“I’ve met Keira,” she said, interrupting me. “A pleasant and intelligent girl, I thought. Certainly not deserving of being dragged into this unpleasant deception you are attempting to perpetrate.”
“It’s not a bloody lie!” I said, my hands balling into fists by my side. I wanted to say far worse words right now, but this situation didn’t need to be made any worse by my mother fainting at the sound of me saying ‘fuck’.
“You know,” she answered me with an icy hauteur, clearly quite angry though holding it closely in check, “I have always deplored your lifestyle but I have taken some comfort from the fact that you did not bring it home—you left the staff unmolested. To find that even that civility has escaped you is at best disappointing. And to find that you would exploit the genuine feelings of a girl you have previously used, and would use her further to weasel out of your royal marriage obligations…there are days when I can barely even look at you. Get out.”
I narrowed my eyes and spoke, my voice steely. “Not until I’ve damn well gotten it through to you that I’m not using her. I’m in love with K—”
“I said get out! Now!”
My mother seldom raised her voice, but she had just then to cut me off, making it all too clear how upset she was. Her personal bodyguard, who’d been standing nearby, quickly came over and tapped me on the shoulder before gesturing for me to leave.
I wanted to explain the misunderstanding. I wanted to make it clear that Keira was not some passing fancy, but the love of my life. But to have my mother tear my selfish life apart like this, to hear what had remained unsaid for so long… I was used to being a disappointment and the black sheep of the family. I had always been rather proud of it and worn it as a badge of honor. I was a rebel. But until now, I hadn’t known just how much I’d hurt my mother in the process.
Shit. I had to sort this out and make things right. Not just for me and Keira, but for my mother too.
***
Bentleys, Rolls Royces and other expensive cars began to converge on Wellington Castle at eight o’clock, bearing down on the place like sleek, black sharks on the trail of blood. At the doors they disgorged their noble cargo of tuxedoed men and gowned women, and I could practically smell the high-class breeding in the air.
In the Castle’s capacious hall, I greeted the guests, standing beside my mother, a forced smile making my face ache, but not as much as my heart. I still had no idea what to do. There was no way in hell I was going to form any sort of engagement with Alexandra at the end of this weekend, but in not doing so, I’d just be adding to the hurt I’d already caused my mother. I just couldn’t win either way. With time, perhaps, she would come to realize that I was serious about Keira and that we had a future together that I genuinely wanted to pursue, but that realization would take a while, and in the meantime I was simply twisting the knife.
It seemed that there was no easy road to follow, and for me that was a shock. Though I’d always liked to think of myself as a rebel, I’d recently realized that all I’d ever done was take the easy way throughout my entire life. Whenever two options presented themselves, I’d gone with the path of least resistance. State dinner or party? Party every time. Entertain visiting dignitaries or entertain cocktail waitresses? Not even a question. The more I thought about it, the less it seemed like a man kicking against the restrictions of his upbringing and the more like a man born into an easy life, too lazy even to do the minimum required of him to earn it.
I’d never even considered these things until Keira had come into my life. She was so smart and ambitious, and seeing her light up when she talked about her future art career made me realize just how much time I’d wasted doing practically fuck all with my life. I needed to change; needed to be a better man for her and our baby.
Now might not have been the best time to be having these personal revelations, but there it was. The frustrating thing was that they weren’t helpful in the slightest. In the past when I’d chosen the easy road of my own pleasure over duty, it had been the wrong thing to do. Now, for the first time, rejecting what was perceived as my duty was actually the right thing—marrying Keira instead of Alexandra was right from every angle. But, like the boy who cried wolf, I’d done the wrong thing too often for my good intentions to be believable now.
So what in the hell was I going to do?
Well, for starters, I was going to eat dinner, be polite, and hope that something went badly wrong with our international relations. With a bit of luck Britain might declare war on Sweden. Then I’d be able to get out of this bullshit Alexandra situation without completely and permanently destroying my relationship with my mother.