Spare Me

Chapter 6

T he weeks leading up to the Armistice Day concert flew by, the slight crispness of October giving way to the decidedly overcast chill of November. Maddy had been surprised when the city was fully decorated for Christmas in early November, but she supposed that in the absence of Thanksgiving, there was no reason to delay merriment, and the festive lights brightened things noticeably as the sun set earlier and earlier.

She hadn’t seen Prince Alexander since the day of the meeting at Winfield House ten days earlier. She’d been in frequent correspondence with his staffer Sloane, who was incredibly competent and very witty, but the prince hadn’t been involved further. She found herself thinking about that day at Winfield house more often than she wanted to, though.

The day of the concert, Maddy arrived at the Royal Albert Hall early to ensure that everything was set up the way it was supposed to be. Mrs. Stewart had insisted that she needed “glam,” as she called it, and so Maddy had reluctantly allowed the stylist Mrs. Stewart hired for herself to sweep her brown hair into a low, curling style. “I’ll be working all night—it can’t be anything too fussy,” Maddy had cautioned before sitting down. Maddy still wasn’t sure that all the extra fuss was worth it, considering she’d be behind the scenes all evening.

“Absolutely, doll,” Charlie said, ushering her into a chair he’d situated in Mrs. Stewart’s sitting room. He was wearing a vibrantly patterned, extremely slim-fit button-up shirt, which was open at the neck to reveal what looked to be four or five gold chains and a smattering of dark chest hair. Her stomach was in knots as she ran through the plans for the evening in her head, half listening to Charlie’s animated chatter about this and that. Thankfully, he was the type of extrovert who required very little from other participants in the conversation. She tried to keep her hands calm in her lap as he curled and pinned, and mentally rehearsed all the things that could go wrong and how those catastrophes could be either averted or remedied. Of course all of her anxieties were strictly event planning-related. None of the swirl of thoughts in her head or the flock of butterflies in her stomach were at all consumed by thoughts of Prince Alexander. Not even one.

Maddy had to admit that even though she’d spent years doing her own hair for Army balls, this looked miles better than anything she could have done herself. Over her protests, Charlie had left a few curling tendrils around her face before pinning the rest back at the nape of her neck. After emerging from a typhoon of hairspray that she almost believed might make her hair last the whole evening if the fumes didn’t suffocate her first, Maddy grabbed the garment bag with her dress and shoes and shoved some jewelry and a lipstick along with her phone into her clutch and rushed to the embassy car waiting at the front to take her to the venue.

When she arrived backstage, Sloane was also there, racing around. “I’ve put the teddies for the kids in the reception room, but the conductor’s special soda isn’t in the green room!” she blurted out as Maddy entered .

Maddy sighed and rolled her eyes. “I knew we should have just used the conductors from the military groups instead of bringing in this Venezuelan hotshot.” She took a deep breath. It’s the people like us who get things done, the voice she couldn’t shake echoed in her head. And celebrities are not like us . “Okay, you make sure everything is ready for the reception, and I’ll go find the stage manager to ask about the drinks.”

“Thanks, Maddy,” Sloane said. They made a quick stop at the room backstage where they’d change before Sloane pointed Maddy toward the stage manager’s office to sort out the soda snafu. Always saving the day, Cartwright , she heard, reverberating between her ears with the familiar chuckle she knew she’d never hear again.

Two hours later, the South American soft drink had been located, the reception was set up, and everything was just about ready. Sloane walked up to Maddy, looking fierce in a slim forest-green pantsuit and killer gold heels. “Oh my gosh, you look fabulous !” Maddy exclaimed. “I wish I’d known pants were an option!”

“Do you like?” Sloane asked, giving a small twirl. “My wife’s a stylist, and she says if Hannah Cromwell, she who will be queen, can wear pants, I can too!” She looked at Maddy’s boyfriend jeans and relaxed button-up shirt. “You’d better go change. Eric just texted that he and the prince are fifteen minutes out.”

Maddy nodded. “The Stewarts are on their way too. I figure it’ll take them a few minutes to get through the throngs outside, but I’ll go get ready so I’m here when they get in.”

Maddy headed back to the small room where Sloane had told her to put her things. Slipping quickly out of her casual clothes, she stepped into the dress she’d brought. It was sleeveless navy-blue silk with a high neck and a delicate metallic pattern woven through the fabric. It wasn’t skintight, but hugged her hourglass figure before ending mid- calf. Classic and understated , Maddy thought, looking at herself in the small mirror on the back of the door. Just like I’m supposed to be. Her eyes caught on the chain that hung around her neck. You would have loved this , she thought to herself as she grasped the dog tags in her hand and swiftly deposited them beneath the neckline of her dress, where they’d be unseen.

“Maddy, are you ready?” Sloane’s voice came around the door a second before she appeared.

