The Princess Affair (27 page)

“Tell that to her!”

“I will.”

“The media is turning this into a circus,” he continued. “All we can do is restrict their access to you as much as possible. Your security will be doubled, and you will travel only between here and the hospital. If you wish to go anywhere else, you will have to come to me first. Are we clear, Alexandra?”

“Yes.” Silently vowing not to be a coward, she met his angry eyes as she whispered the word. “Yes, Father.”

“Good.” He loomed over her, powerful and menacing. “Return to the hospital once you’ve pulled yourself together. Your family needs you.”

As the door slammed in his wake, Sasha felt her legs tremble. She reached out to the wall for support, only to find herself sliding down, down, down to the floor. A drop of moisture plinked onto the gleaming hardwood. Then another, and another. Dimly, she realized they were her own tears.

“I’m sorry,” she said again, not knowing whether she was speaking to Kerry or to herself. “I’m so sorry.”

*

Kerry slid into her customary seat in the lecture hall and immediately opened her notebook, ignoring the whispers that filled the air around her. It had been three long days since photographs of “the princess affair,” as it was being called, had hit the Internet. Gritting her teeth, she opened her laptop and pulled up a Web browser, then typed in the URL of
The Times.
Skipping past the headline containing her own name, she glanced over at the text box proclaiming the latest news about Prince Arthur’s condition. Apparently, despite a measurable reduction in the swelling of his brain, he still hadn’t regained consciousness. With a sigh, she closed her computer and glanced down at her syllabus in an attempt to force herself to focus on today’s topic. “The Non-Euclidean Geometrics of Deconstructivist Architecture.”

“Just fantastic,” she muttered beneath her breath. Then again, perhaps a difficult lecture topic was exactly what she needed to distract her from the chaos awaiting her as soon as she tried to leave the building.

Foiled in their attempts to gain access to Sasha aside from a few distant photographs of her entering or leaving the hospital, the paparazzi had descended en masse upon Oxford. While both city and university police were doing everything in their power to maintain order, the crowds had grown increasingly disruptive. Some students had even joined in the frenzy. Kerry couldn’t go anywhere without being followed, pointed at, and shouted to.

Worst of all, she’d had no word from Sasha. While she couldn’t stop herself from continuing to hope for some kind of message, realistically, she knew she wouldn’t receive one. Under any other set of circumstances she would have felt deeply hurt at having been so unceremoniously dumped, but their relationship had been discovered at the worst possible moment. Sasha was doubtless coming under enormous pressure from her father, and Kerry felt sick that the photographs had caused the royal family further distress during an already terrible time. But she refused to apologize for what she and Sasha had shared. If she said so much as one word to the media, she knew they would find a way to twist it to suit their agendas. And so she kept her mouth shut, no matter what tawdry remarks they hurled her way.

She was also feeling quite a lot of guilt for how the situation had affected her own family and friends back home. As soon as her identity had been confirmed, the American press had flocked to Pearl River to dig up every bit of information they could about “Sassy Sasha’s Latest Conquest,” as one headline had read. Her sister had been positively mortified by what she had done. Upon calling home, she’d heard a tirade from Mary about offending God and sullying the family name, and how much the entire “situation” was adding untold amounts of stress to her already busy life. Fortunately, her parents had adopted a much gentler attitude, promising that the community was rallying around her to keep her privacy as intact as they could. Aidan and Declan remained thoroughly supportive, as they had always been. “If anyone could deserve you, Ker,” Declan had said during their brief phone conversation, “it would be a princess.”

The professor stepped to the podium, jarring her out of her reverie. For the first few minutes, Kerry managed to retain the thread of his talk and even jotted down a few notes. But as the room grew stuffy and his voice droned on, her fatigued mind began to drift to thoughts of Sasha. Resolutely, she stayed away from the sad or stressful memories―picturing Sasha’s smile, hearing her laughter, feeling the ghost of her touch. Despite the ever-present ache in her chest, the thoughts brought her a small measure of comfort.

But as her professor began to conclude his remarks, her anxiety resurfaced. The paparazzi would be waiting at the building’s entrance. The police had arranged two guards to escort her everywhere, but they could only protect her physically. She still had to endure the mockery and the jeers and the endless, completely inappropriate questions.

