightly, and then William spoke to the ambassador, fluidly, in Nepali.

Celia’s surprise was mirrored in the ambassador’s face, but Suman seemed considerably more delighted. He began to speak to William in slow Nepali, in what Celia recognized as the talk-to-the-white-person voice. William answered back, a little more haltingly, and then broke off into English to apologize.

“No, no, you’re very good!” said Suman unconvincingly. “It’s always a pleasure to be greeted in one’s native tongue, no matter the skill level.” They traded a few more pleasantries, posing for pictures together, and then they moved on. Suman went on to the next group of people to be introduced to, diplomats less famous but probably considerably more useful than younger royalty, and Prince William went to the drinks table.

Before he could get there, his bodyguard stepped out to intercept him. He had a glass in his hand, having anticipated William's intentions. It was even his favored type of claret.

Celia had not spoken with Tenzing Tharkay since that day at the palace. She had the impression that he regretted having even spoken with her for as long as he had. She sometimes caught him looking at her coldly--Celia wouldn’t really have minded him staring his fill as long as she could do the same in return, but when he looked at her, she felt far more like a security system being probed for weaknesses than a potential hookup.

But this time he didn’t even notice her. He passed the claret off to Prince William, making a joke as he did so. Or at least, Celia had to assume so from William’s reaction, his head thrown back a little in honest amusement, so unlike his usual polite smiles. Their fingers brushed on the glass. There was really nothing extraordinary there, but when Celia looked away to scan the crowd for other socialites, her eyes kept being drawn back to Prince William and his bodyguard.

There was something more there. She didn't know what it was, couldn't figure out what had made her look twice.

It nagged at her for the rest of the reception, and all the way home on the tube. She could barely listen to the music in her earphones. Her mind just kept replaying the smile, the eye contact, their body language. A lot of royals got close to their bodyguards, that was an unavoidable consequence of the position. It wasn't strange, except in this case, it was. Celia knew it: she just didn't know why.

She had just settled into her seat on the next train at Wimbledon when it hit her, in a wave of pure intuition, the kind that her old-school professors at j-school used to reminisce about.

"Fuck," she said out loud. One person near her looked at her with mild concern and then shrugged. "Sorry," she said to him. "It's just--fuck! Fuck!"

He put in his earphones, unimpressed, and Celia put her head in her hands.

"Fuck," she said quietly.

She managed to stagger off two stops later, and then somehow walk home. She slammed the door closed and locked it, when she reached her walk-up, and then slid home the deadbolt and even the chain, which she never did, as if the truth could be kept out of her life through locks alone. For the first time ever in her journalistic career, she had information she was sure was true, and had no idea what to do with it. She had no evidence, so she couldn't publish; that was some consolation, but it wasn't much.

Celia crawled into her room and lay fully dressed on the bed.

"Fuck," she said, staring at the ceiling. "He's in love with his bodyguard."

As they moved between the fast-moving lights of late-night London traffic, Tharkay rolled down the glass pane between them and looked at Will through the mirror.

"Well spoken," he said in Nepali.

"If you insist," said Will dryly, in English. He met Tharkay's eyes in the reflection, their eyes locked through the remove of the mirror. "I only hope I didn't disgrace my tutor."

Tharkay smiled slightly into the mirror. "I would have washed my hands of you, Will, don't worry."

"I think I preferred the bit of Mandarin you taught me," said Will. Tharkay's eyebrows shot up.

"A preference, now? Coming from a man who can barely say his bonjours."

"My French is perfectly adequate," Will protested. "Really, it's my Latin that gets me in trouble."

"A universally relatable statement, I'm sure."

Will smiled. "I was never good at any of the Romantic languages," he admitted. Tharkay lifted an eyebrow at him in the mirror.

"Oh?" he asked, and Will froze.

He knew it was dangerous, flirting like this. For one thing, Tharkay was bound to notice, and Will could not put him in the position of choosing between his employment and unwanted attention. And if anyone else noticed--

Will knew himself. He would never have been like Granby, who seemed to take pleasure in defying the dislike he provoked. He thought that Granby, in his position, would have come out years ago. But although Will had never been ashamed or confused about his own attraction to men in general, he could not stomach the idea of inviting the world to comment. It was hard enough for the women he had dated. He couldn't drag a man down into that hell with him. If there was anyone who loved him enough to be with him openly, Will would love him too much to let him.

In a few decades, he had thought, he could live in relative obscurity, as his uncles already did. The world would continue to shift. By the time he was no longer a young man in the public eye, but an elder royal, whose scandals and notable deeds were years in the past, perhaps no one would care. He might even have been beat to the punch by one of his nieces and nephews. He hoped so, hoped that the royal house would have unbent so much in only a generation.

"What languages do you speak, then?" said Will after a moment, pretending not to have noticed the moment of tension between them. "I know of the two you taught me, and English, of course."

"Of course," Tharkay agreed, teasing him as if nothing was amiss. Will relaxed. "Farsi and Pashto were useful to know in Afghanistan. I have enough Turkish to be considered fluent in it. Otherwise, I can get by poorly enough in Lingala, French, a few others." His hands spun on the wheel, taking them expertly around a black cab arguing with its passenger and back into the swirling traffic. "Tibetan," he added, after a moment.

"Is that one you get by poorly in, or one you're fluent in?"

"Fluent," replied Tharkay, very shortly, and that was the end of the conversation.

It wasn't until they had pulled into the garage of Clarence House and Tharkay had opened the door for Will that he said,

"It was my first language."

Will felt as if he was being offered a gift, but one whose value he could not properly appreciate. He did what his mother had brought up him to do, anyway.

“Thank you,” he said, as they passed through the garage and into Clarence House proper.

“You’re welcome,” said Tharkay, without a trace of irony. He spoke into his earpiece, telling security that they had arrived, affirming the day’s passcodes and remotely resetting the security system behind them. Invisibly, around them, the machinery that kept Will safe and enclosed clicked shut. It was past midnight, but within Clarence House, it might have been any time, or any century. A valet came to take Will’s coat.

“Thank you, Baldwin,” said Will. “Is my brother home tonight, by any chance?”

One eyebrow moved very, very slightly upward.

“In fact, he is, and without company. I believe he has retired to his suite."

The skepticism was palpable. Will thanked him and moved towards the stairs. Tharkay had already begun to slip off towards the staff quarters, but he stood and waited below for Will to climb all the way up the antique stairs. The  creaking had never seemed louder.

Louis was never particularly difficult to find; due to the cologne, normally, but tonight Will found the heavy, utterly heartbroken sighs coming from his side of the landing harder to ignore. Will suppressed a sigh of his own and pushed open the door to Louis’ sitting room, finding his brother draped, as one dying, over a divan.

"She left me," said Louis, in funereal tones. 

"I'm sorry to hear it," said Will, trying to dredge up some brotherly sympathy. "I rather liked Kayla."

"Who?"

Will was beginning to feel a little wrong-footed.

"Kayla? I met her last month at the gala--"

Louis shot him a mistrustful stare. "You're not trying to set me up, are you? A mere--" He checked his watch. "--Forty-eight minutes after Emersyn broke my heart? Wait a day, for common decency. Is she fit?"

"When I met her, she was with you," noted Will. "But that is my mistake. Tell me more about Emersyn."

Louis flopped brokenhearted back onto the divan.

“What’s there to tell?” he said dolefully. “I wasn’t glamorous enough for her, I suppose. Tatiana said she was out tonight with a movie producer."

"Who's Tati--No, I don't suppose there's any need for me to know. Is there anything I can get you? I'm told it's traditional to drink in these situations."

"I wouldn't say no," said Louis, brightening considerably. "No, don't bother going back downstairs, I've a stash in the bookcase."

