Chapter Eleven
Back then
The papers were fanned out in their usual order when Marina came in, and James had already worked out the shape of the morning from the photographs on the front pages alone. Caroline was on every one of them.
He poured himself another cup of tea and settled in to enjoy it.
There were rare days when the press swung its lenses off him and onto someone else, and they were the nearest thing to a holiday his position allowed.
A king was looked at every day of his life; there’d be no clocking off for him this side of the grave.
So he was predisposed, when Marina began a very Caroline-heavy press briefing, to be delighted.
“The hospital visit went over beautifully,” she said, turning her tablet to face him. “The Express has run the photograph of the Princess Royal with the premature twins. The Mail’s led on the coat.” She paused. “Although…there’s a developing line of interest, Sir, that I should flag.”
“Go on.”
A developing line of interest, in Marina’s vocabulary, ran the full range from a columnist’s grumble to a reader poll on hemlines.
James assumed it would be about the hair.
He waited for vindication. Caroline had let her colourist try something new, and her usual auburn had come out a shade too far towards red.
He’d said as much, and had been told to mind his own bloody business.
“It concerns a Mr Whitlock.”
James’s cup came down hard enough to slosh tea over the rim and onto the saucer.
“He has appeared in proximity to the Princess at three separate functions over the past fortnight, never posed together, never named beside her.” Marina searched for the phrasing. “But the royal-watching corners of the internet have begun to join the dots, and there’s speculation online.”
“Speculation that my sister is carrying on with a former child actor from the Disney Channel?”
“In essence, Sir, yes.”
There was nothing in the newsprint itself yet about the speculations, because Marina was far too bloody good at her job to let him be ambushed by a big royal story.
But the intrigue was clearly assembling at the edges.
It wouldn’t be seen as a scandal; Caroline was twenty-four and entitled to be photographed within the vicinity of whomever she pleased.
But it would be a proper circus, because Tristan Whitlock was photogenic, very American, and had been a celebrity since before he could even talk.
“Shall I keep monitoring the situation, Sir?”
“Please do. And I’d like a profile done up.”
It sounded like a small request, but James knew exactly what it would set in motion.
A sovereign request for a profile did not mean some low-level bureaucrat would spend an afternoon on Google.
It meant the man’s finances, his exes, and his entire medical history would be picked apart by people whose budget line Parliament was not allowed to see.
Somewhere in a building beside the Thames, an analyst would shortly be reading the Silas Speaks fan wiki as a matter of national interest.
Marina gathered her tablet and left him to glower at the papers over the rest of his breakfast.
? ? ?
He went to Clarence House two mornings later, ostensibly for breakfast, but really to conduct reconnaissance under the flag of fraternal affection. Benton came too, as Benton went everywhere with him. He would also serve as a witness and potential buffer if Caroline turned violent.
His sister received him in the small dining room with the good light. She curtsied first, as she always did, even in private, and said, “Your Majesty.” Then she kissed him soundly on the cheek and was only Caroline again. Benton installed himself at the sideboard with the tea set.
“James. How lovely.” She stood back and looked him over. “To what do I owe this visit? You’ve been impossible to pin down for weeks.”
“Being Kingly eats up the diary.” He sat at the head of the table, opposite Caroline. “I thought I’d steal an hour with my favourite sibling. Catch up. See if there was anything new in your life that I ought to know about?”
It was as broad a net as he could cast without showing her the boat.
“I had my eyebrows done,” Caroline said.
James paused with his tea cup halfway to his mouth. This was not the development he had come to discuss, but he was a great believer in following a witness wherever she chose to lead.
“Did you?”
“It’s called microblading. They map the shape on first, then go in with a little blade and the—” She gestured vaguely at her own brow. “I shan’t bore you with the mechanics.”
“No, please don’t.” He studied her brows. They did look different: darker, fuller, sitting bolder and higher than before. “They’re looking rather full.”
Caroline’s perfect grip on her knife shifted into something better suited to a stabbing. “I beg your pardon?”
“They’re looking quite full,” James said. “Lush. Generous. One might almost say—”
“Don’t you dare.”
Benton spoke up from his post by the sideboard. “If I may, ma’am. I find they lend your face a great deal of impact.”
James looked at him, delighted. “Benton. We value truth from our private secretaries above all else.”