“Yup!” she said, a chipper tone in her voice that she didn’t really feel. “Just tossing on some jewelry!” She jammed a pair of small pearl drop earrings through her earlobes, swiped on a fresh coat of berry-colored lipstick, and slipped her feet into navy-blue strappy heels before grabbing her phone and her clutch and following Sloane through the backstage door and into the rapidly filling house.

Mum

Are you ready for the concert this evening? I hate that we can’t be there, darling!

Dad

Don’t forget to just take a few deep breaths and smile before you go out. You’re going to be great, Alex.

BJ

*gif of Leslie Knope giving thumbs-up and saying “You’ve got this!”*

Alex sighed, shaking his head as he closed the family text thread, which Ben had drunkenly renamed “Royal Flush.” His parents hated it, but also weren’t tech savvy enough to figure out how to change it back, and Alex and Ben had both been bribing their staffers for about five months not to show them. He slipped his phone back into the inner pocket of his tuxedo jacket and looked out the heavily tinted window of the Range Rover at London traffic. His family meant well. They wanted him to do well. He should be grateful for their encouragement. But he couldn’t help but feel a little resentful. He had worked hard to overcome the stage fright that had defined his life when he was a child. The moment that he froze giving his one big line in his father’s coronation had been more than twenty years ago. And yes, he’d been moderately traumatized by choking on international television with the world watching. And yes, his parents had tried to do right by him by thoroughly sheltering him from the press ever since. But in the intervening two decades, he’d managed to work through both the trauma and the reticence that had caused it. So while he appreciated his family’s care, he wished they’d stopped to notice that he no longer needed it. Or at least, no longer needed it in the same way that he once had. He just wished they saw him for who he was in the present, not who he had been in the past.

Alex heard Eric clear his throat quietly from the other side of the back seat. “Alex,” he said quietly.

“Yup.” Alex sighed and turned to face his friend as they crept toward the concert hall.

“You alright, sir?”

“Eric, I’ve told you time and time again, you have to stop calling me sir. It makes me feel weird.”

“I’m worried your father’s secretary will sack me if I don’t call you ‘Your Royal Highness,’” Eric said dryly. “‘Sir’ was the compromise.”

“Well, I’ll sack you if you don’t just call me Alex, you big weirdo. Malcolm doesn’t make my HR decisions, and if he gives you any trouble he can answer to me. ”

Eric nodded tightly and moved on. “So when we get there, there will be press. Smile and nod, no need to talk to anyone. Just be your pretty self for a few minutes, and then we’ll get you inside and seated for the performance.” Eric glanced at his phone. “The Stewarts just pulled up, so we’ll be about three minutes behind them.”

“Right, good,” Alex said. As much as he hated to admit it, he did close his eyes and briefly take a few deep breaths as he mentally prepared for the paparazzi’s onslaught—not because his father had told him to, but because it felt good. He didn’t freeze up in front of large audiences anymore, but it didn’t mean he enjoyed the frenetic chaos of flashing lights and near frantic voices calling his name and asking for comment. But he could do it.

They pulled up to the curb and Alex sat up a little straighter, readying himself to go in. He opened his own door—a thing that his chauffeurs hated—and plastered on his public-facing smile as he buttoned his tuxedo jacket and headed for the red carpet, smiling and waving to the crowds of photographers and supporters who were calling his name. He strode to the first mark and smiled broadly, trying to think of something that might actually make his smile seem genuine. His mind lit on the fact that he was going to see Madeleine Cartwright soon, and he could feel the smile immediately actually reaching his eyes. He wondered what she would be wearing. He knew she’d looked professional and pretty in their meeting, but from what he remembered of their brief encounter at the party, she looked stellar in a dress. He shifted a bit so he was looking at a different group of photographers and wondered if he might have a chance to actually talk with her tonight. He’d spent a fair bit of time over the past days trying to unpack why this one woman that he’d met twice and talked to one-on-one for a grand total of, generously, two and a half minutes, was taking up so much of his headspace. Why he couldn’t stop thinking about her and what she might be like, and fighting off the mental urge to imagine other things. Things he definitely needed to not be thinking about while on a red carpet in front of a throng of press.

He took a few steps further down the carpet to a second mark and smiled again, trying to stay loose, to keep it genuine-looking. There was a small stir by the far side of the carpet, near the entrance to the theater, and suddenly Ambassador and Mrs. Stewart re-emerged. He walked toward them, smiling broadly, shaking their hands warmly, trying to remember his media training so that the photographers would get the best angle of their greeting and not the inside of his ear or something. The photographers called for the trio to pose together, so he gamely stood with his shoulder just behind Mrs. Stewart to give the impression of touching her without looking like he was getting handsy. After several moments, the Stewart twins were shepherded out, and after a few photos with the girls, one of whom couldn’t stop giggling and blushing when she made eye contact and one of whom looked wholly over the whole scene— same, he thought to himself—all five of them waved once more and then headed toward the entrance to the theater.