Will looked askance at the bookcase. After a moment he sighed: on the fourth shelf, amidst all the untouched masterworks of British literature, the spines of the first edition volumes of Churchill's histories were shiny with repeated handling. He went over and pulled them down,  uncovered an assortment of liquor bottles hidden behind.

"You certainly found that quickly," said Louis in surprise. "You haven't been poaching, have you?" He laughed at his own joke. "You can pick the poison, if you like."

Will passed over a few violently colored liquids, an assortment of rums, and a vodka bottle in the shape of a naked woman to settle on a half empty cognac.

"Ah, my good friend Remy," said Louis. "I hope you don't mind, the glasses haven't been scrubbed out properly."

That was an understatement, but Will had drunk out of worse. He nursed his glass, as his brother downed them freely, and listened to him ramble. It required very little effort on his part, and it was better than the alternative. Louis, whenever bad became worse, liked to call up journalists. Will had never understood his brother's taste for self-destruction.

"...so she got to half a million followers and then broke up with me--this is Myna, not Emersyn, but it's important for later--"

The press called him a womanizer, but Will did not think that completely fair. Louis' tastes ran shallow rather than deep, but he had never, as far as Will knew, broken anyone's heart--it was more than Will could say for himself. Girls who revered the spotlight flocked to him, and he was happy to accept their company. Will didn't understand that , either, entering into such a transaction as if he had nothing better to bargain with than a place in the tabloids, and nothing more to want than a temporary warmth on his arm, there was something cold in it.

"And you'll never believe this, but she has a podcast now--who doesn't, really--do you think we should start a podcast, Will? Anyway, she sends me the link and tells me she said it was bigger than it is, cause I'm such a sweet guy, but I don't really think it needs to be lied about--"

But maybe it was less cold than meeting women who wanted only to live their ordinary lives--and letting them fall in love with him, or introduce him to their daughters. There was at least a sort of honesty in what his brother did.

"It really makes me wonder why I even agreed to the skinny dipping in the first place!" finished Louis, still complaining. "And that's the entire sorry tale, did you like it?"

"I couldn't follow it in the least," said Will honestly. "It sounds as if the relationship had reached its natural end, at least."

"Oh, I'm well rid of her," said Louis. "It'd be nice to have a girl hang about for longer than a few months, though, Celia keeps making cheeky comments every time I see her."

"The royal reporter? Celia Kim-Davies? I didn't realize you saw her so often."

"Oh yeah, she's a laugh," said Louis blithely. "Hates Rankin and he has absolutely no idea, it's the funniest thing. Do you know, it turns out he doesn't actually speak a lick of French, the liar. Celia found that out."

"You're on first name terms with a magazine writer."

"Oh, you're not going to be in a snit about this, are you? Don't be so judgemental, Will. I've found it's useful to go straight to the pig's arse if I don't want my shite to stink, if you'll pardon the expression."

Will didn't bother to parse which metaphors were being mixed there. "I've no right to interfere," he said, "but if I could, I would advise you otherwise. They can be pleasant enough, but it's their job to be.”

“You could just as easily say the same as us, couldn't you? I like having them around. We all know exactly what we're all after. I mean, what alternative has worked out so much better for you? Letting the media at you through Rankin?"

"Well," Will said uncertainly, and stopped.

"The palace is there to protect the line of succession, especially now that sweet baby Annie is toddling around. We're the sacrificial lambs. You can't rely on them."

"You say that as if the line of succession was not our father and brother."

Louis snorted. "Yes, our warm and loving pater. No, I shouldn't be cynical. We're obviously an ideal family, but you'd be wise to manage your own media. Me, I keep them fed on a regular basis and they don't go digging. You've noticed they've stopped talking about--no, never mind, you don't need to know about that. Don't you have any little secrets you could give them?"

No secrets anymore, except for the only one that mattered.

"I don't think that's something I could manage," Will said. "It's beyond me."

Louis groaned. "There you go again. Where's your self-confidence, little brother?"

" That is something neither of us needs more of," said Will. 

"No. What you need," Louis declared positively, "is a good shag."

Will was glad he was not drinking at that moment. He coughed anyway; it seemed the thing to do.

"I beg your pardon? You must have misspoke."

"A shag," Louis repeated obligingly. "A good one. Or even a mediocre one would do for you, I think. Do you have anyone in mind? No, of course you don't. Listen, I've got some friends--they'll sleep with absolutely anyone--"

Will was able to decline the offer without any internal hardship, but shaking his brother off completely was significantly more difficult. In the end he reluctantly agreed to a dinner arrangement with Louis and two of his friends before he made his escape; Will had a sinking feeling even as he agreed, but he didn't have an excuse ready on hand. His engagements schedule was lighter these days; his father and brother were taking steps to become more visible to the public, in anticipation of the announcement of the abdication. Most days, Will found himself taking language lessons from Tharkay over cards, staying well within the run-down fortress that was Clarence House. Soon enough there would be a roulette of well-choreographed appearances for him and Louis both; the announcement of the abdication, and the weeks and likely months leading up to event itself, would be a frenzy. There would not be quiet moments for some while.

There was a particular flavor to this feeling he had for the next few days, almost of premature nostalgia. Will found the moments slipping away all the faster the more he tried to savor them. He was constantly aware that they would end, that soon there would be no more time for him to spend with Tenzing, talking of nothing consequential, drinking through the Chinese beers he bought in the markets off Leicester Square. They tasted terrible, but Tenzing assured him that they were expanding his palette. 

Maybe they were. All of his senses seemed strangely vivid, even within Clarence House's wallpapered interiors. The cheap takeaway Tenzing smuggled in for him was more fragrant on his tongue than any state dinner, the spices sharper, the world and everything in it more enticing when Tenzing sat on the other end of the table. He closed his eyes in pleasure.

"It's the MSG," said Tenzing, totally dry. "You've never been allowed to have it for fear that you'd know the commons eat as well as you."

"I have had takeaway before, thank you," said Will. "Often, in fact. You've watched me order it."

"I remember standing in the kitchen with a fire extinguisher a time or two, yes."

"Well," said Will, finding he had no defense against this.

"All those times in Dover--"

"Yes?"

"You ought to have asked me to cook," said Tenzing.

Will looked at him with surprise. "Do you do it well, then?"

"Someday," said Tenzing, "I'll make a meal for you, William."

"Someday," agreed Will, his throat tight for some reason. He could see the gleam between Tenzing's eyelashes, bright light through a dark forest. He was touched with the brief and insane urge to reach his hand across the table. He moved his chair back, uncomfortable.

"That reminds me," he said, a little too brightly. "My brother has cornered me into a dinner tomorrow. Seafood, I believe; he knows I don't stand for modern gastronomy."

"What a normal thing to have a strong opinion on."

"A regular peril of living with Louis, I'm afraid. He likes to die on as many hills as possible. I'm almost looking forward to seeing who he'll bring as my date."

Tenzing's hand stilled and then relaxed.

"As your date?" he asked lightly. He seemed only a little surprised. Will was caught somewhere between relief and a fierce disappointment. 

"Yes," said Will, "there's apparently any number of women he wants to introduce me to; I can scarcely imagine what he's told them about me."

He didn't mention the key point, which was that his brother apparently thought he should invite the nearest warm body into his bed, but even the thought of saying it to Tenzing brought a warm glow onto his cheeks.

"Well," said Tenzing after a minute, studying him. "I can see that you're looking forward to it very much. You and Louis will travel together, I suppose; Mark can drive you both, and there'll be no need for me to be involved."

