Chapter 4
Four
Lauren felt somewhat like Dorothy and her ragtag friends walking toward the fearful Wizard of Oz as she, James, and Eugene
entered the Lord Chamberlain’s ornate office in a much more grand part of the Palace. (Or as the comically long brass name
plaque on his heavy oak door read: The Right Honorable Lord Buxton Chamberlain of Thimbleby GCVO.) Lauren had hoped that James
and Eugene were just trying to intimidate her by making him sound like a gatekeeper from hell, but judging from the look on
the lord’s face when they entered his office, especially as he snapped his laptop shut and then folded his hands under his
chin and leveled his gaze at them, Lauren realized that they—well, she—were in deep shit.
“Well,” he said. “Ms. Lauren Morgan. It appears the rumors that you might be a bit of a troublemaker appear to be true.”
Lauren gave a quick glance at Eugene, fairly certain that he was the one who had spread the false rumor the lord had heard about her.
“I would have thought that coming from the White House you would have a basic understanding of how easy it is for one’s words to be twisted into a salacious headline. It is comms that you specialize in, no?”
Lauren felt her mouth dry a little, like she was back at school about to be sent to detention. “I should have handled the
situation better. In my defense, I did state to the journalist that my response was off the record, but he completely ignored
it,” she replied. “That’s never happened to me before!”
“You seem to be under the impression that I’m a collector of excuses,” he said, the lines in his forehead crinkling as he
raised his wiry gray eyebrows. “I can assure you, I am not.”
She was about to continue her defense when she spotted a framed photo of a dog on the shelf behind him.
“I’m sorry, Lord Chamberlain, I don’t mean to interrupt at all, but I just have to ask, do you have an Irish setter?” she
asked.
His face immediately softened as he turned to look at the photo. “Rosewood,” he said. “My pride and joy. She’s quite the legacy,
bred from three lines of Westminster Kennel Club champions.”
“I can tell,” Lauren said, even if the dog looked as sweet and dumb as cotton candy. “Her coloring is gorgeous. Irish setters
were the only kind of breed my grandmother ever had. Brandy was her last one and such a good girl, rest her soul.”
“Oh my God,” Eugene muttered behind her, just close enough to her to hear.
“You can always tell the true champions,” Lauren said, ignoring Eugene’s comment. “Sweet Brandy, she just didn’t have the
temperament for competition, but I bet Rosewood is—”
“At the top of her agility class,” the lord finished for her, just as Lauren was hoping he would. “Her time to beat is unmatched,
and we could not be prouder.”
Lauren chuckled. “Dogs, am I right? We just don’t deserve them. Anyway, I’m very sorry about the mix-up today. I spoke out of turn and should have known better than to trust that a reporter would truly keep something off the record.” Her brain briefly flashed to Oscar, but she brushed it off.
The Lord Chamberlain just waved her words away. “Well, the papers do tend to be rather sneaky at times. We’ll let it go this
once. Now,” he added, pulling out his phone, “you have to see this video of Rosewood’s latest agility course showing. Seventeen
obstacles and she didn’t miss one!”
“We would love to,” Lauren said, gesturing for James and Eugene to come closer. “You can’t have too many dog videos, right,
James?”
“Never,” he said with all the enthusiasm of a person who was just told they needed a root canal.
“Well, I don’t know what the fuss was all about,” Lauren said as they left the Lord Chamberlain’s office ten minutes and five Rosewood videos later.
“He was absolutely delightful. I feel kind of bad that I didn’t bring him doughnuts on that first day. Or a squeaky dog toy.”
She glanced at James and Eugene, who looked as disheveled as she had ever seen them: the top button on James’s starched shirt
wasn’t entirely through the buttonhole, and Eugene’s receding hairline was showing just the slightest peep of nervous sweat.
“I would like for that to never happen in my lifetime again,” Eugene said, pulling out a perfectly pressed handkerchief (Because of course he has a handkerchief, Lauren thought to herself) and dabbing at his brow.
“I fully acknowledge that it is still working hours,” James added, “but I need a drink.”
“You know the rumors about Marion’s desk drawer, yes?” Eugene muttered under his breath as he tucked his handkerchief away.
“Not rumors,” James replied.
“Oh, really?” Eugene said, raising one eyebrow.
“Wait, what?” Lauren said. “What desk drawer? Who’s Marion?”
They both immediately snapped to attention. “Never you mind,” James said. “And you should consider yourself very lucky that
the Lord Chamberlain didn’t destroy you.”
