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Although this is far from the first time that he’s come to this conclusion, Alex has no idea how in the hell he ended up here. Here, today, specifically, is Llwynywermod, an ancient white and sage estate in Wales that Henry has the audacity to call quaint. Alex has not yet mastered the pronunciation. Research hasn’t helped. The phonetic guide on Wikipedia is hieroglyphic.
Maybe that was his first sign that all of this was a horrible idea. How’s he supposed to phone for help if all he can say is that he’s stuck in one of the monarchy’s many haunted mansions— you know, the understated one?
“Shit.”
That might be a bit much. He’s not the only one who’s fallen victim to what he understands to be a terribly unusual heavy snow. Poor Cash is stuck downstairs playing solitaire in the general vicinity of a man named Gregory, his British counterpart, who is his polar opposite in every possible regard except for his professional credentials. There’s a trio of men stationed down at a gatehouse, too, whom Alex assumes are very dutifully protecting the estate from wayward sheep.
And then there’s Philip. Between the ghosts of beheaded queens and the blizzard, Henry’s brother is quite possibly the greatest threat to Alex’s immediate wellbeing. They shared no more than seven words between them when they arrived at the same time earlier that afternoon, each full of hope that an early entrance would promise them a quick escape into their prepared rooms so that neither of them would make the mistake of running into one another.
The snafu was just Alex’s sort of luck until it started snowing, and then he was reminded that in twenty-seven years he’s broken his left arm on two separate occasions; experienced his parents’ divorce in the form of a backwards surprise party; bet on the wrong team in four separate Super Bowls; headlined an international diplomatic scandal; and then, a few months later, an international sex scandal; and has been ghosted by the love of his life twice. Which is to say that he has terrible luck and it was honestly on him for assuming that the worse of it would be an awkward conversation in a foyer full of disembodied stag heads.
His phone rings. He fumbles it, catches it, and then promptly drops it on his foot. It’s on the last chime when he finally answers it.
“Baby,” he says.
“I’m so sorry about all of this,” Henry replies. His voice is a posh jumble of deeply apologetic sounds. "I can’t believe this has happened.”
Alex scrubs a hand across his face. The dark grey whirl outside of the estate’s leaded windows remains unchanged when he opens his eyes again.
“I mean, it’s December,” he replies.
“In Wales, Alex, not the bloody Arctic.”
“So I’m guessing you aren’t calling to say that you’re pulling up the drive now.”
“… No,” Henry says. Alex winces. “Apparently all of the ice has downed a few trees closer to the estate, which is a lesser predicament to the fact that the A40 is completely non-traversable past Cwmifor.”
“You gotta know that I have no idea what any of that means.”
“It means that we won’t be up to the house until tomorrow morning at the earliest.”
“You’re joking.”
“I’m so sorry,” Henry says again.
Alex rests his head against the windowpane. Llwynywermod’s medieval insulation leaves something to be desired. He shivers and rubs his frozen forehead.
“It’s not like you control the weather, babe.” He frowns. “Do you control the weather?”
“I’m afraid that power resides within the purview of the most senior members of the family exclusively,” Henry replies dryly.
“So you’re saying that your brother did this on purpose.”
Henry laughs. “Yes. Of course. I’m certain he’s just as thrilled as you are about the whole thing.”
To be honest, Alex has no idea what Philip thinks about virtually anything. It’s the official Duke of Windsor brand: extraordinary apathy finely honed across generations of slightly over-similar genetics. Alex knows that Philip enjoys his horses, and presumably his wife who, like Henry, is currently stuck on the wrong side of Wales. He also knows that Philip was an absolute prick about Henry’s sexuality until he was confronted with the reality that he— and England both —would lose all contact with his brother unless he accepted it as truth, which he did, albeit stubbornly.
Alex and Henry’s carefully choreographed courtship and subsequent engagement have neither softened nor— not hardened, that’s the wrong line of thought, especially now that Alex will be left on his lonesome for another night in yet another ridiculous four-poster bed, but —exacerbated his position on the matter. Philip’s made every indication that he will attend the ceremony, and the receptions, and everything else, which is a massive relief. Not to Alex directly, that is, who would prefer to skip the whole damned thing in lieu of an elopement in some place with an actual sun in it, but rather to Henry, who is, ultimately, a man who wants his own family to attend his wedding.
