Chapter Five
Prince Arthur
“Is The Queen gonna be in there?” Connie asks, as we sit in his car on the drive of my family home.
I shrug. “I don’t know—she might be.”
“Can I come in?” He nudges me.
“No—I’m getting my stuff and that’s it, I’ll be five minutes.”
He groans. “But she’s The Queen!”
“She’s my nan!”
“Who also happens to be The Queen!”
“Stop it, Con.”
I stare out of the passenger side window, watching the front door. I don’t want to go, knowing I’m unwanted there. Shit feeling, that is. Every time I walk through that door, I never know what I’m going to be met with.
My heart races.
After meeting with the twins, we came straight here so I could empty out the rest of my bedroom and rid my family of all proof of my existence.
Not a single text from any of them since I left the other day.
It’s a guilty feeling you get when you think about being unwanted by your family because surely that’s wrong?
You’re their flesh and blood, why would your brain even go there.
But sometimes it’s true, sometimes you are unwanted and even though they might be shit people, it still leaves a gaping hole in your chest that only they could fill.
And I think it makes it worse that there wasn’t a big argument over it—Mum didn’t kick up a big fuss so how can I hate her?
There were no harsh words said that I can cling onto and remind myself of.
There were no passing comments that stuck with me, no tantrums for me to remember.
Ending anything on good terms is worse than ending it on a big row.
Makes it so much harder to hate and move on and get over it because you’re still thinking deep down that they didn’t mean it.
I knock twice, Delphine answers as she always does. Gives me a look, a tight lipped smile and big eyes—a warning that yet again, I’d be walking into a shitstorm.
“Please, Mum,” Evangeline cries from the kitchen.
I walk through, see her at the table with a plate of untouched food in front of her. Mum sat opposite her, head in her hands.
Clear my throat, walking further in.
Mum pops her head up, plasters on a fake smile and comes walking over. She grabs my arm, pulls me into the hallway.
“What’s going on?” I scan her face, her eyes, but I see nothing.
I do, however, take notice of how she looks generally, though.
For having had four kids, she’s skinny, tall, very docile.
Constantly looks a bit weathered, the papers often call her out for looking old—and she might be, sure.
She has wrinkles on her face and a permanent frown between her brows but that’s not from ageing badly. My mum, I realise, is just exhausted.
“It’s the food thing, Arthur,” she shakes her head. “I can’t do it anymore.”
“What food thing? I didn’t know Ev had a ‘food thing’.”
I’d know about something like that. I’m her brother.
“Sophia,” Delphine butts in delicately, hand on Mum’s arm. “Do you want me to talk to her?”
Mum folds her lips in, looks like she’s about to cry. “I don’t think anything you or I could say would go through to her.”
“What food thing?” I ask again.
Our life long nanny looks at me, swallows and then walks away.
“It’s a whole palava, Arthur,” Mum throws her hands up. “I can’t get into right now—anyway, come through, Nanny is here.”
Brilliant that is.
Fucking perfect.
We walk into the reception, Nan is sitting on the sofa with a cup of tea. She spots me standing there, puts her cup down and smiles.
It’s so rare to see my nan smiling how she is now. It’s genuine. Puts me on edge a bit.
“Arthur,” she says almost wistfully. “Come sit with me, have some tea,” she waves me over.
Mum walks out of the room, I sit on the opposite sofa and pour myself a cup even though it’s the last thing I want to do.
All I planned on doing was getting my stuff and going.
Even when I did live here, I hated being here longer than I had to.
Getting thrown out might have been a blessing in disguise.
“How are you?”
“Good, yeah.”
“And where are you living now? I hope wherever it is, it’s treating you well, yes?”
I glance around the room expecting to see other people pop out—my dad or my grandad or people who work for her.
My nan laughs, that quiet little polite laugh. “I’m here informally, Arthur. We can talk openly.”
“Uh,” clear my throat again. “I’m living with Connie—Constance Holland.”
I clench my jaw, wait for it to come.
Takes a second but then she hisses, puts her cup back down.
“Matthew Holland’s son?” She asks with her eyes squinted.
“That one, yes,” I nod stiffly.
As you could probably imagine, my grandparents aren’t my friends biggest fans. Although close in a way I’ll probably never understand with the Stratton’s, it took some warming up to do when I first announced who I was hanging around with.
