Chapter 4 #4
“Yes, I felt like I was studying for an exam—with my teacher breathing down my neck.”
“Great, that means you read it properly.”
“The mural mascot’s name is Poppy the Owl. Quite cute, I thought.”
“Absolutely.” Lauren checked her phone and then saw an excited-looking group of staff gathered outside the hospital as they
pulled up to the curb in central London’s Holborn area. “Okay, here we go. Remember, there are no enemies here. Just children,
parents, and staff who are excited to see you. I know you’ve been away for a long time, but believe it or not, you’re kind
of a big deal and you’re doing a good thing.”
The duke’s shoulders relaxed a bit, and when they entered the doors of the hospital, Lauren breathed a quiet sigh of relief
when he walked in and immediately cranked up the charisma. He greeted the staff with genuine warmth, nodding kindly at all
their words. “I think I spy Poppy,” he said at one point, gesturing toward the mural, and thankfully Violet was there alongside
a TV news camera and producer, capturing it all.
Lauren followed them as they went through the corridors, the ceiling painted with bright characters so that children could
see them as they were wheeled toward treatments and surgeries, those same characters playing among flowers and tall grass
in murals that lined the hallways. The duke listened attentively as they walked toward some of the children’s rooms, even
asking questions of the mural’s artist.
Lauren mentally high-fived herself and wondered how long she could gloat about this to James.
When they got to one of the children’s rooms, though, she sobered up.
The child was obviously sick, her small face swollen from treatment, even though she smiled when the duke entered the room.
Her mother was standing next to her bed, nearly shaking with nerves, and the duke gently waved at her to sit when she started to curtsy.
“Please, no, none of that,” he said. “I’m not the guest of honor today, you two are.
“And pay no attention to this lot,” he added, gesturing to the palace team, reporter, and photographer behind him. Lauren
could see the child—Lily, the operational note she put together had detailed—glancing nervously at them, and the duke positioned
himself so that she would have to look at him and only him. “Just a noisy pack of woodpeckers, they are.”
Lily smiled at that, which made the duke and everyone else in the room smile.
They chatted for a few minutes, the duke asking about her favorite things to do while in the hospital (was Lauren the only
person in the world who hadn’t seen Bluey? she wondered) and if Lily enjoyed the new artwork on the walls. “Yes,” she said, and then emotionally devastated everyone
within earshot when she added, “but sometimes it’s still scary and sad here.”
Lauren felt a lump rise in her throat, and she didn’t dare glance at Lily’s mother for fear that she would start to cry. The
duke just nodded thoughtfully, though, pressing his fingertips together beneath his chin as he took in her words. “I would
imagine that’s very true, Lily,” he said. “You’ve been through some very sad and scary things lately. So have I, as a matter
of fact. I’ve not been in hospital, but things have gone a bit pear-shaped in my life at times and I’ve sometimes felt the
same way.
“But you know what?” he continued, and Lauren could see the nearby reporter feverishly scribbling down everything he was saying in shorthand.
“I think it’s good that we’re able to feel the scary and sad things.
It means that we can also feel the happy and wonderful things.
It means we’ve still got fight in us. What do you think? ”
Lily nodded, and the duke offered her a wink and a fist bump, which she immediately accepted. “I’ll be thinking of you, Lily,”
he said as he started to stand up, then reached for Lily’s mother’s hand. “Both of you. And I expect to hear all about your
newest exploits when I see you again, okay?”
Lily, whose eyes were shining like she had just met her own real-life prince, just kept nodding. It was amazing to Lauren
the effect royal visits like this could have, and she felt excited at the thought of the British public getting to witness
more of this over the months ahead.
“I almost lost it right on the spot,” the duke muttered to Lauren as they left the cameras and press behind to continue down
the hall for the remainder of the engagement.
“You were wonderful,” Lauren whispered back, handing him a surgical mask to put on. “Truly. Not even just as the Duke of Exeter,
but as a person.”
The duke looked at her, surprised. “Well, I am a person,” he said, his bright blue eyes peering over the fabric of the medical cover. “I know I’ve been off the map for
a while, but please don’t forget that.”
Lauren couldn’t respond before he was whisked away into a playroom with about fifteen children, all of them masked. “Well,
hel-lo!” he called out. “Thank you so much for having me come visit today. It’s wet and miserable outside, so I’m glad to
be inside with you all instead!”
Lauren watched for twenty minutes as he leveled every person there—adults and children alike.
The room felt too small to hold all his charm, and away from the gazing eyes of millions of people, he truly seemed like royalty, like he was destined to do this.
He even read to the children after one of them asked, sitting on a tiny chair while they gathered around him, pointing out things in the pictures and asking them questions that garnered answers all shouted out at once, most of them non sequiturs like, “I have a dog!” and “I saw a train once!”
By the time they both collapsed into the waiting car, Lauren felt elated and exhausted, not just because the event had gone
as well as she hoped it would but also because James had hopped into his own cab and headed home, confident that all potential
crises had been eradicated.
“Christ,” the duke said with a gasp. “I am sweating under this jacket. I had no idea that reading to children could be so terrifying. All of their little eyes just staring at
you. Do I do the voices? Do I not do the voices? How stupid am I about to look reading the lines of a pig that’s lost its—
What? What’s wrong?”
Lauren realized she was staring at him like a lovestruck teenager would stare at her music idol. “Nothing!” she said. “Sorry,
nothing at all. You were just so good in there. Do you even realize the impact you had on everyone today?”
The duke loosened his tie. “Just tried to cheer up some sick children and their parents, that’s all. Make them forget about
their trials and tribulations for a few hours.”