"Oh--yes, I suppose--"

"Then I'll wish you a good night," said Tenzing. His affect was a little flat, from the beer, Will thought, although he had never seen him that way before.

"Good night," said Will automatically, and Tenzing left the sitting room, closing the door behind him. The takeaway containers still lined the table, and the clock was barely striking eight, an early night for them both. 

After a moment of struggle, Will went over and laid his hand on the back of the chair where Tenzing had leaned. It was not still warm from his body heat, but Will could imagine that it was.

The day of the dinner arrived. Mark drove them both, just as Tenzing had predicted. Louis spent the entire ride trying to convince Will to summer in Croatia with him; Will shortly discovered a pronounced aversion to the Balkans. They were still discussing the matter when the maitre d' showed them to their private table.

Noelle and April were already seated. They greeted Will and Louis cheerfully. Will shook hands with them both, and then Noelle and Louis had a more extended greeting between themselves. Will took it as his cue to ask April about herself, and he was able to keep discussion going naturally throughout the dinner. 

It was not difficult, particularly; Will had always preferred the conversation of women, and Louis’ friends were fluent in the art. He and April had a remarkably fascinating discussion of dramaturgy; she was, as many of Louis' friends were, an actress, and had recently been in a production of Antony and Cleopatra . 

"A servant," she said, with a shrug. "I didn't make sense for the lead, the director had this vision of styling the Egyptian court as Los Angeles, and was looking for a Kardashian type-- so original, I know, but I got to deliver Shakespeare in a Valley girl accent. It's the little things that keep you going in this industry, you know."

"What would you have done instead?" asked Will, genuinely intrigued. "It seems a fitting way to modernize one of the problem plays."

"Well, it is," April acknowledged. "That's the problem, isn't it though? It's a love story between patriarchal Rome and the so-called feminine Orient, written well before Said, mind you, replicated in the modern day, and it still somehow makes sense to you? Something isn't right here, is it? It's about othering, and being othered, but instead you brush that aside to lean into the heteronormativity of it all. I would have pulled at that thread of orientalism until it all came loose. Really make it more of Cleopatra's story."

"I always felt sympathetic for Antony, myself. He didn't acquit himself well, perhaps, but he was caught between the binaries the world had created around him--male and female, east and west."

"Louis didn't tell me you liked Shakespeare so much," said April, accepting a new glass from the server.

"I'm afraid I don't, in particular," Will confessed. "You don't mind, do you?"

"It's not a deal breaker," she said, smiling at him with her dark eyes. "Are you doing anything after this? I'd love to find out what you do like."

"Going back to Clarence House," Will said. "I keep early hours."

"No he doesn't," said Louis immediately, surfacing from his own conversation with Noelle to interrupt. Will stared at him, confused. Noelle and April exchanged glances and in unison, excused themselves to the washroom. 

Louis tapped his empty wine glass against his forehead as if to berate himself.

"Will, I'm sure it has escaped your notice, again, but it is my brotherly duty to point out that my lovely friend April, whom I set up with you because she's the person I know who reads books, is propositioning you, and you are turning her down flat."

Will processed the last few moments again in his mind.

"I suppose she could have been," he said doubtfully. "But what does that matter? I do prefer keeping early hours."

"How on earth did that Army bird ever get a leg over with you?" said Louis, in astonishment. "No, honestly, I don't need to know. At least when I die I can proclaim, before God and everyone, that I tried to get my little brother laid, and he wasn't having it."

Despite the histrionics, Louis did little except sigh when Will declined Noelle and April's invitation to go clubbing with them after dinner. 

"At least you got her number," he grumbled, in the car. "Although I suppose you really think you're just going to continue your discussion of Marlowe?"

"She has some interesting thoughts on Edward II," said Will mildly, and Louis groaned.

Will had not been looking forward to the dinner, by the end, but he could not be sorry he had come. He spilled into Clarence House smiling, fondly amused by Louis' petulance, and buoyed as he always was by good wine and good conversation. 

Tenzing was waiting for him in the entryway. His eyes raked over him, taking in his flushed cheeks and his smile. Will abruptly felt ashamed of himself, for no real reason at all.

"Did you enjoy yourself, your Highness?" Tenzing inquired.

"I beg your--why are you--"

"I tried my best," said Louis loudly, passing them up the stairs. "Not my fault he won't shag anyone. Couldn't be me. I'm only lonely if I want to be, and my therapist, if I had one, would say that's perfectly healthy."

"I'm not--" Will stammered, and then closed his mouth. "I'm going to bed. Good night, Louis." He hesitated. "Good night, Tenzing."

He climbed the stairs to his room. His good mood had evaporated. 

He was slow going up the stairs; by the time he reached the landing to his suite, Tenzing had caught up to him.

"I'm going to bed," said Will, not feeling up to their usual round of cards.

"Do you want company?" asked Tenzing, in a rush.

"What?"

Will wasn't so drunk that he could possibly have misheard. He looked at Tenzing. Tenzing looked steadily back at him, but his chest was rising and falling rapidly. Will had never seen him out of breath before.

"If you're lonely," said Tenzing, "I'm offering."

For a moment his mind was a perfect blank. Tenzing was offering. Tenzing, offering , as if he was something to barter, or give away, as if Will could simply reach out his hand and have him, just for being lonely. Will could have him, could have Tenzing in his bed, in his hands, on his lips. He drew a quick shuddering breath. 

"No," he managed, and shut the door between them.

In a moment he opened the door again, flushed with embarrassment at his misunderstanding.

"You meant to play cards," said Will, with great relief. "You meant to bear me company at cards."

"No, William," said Tenzing curtly. "I meant to take you to bed."

He entered the sitting room before Will could react, pushing the door closed behind him. He looked narrowly at Will. His pride was hurt, Will realized foggily; hurt because he had propositioned, and been refused, refused by--

This next thought came very slowly. He had been refused by someone who he had thought would say yes. But why--

"Are you ashamed of being gay?" Tenzing asked.

The question struck him like an arrow. He stumbled back against a chair, holding on to it to stay upright. It took him a moment before he could speak, or even breathe. 

"I'm bisexual, actually," said Will. The casual tone he was aiming for did not quite land. His hands gripped the back of the chair hard. "How did you know?”

“I know you,” said Tenzing.

Will nodded. Of course. Granby hadn't figured it out, and neither had his own mother. But Tenzing knew him. He was sure he'd made it obvious somehow. 

"I thought I'd ask," Tenzing continued, "because you've certainly acted like it on occasion. Every time you've made some vague gesture towards flirtation you backtrack like a solicitor. Every time you look for too long your eyes flick away. All of this when you and I both know perfectly well that you want me."

Will was shaking. He felt dismantled entirely. He was sorry to have been so transparent with his desires, to have put Tenzing in this situation.

"Yes," admitted Will. "You're right. On everything." He went on, as Tenzing opened his mouth to speak. "I'd be happy to write you a letter of reference. If I've ever made you uncomfortable…"

He trailed off. Tenzing was staring at him with open-mouthed astonishment.

"You really are a fool," said Tenzing, sounding almost impressed. "Tell me, have you ever considered that some people might have feelings and desires of their own, which have nothing to do with you? Well," he amended, "not quite nothing to do with you."

Will paused.

"Me?" 

Tenzing put his hand over Will's where they clenched the chair. Will was still, scarcely daring to breathe. His blood surged like a sea within him. Tenzing's palm drew lightning out of his skin. He felt dangerously electric, almost reckless. It was hard to remember decorum.

Tenzing leaned close. Will could focus only on Tenzing's eyes, which were brighter and darker than they looked from a distance. They looked back at him, intense and devouring. It was very evident in that moment what Tenzing wanted. Will felt strangely terrified, as if he was fourteen, trading kisses for the first time with Edith in the back gardens. Tenzing's fingers came up and brushed over Will's lips.