Not a very big ask coming from the kindest and gentlest person on the planet, but the Mountchristens are uniquely talented at underwhelming their own expectations.
“I can’t believe the timing,” Henry continues morosely.
“Yeah, me neither.”
Alex’s tone is a bit too sharp. None of this is Henry’s fault. Alex was the one to insist that he accompany his fiancé across the Atlantic for the holiday season. This part was a non-negotiable. He’s seen firsthand what the Royal family does to Henry when they all come together in the same room. He would paddle across the ocean in a canoe to ensure that Henry no longer has to face all of that alone. And he knows as well as Henry does that their time spent together each night (sexy debriefing, Alex thinks, which has great wordplay potential) is the only thing standing between Henry and a change of heart regarding his longterm royal duties. So honestly, the Queen owes Alex, because Henry is the most popular royal on record since Catherine’s own engagement.
Not that the Queen would ever admit defeat or, far worse, open herself to the idea of change. Which means, ultimately, that Alex was allowed to enter into London airspace on December the 18th, but was very definitively not invited to any official family holiday events. The PR line was that no unmarried partner could expect an invitation. Henry was quick to rebut that adjusting this particular expectation would hardly be the greatest controversy to face the Crown, but his criticism never made it farther than their bedroom back in New York.
And, quite frankly, it’s not like Alex was dreaming about a week of poached salmon and desiccated chicken breast shared between the worst people in the universe (and Henry, Bea, and Catherine). By this time next year they will be married, and then the controversy will hinge on his missing attendance, so he might as well enjoy one final year absent of any royal family dinners. Therefore he sat patiently in Henry’s apartments in Kensington and behaved himself, catching up on emails in between Henry’s flustered early-afternoon exits and his returns between eight and ten at night, upon which he would be relatively drunk and delightfully bitchy.
All of this was meant to culminate in a long weekend spent in Wales, in which Alex would finally be allowed to socialize with the Royal siblings throughout a full itinerary without fear of being tossed into the Tower. He really does like Bea, so overall the idea was appealing, even if it required minimal socialization with Philip, too. He hadn’t expected that the fatal flaw in this plan was to set out to Wales himself in his own car while Henry endured a final pony-show at some sort of stuffy social club in the middle of Bristol, but he’s certainly suffering from it now.
“It’s not so bad,” Alex continues. It’s nice to wallow in their mutual misfortune but he doesn’t want Henry to actually feel bad about it. “I swapped all of the vases in the guest rooms. That was fun.”
Henry snorts. “Of course you have.”
“Found a bunch of weird little dog statues. Cash helped me hide them in your brother’s bathroom.”
“Alex,” Henry laughs. It sounds spectacular. Alex closes his eyes and listens for awhile.
“There is also, like, a lot of scotch in the basement.”
“I believe that technically it’s called a buttery, darling.”
Alex wrinkles his nose. “The scotch?”
“No, the basement.”
“Like… Butts? Or butter?”
There’s a deep, beleaguered sigh. Alex wishes he could drink it down like the scotch. “Well. Butts. Casks, not arses.”
“I never understand a word you say.”
"I would tell you that this is quite literally the English language, but in this instance I believe it actually originates from the French.”
“Likely place for it to originate.”
“Hm,” demurs Henry. “I miss you.”
“I miss you, too,” Alex replies. Then, because he is nothing if not predictable, he adds, “And your incredible cask.”
Another laugh. “Right. I should have expected that.”
Alex bites his lip. He looks forlornly at the nearby bed. “God, I wanna cork it so bad.”
“That doesn’t even—”
Alex has already cued up his next explicit pun when both he and Henry are interrupted by a sudden knock at the door. He chokes on his own innuendo, pulling the phone away for a moment to listen more attentively. Another knock.
“Sorry baby, hold on— Cash?” he calls out.
“No,” responds a haughty voice, which for a moment is so familiar in its R.P. that Alex’s heart beats a little faster, until it continues with, “it’s, er, Philip.”
The second half of the greeting ends on an upward swing as if he himself is shocked to share the information.
“Uh.”
“What is it?” Henry asks from the other end of the line.