“Well, you did more than that.” Her phone dinged, and she glanced down at a text from Violet. “THIS IS GOING TO BE INTERNET
GOLD,” it read.
“Good,” Lauren texted. “Go do your thing.”
Violet sent back a heart emoji in response.
“Anyway,” Lauren said. “You were great, and I think you brought a lot of happiness to a lot of people today.”
“Well, excellent,” the duke said, letting out a nervous breath and wiping his hands on his slacks as the rainy city slipped
past their window. “What else are we good for if not that?”
Lauren’s phone buzzed again, and she expected to see another text from Violet.
But it was one from Oscar.
“Any exclusive details you want to share with a member of the press who wasn’t allowed to cover the event today?”
Lauren bit back her smile. “The duke wore a custom Henry Poole suit for the occasion.”
“Must be a day that ends in Y,” Oscar wrote back. “Anything else?”
“Ormond Street was grateful for his patronage and support today.”
“You’re killing me.”
She smirked to herself, but Oscar’s question reminded her of something else.
“Do you want to add a quote to the press release?” Lauren asked the duke, opening a new Notes page on her phone. “We can send
it out to all the press.”
The duke thought for a minute. “No,” he finally said. “We can let everything stand for today. There will already be plenty
of eyes on this.”
Lauren, a little surprised, closed the app before he could see it. “All right,” she said. “If anyone has follow-up questions,
we can take it from there.”
“That thing you said,” the duke said, turning to her. “Back at the hospital, about me being a person.”
“That was . . . I chose the wrong words,” Lauren replied.
“No, I don’t think you did,” the duke said, sitting back in his seat with a sigh. “I think everyone forgets that about us,
that we’re just people born into a strange and unique position.” He paused before speaking again, and this time, his voice
was tighter. “The press back in there, that’s partly why I wanted to move so far away, it’s why my mum was so desperate for
me to go to uni in New Zealand and why I chose to stay. I’ve seen with other family members how they destroy your happiness
and life and then get excited about the clicks they get from it.”
He turned back to Lauren. “I can’t control what the press does, and I assume you know that better than anyone. But in this
group, this circle”—he gestured with his hands to the car, the driver, the clothes—“I don’t want anyone here to forget that.
All right? I’m not going to be the savior they want me to be. I can’t turn this cruise ship around on a dime. And I won’t
let them use me like they have used so many others in this family.”
Lauren nodded. “I know,” she said. “Thank you for—for being here and doing this. I’m sure it wasn’t an easy decision.”
The duke let out a laugh that sounded unamused. “Of course it was easy,” he replied. “My aunt, who just so happens to be the
Queen, called me and asked me. Have you ever tried telling the Queen no?”
“In all honesty, I don’t think I’m allowed to speak to her,” Lauren replied, and this time the duke’s laugh sounded genuine.
“I’m very serious. I think Eugene would throw himself in between us before I ever got a word out.”
“Ah, Eugene,” Jasper said. “One day he’ll unclench.”
Lauren covered her mouth before she could laugh. “Maybe,” she said. “But for what it’s worth, I’m glad you’re here. People will be happy to see you again.”
“For today, perhaps,” the duke replied, then propped his chin up on his fist as they both looked out the passenger window.
“But good news doesn’t sell papers.” He glanced back at Lauren. “It’s the bad news that people always seem to want.”
It turned out that the duke was wrong about one of those things.
“Look at these headlines!” Lauren cried out as Eugene entered the office. She had taken the liberty of thumbtacking all the
newspapers’ front pages to the rarely used bulletin board in the conference room, where the only other signs warned of a “serious
ant infestation” and that no one should “EVER” eat food at their desks.
Lauren thought about all her snacks tucked inside her desk drawer—just two meters from doors that led to the Palace gardens—and
decided those didn’t count.
“I told you, he’s magnetic,” Lauren continued, pointing to each newspaper with every word she spoke. James looked somewhat
intrigued as he followed close behind, his cheeks flushed from the outside cold air.
Lauren pointed to Violet. “Violet, can you please show everyone the YouTube play count from the hospital’s video promoting
his visit?”
“Anything to stop this Stone Age thing you have going on here,” Violet muttered, then turned her phone to show the YouTube
clip, which had amassed more than two million views in barely twenty-four hours. “This is really great, though. The only people
who get these kinds of views in a day are, like, K-pop artists and Mr. Beast.”
Lauren beamed as she turned back to the group. “Definitely going to be the lead item during this morning’s press briefing, I can tell you that! But really, we need to send him on tour,” she said. “People need to see him.”
“Why do you make him sound like a boy band?” James muttered.
“Excuse me, but I believe I was tasked with helping improve the public’s perception of the royal family,” Lauren said, then
pointed at the photo of the duke talking to Lily in her hospital bed. “Everybody loves him. Right, Violet?”
“The only people saying mean things online are the trolls,” Violet agreed.
“Eugene, think of it this way: The Queen’s idea has been a spectacular success. Don’t you want to run the ball down the field?”
“I suspect this is an American sport reference,” Eugene said drily.
“It’s possible,” Lauren said.
He took a deep breath before opening his laptop. “We can talk after Balmoral,” he said. “Christmas there will be his official royal debut. If it goes well, then . . .” He shrugged and Lauren realized that was as good of a yes as she was going to get.
“We will definitely be talking after Balmoral,” she said. She still hadn’t quite wrapped her head around the fact that she
would be spending the holiday at a literal castle. “You can bet on it.”
“And I await it with bated breath,” Eugene replied. “By the way, shouldn’t you be running a media briefing?”
Lauren glanced at her phone. “Oh shit,” she muttered, and ran down the hall toward the waiting press pack.