"We shouldn't do this," said Will. "I'm your--"

"I work for the princess of Wales, not you, and I assure you that I don't generally include this kind of service in my curriculum vitale."

"If it goes badly between us--"

"Then I'll leave," said Tenzing, unruffled. "I have standing offers with two private armies and an international bank. I hardly think I'll be begging on the streets."

"Tenzing," Will tried again, but holding the name on his tongue was like sparking tinder. His mouth was dry. Heat obliterated thought.

"If you've no other objection, Will," said Tenzing, softly, "I'd very much like to kiss you."

His lips parted on their own. Will thought about saying something else, but in the end he settled for closing the distance between them. His hand settled where the neck met the collarbone. Tenzing's pulse raced wildly beneath his hand. Will didn't want to think any longer. He didn't want to look for the cameras, or consider his father's voice in his ear. 

They kissed, and the world went perfectly still.

Chapter Text

For a while, Celia was completely stuck on what to write.

This was new for her. This was extremely new for her, but it was fine. She was feeling extremely normal about absolutely everything. She was doing great! She spent a week at the office with a sort of death rictus on her face, laboriously pushing out one execrable sentence after another, one word at a time, and fuck sentence structure. Fuck grammar, too, while she was at it.

Will and Louis had been seen on some sort of dinner together, each with a pretty woman in tow; but even this raw piece of meat couldn't whet Celia's appetite. She filed a story, totally incoherent, something about Louis leading Will astray and the two playboy princes of London, or something--her heart just wasn't in it. Baby Anne had recently repeated outfits two days in a row. Was Duchess Liz a bad mother? She tried out a lede, and then just ended up staring at her laptop. She was constantly aware of a much bigger story, straining at her fingertips, wanting to be told. She could scarcely begin to hold it back.

In the end she called in with the flu.

For once her editor didn’t give her shit about it, she must have really seemed awful. She felt awful. All she wanted to do was watch Love Island with a big glass of Chardonnay, but not even the finest reality television could drown out the part of her brain that was mostly just screaming.

Why didn't she know what to do? She had taken ethics classes in j-school, for god's sake--well, a couple of ethics classes, probably. She had to have taken at least one. Right? She had a vague memory of a dimly lit classroom with the word ethics scrawled on the whiteboard. That had to be it. What had that class covered? Had she taken any notes? Would they be helpful to this situation? Had the professor covered what should happen if you discover that a prince of the United Kingdom is gay and in love with his bodyguard? Oh god, had she actually taken that class after all, or was that the one lecture she'd sat in wearing her flatmate Sophia's clothes so that Sophia could go to the Arctic Monkeys concert? What kind of ethical black hole happened when you helped someone skiv off an ethics class? 

Celia slapped herself. She had to stop panicking. She could handle this. She knew what ethics was! She had carefully skirted just around the border of it her entire career. How hard could it be to do things on the straight and narrow? Rule one, be boring, rule two, get no pageviews.

No, that wasn't right. Celia was almost certain of it.

Celia sighed, deeply, and chugged the rest of her Chardonnay. She lay back in bed and let the white noise of the fit idiots on her laptop screen wash over her as she stared at the ceiling.

She really ought to start with being clear with herself on what she was thinking of doing. If she could find evidence--and Celia was certain she could--she would be outing someone.

That gave her pause. Celia considered herself a step up from a tabloid reporter; it was a very small, worn-down step, but a step nonetheless. She had felt no compunction about revealing Louis’ bad love poetry to the world, and when George was accused of academic fraud, without even a shred of evidence, Celia had printed it happily. She had already published and been damned, many times over. This was different.

Of course, it didn't follow that she had to care, per se. But, oh--Celia brightened as she thought of this. If she outed a prince, Twitter would drag her. A perfect reason not to worry about any of this ever again. 

Happily, she turned back to Love Island and the big mistake Brett was making with Faye this week. A thought intruded: if she knew, others would know.

Onscreen, Zoe was stealing Summer's man. Celia desperately tried to be invested, but she knew her business too well. Someone would find out, and write about it, and then she would have to write about it as well. 

That was fine. Right? Let someone else break the story. It wasn't like she could not write about it, at that point.

Great. Moral crisis averted. Love Island obviously wasn't doing it for her; she switched to that disgustingly wholesome baking show everyone was on about.

Celia tried to watch. She really did. But instead of the toffee torte or the sticky dick or whatever those nonsense words were, she kept seeing Tenzing Tharkay's face in her mind; handsome, dangerous, and not white enough to pass.

His name would have given him away regardless. Evidently the only thing Mr. Tharkay had inherited from his father was his citizenship; even Celia had received more than that, if only by half a surname, the ability to process lactose, and just enough ambiguity in her features that people hesitated before they asked her where she was really from.

Maybe that particular struggle didn't weigh on Tenzing Tharkay. She had seen his history. He didn't seem as if people asked him intrusive questions, or at least, not more than once. Celia had very little experience with men who had lived with violence. Maybe words simply meant less to him; maybe bullets and bombs had inured him to those particular slings and arrows. Stranger things had happened.

It wasn't as if she could help him, though, either way. The story was going to break even without her. Celia could feel it, like electricity. She had the world's dumbest beat--she could admit that to herself at this point--but she had developed an ultra fine instinct for it. Some things she simply knew. Prince William could do many things, but he could not live a lie. Celia was astonished he'd made it this far.

She was still pondering it all Monday morning, reluctantly back at her desk, when the rumor appeared in her email, so startling and so completely upending that Celia froze for an entire minute, staring, while her phone began to buzz madly with incoming texts. The Queen was abdicating the throne. Prince William was about to become the son of the King.

"Don't close your eyes," murmured Tharkay in his ear, so close that Will could feel the sweat dripping. "I like it when you look at me."

The curtain fluttered in the open window. It was sweetly warm out, one of London's rare perfect days, and Will and Tenzing were possibly the only two creatures spending it inside. 

Will could feel the air stirring against his chest. He opened his eyes. He was aware of Tenzing's one hand pressed into the bed, crumpling up the sheets by his ear. The other hand was occupied. He could look down and see it, if he wanted; could see Tenzing's long elegant fingers wrapped around his cock, easing up and down in slow, confident strokes, as utterly controlled as Tenzing ever was. Will panted beneath Tenzing's mouth. Tenzing's eyes were dilated, darker than ever, and his hair had fallen into his face; that and the stiff length of his cock against Will's thigh were the only proofs of his own arousal. Will wanted him to shiver, to moan, wanted to see that self-control shatter, wanted to make it shatter, just as he himself was shattering, falling apart, skittering dangerously close to the edge. Tenzing was watching him come apart, and that itself was more arousing than even his beautiful hands. He rubbed his thigh against Tenzing's cock, wanting to do for Tenzing what Tenzing was doing for him, but he only shifted closer into Will, utterly intent on his dismantlement. Will had almost no power over his own pleasure. It overwhelmed and consumed him. He was possessed by the feeling of the hard callus on the pad of Tenzing's thumb, passing back and forth over the sensitive head, back and forth, some expert woodsman deftly stoking a fire. He bucked up into Tenzing's weight and heat, shuddering as he came. 

Will panted, heavy in all his limbs. He felt more languorous than he deserved, having done very little of the work. His eyes were drifting closed again, lulled by the perfect breeze coming in through the window. Above him, Tenzing shifted. His arm moved. It took Will a moment to realize that Tenzing was, in quick and efficient motions, finishing himself off, as unromantic as a barracks shower.