Lauren rolled her eyes. “Please. He’s a human being who graciously acknowledged that we are all human beings and that sometimes human beings make mistakes.”
“And sometimes those mistakes can lead to an international incident.” Eugene glowered at her.
“I don’t think three web headlines from the British tabloids constitutes an ‘international incident,’” Lauren scoffed. “Has
anyone ever told you that you’re very dramatic, Eugene?”
James snorted, and Lauren filed that piece of information away so she could share it with Joy later.
“I have to ask,” James said as the three of them headed back to their respective offices. “Did your grandmother really have
an Irish setter named Brandy?”
Lauren just kept walking. “Two words, James,” she said as she turned the corner. “Crisis. Management.”
A few days following her successful first press conference, in the name of research and being well-prepared and a consummate professional (and also not wanting to give Eugene the upper hand), Lauren sat in her new apartment with takeout for dinner.
Her only furnishings aside from her bed were what had been left behind by the landlord, which included a little dining table, a small sofa, an absolutely massive TV stand, and no TV.
It wasn’t exactly cozy, but it would do as she dug into her poke bowl and did a deep dive into every single thing ever written on the internet about Jasper, the Duke of Exeter.
Everything was as James had said to her at the Palace staircase: New Zealand, tech billionaire who divorced him, sheep. So
many sheep. Fortunately there wasn’t anything in the press yet about the whole bankruptcy-and-borrowing-money thing, and Lauren
planned to keep it that way. But a handsome heir to the throne (even if he was ninth in line) who spent his days with baby
lambs and seemed to do little else? If they made him a working royal, then this was going to be the easiest job she had ever
had. She was going to crush it.
That was, if the press didn’t crush her first.
She woke up the following morning to a flurry of front-page headlines:
ROYAL FAMILY’S POPULARITY DETHRONED
GENERATION GAP: YOUNGSTERS GIVE ROYALS COLD SHOULDER
ROYAL PAIN! CROWN’S POPULARITY SEES BIGGEST DROP EVER
“Ugh,” she muttered, running a hand over her eyes as her phone buzzed. It was a text from Joy with screenshots of more articles saying the same thing, followed by a message: “Good luck with this today. Want anything from Pret? Had an early meeting at Theo’s school so I’m running ahead for once.”
“Almond croissant and a latte PLEASE,” Lauren wrote back. “You’re the best. One day people will write songs about you.”
“They already have,” Joy wrote back, followed by the winking emoji. “See you soon!”
“Well, the optics aren’t ideal,” Eugene announced as he hustled into the meeting room, and even from a distance, Lauren could
see his right eyelid stress twitching. Not a great sign.
“I’ll say,” James muttered, and even Harriet had to bite back a smile.
“As you may have seen, we are on the front page of every single newspaper in the country, and it’s not exactly good news.”
He looked over at Lauren. “I hope you’re ready to start really working today.”
“Always,” she replied, trying not to take offense at his shady comment. Lauren reached forward and started combing through
the newspapers that Eugene had fanned out on the conference table. “So this stems from just the one poll, right? One single
stat repeated in headlines over and over and over?”
“Not helping,” Harriet whispered.
“No, I just mean that it needs only one solution.”
“Which we still don’t have,” James pointed out, widening his eyes dramatically at Lauren.
You don’t know anything, he seemed to be saying, a silent reminder to keep her mouth shut about their secret conversation about the Duke of Exeter.
She gave him a very fast nod just as Eugene’s phone began to ring.
He answered it with his standard greeting of “Yes,” then paused before leaving the room.
“Okay, I’ve got to ask, but why do you think that so many young people are either not interested or are losing interest in
the royal family?” Lauren began.
“Oh, Lord.” James sighed, rubbing his forehead.
“Out of touch? People don’t understand what they do? Has this actually ever been discussed here?”
The entire room looked at her.
“To find a solution, you have to discuss the cause of the problem,” Lauren added.
“Well, we might have somewhat of a youth problem,” James said. “Currently, all the working family members are, well, maturing.”
“They’re old, James, you can just say it,” Violet said, then tossed her phone onto a tabloid. “I’ll spare you all the memes and comments
I see about the aging lineup, but trust me, they’re rarely flattering.”
“Our only young royals are still too young for public appearances or duty, they’re still at school, bless them,” Harriet added.
“How old are the twins now?” Joy asked.
“Sixteen.”
“Remember the photos of them at Legoland?” Joy said. “They were barely tall enough for the rides.”
“So adorable!” Harriet said. “Now they’re almost taller than the Prince and Princess.”