“One second!” Alex says to the door. “Uh, moment!” Evidently he has to role-play as a fucking Jane Austen character to speak to the man. Crap. This is going to go great. Back to the phone again, Alex mutters, “Shit. It’s your brother.”
“Philip? Where?”
“At my bedroom door.”
“Alone?”
“I don’t know, H, on account of the whole door thing.” Alex lurches forward to shut his luggage, which, he knows by memory if not by sight, contains two bottles too many of lube to remain on open display.
“Are you going to speak with him?”
“Not sure if I have much of a choice,” Alex whispers. He tries his best to smooth over the crumpled duvet. This is both ineffectual and also probably superfluous. The furniture is for using, surely, even if it looks about as inviting as the inside of an iron maiden.
As if to prove him right about his free will, there’s another knock at the door, and then, more quietly: “Alex?”
“Christ. What does he want?”
“Maybe he found the dogs.”
“To be fair, he has a horrible sense of humor.”
“Prop comedy is universal.” Alex peeks at his reflection in a nearby brass urn. He spent his morning with a beanie shoved over his head and a good portion of the rest of the day aimlessly napping. His hair has been in better shape. Oh well. Philip’s own hairline has started to recede. Maybe he’ll see Alex’s scraggly curls as an act of solidarity. “Shit. Okay. He’s still here. I’m gonna go talk to him.”
“Call me if you need anything.”
“I need so many things.”
“Well…”
“Joking.” He isn’t joking. “Love you, baby. I’ll call you back.”
“Alright,” Henry replies uneasily. “I love you too. Good luck.”
Alex takes a final look at the lock screen on his phone— a photo of Henry laughing over a plate of half-eaten pastries, the bustle of a faceless city at his back, hair windswept, his eyes closed and crinkled at the edges — and then, as emboldened as he’ll ever be, he pockets the thing and turns to the door.
“Hi,” he says.
Philip stares back at him from the middle of an empty hallway. He’s dressed in a pair of brown slacks and a navy sweater, the collar of a pale blue dress shirt peeking up in crinkled wings around his throat. He looks more like a kindergarten teacher than the future King of England. The liquor bottle he’s cradling seems to have missed the memo. Alex clears his throat.
“Your Royal Highness,” he adds, because he’s supposed to, technically. Philip nods his head.
“Alex. Good evening. Good to see you.”
Alex has about twenty different preloaded responses for situations like these. For some reason none of them come to mind. Maybe they froze against his frontal lobe when he did his whole forlorn, war-widow thing at the window earlier.
“Do you have a moment?” Philip continues. He gestures at the inside of Alex’s room with the butt of the liquor bottle. Scotch. Henry’s linguistics lesson repeats in the back of Alex’s head. Not helpful. God. He misses him.
“Sure,” Alex manages awkwardly. He steps backwards a pace and creaks the door a bit wider to usher Philip inside. “Come in.”
“Dreadful weather,” Philip answers. He’s already made his way to the center of the room as if he knows the place. Well, he probably does, Alex realizes belatedly. He watches in silence while Philip places the scotch bottle like an offering in the middle of a low table before he splits off to towards a sideboard propped against the far wall. A cabinet swings open and then Philip is back again, this time with two rocks glasses in tow.
“Yup,” Alex replies. Somewhere far across the Atlantic, Zahra must wake up in a cold sweat. “I was just on the phone with Henry. He says that the roads are all out.”
“Yes. I’ve heard the same from Martha. Better that they didn’t risk it this morning. Still. Rotten luck.” The prince deposits himself on a cabriole couch. He looks over at Alex expectantly. “Fancy a drink?”
Yes. Alex does fancy one. Maybe twelve. His only concern is that he is perhaps hallucinating. He looks at Philip, and then at the bottle of scotch, and then back at Philip again. Is it poisoned? Is he about to explain to Alex how he’s found himself in the middle of the most dangerous game?
“Sure.”
He sits. Philip wastes no time in pouring them both a generous serving. He settles his gaze on Alex afterwards. His eyes are blue, like Henry’s, although Philip’s are paler. Dishwater, Alex has often thought uncharitably. It almost seems mean to do so now.
“Don’t worry,” Philip tells him after another uncomfortable beat. “It’s decent enough stuff. I haven’t spit in it.”