"Wait," said Will, nonsensically. "Wait, I can--"

"No need," said Tenzing, while Will replayed his own words, appalled at himself. He sounded like a helpful idiot, not a man in bed with his lover.

He had time to keep thinking about it. His chest was a mess of come, his and Tenzing's, and he was pinioned to the bed by the urgency of not leaving a scene for the cleaning staff to wonder at. Tenzing returned with a towel, and ignoring Will's reaching hand, began to clean him off. 

They were going through towels at an alarming rate, but his and Louis' toiletries were done communally, so that alone wouldn't raise any suspicions. Every precaution they could take, they had taken, and each of their private meetings were as hasty as they could make it, the better to lessen their chances of being caught. No overnights could be risked. Tenzing had his own bed downstairs, and the hallways in between were monitored. It would be suspicious if Tenzing left his bed unslept in, and the cameras would reveal where he had gone all night. 

Too late, Will regretted not having gone out with Louis more often. Someone would surely notice the change in pattern, though, if Will began disappearing into the London night with only one of his bodyguards for company, the same one every time.

So they stayed in Clarence House, then, only they had to be careful as they never had to be when they had only been playing cards and practicing Mandarin. The household staff were a daily part of his day; bringing in his tea, changing out his linens. There was always the risk that one might knock and enter at an inopportune moment. Will was not permitted to lock his doors any more than he was permitted to drive his own cars, and although they all, Will and his brothers, had been quietly allowed to flout that rule with their girlfriends, he did not think the same would be true of Tenzing.

Therefore it was for good reason that Tenzing was already getting dressed again, smoothing out his crisp white shirt as if it hadn't crumpled between Will's fingers not a quarter of an hour ago. Will reached slowly for his own clothes as well.

In another quarter of an hour, the towel was in the shared laundry hamper in the hall, and Tenzing was heading down the back stairs. Will read from the paper as one of the housekeepers came in and switched out the tea things, speaking cheerfully of the weather.

Louis might actually detonate. They had both been ordered to their best behavior, a state that was apparently meant to continue until the coronation. Will's schedule had changed little, but Louis was very evidently suffering.

"Perhaps you might find an indoor hobby," suggested Will.

"Oh, shall I complete a jigsaw? Shall I take up knitting? I'm a prime thoroughbred, Will. I ought to be put out to stud, not locked up in the stable."

"Right," said Will hastily. "I'm off, then."

"No! Brother, please, don't go." Louis clung onto his sleeve with all the desperation of a drowning sailor. "You're the only person I'm allowed to see. You can’t abandon me now. We have to stick together, Will."

"We're hardly the princes in the Tower," said Will. "And your friends aren't allowed admission because you keep attempting to disgrace yourself with them."

“Grace? She had nothing to do with it," said Louis blandly, and then he clung on harder as Will tried to leave again. "Oh, all right! I thought if I kept being as inconvenient as I could, they would let me go off to cruise the Adriatic. Happy?"

"Not in particular. Louis, surely even you can stand a little lack of diversion for some few months."

"Don't you try to reason with me! I'm the normal one here. You're the mental patient. We're two men in our middle twenties confined to home for fear we might trip and bad press will fly out of our pockets. The least you could do, out of actual common decency, is complain over it. Have some dignity and throw a damned tantrum.”

“We could play a board game?”

“A board game? Do you even hear yourself?”

“A movie, perhaps? Someone in this house must have a--ah, what is it called? A Netflix account.”

“I don’t get it,” said Louis. “You’re normally raging at the bit to go and dig latrines for homeless dogs. You can’t wait to go grind yourself beneath the wheel. Why aren’t you begging everyone you can to let you go light yourself on fire to entertain orphans? This isn't you. You don't relax. Why are you so complacent about our house arrest?"

"Perhaps I used the several months warning we received to study philosophy," said Will, intentionally over-exasperated to cover his alarm. What did Louis sense, that no one else had? 

"No, that's not it. If I didn't know better--it's ridiculous, it's practically impossible, but it's almost like you're getting laid," said Louis, squinting up at him.

Damn his intuition.

"You'd know if I had a girlfriend these days," said Will. "We're practically living in each other's shadow. When would I even have met her?"

Louis, to his mingled relief and irritation, swallowed this immediately.

"No, you're right, and you've got no game at all," he added; particularly outrageous coming from a man who had set himself up as a playboy almost entirely by being third in line for the crown. He sighed, disconsolate, and said,

"It would have been nice to think one of us is doing more than dying of boredom."

"Perhaps," began Will, very reluctantly, "we might be approved for an excursion, if it were the two of us--and we avoided your usual haunts, a quiet night out--"

Louis was already springing up. "Freedom!" he exclaimed. "Freedom at last--Will, you're a genius! They can't refuse with you as my chaperone."

"I am three years younger than you and not a chaperone in the least," said Will waspishly, but subsequent comments by Clarence House staff made it sufficiently clear that this was exactly what he was expected to be, and the only reason why they were allowing them the night away. Will sighed, but it wasn't really anything less than he had been expecting.

"Perhaps you should be flattered," said Tenzing, resetting the tiles on the table. He was teaching Will the basics of mahjong, and while he could effortlessly lift up a full wall of double-stacked tiles by pressing together the tiles on either end, Will's attempts to duplicate this feat had ended in disaster.

"Yes, very flattering to be relegated to babysitter for the most notorious rake in London--blast, I can't seem to get it."

Will's tile wall had collapsed again in an ear-rattling crash, surely audible down the hall and the stairway. He leaned back in his chair so he could see out the open door and caught the attention of a passing aide, who had pressed his hands against his ears.

"Ferris, could you shut the door as you go by? I'm not sure I'm likely to master this any time soon," said Will ruefully, "and don't want to disturb the entire house."

"Very good, sir," said Ferris with relief, and pulled the door shut. The latch clicked.

They waited together for a moment, and then Tenzing rose. In deliberate silence he crossed over to Will and straddled him. His hands were on his face, and then tracing, lightly, over his hair; they did not dare to muss it, but Will could feel his fingers stroking over it. He could look his fill at Tenzing, in this position, could look and imagine that they had all the time in the world.

But they hadn't time. Tenzing leaned down and kissed him, and Will could feel the stiff length of Tenzing's cock through the fabric of his trousers, pressing hard into his stomach. Oh, how he wanted it, more than he had ever wanted anything in his life. He wanted the slow stretch, the burn, the slide of two bodies merging into each other, which he had imagined in such vivid detail for so long. He wanted to moan out loud, without caring who heard him, and to drowse in Tenzing's arms afterwards, with their clothes in a heap on the floor.

Instead they were in a house full of eyes and ears, and they could only snatch away at moments. Someday his father might send him away again--back north, perhaps--and they might have as much as hours or half-days to themselves.

That day was not today, however, and they both knew it. Hurriedly Tenzing slid down to the floor, between Will's legs, and with fast efficient movements unbuttoned him, drawing him out through his pants. 

He became hard the moment Tenzing put his mouth on him. He shuddered in his chair, feeling it all as if for the first time; the wet, tender heat of Tenzing's mouth, his tongue working in short, flickering strokes. Tenzing was taking him into his mouth, inch by inch, slowly; Will could scarcely breathe. He was leaving fingernail marks on the armrests.

Tenzing's hands were on his thighs, pressing him down into the seat. He was held down, kept firm. He couldn't move if he'd wanted to. Tenzing was kneeling, but he was the one helpless. Will gasped for breath, remembering not to make any noise. Tenzing was fucking him with his mouth, relentless, no longer slow at all, wringing the orgasm from him all-too-quickly.

He managed to gasp out a warning, before he came, but Tenzing did not move at all. He only held him down harder, his hands almost bruising, his eyes half-hooded and looking at him. As Will began to soften, he could feel Tenzing swallowing around his cock.