When she left the lecture hall, she found Harris waiting outside, holding two coffees. He handed her one and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “How are you holding up, champ?”

He had been her rock for the last few days—running interference, keeping her supplied with food, and even filtering information when she didn’t feel up to wading through all the muck on the Internet.

“Better now,” she said. “Thanks for this. Ready to face the horde?”

“Whenever you are. There’s no rush.”

She took a tentative sip of coffee. “You know you don’t have to keep doing this, right? The police said they’d provide me with an escort as long as I needed one.”

“It’s not that I don’t trust Oxford’s finest,” he said, “but they’re doing a job. I’m your friend. It’s different, and I want to be there.”

“And trust me, I appreciate it.” She patted his shoulder. “When you next find yourself embroiled in an international scandal, I promise you’ll be able to count on me right back.”

He laughed and linked his free arm through hers. “Let’s do this.”

At the door, they met up with the same two policemen who had walked Kerry to the hall earlier.

“Good afternoon,” she said. “And thanks, as always.”

Guilt over having forced the Oxford Police Department to attach personnel to her had made Kerry err on the side of being overly polite. She thought she detected the flicker of a smile on the taller one’s face before he pushed open the door. But when she stepped outside, the mob was waiting.

A cry of, “There she is!” was soon swallowed by her name being shouted, over and over. Looking straight ahead, determined not to meet the eyes of a single reporter, she slowly descended the steps behind the first officer who gestured for the crowd to make way. Harris followed at her heels, and the second officer brought up the rear. As they reached street level, the questions poured in fast and furious.

“Have you heard from Sasha?”

“How does it feel to have been rejected by Princess Alexandra?”

“Was Sasha a good roll in the sack?”

“How much did the princess pay you, Kerry?”

That was a new one, and she couldn’t stop herself from wincing. Suddenly, Harris was darting past her in an impressive burst of speed to loom over the unfortunate soul who had dared imply she was a whore. She couldn’t see much of the man from behind Harris’s broad back, but he seemed short and rather skinny—certainly no match for an Olympian rower.

“You piece of scum. Apologize to her. Now.”

The police crowded close, warning both men away from each other. The crowd surged in behind them, and Kerry felt a rush of claustrophobia as bulbs flashed and someone cursed and the threatened paparazzo vehemently protested Harris’s menacing attitude.

Kerry had once thought of Harris as a gentle bear, but there was no trace of gentleness in the tendons that stuck out from his neck like cords and the mottled skin of his face. His hands were clenched into fists. Feeling dizzy, she rested one hand on his back as much for support as to calm him.

“Let it go, Harris,” she said, pitching her voice beneath the angry shouts. “Let’s get out of here.”

But he was on the warpath. “That goes for all of you! Bullies, every one! Can’t you see she’s a human being? An intelligent woman who—”

“Sod off, faggot!” The shout came from nearby. When Harris turned his head to seek the source of the insult, the skinny man wound up and punched him in the jaw.

Harris’s head snapped back only a few inches, but a line of red opened along his jawline where the man’s ring had caught the taut skin there. A roar went up from the crowd as people shoved and clamored for a fight.

The first officer leapt forward to subdue the antagonist, and Kerry tugged hard at Harris’s raised arm. His eyes were dark and furious.

“Enough! You’re hurt! Damn it, Harris, let’s just get out of here. Please!”

As he finally let her pull him away, the other officer beckoned to them, a baton raised in his free hand. He shoved forward through the crowd in the direction of a nearby side street.

“Backup,” he explained, pointing to a waiting squad car. At that moment, a siren wailed nearby. “And more coming. Go!”

They piled into the car, which promptly roared away. Harris had his shirt pressed to his jaw, and he still looked like he wanted to commit murder. Kerry could think of nothing else to do but rub the back of his neck in small, hopefully soothing circles.

“Where are we going?” she asked the policemen.

“To the station. There’s a clinic nearby if you need stitches, sir.”

Harris pulled away the shirt briefly and turned to Kerry. “What do you think?”