That shocks a bit of laughter from Alex’s chest. He sinks into the stiff cabriole, which creaks when he leans forward to take the glass. It doesn’t feel like they’re on the right terms for a cheers. Thankfully, Philip appears to agree. He tilts his glass towards Alex and takes a drink.
“I don’t suppose you expected my company this evening,” Philip offers next. Understatement. Alex attempts a nonchalant shrug.
“Well. No.” Alex sips from his glass. The scotch is rich and smoky. He decides to let himself enjoy it, even if the circumstances are less than ideal. “Honestly, I don’t know if I’ve ever, you know…” He tips his glass between them. Philip frowns and shakes his head, confused. “Talked to you before.”
“Of course you have,” Philip scoffs. “You’re marrying my brother. Quite adamantly so, as I remember it.”
That’s one way to describe it. Alex smirks. He catches the expression too late and rushes to hide it behind his glass. It doesn’t cover his cocked brow. Philip seems to notice that one, too. His stiff posture begins to deflate.
“Come on,” Alex replies. He pairs it with his best no-harm, no-foul smile. “We don’t do this. We’ve never done this.”
“No, of course not,” Philip mutters. He sets down his glass and fumbles with his own fingers. Alex recognizes too late that he’s spinning a signet ring around his littlest finger. It’s not a similarity that he’s so keen to notice shared between Philip and his younger brother. “Which is to say — that’s why I’m here. You’re marrying my brother.”
“Ye-es.”
“And it’s struck me that I hardly know you at all.” Philip snatches up the glass again and takes a more generous swig. It’s enough to warrant a refill, which he does, and then does the same to Alex, even if he probably doesn’t need one just yet. “So.”
He pauses. It stretches into enough silence that Alex realizes that it’s all he’s got to offer. This time Alex doesn’t bother to hide his smirk.
“So you thought we could knock back a bottle of Macallan in the middle of a blizzard and hash it out?”
“More or less. Standard protocol in these parts, really, disregarding the blizzard.”
Alex laughs. This is definitely some sort of boring fever dream. He shakes his head and leans forward to clink his glass against Philip’s own.
“Sure it is. Okay. Shoot.”
“Shoot?” Philip tests uneasily, like he’s some sort of goddamned alien learning human language for the first time.
“You said you want to know me. What do you want to know?”
Philip shifts in his seat. He wrestles with an old, dowdy throw pillow. It ends up crammed underneath one of the cabriole’s ornate wooden arms.
“I… Everything, I suppose. I have to admit that I didn’t plan this far ahead.”
“Really?” Alex laughs. Philip’s mouth twitches into the faintest approximation of a smile.
“You have to understand that I hardly have any practice with this sort of thing. You know how Bea is— and Henry, obviously.”
I know that Henry would have loved to introduce you to boyfriends if you weren’t such a tremendous dickhead, Alex thinks, but does not say aloud, because he’s not yet had a sufficient amount of scotch. He nods his head at Philip to encourage him to continue.
“Martha has a younger brother, but he’s never been terribly fond of me. I don’t expect him to come to me for dating advice.”
“Is that what you’re doing? Giving me advice?”
Philip’s mouth snaps shut. “No,” he manages. “Of course not. My marriage is a happy one, but it was, for all intents and purposes, arranged. I’m not going to pretend that I’ve always understood it— or given it the respect it was due at the time —but your relationship with Henry has always been…” He searches for the right word, fingers tapping against glass, “Earnest. Genuine. I don’t know. Well-formed.”
Well-formed. It sounds like he’s talking about one of his damned horses.
“Thank you,” Alex says flatly. Philip winces.
They’re both silent for a moment. Philip stares at the enameled flowers inlaid into the tabletop. “Henry and I used to be fond of one another, you know. No. That isn’t the right word.” He shakes his head and takes another fortifying drink. “We were inseparable. I was so thrilled to have a little brother. I’d pestered my mother for ages about it. Poor Beatrice. She must have felt rather put out.” He passes a hand through his hair. Each strand returns to its tight, flat coif as soon as his fingers are back in front of his lap. “I never would have imagined that everything would end up as it’s panned out.”
“People change.”
“Yes. And not always for the better, unfortunately.”