Will slid out of his chair and onto his own knees as soon as Tenzing stood up.

"Let me," he pleaded, his hands on the buckle.

"They'll be making rounds soon," said Tenzing lowly, but he did not move. His hands were shivering.

"Then let us be quick," said Will.

"The risk--" he began, looking down at him.

"Tenzing, won't you let me please you?"

His eyes flew open wide.

"Will," he said in reply, a harsh, fervent whisper. He reached jerkily down towards Will's face, framing it with his hands--

--there was loud chatter, coming down the hallway. His brother's voice.

"Who would miss us for a week?" he was saying airily. "Anyway, there's hardly any clubbing in Dubrovnik, everyone knows that--"

Will was tucking his clothes back into place with desperate haste, while Tenzing reset the mahjong pieces. The voices got closer, pacing down the hallway.

"One night only, as agreed, and no one believes you're suddenly passionate about sport fishing," said Ferris.

"Will wants to go too, let's go ask him--"

"Why don't we arrange to ask your father, instead, and see what the Prince of Wales thinks about this concept--"

Tenzing and Will had arranged themselves, now fully dressed, around the table, and had dealt out a new game. The voices swelled, approached--passed, faded. They hadn't come in after all.

Will looked at Tenzing, and found him looking back. Neither of them had to say anything. They were gone, but it was impossible to bring themselves to resume again. Will looked down at his tiles.

"There's something else," he said, as if their conversation hadn't been interrupted. "My brother suspects that I'm hiding something. I managed to divert him, but I'm not sure how long I can fend him off. He's always had excellent instincts, even if he's never applied himself."

"Sooner or later your father will have to release you both," said Tenzing.

"Yes, half of it is him having no distraction. We're usually allowed to lead more independent lives than this. I don't know how much longer it will last--how long it can last."

 "I have pong," said Tenzing quietly, taking Will's discard. He flipped two other tiles down to reveal an identical set. "You remember that to take the tile, I must expose the set."

"Yes--although I'm still not sure I understand how it's scored at the end. Concealed hands are worth more, and a flush beats a straight--"

"It's all muchlike," said Tenzing, shrugging. "Only the winner scores, anyway. What is your plan, Will? Mandarin lessons and two-player mahjong will begin to run awfully thin soon enough.”

“When life goes back to normal--” he began.

“Will,” said Tenzing bluntly. “Your life isn’t normal.”

“You knew that when you kissed me,” said Will after a moment, trying to keep the accusation out of his voice.

"What should I have done then, Will? Continue to suffer in heroic silence? Deny what you and I feel? I have enough experience being someone else's secret to know that I don't mind being yours, but even I need more than to be scheduled around your family and the other forces beyond your control. I don't care what the plan is, truly. I only want to know that there is one."

He left his tiles unplayed on the table and went to the door, opening it. Will found it suddenly hard to breathe.

"Tenzing," he managed, choking on himself. Tenzing looked back at him, a soft surprise in his eyes.

"It's not an ultimatum, Will," he said, returning. Will could only look at him. His chest felt tight. Like Edith, like Jane, he would want what Will could not give him: how could he not? But Tenzing tilted his face up by the chin, and without even looking at the now-open door, bent down to kiss him.

Will jerked back as soon as he realized what was happening, his heart ringing like an alarm. The door was open. The door was open, and on the other side of it, the world; anyone might have seen. Will looked in panic at the empty hallway, and had to look again before he really believed there was no one there.

He looked back at Tenzing. His breath was still coming hard. Will searched his face for resentment or anger, but whatever Tenzing had felt, if anything, was gone now. He only nodded a little, as if to say he ought to have expected as much. He said lightly,

"I'll see you tomorrow, Will," and left without trying to kiss him again.

Alone now, Will retreated to his bedroom. He touched a hand to his lips, wishing he could feel the reassurance Tenzing had wanted to give him with his kiss, wishing he had kissed him back instead of flinching. If Will was anyone else--but no, that line of thought only angered himself. He had let himself become a coward.

Tenzing had asked for a plan. Will didn't know how to give him that, but he was determined to at least give him--something. Anything. Will opened his drawer. He unearthed his phone from the depths and called.

It answered in three rings. Granby was breathing heavily as he picked up, as if he'd come running.

"Will?" he said immediately. "Is this really you?"

It had been a long time since he had heard Granby's voice. Will needed a moment to respond, while Granby grew annoyed and then concerned.

"Will, if this is a pocket dial--no, are you being held hostage? Can you not talk? Okay, hang up, and then call again, one ring and hang up if you're being held in London, two rings if--"

"I'm fine," Will said hastily, somewhere between impressed and bewildered. "Have you had that in your back pocket all this time?"

"Don't be surprised with me, you were the one with the ominous silence. But I'll stop being mardy; you called! It's been long enough. What's the occasion?"

"If it isn't too much of an imposition," said Will, "My brother and I will be at liberty for a night soon, and I thought we might come to Dover."

An explosion of noise greeted him; Will winced and held the phone away from his ear.

"Are you serious? You're not having me on, are you? When? Soon? Tonight?"

"Not tonight," Will managed. "I was hoping I could learn when the crew might be on leave."

"The boat's under repair, we're all freed up this entire week. Come tomorrow, I'll round everyone up."

"It needs to be out of public view, I'm afraid."

"Oh, there's no problem there," said Granby cheerfully. "We'll have it at Gus' place. But sorry, did you say your brother was coming?"

"It's a bit of a story. I'm sorry to impose him on you, but we couldn't--it would be difficult, you see--that is, he gives us an excuse to leave London."

"Is this the brother that looks like a horse, or the other one? No, of course we don't mind. But Will--you’re really coming now? Now, and not anytime in the past year and a half?”

If there was any accusation in Granby’s voice, Will most certainly deserved it. “It wasn’t that I didn’t wish to--” he began, and then stopped. Granby deserved the truth. Out of all people, he deserved to know. 

Will forced himself to say it.

"I'm seeing someone," he said in a rush. "The Palace doesn't know."

“Seeing someone, as in…”

“Yes.”

“Oh, God. And you’re really keeping it a secret?”

Will took in a breath. It felt so good to say it out loud. He would find out soon enough if his phone was tapped or not, but for now, all he felt was a strange sense of exhilaration, as if he’d climbed a mountaintop. He felt like rushing out into the hallway and shouting it at the next person he saw.

“Yes,” he said. “You’re the only person who knows. And--it’s been impossible to have any privacy in London,” Will continued reluctantly; too much like asking Granby to arrange a tryst. “I thought we could have a moment--”

Granby cackled.

“Say no more,” he said, in such insinuating tones that Will flushed. “We’ll have a guest room open for you.”

“--A moment to have a conversation,” Will went on manfully. “We wouldn’t need very much of your time.”

“You should have a little more faith in your stamina than that, Will.”

“John!”

Granby only laughed again.

“It’s like you’re from the 18th century,” he said. “Fine, I’ll stop. Come tomorrow, really. I’ll make sure everyone’s there.”

“I hope you don’t mind, the protection officers will have to arrive beforehand--”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll text you the address so you can get everything ready on your end. Hey, Tharkay still with you?”

Will touched his lips.

“Yes,” he said. “He’s still with me.”

The next night, leaving Clarence House in a blacked-out town car, Will was almost grateful to have Louis there, vibrating with excitement. His own nerves were such that he did not think he would be able to hide them, otherwise.

“On the prowl again,” Louis said jubilantly. “It’s just like the old days. Two brothers, a couple of keys, and oh, a dozen girls or so.”

