Chapter Eighteen
Henrietta Smythe: Were you frightened? It was all a rather dreadful ordeal, from the picture Agent Singh has painted.
Evangeline Bright: I wasn’t scared for myself. I was scared for Kit. He was the one going to his classes—lectures—every day, facing the paparazzi and people who hated us.
Smythe: Because they thought you were terrorists.
Bright: Because they thought we were responsible for killing eight people.
Smythe: It’s amazing so many believed it, considering you two were in the Modern Music Museum at the time of the bombing. You could have both been killed.
Lord Clarence: Evangeline almost was. Her personal protection officer, Ingrid Straw, was one of the eight people killed, and she gave her life to protect her. If she hadn’t pushed Evangeline out of the way…
[pause]
Bright: I owe my life to Ingrid, and I will never, ever forget the sacrifices she made. And we will never forget the courage and determination of everyone involved in hunting down the Abr and finally allowing the families of those who died in the bombing to seek justice for their loved ones.
Suraj Singh: That’s what we at MI5 signed up for—to protect this country and her citizens from people like John Phillip Michaels, formerly known as Guy Fawkes, the head of the Army of the British Republic. But Evangeline and Lord Clarence didn’t have to do this.
Bright: Yes, we did.
Singh: No, you didn’t. You were comfortable and well protected right where you were, and no one in their right mind should’ve ever asked you to get involved in something so dangerous.
Clarence: Except for you.
Singh: Yes, well, no one’s ever accused me of being in my right mind.
But it did make sense—Lord Clarence already had a connection with a supposedly defunct Oxford club we believed to be loosely associated with the Abr, and with John Phillip Michaels already making the outrageous claim that Evangeline was involved, we decided to call his bluff.
Smythe: Some have called the move reckless.
Bright: We were aware of the risks. But we were also very aware of the fact that by using our connections, we could potentially save Agent Singh’s team months or possibly years by putting ourselves in an uncomfortable position.
Smythe: So you’re saying you were willing to put your own lives in jeopardy if it meant bringing the Abr to justice sooner, and potentially stopping countless others from also losing their lives and loved ones?
[pause]
Clarence: Yes.
Bright: It was never about being…brave or anything like that. It was about…it was about my dad, too. And finding the people who tried to kill him.
Smythe: So it was also personal.
Bright: I—we were just trying to protect our family. We knew the Abr wouldn’t stop coming after us until my sister and Kit’s aunt and—everyone we loved were dead. And we couldn’t let that happen if there was even a single thing we could do to try to stop it.
Clarence: Evangeline doesn’t like to think of it as brave, but when she asked me if I’d go with her to Oxford—if I would help her and MI5 in the investigation, because by then, I could tell she’d already decided, whether I went with her or not—it was the most courageous and selfless thing I’d ever seen.
We didn’t know then what would happen next—we didn’t know what the consequences would be.
If the Abr would find us first, or if we’d even succeed in infiltrating the club that fed into the Abr.
But Evangeline didn’t care about any of that.
Nothing in the world could have convinced her that it was too dangerous, or that it wasn’t her place to try.
Evangeline was determined to do everything she could, no matter what the country thought of her—of us.
By then, I already knew I loved her, but that was the moment I really, truly fell in love with her.
I don’t know how anyone could’ve witnessed that kind of selfless and stubborn determination and not done so.
Smythe: Did you have any hesitations yourself, Lord Clarence? Considering what we unfortunately now know about what happened to your brother, William, and the toll that must have taken on both you and your family.
[pause]
Clarence: Of course I had hesitations, and every moment Evangeline and I were there together, I was terrified—truly terrified—that something would happen to her, and I would never see her again.
But if Liam taught me anything in life, it’s to take each moment as it comes and keep moving forward to the best of my ability and morality.
And I also couldn’t step aside and do nothing when it was fully in my capacity to help.
Liam is the reason I had those connections to the Oxford club in the first place, the ones that eventually led to the Abr, and in a way—a big way—Liam is the reason we were able to find these terrorists before they claimed another life.
He is as much a part of this as Evangeline and me, and I will always be grateful to him for being the best brother and guide in life that I could have ever asked for, even in death.
Smythe: I was very sorry to hear of your loss, and even sorrier now to know the cause and circumstances behind it.
Clarence: Thank you.
Smythe: May I ask what this club is that you keep alluding to?
Singh: I fear that’s still classified, as the investigation is still in the beginning stages.
Smythe: Of course. Would it be too much, then, to ask after His Majesty’s status?
[pause]
Bright: I don’t think he’d mind too much if I mentioned that this morning, he promised to watch this interview live with the rest of the nation.
Smythe: He’s conscious, then? And well?
Bright: He’s on the mend and furious that Kit and I put ourselves in danger. But he gets it, I think. Or at least I hope.
Smythe: I imagine he’s very, very proud of you.
Bright: I hope so, but…I’m just glad the Abr can never hurt him or the rest of my family again.
Smythe: And how are you two? You’ve been dating since July, is that correct? That’s an awfully short period of time to suddenly be thrown together in what is essentially the death-defying thriller of the year. How has your relationship held up?
[pause]
Clarence: As they say, the strongest steel is forged in the hottest fire, and Evangeline and I have never been closer.
Bright: He’s a good one. I think I’ll keep him for a while.
Clarence: Just a while?
Bright: Maybe forever.
—Excerpt from the BBC One interview of Evangeline Bright, Christopher Abbott-Montgomery, Earl of Clarence, and Agent Suraj Singh, by Henrietta Smythe, 12 February 2024
There’s a moment after the interview is over, when Henrietta Smythe has shaken our hands and everyone is standing around congratulating themselves on a job well done, when Kit guides me to a corner of the hotel suite and wraps his arms around me like he alone can protect me from every miserable minute of what we’ve just had to do.
“Are you okay?” he says softly, his lips brushing the shell of my ear. I shake my head against his dark button-down shirt, sliding my arms beneath his suit jacket and hugging him in return, ignoring the mic pack still hooked to his belt.
“Not really,” I say just as quietly. “Are you?”
“Not yet, but I will be,” he admits, his voice thick and on the verge of breaking.
He was cool and composed throughout the interview, which picked apart every salacious detail of the past two months that Henrietta Smythe could get her hands on, from the bullet wound that we shared at Sandringham to what our living arrangements in Oxford were like to what really happened when I was kidnapped by Guy Fawkes himself—or, as I now know, John Phillip Michaels, the son of one Baron Michaels, which is so ironic that I almost choked when Singh told us right before the interview began.
But now Kit is beginning to show the cracks, and I hug him tighter, determined to hold him together as best I can.
“I’m just glad it’s finally over,” I whisper. The walls I’ve struggled to build over the past month begin to crumble, too, and I sniff into his chest, a wet sound that should embarrass me, but Kit buries his nose in my hair, and I don’t care about anything but him. “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” he murmurs. “Whatever happens now…it was worth it. You’re worth it.”
“So are you,” I manage shakily. “Thank you. For being you. For being here. For loving me. For all of it.”
I can feel his faint smile against my scalp, and he kisses the top of my head. “Loving you will always be my greatest privilege and greatest pleasure, Ev. Never doubt that for a moment.”
Neither of us realizes that the cameras are still rolling. And the next day, when our interview is being replayed and dissected endlessly on social media, and by gossip sites and news channels that were cursing our names only a week ago, that’s the clip they show the most.
That’s the clip that changes everything.