Huh. Alex isn’t exactly sure what to do with that one. Philip seems to catch on. He takes on a sheepish air.
“Would you tell me how the two of you met?” he asks.
“Who, me and Henry?”
Philip nods. “I know that you were acquainted through public appearances. I’ve not heard the actual story.”
“Sure,” Alex offers. He doesn’t really mean it. It feels wrong to share these intimate things with a man who has so often tormented Henry. But, then again, Alex has seen the photos, too: two little golden-haired boys sprawled on a wide, green lawn; Henry and Philip and Arthur on the bank of a river with three lines cast into the water; family soccer matches; laughter persevered in black and white. Maybe truth has a middle ground. “It was at the Olympics. Rio de Janeiro.”
Philip considers his answer with a nod. “I remember. That wasn’t a very good time for any of us.”
For some reason it’s a surprise to hear the memory from a different point of view. That makes Alex feel a little myopic. Of course Henry wasn’t the only Fox struggling in the aftermath, he knows that, it’s just strange to picture either Philip or Bea in the same glitter of that fateful night.
“No,” Alex agrees. “Honestly, it was kind of a disaster. We didn’t get along at all.”
Philip’s eyes widen slightly. “Really? What changed?”
Alex shrugs. “Good luck. Persistence. I don’t know. We gave each other the chance to get to know one another. That’s all it really took.”
“I hope you don’t take this the wrong way,” Philip replies carefully, “but I have to admit that you strike me as two very different people.”
“Yeah?” Alex laughs. “I don’t know. I guess so. Why, because I’m too uncouth?”
“You seem less wounded by the world around you.”
“Jesus,” Alex says without really meaning to. Philip shrugs. They both take another drink.
“Henry has always been sensitive,” Philip explains. “I don’t intend for that to be taken as an insult. It’s simply a fact. It’s not an easy thing to reconcile with the rest of our world.”
“I mean, it’s your world,” Alex counters, emboldened by the empty bottom of his second glass. “Y’all are the ones who built it.”
“Yes. But not on our own terms.”
“Come on. You’re made for this sh— for all of this,” Alex barely corrects. To his credit, Philip seems amused.
“No one is made for it. Some of us endure it better than others.” Philip reaches for the bottle and refreshes both of their drinks. “What I meant to say is that you complement one another.”
“Uhuh,” Alex laughs. “That’s what you meant?”
A wry look briefly flashes across Philip’s face. “Well. No. What I meant was that you’re hardly who I would have imagined for him, but that I’m glad that you are.”
It’s a nice sentiment, sort of. Alex rolls the scotch around in his mouth and considers each word.
“Bullshit,” he decides. “If you could swap me out with some closeted viscount you would do it in a goddamned second.”
Philip gawps at him. Alex realizes too late that this is perhaps the first time that anyone has ever challenged him so openly— or at least anyone without a place in the peerage, that is. The prince’s expression slackens before he’s suddenly bent forward in laughter.
“You bloody Americans,” he drawls. “No! A year ago, maybe, yes. But I like you, Alex. Well. No. I don’t know if I like you, because I don’t know you at all, do I? But I like what you’ve done to Henry. You’ve made him far happier than any of us lot have ever managed. And I care about that. Immensely.”
“I don’t know if I like you either,” Alex replies. He says it with a grin. Philip catches on.
“Some great mystery, that.” Philip leans backwards. He strings an arm along the back of the cabriole. Suddenly he looks like less of a machine than usual. It’s a very strange thing to observe firsthand. “In any case, I shouldn’t be too fond of you. You ruined my sodding wedding.”
“I did not!”
“You obliterated the cake!”
“That cake was a PR nightmare before I set foot in London,” Alex counters. “We did you a favor by distracting everybody from the fact that it was made out of peasant tears and orphan blood.”
“Peasant tears and orphan— you’ll need one too, you know. You can’t honestly believe that I was the one to pick the damned thing.”
“Maybe I want cherry pie.”
Philip shoots him a withering look. “I’m not a complete neophyte. You Yanks are known for your own ridiculous ceremonies— white icing and all.”
“Right, because Henry and I are such traditionalists,” Alex drawls.
“So why get married?”
