“Rogers it is.”
“Thank you, Miss. Goodbye.”
“Goodbye, Rogers.”
Twenty minutes later, we were in the old apartment, and it was nice to be back there again. It was a place in which I’d been quite happy, and returning to it seemed to neatly top and tail my British adventure. Still, a new adventure beckoned, and Andrew and I were keen for that to begin.
We spent the next day packing and planning, making those important decisions about what to take and what to do when we arrived. Thanks to Rogers, we’d saved some money on accommodation, and that had proved to be just as well as the plane tickets set us back practically all the money we had.
“My family really doesn’t pay its maids enough,” Andrew said, only half joking.
When we arrived, we’d be met by Sarah, and she’d said we could stay with her in my old room until we’d found jobs and a place we could raise a child in. In truth, although we were anxiously looking forward to our new life together, we were also very aware that things were going to be tough. Art historian and ex-prince were not qualifications for which the average employer was searching, and if it had just been about ourselves, then we wouldn’t have worried—we would’ve lived in a van as long as we could be together—but there was a baby to consider and babies were unavoidably expensive.
I couldn’t help reflecting that, until a few days ago, the child currently growing inside me had been second in line to the British crown and would never have to worry about anything its entire life, and now it was being born into nearly nothing. Had Andrew really made the right decision in renouncing his family, if it meant disallowing our child all those opportunities he or she would’ve had if he’d stayed?
On top of these concerns, it was hard for me to ignore the slight change in Andrew. Outwardly, he remained the happy-go-lucky man I’d always known—loving, attentive, and eager for our future together. But every now and then, I would catch him in moments of atypical introspection, staring out windows or into space. I didn’t ask him about this, because I didn’t need to. I knew exactly what it was about.
To this point in his life, Andrew’s future had been a given, and now everything he had ever known had been thrown out and replaced with uncertainty. It was exciting for him, but it was also scary. But that was only part of it. The larger part was his family. He had never been particularly close to his family; he didn’t get on with his brother and there was an unavoidable distance between him and his mother. But that didn’t mean that he didn’t love them, and perhaps he’d underestimated the effect that cutting them out of his life would have upon him. Though he tried to hide it, I also knew that he was hurt by their apparent acceptance of his decision. They didn’t seem to have tried to find him and change his mind.
At all.
His mind was made up, but it would’ve been nice to think that they cared, if not about the future of the throne, then about him and about our baby. For all our happiness in being together and the prospect of becoming parents and starting a new life together, there were also moments when I wrestled with what I’d inadvertently made him give up. Not the crown or any other aspect of his royal future—he seemed pretty sanguine about letting that go—but his family.
But there wasn’t much time for such contemplation. Early the next morning, we loaded our bags into Andrew’s car and set off for the airport. Our goodbyes were all said. I’d phoned Rogers the night before to tell him of our plans and let him know that the apartment would be free once more, and then I’d thanked him again for all his help.
“I always have my staff’s best interests at heart,” Rogers had replied. It seemed like a somewhat cryptic response, but then again, Rogers had always been a man whom I liked but didn’t really understand.
It was a long drive to the airport, and I’d initially worried that it would be a somber one, because there was a lot on the horizon to worry about. But instead, we both found ourselves happy and chatty, making lists of stuff we wanted to do and see when we got to America. The journey passed swiftly, and we arrived at the airport to check-in for our flight in good time.
“Is it me, or is it unusually quiet here?” I asked, peering around.
“I wouldn’t really know,” Andrew admitted. He’d always flown by private jet, for obvious reasons. “But based on pictures I’ve seen on the news and so on, we do seem to have picked a good time to travel.”
That was an understatement; the place was as good as deserted. I remembered the bustle and squash when I’d first arrived in London, and the sheer number of people all trying to get where they were going—and this didn’t even feel like the same building. We’d picked an early flight, so perhaps we were getting in ahead of the tourists, but even so, that didn’t seem reason enough for the concourse to be the ghost town it was.