“What a rosy picture of the past,” said Will dryly. “But when did I enter into all this? I don’t recall ever going out on the town with you.”

“George and I used to do this all the time,” said Louis in surprise. “You didn’t know?”

“I find it hard to imagine.”

Louis laughed.

"Oh, right, you never saw George at the height of his days, did you? He was the real tomcat of the family. No, you were still in diapers."

"I was at Eton," Will said mildly.

"We used to leave nightclubs in smoking ruins behind us, girls trailing from every appendage--only pictures of me ever got printed, obviously, but heyo, I don't have any bad angles. Where are we going, by the way?"

"Dover," said Will. "No, don't look at me like that. The staff was quite clear that you weren't permitted out anywhere within London City."

"So we must go to the depths of Kent?" Louis exclaimed, real horror in his tone. "Paris--we could be in Paris in an hour, if we flew."

"We are not chartering a flight to France," said Will repressively. "You're going to meet my friends in Dover. Please behave yourself."

"Your friends in--you mean the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard? What am I going to talk about with them? I don't know anything about fish."

Will thought to himself: Fish? 

It wasn’t worth following up on. Louis grew more wide-eyed horrified the more Will explained about their plans: that they were gathering at a friend’s house, and not a nightclub, that they were probably drinking beer bought from the Londis in town, so certainly no bottle service.

"You certainly know how to dampen expectations," said Louis as they pulled up. Little's family apparently owned a large farmhouse in Folkestone that they rented out to holiday-goers. A handsome place, to Will's eyes, but Louis looked at it as if upon the gates of an asylum.

"Well," he said to himself glumly, "I suppose there's nothing for it--"

He stopped, or Will stopped listening to him. The door opened, spilling light out into the deepening blue of the evening. Familiar silhouettes cast shadows into the garden. Will, entirely against the security protocol he'd been beholden to his entire life, reached for the car door and opened it.

An alarm began to go off as he left, Fellowes and Thewes in the front seats jabbing at buttons to shut it off. Louis exiting behind him was saying something. Will walked to the line of gardenias that edged the walkway, and it was there that Granby rushed at him and put his arms around him.

He was followed immediately after by Harcourt, and then Chenery and Little and all the rest, and then finally Berkeley catching them up in a slow jog, saying apologetically that his doctor didn't want him to run anymore.

"But I thought my ticker would stop anyway, when John gave us all one day of warning to come see you--"

"As if I had a choice in the matter!" said Granby heatedly. "Take it up with Will."

"I do apologize," said Will. "I wanted to make sure I came before Clarence House revoked permission."

"Oh, who cares," said Harcourt, hugging him again. "You're here, get in, we got champers for the occasion."

"Can I be introduced, little brother? Or should I let everyone guess?"

Will belatedly made the introductions. Louis paid very little attention to anyone's name but Harcourt's; he was eyeing her up and down with great interest, which she returned with as much skepticism.

"Huh. I've never met a prince before," she said.

"I beg your pardon," said Will.

"You're crew, you don't count," said Harcourt, waving him off. "There, are we finally done? Can we all go inside already?"

She shoved him through the door, where a selection of beers already graced the table. A banner above the mantle wished him a happy birthday.

"Couldn't find a welcome banner anywhere in Dover," said Granby. "And I figured, sure you've had a birthday or two since last we saw you. Happy birthday, Will."

Will looked down for a moment. He could feel his whole face smiling. "Happy birthday to you as well then, John."

"Let me pour you some wine," said Granby, and soon everyone had crowded around him to clink his glass. Chenery immediately took it upon himself to tell him the highly colorful and unlikely version of the events that had followed Will's departure from Dover, which Sutton and Warren immediately contradicted. The house was loud with conversation, Chenery's arm warm across his shoulders, and Little coming around with microwaved sausage rolls. For the first time in over a year, Will could stand in a crowd of people and feel happy.

Across the room, Tenzing slipped in through the dining room door. Another of the protection officers was with him, and he appeared to all eyes to be talking with him in low voices, conferring on some aspect of their duty. But Will was certain that Tenzing was as aware of him as he was of Tenzing. He wanted Tenzing to know that Will had done this for him as much as for himself; he wanted Tenzing to stand next to him and share in this feeling. He wanted to brush hands with him in a crowded room: not for the world, but only for those people who loved them. 

"Oi, Tharkay," called Granby, interrupting Will's thoughts. "Come join us, will you? Tell us about London."

"I'm on duty," he said, demurring the offered bottle of beer, but he joined their circle nonetheless, sidling over to stand behind the couch where Will was sitting. The skin of his neck prickled. Will felt all the unfairness of the position, where he could not turn to look at Tenzing without making it obvious, but Tenzing could look his fill at him.

Granby was generous with the wine, which he proudly informed Will was the best red at Tesco's, or at least the most expensive.

"Twenty eight entire pounds," he said. "That's how much I value you, Will."

"You shouldn't have," said Will dryly.

"Heard you have a niece now," said Berkeley, settling himself next to him.

"Ohh, I love babies," said Chenery. "Show us pictures."

"Well," said Will awkwardly.

"You really don't have pictures of your own niece?" exclaimed Harcourt, leaning over. 

"He's a Luddite," said Louis, sliding in expertly next to Harcourt. "I don’t think he knows that phones have cameras. I, on the other hand--"

Granby, with zero regard for personal space, jammed his hand into Will's pocket and came out with his phone.

"Lord, he wasn't lying," he said. "I've never seen an empty photo roll before."

"Let's have some respect for privacy, please," said Little, putting a hand around Granby's shoulders. "Hullo, Will, who do you fancy for the cup this year?"

"I haven't been following, I'm afraid--you favor Arsenal, don't you?"

"Disgusting," muttered Granby. "To think I'm in love with a gooner."

"Nothing wrong with supporting an overdog," said Chenery loyally.

An instant hullabaloo went up, people on all sides sticking their oars in, and even Louis managing to produce an opinion. Will took advantage of the moment to twist around to look at Tenzing, who looked back down at him with a very small, almost imperceptible smile.

"Now look what you've done," said Harcourt as she crossed the room. She leaned herself on the back of the sofa, next to Tenzing. "They'll never be done with this. Oh, and Will, you don't mind terribly if I shag your brother, do you?"

Now it was his turn to experience something new; Will had never spat out his drink before.

"Christ," he said weakly, as Berkeley thumped on his back.

"I just think it's good form to ask, when it comes to one's mates, is all."

"No, I suppose I can't mind, so long as I never have to hear or think about it again, but I should warn you about Louis--"

"Oh, I can already tell that he's terrible," said Harcourt frankly. "But I'm curious; he swears up and down he's got a Prince Albert, and I've never had one before." With that she went back across the room.

"What's a Prince Albert?" asked Will, other than his great grand-uncle, that was.

"You're precious," said Chenery, and gave him a very wet kiss on the cheek before he went to go refill his drink.

He had missed this so desperately, this circle of loud drinking and quiet friendship. Will was surprised to realize how much it had sustained him, even after he had gone without it.

But all too soon the night came to a close. The older crewmen excused themselves first, Warren and Sutton leaving him with friendly slaps on the back and Berkeley gruffly letting him know that it was a school night. Harcourt had disappeared somewhere with Louis after a whispered consultation with Little, and Chenery, victim of one too many gin and tonics, had collapsed on the settee. Little, smiling fondly, drew a blanket over him. He threw a glance at Granby, who got to his feet right away, as if he had received a message, and took Will by the shoulder and out the door. Silently, Tenzing followed them.

They entered a guest room. It was only him and Granby. And Tenzing, who had moved to stand in the doorway, tense through every line of his body, his face looking away.

