Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Callum
The weeks of summer continue to pass by in a blur of royal engagements and missing Oliver.
Then, just as London consistently has temperatures that feel like summer to this Californian, it’s time to decamp to Scotland. Because that makes sense. Who needs the undiluted summer sun when you can have it combined with a sharp breeze coming off the Arctic?
I get a meme from Amelia as I’m packing to go.
I love summer in Scotland. This year it was a Wednesday.
I have a nostalgic feeling when I arrive at Balmoral. The last time I was here was the final summer before my father died, and the whole family was gathered.
Balmoral was where Gran always seemed the most relaxed. Grandpa was beside her, and all my uncles and aunts and cousins were here, and we had picnics and played endless games of tag on the grouse moors, my cousins mocking me when I wouldn’t swim with them in the freezing River Dee.
Now the castle is empty, echoing.
My Uncle Edwin, Aunt Alice, and my cousins, Princess Chloe and Prince Frederick, have been invited to Balmoral because they were deemed to have engaged in the lowest level of offending. At least their bribery was an attempt to help the country rather than for personal gain.
Although I’m angry at them for what they’ve done to the royal family, I do feel a pang of sympathy for how the lives of my cousins have changed so abruptly.
But from the conversation I have with her when she first arrives, Chloe’s biggest concern seems to be she has been forced to close her social media accounts.
Gran normally stays at Balmoral for a few months but she’s cut down her visit to a few weeks this year because of everything else going on.
I’m glad she’s decided to come though. She’s been working so hard to plug the gaps in the royal engagement schedule and shore up public support for the monarchy.
At dinner on the first night, the subdued lighting in the dining room makes the shadows under her eyes even more pronounced.
And I get the feeling her exhaustion is being made worse by Edwin’s determination to bulldoze her into extending an invitation to the rest of the family to come to Balmoral.
“It’s our private family residence. They can’t stop you from inviting your own family.” Edwin’s jaw is set stubbornly.
“The public simply won’t tolerate Albert and James and the children welcomed back into the family fold,” Gran replies as she cuts a precise piece off her beef Wellington. “And neither shall I.”
Edwin’s eyebrows raise. “Neither shall you?”
“No.” She spears a fork through the meat.
“But, Mummy, they’re your children and grandchildren.”
“That makes it even worse, Edwin. They knew the stakes.”
Edwin’s fork drops to his plate with a clatter. “And what do you anticipate will happen in the future? Are you never going to forgive them? Are we all going to be in exile forever?”
Gran dabs the corner of her mouth with a napkin before she replies. “We’ll get the court case out of the way, and then we’ll discuss the future. But I can’t see how any of your futures can be in Britain.”
“Are you planning to banish us all?” Chloe’s voice rises in alarm.
“Callum won’t need the distraction of having family members running around reminding the public of their disgrace.”
I twist my napkin in my hand.
I didn’t know my aunts, uncles, and cousins very well before this, and I can’t hide the troubling thought that I’ve benefited the most from their downfall.
Edwin shoots a glance at me. “So, Callum’s the family’s great savior, is he? Everyone else is sacrificed to make Callum’s life easier.”
“That’s the way it works,” Nicholas speaks up. “It has always been all about the heir.” Do I detect a note of bitterness in his voice?
Edwin frowns. “But, Mummy…” he starts again, but Gran straightens her shoulders and gives him such a look of cold fury that the rest of his words die abruptly without leaving his mouth.
Amelia dips her head toward me. “Well, this is a fun family dinner,” she says in a low voice.
“It’s ranking up there with sitting in a bathtub of razor blades,” I reply in an equally low voice.
She gives me a supportive smile.
“And you realize that the monarch’s estate goes directly from monarch to monarch, right?” Nicholas is saying at the other end of the table in a loud voice. “So all of Gran’s personal fortune will go to Callum, and he’ll decide how much, if any, comes to the rest of us.”
All gazes on the table except for Gran’s swivel to me.
“That monarch-to-monarch inheritance is simply a way to avoid the private estate being whittled down by inheritance tax,” Gran says calmly.
My stomach hollows.
Shit. I hadn’t realized I would inherit everything when my grandmother passes away.
All the stories of the betrayals and backstabbing among the royal family flash through my mind.
“Anyway, I think it would be a good idea if you are gone before the Ghillies Ball,” Gran says to Edwin.
“So now I’m not allowed to go to the ball either?” Somehow Edwin, as a fifty-year-old man, manages to channel a sulky Cinderella.
“It would not be a good look. Especially as the prime minister will be present,” Gran says.
I almost choke on my mouthful of green beans.
“The prime minister is coming here?” I clarify when I can talk. But it appears I still don’t have full control of my body as my voice manages to rise an octave in that sentence.
“Yes, it’s customary for the current prime minister to visit Balmoral in summer while I’m in residence. It happens every year.”
My stomach churns.
I haven’t spoken to Oliver in three weeks.
But because it appears I have a previously undiscovered masochistic side of my personality, my current extracurricular activity is re-reading the old message chains between Oliver and me.
Not caught up in the pressure of having to answer him, I’ve been able to dwell on the content of the messages and how much Oliver revealed about himself over the few months we were communicating.
And I think I like the guy more now than I did before.
His sense of humor. His acute observations and brilliant mind. His kindness.
It’s a slight balm to know the reason we’re not communicating right now is because he feels something for me too.
And I get it. I totally understand. He’s right that nothing good can come from continuing our friendship now that we know mutual attraction exists.
But Oliver is coming here tomorrow, and we’re going to be in close proximity. Balmoral Castle is big, but there’s no way we can avoid each other completely.
How am I going to cope with the next few days?