Eric met him at the end of the step-and-repeat and guided him toward the door to the theater. “Good job, mate,” he muttered under his breath.

“Thanks,” Alex responded. His eyes were roving across the growing crowd milling about. Just looking around . Not for anyone in particular. Identifying the emergency exits and such . He knew it was a lie, but he had to keep telling himself that. “It’s hard work, you know,” he added sarcastically. Eric gave him A Look, but remained quiet, clearly knowing that any response to his asinine comment was likely to be the wrong one. Alex sighed and aborted an attempt to rake his hands through his hair just in time to avoid totally mussing it before he was about to be on stage. “Sorry.” He sighed, looking down at Eric. “How much time do we have?”

“The concert starts in twenty minutes.”

“Shall we see if we can snag a glass of that?” he asked, motioning with his head toward a group of people holding flutes of champagne.

“Trying to loosen up before your speech?” Eric asked teasingly.

“You wouldn’t want me to freeze up again and embarrass myself. Or would you? Are you getting bored at work?” Alex ribbed.

Eric snagged two glasses from a passing server, handing one to Alex before clinking the rims together. “No, but really, are you feeling okay about tonight? You like the speech and everything?”

As irritating as Alex found the constant references to his childhood blunder, he knew that Eric was genuinely checking in. “Yeah, it’s fine, mate. Thanks.” And then, to reassure Eric, he stressed, “I’ll really be fine.”

“I know. I know that’s not a problem for you anymore. Just checking—it is your first big appearance since you’ve been back.”

“Thanks,” Alex said, nudging Eric’s shoulder with his own as a gesture of affection. Wouldn’t do to have someone seeing them hug and then assume that Alex was playing for the other team. Not that there was anything wrong with that. Other than that Eric’s very handsome and very muscular rugby player husband might have something to say about it.

After he’d talked with his family, Alex and Eric had talked again, and Eric had agreed to stay on, providing they actually moved forward with the reparations project. They were meeting with the king’s office the following week, and Alex had already asked the palace HR office to start looking for another staffer to pick up some of Eric’s low-level work to give him more capacity to take the lead on their new initiative.

Alex was just about to open his mouth to say something else when Mrs. Stewart bustled up to him. “Now, Your Royal Highness, won’t you come meet…” she said, towing him away towards the center of the room where a crowd was growing. He pasted his public smile back on, hastily handing his champagne flute to Eric, and followed her once more unto the breach.

Twenty minutes later, the lobby lights started to flicker to indicate it was time for the audience members to take their seats. Alex finished up his conversation with a young pilot from the RAF, shaking hands with the woman who looked younger than him and turned to find Eric at his elbow. “Ready to go up?” he asked, leading Alex towards the staircase that would lead to the Royal Box where he’d be sitting with the Stewarts.

“Yup,” Alex responded, once again, trying to take in the scene without appearing to be looking around. After a brief delay that seemed to be related to the fact that the ambassador had seemingly never met a stranger, the Stewarts joined him at the bottom of the stairs and they started up, Ambassador and Mrs. Stewart arm in arm, with the twins behind them with a staffer who was not Madeleine Cartwright. Ambassador Stewart, a gregarious man who was impossible not to like, was regaling Alex with a story he was only half paying attention to about having drunkenly stumbled into a tuba during a military event in his youth.

When they arrived at the top of the stairs, Alex turned left, leading the Stewarts toward their box, and barely managed to avoid tripping over his own feet. Madeleine Cartwright was standing about ten feet away, her head leaning close to Sloane’s, conferring about something on Sloane’s phone. As Sloane nodded and walked into the box, Madeleine looked up, and Alex fought the urge to stop and stare. She was wearing a sleeveless navy-blue dress with a high neck and a skirt that fell to just below her knees. It might have been plain except it had a subtle iridescent pattern woven into the fabric that made her shimmer. Her hair had been pulled back and slightly to the side so a knot and small cascade of curls were visible just over her right shoulder. Silver earrings with a pearl drop hung from her ears, a narrow silver bangle adorned her left wrist, and a silver chain had been tucked beneath the neck of her dress, concealing anything that might have hung from it.

Somehow, Alex managed to keep walking and breathe normally. As their group approached, Madeleine stepped up to them and dropped a small curtsey in Alex’s direction. Normally the outdated act of deference didn’t impact him. People had been bowing or curtseying in his general direction since he was a child, and he was as used to it as one can be used to an archaic show of obeisance. But somehow when Madeleine Cartwright curtseyed to him, he wanted to stop her, to take her chin in his hand and make her look into his eyes. To tell her that it was an obsolete recognition of his birthright that didn’t make him any different than her other than where he lived and absurd generational wealth. But, of course, he didn’t do any of those things. The moment passed in seconds, and all he could do was shake her hand and give her a warm smile and a quiet “Good evening” as she ushered him and the Stewarts ahead of her into the Royal Box.