The corner of Benton’s mouth moved by a millimetre and he adjusted his tie.
“Thank you, Benton.” Caroline gave buttering her toast her full attention.
“On an entirely separate note…”
“I do love it when you say that, James. It always means we’ve reached the thing you actually came for.”
“You’ve been photographed rather a lot lately. In interesting company.”
“I’m photographed constantly, James. It’s rather the central feature of the job.”
“Mm. Only there’s a name attaching itself to yours now, and it’s a name with a Disney Channel back catalogue and an American passport.
” He set the cup down. “I only mean that these things draw a particular sort of attention. They settle in and don’t leave when you’d like them to.
I’d hate to see you the subject of a spectacle you hadn’t chosen to be a part of. ”
“Oh, James. How caring you are! You’re worried about my virtue.”
“I’m worried about the front page of the papers.”
“Mmhm. Good. Because you’re quite a few years too late to worry about the former.”
“Caroline. Don’t be crass.” He reached for his tea. “This is exactly what I was worried about! The American’s rubbing off on you already.”
“Yes.” She said it with great serenity. “Frequently.”
James looked away from his sister, to Benton, by the sideboard. The man had become deeply absorbed in the teapot.
“He’s terribly proper, you know,” Caroline said as she bit into her toast. “He’s beautifully behaved. You’ll see when your dossier on him comes back and you’ve had the chance to read through it.”
James knew better than to try and deny that there was a profile in the making, and simply went on picking at his breakfast in grumpy silence.
? ? ?
The profile arrived on the Thursday, in a nondescript manila folder. He opened it over his second cup of tea.
SUBJECT: WHITLOCK, Tristan Marlon.
Nationality: American
Age: 24
Overview
Born in Pasadena, California.
Mother: Janet Anne, née Fanshawe, of Sevenoaks. Deceased.
Father: Raymond John Whitlock. Living, retired. Two elder brothers, Ren (29) and William (26). Both employed in the entertainment industry in non-performing capacities. No estrangements of note.
Body of work. Four seasons of Silas Speaks (Disney Channel), followed by family-oriented feature work and two unsuccessful romantic comedies. No adult content. No nudity. No project on record that the Palace would consider compromising.
Prior relationships. Three documented, all concluded amicably. Each former partner spoke of the subject without rancour. One offered, unprompted, that he was the most considerate man she had ever dated.
Criminal record. None. No cautions, no charges, no civil proceedings. No motoring offences of any description.
Substance use. No indication, historic or current.
Assessment. Notably stable for a performer of his background.
Completed secondary education to diploma standard via on-set tutoring; did not attend university.
Feedback gathered from former colleagues, directors, crew and fellow cast was, without exception, positive. No reputational liabilities identified.
James started reading and was profoundly bored three pages in.
He persisted out of sheer stubbornness. When he finished, he sat with the complete non-event that was Tristan Whitlock’s twenty-four years of life and started to wonder whether his sister had found herself a perfectly serviceable blank slate of a royal spouse.
He had asked the most expensive intelligence apparatus in the country to bring him a hit file, and it had returned the remarkably unremarkable life of a conspicuously stable former child actor.
There were no flame-outs in Tristan’s past. No stints in rehab.
Not even a teenage arrest record discreetly sealed by his studio.
Tristan Whitlock had been famous for decades, and had emerged a man who was kind to his brothers, decent to his exes, and pleasant to everyone he had ever worked with.
That, James thought, was why the man’s career was stalling.
He’d read the trade gossip the analyst had clipped to the back: the Disney boy who couldn’t quite pin down an adult role.
Considered too pretty for the gritty roles.
The very thing that made him impossible to object to as a suitor for Caroline was strangling him professionally.
“Benton.”
Benton looked up at him from where he was bent over his own stack of paperwork.
“This is the cleanest profile I have ever read.”
“Yes, Sir. The analyst remarked on it. She said it read rather like a reference.”
“It reads like a canonisation.” James closed the folder and set it beside the toast. “I asked for dirt. They’ve sent me details on the life of an unassailable saint.”
“Shall I have them dig further, Sir?”
“No.” He reached for the marmalade. “If a man this dull is what’s caught Caroline’s eye, the least I can do is let her be bored in peace.”