Even now my parents are on edge when I mention Connie or Bliss’s name. Spencer, they don’t mind because she’s Spencer and Phoebe they love because she isn’t a fuck up like me. The twins, they’ve always been funny around. I don’t know why and neither do they, I don’t think.
“I trust you’re not partying anymore.”
“No, not anymore. I’ve been sober for just over two years.”
“Well done you,” she nods in approval. “What are your plans now? University, perhaps?”
I wonder if she isn’t bringing Sebastian up because she doesn’t want to believe it.
Sebastian’s always been the golden one, always been the one fighting with us for the invisible approval of our family—and he fucking got it.
If his scandal was mine, I’d have my title revoked and my arse shipped away to another country.
“No, I don’t plan on university.”
I wait for the second wave of shame to hit me.
“Well, why not?” She asks in a bit of a condescending way. “Everyone in our family has gone. You can’t just break a tradition.”
“It’s just not for me,” I say quietly, hanging my head slightly.
“So, what do you plan on doing, then? You can’t just sit around doing nothing, Arthur.”
I pop my head up, don’t even think about it. “I’m gonna marry her.”
My nan pulls back, eyes wide. “Who?”
“Phoebe,” I say with little to no shame. “I’m going to marry her.”
Definitely should’ve thought about it.
“That’s it?” My nan laughs, appalled. “That’s all you’re going to do?”
I shrug even though she thinks it’s worse than first degree murder. “That’s all there’s worth doing.”
“Very well,” she clears her throat, shuffles on the sofa. “Why Phoebe?”
“Why Phoebe?” I give her a wild look. “Maybe because I’ve been in love with her since I was five.”
My nan looks at me, head on. “There’s no such thing as love, Arthur. You should want to marry so you can one day sit on that throne as your father and as your brother will.”
I clench my teeth.
And then I stand up to leave.
“What about Astrid the Princess of Sweden?”
I whip my head around. “What about her?”
“Why not marry her?” She straightens out her skirt, not looking at me. “She’s remarkably beautiful and she’s focusing on getting her PhD.”
“I don’t care,” I laugh—don’t care who I’m talking to. “Why would I marry her?”
“She’s looking for a husband.”
“Her family is looking for a new asset and this isn’t the eighteen hundreds, we don’t do arranged marriages anymore.”
“You’re very right,” she says flippantly. “It’s just something to consider.”
No, it isn’t.
Met Astrid once, when I was about eight at a garden party.
All these people care about is the throne and that to me, is beyond ludicrous. No such thing as love? My parents are in love, I know they are because I’ve seen it. My grandparents? Sure, maybe not—but me and Phoebe? Is a love they’d never fucking understand.
If she came to me and asked me to drop my title and live in the Mongolian jungle with her, I’d do it in a heartbeat. I’d die getting her out of a fire she lit and that’s something no member of my family could comprehend.
I thought we’d moved away from all the fucking Victorian shit but apparently not.
The paparazzi and the papers don’t even know the half of it, all they see is what we put out.
For years, they thought my grandparents lived in Buckingham Palace.
They don’t, they live in Windsor but everything we do is calculated and manipulated into what we want seen.
Yeah, you have the lip readers and the body language experts who think it’s in their right to comment on every single thing we do but we’re aware, we know they’re going to examine us.
What happens inside this house, they’ll never know. For so, so, so long I felt so disgusted and ashamed of myself for the habit I couldn’t break. My parents hid me like a sordid affair. But as long as we look perfect when we leave the house, it doesn’t matter.
I go upstairs, go through my room and collect more of my stuff, throwing everything into duffle bags. It’s not a lot, a few clothes and the stuff in my drawers.
My room is completely empty when I’m finished, just the furniture.
Even the bed only has the mattress on it.
It feels weird, like a happy goodbye which is strange because can any goodbye be a happy one?
I don’t think so. There’s always some bittersweet feeling residing.
But not now. I think I’m glad to leave it all behind.
If it was up to me, I’d never step foot in this house again.
I’d be feeling a lot different if I had Phoebe in here but I never did, she never came here because I loved her too much to bring her in here.
Every place I look is a place that holds the same disturbing memory.
My desk, where I used to trick myself into thinking I could rack up a few lines to get my homework done.
My bed, where I’d spend weeks in the most inhuman agonising pain—