"Alright, it's been long enough," said Granby. He threw himself into the armchair in the corner, leaving Will no choice but to sit on the bed. "Where is she? I think I deserve to meet her, considering."

Will's heart was pounding so hard that he could feel it in his mouth. He trusted Granby entirely, so why was it so hard to say it? He lifted his eyes deliberately to look at Tenzing on the other side of the room. In that moment Tenzing turned to look back at him. 

His chest felt tight. He didn't know what to say. Tenzing's eyes spoke with all the eloquence that he never put into words. In his peripheral vision he was aware of Granby twisting to follow Will's eyes.

"Oh," said Granby. "Holy f--"

"John, I'm sorry to ask you to keep secrets," said Will. "But no one else knows."

"That you're--or that you're--"

Will shook his head. 

"Not even--"

"Jane knows. And Edith. But not--"

"Not your family," finished Granby. "And not me."

Will was silent. Granby looked at him, and then at Tenzing, and back.

"You should have told me," he said. "You knob."

"John--"

"Don't worry. I'm not angry with you." There were telltale spots of color in his cheeks, giving him the lie. "I can't be angry with you. At this rate I'll get about three hours a year with my best mate, who won't even pick up and call me, and I can't waste what I get having a row. But god damn it, Will. You should have told me."

"But I couldn't put you in that position," Will said, trying to explain. "I didn't want to burden you or make you a target--and if someone found out you knew--"

"You think I'm saying this for my sake? Mine?"

"They tried to out you--tried to out Augustine--"

"And this is exactly why you should have told me," cried Granby. "Because you've been carrying this around, because you've been afraid, because there's been this thing keeping you silent and apart and I've been going mad this entire time wondering if it was only me, if I was wrong to think you were clinically fucking depressed, switching all my time between begging you to have one conversation with me and then scared to bring it up. Jesus, Will. I'd be ripped apart by your tabloids a million times not to live a year like this one again. It's too damned late not to burden me. Damn it!"

He shot up from his chair.

"And here I said I wouldn't row with you. Will, you make it god damned difficult sometimes. Congratulations on the boyfriend. Fuck you. Call me more than once a year, won't you? And happy birthday."

Granby tossed something into Will's lap. Numbly he looked down at it. His phone. 

"Sorry about all that," Granby said to Tenzing, as he left the room. "You're doing great. You're dating a tosser, but you're fine. You should come to game night."

Will was looking at his phone. It was open to the picture gallery, and there were photos in it for the first time. Photos of him, laughing and unaware of the camera. Photos of his friends. Berkeley showing a Polaroid of his kids to the camera. Harcourt talking with her hands, animated even through the screen. Selfies from Chenery at every angle. Memory made tangible. Proof that love and friendship persisted even when he wasn't looking. Even when he had been deliberately looking away.

"John," he choked out. 

He looked up. Granby hadn't left the room at all, but was hovering by the doorway. Will stood, and Granby took a half step towards him.

"I'm sorry," he blurted. "I understand why you didn't tell me, I do."

"No," said Will. "You're right. I should have told you."

Tentatively he touched Granby's shoulder. He wasn't used to this. The movement didn't come naturally to him as he put his arms around Granby's shoulders.

"You hug like a bloody robot," said Granby, but he didn't move away.

"I haven't been a very good friend to you, I'm afraid," said Will.

"Fuck off," said Granby into his shoulder. "That's an understatement, is what that's called."

Eventually they parted. Granby's eyes were wet, and he looked away, embarrassed.

"Well," he muttered. “That’s enough of all that now, isn’t it. No need to go on about it. Oh," he added, turning and catching sight of Tenzing. "Well, now I really am sorry about spoiling your night. And for getting my emotions all over your boyfriend. And the part where--well all of it really--honestly I was hoping you weren't listening--"

Tenzing looked back at him blandly, as if he had not witnessed anything at all.

“I take it back about game night,” said Granby. “You’ll destroy us all at poker.” He stuck out his hand, and Tenzing shook it.

Then he left, and it was only the two of them. Tenzing closed the door. Deliberately he unhooked his radio from his belt and laid it on the table.

"We have some time, I think," he said quietly.

"How much?"

"Enough. And if there isn't, I'll make more."

Will's pulse jumped in his throat. He swallowed. Tenzing said it as if it was as easy as that. Perhaps it was. He didn't feel as if he knew anything anymore. He sat back on the bed, looking at his hands.

Tenzing moved close to him. The air acted differently when he was near, imbued with an element that was not merely oxygen; Will knew without looking how easily he could touch him, how little distance separated their bodies. But Will did not bridge that gap, and neither did Tenzing.

"I wanted this to go differently," said Will.

Tenzing laughed a little. "Is this an attempt at an apology, Will?"

"I feel as if my entire life has been an attempt at an apology. But yes, I suppose. I don't know what exactly I wanted to give you tonight, but it wasn't this--this--baggage."

"Baggage?"

"Is that not the phrase? John would laugh at me. I mean that I--" Will searched for the right word. "I disrupt people's lives. I bring harm, without willing it. I thought maybe outside of London, in a place the palace doesn't own, I could be, at least temporarily, someone else. That's what I wanted to give you. Someone normal."

Will could feel Tenzing shift his weight.

"And who would I be, in this scenario?"

"Yourself, I suppose."

"And I would still want this other man you describe? The one that isn't you? The one without baggage?"

Will looked away from Tenzing's anger. He didn't know how to answer it.

"If not, what else is there, then? I have nothing to offer to you. I know that."

"Why in God's name would I want anything from you?"

Will shook his head impatiently. "I mean those things that anyone would want. Privacy. Normalcy. A future where we could--go for a walk in Regent's Park. Or hold hands in the street."

"When did I ever say I wanted those things?"

"You didn't have to! Give me credit for at least knowing you this well. Could you truly live a life where everyone knew your name and face--"

"Can you?"

"I have to. That's the difference."

"Fine," said Tenzing shortly. "Then let's go."

"Go--what?"

"To Regents Park. Now. You can drive, if you like. I know you know how. The gates will be open by the time we reach London. We'll walk through. Only the foxes will see us at this hour of the morning."

"What?"

"And as far as holding hands goes, I'm not usually the type. But if you would like to, Will, who am I to say no?"

Will was silenced. Now, finally, Tenzing reached out, through the space that separated them, and took Will's hands into his own.

"You idiot," he said tenderly.

"I just can't stand the idea," said Will lowly, "that I might ruin your life."

"It's my life to ruin. Will, look at me. Do you want to be with me, Will? Not you, the prince, not you, the public figure, not you, fifth in line. You, the man. I have never been given to doubt myself, but Will, you make me--uncertain."

There was a small break in his voice. Will looked. There was something very raw in Tenzing's face. He continued.

"You told me that you wanted to know me. That I could trust you, if you would trust me. Was that a lie?"

"I thought--I thought--"

"No," said Tenzing. "You didn't."

There was only one possible reply.

"I'm sorry," said Will. "From the very depth of my heart, I am sorry. And--" he swallowed. "I've always wanted you. Even when I was trying not to."

Tenzing brushed Will's hair back from his face.

"Well, I chose you," he said quietly. "I only want to know that you choose me in return. That you can be selfish, if only for me."

"Tenzing, I don't know what to say. I am being selfish, terribly so. I can't help but think a decent man would have let you go."

"Then don't be a decent man," said Tenzing. "Be mine."

Will gazed at him. It was the first time anyone had asked him not to think of the public, the United Kingdom, the family. 

"Then," he said, tentatively, "will you also be mine?"

Tenzing smiled. As it always did, his smile transformed his entire face, turned it from merely beautiful to radiant, even happy.

"I told you, Will. I've already cast my lot in with you. And I always shall."