“Just Steri-Strips, probably. But get another opinion. Harris, I—”

“Damn it, Ker.” He smacked his fist on his knee. “I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry? You didn’t throw a punch.” She leaned her head against his shoulder. “You stood up for me. Thank you.”

“They just made me so angry. How can they say those things about you? You’re a Rhodes scholar!”

“Not to them, I’m not. To them, I’m some opportunistic trollop who had an affair with their princess.”

When the car pulled into the police station, they were taken to a small, windowless room where they delivered their statements about the incident to the police chief—a graying, stocky man named Watkins—and a detective. When an officer arrived to take Harris to the clinic, Kerry was left alone with the battered, steel-topped table. As the door swung shut, she was swamped by a wave of fatigue. The adrenaline had abandoned her, and she leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes, mind churning sluggishly. Left alone for the first time since the incident, she finally had the chance to reflect on how quickly the mob had disintegrated from mean and nasty to downright violent. Her very presence here was a menace—and not just to orderly society. She was a danger to herself, to her friends, to innocent bystanders.

The door opened a few minutes later to admit Mary Spencer with Brent in tow. Their presence made the room feel even more cramped. When Kerry caught Brent’s eye and tried out a smile, he looked away. A premonition fell over her, but she forced herself not to betray the sudden surge of anxiety.

“Hello, Ms. Spencer. Brent.”

Brent kept his eyes trained on the floor while Spencer sat in the seat the chief had vacated and rested her hands palm down on the table. Her face was expressionless save for a subtle tightening around her thin lips that, if Kerry had to guess, probably signaled suppressed fury. Mary Spencer had not come to bail her out, but to ream her out.

“Ms. Donovan, do you know why you were selected for this program?”

Kerry blinked, nonplussed by the unexpected question. The word hung in the air between them, before her brain suddenly kicked into overdrive, recalling the language of the Rhodes Trust’s mission. “I…I would hope because of the caliber of my character, commitment to the common good, and leadership qualities.”

“Character, commitment, leadership.” Spencer cocked her head. Her hair had been pulled back into a bun so tight that the corners of her dark eyes slanted ever so slightly. She suddenly reminded Kerry of the ravens in the Tower of London. “Do you believe you have, thus far, fulfilled the expectations of a Rhodes scholar?”

“I do.” Kerry could see where this was going. Clearly, Spencer thought she was behaving abominably. But Kerry refused to give her the satisfaction of saying what Spencer wanted to hear. She had done nothing wrong. Her professors respected the caliber of her work. Her teammates turned to her for guidance on the pitch. But none of that, she suddenly realized, had turned out to be as important as Sasha. Being there when Sasha needed her, making her laugh, proving her loyalty—these were the accomplishments she was most proud of.

“You do?” Spencer leaned forward, her body language menacing. “You have precipitated an international crisis. How is that in keeping with the mission of this Trust? The Rhodes is not a matchmaking agency!”

The obedient schoolgirl in Kerry wanted to vomit, but the rest of her bristled. “My academic work has been exemplary thus far,” she said, trying hard to modulate her voice despite the rising anger. “I am in good standing at Balliol. My personal relationships are none of the Trust’s concern.”

“Surely you can’t be this naïve.” Spencer’s tone was icy. “You cannot have a
personal relationship
with Alexandra Carlisle. She does not exist. She is always Her Royal Highness Princess Alexandra—an office and a title, in addition to a citizen. Quite literally, she belongs to the United Kingdom.”

Beneath the table, Kerry dug her fingernails into her jeans in a vain attempt to anchor herself. “You describe her as though she’s a slave.”

“In some ways, she is.” Spencer shook her head. “I saw so much potential in you, Kerry. I blame myself for not anticipating how someone of your background would react to moving in these sorts of circles.”

Kerry’s mouth wanted to fall open, but instead she clenched her teeth. She couldn’t believe this. “Someone of my background? What exactly are you saying?”

Spencer held out one hand. “Brent?” He stepped forward and placed an envelope into her palm, which she slid across the pockmarked table to Kerry. “I am saying that you are going back to the States. Immediately.”