Alex thoughts— a mix of memories, some fond, some not, dominated at the forefront by the image of a cupcake balanced between Henry’s clever hands —clatter to a halt. He grips his glass a little tighter. “Excuse me?”
“No, no, that’s not— marriage is its own institution, for better or worse. I know that Gran has always pushed the essentiality of the thing, but Henry’s proven that he can deny her, so why go for the marriage?” Philip reads Alex’s dark expression well enough to keep on talking, adding, “I’m bollocksing this up. I’m not saying that you can’t marry, or even that you shouldn’t, I just wonder if you realize the absolute Pandora’s Box you’re about to open.”
“This isn’t exactly my first rodeo.”
“Of course not, but you’ll agree that the scale is different, surely.”
“Compared to what?” Alex scoffs.
“To all of it. The Mail ran dreadful articles about Martha’s weight for months prior to our wedding, and some — some nonsense about a few of my former classmates with the insinuation that I’ve been carrying on an affair with a woman who I am certain is a lovely person, but I wouldn’t know her if she and I were together in an empty room. They’ll have an absolute heyday with you.”
“And with friends like these,” Alex mutters into his glass. Philip sighs and leans forward towards him, his forearms braced against his knees.
“You could carry on as you are and be perfectly happy,” he insists. “What difference does it make?”
“Come on. What difference did it make for you?”
“You and I are very different people.”
Alex rolls his eyes. “Right.”
“Because I have no choice in the matter,” Philip clarifies tightly. “Marriage is obligatory. Children are obligatory. Henry may feel held to the same standard but, to be blunt with you, he is not.”
“Okay, but I don’t give a damn about standards, I care about what Henry wants.”
“And he wants to be a married man?”
“Yes!”
“Do you?”
Alex’s mouth snaps shut. The scotch tastes like diesel on his tongue. He shuts his eyes and drags a hand through his hair, trying his best to line up his next words in the right order.
“Look. My parents are divorced. They love each other and they hate each other. I don’t know what marriage did to them. I’m not sure that it was anything good. But Henry didn’t grow up with my parents; he grew up with yours,” Alex says, tipping his glass at Philip again. A shallow golden disk tilts against the beveled crystal. “And he wants that. Anybody would want that.”
“Do you think you can give it to him?”
“Shit,” Alex sighs, tossing his head with a huff. “I don’t know. I’m gonna try.”
“I worry that trying won’t be enough once the madness sets in.”
“So don’t throw us to the wolves when it happens.”
Philip leans back, head nodding slightly, his mouth thinning into a line. “Right.”
“Half of the shit that gets published comes from the Royal rota,” Alex says. He drains the rest of his glass and goes for another pour. “I’m not stupid. I know how all of this works.”
“I do support you. For what it’s worth.”
Alex shrugs. “I guess we’ll find out.”
Philip wrestles with his signet ring. “You think that’s what he wants?” he asks eventually. “To emulate our father?”
Alex decides not to point out that this makes Alex Princess Catherine in this analogy, although it’s a near thing. “I think that Henry deserves to be loved unconditionally without having to worry that one day he’ll wake up and find that it’s all gone.”
Philip’s expression softens. “Yes. I think so, too.” He holds his glass in one hand, the other tracing a finger along the cut geometric shapes. “Our father would have liked you.”
“Thanks,” Alex manages awkwardly. It feels nice when Henry intimates the same idea; now, however, it strangely doesn’t.
“He was always an outsider,” Philip continues. “He never really understood all of this.” He waves a hand at the room around them. “Gran was awful to him, of course, but ultimately he got his own way. That was how he lived his life. Everyone admired him for it. I did, too. But…” He pauses, searching for the right words, “But he resented me for how I navigated mine. I imagine you sympathize with his estimation of me— and I understand why. I don’t mean to excuse it. I should have done better with Henry. It was my responsibility and I failed to meet the mark.
“But Dad was an outsider,” he insists more sharply. “And Henry isn’t. It’s more romantic to live outside of the Firm. It gives one a broader reach. We’re stilted people, Alex. We have the capacity to be better, but sometimes I fear that capacity is not enough. So what I mean to say is that neither of you should feel obligated to play into what the rest of the world expects from you. When you’re outside of all of this it feels like you can conquer anything so long as you really put your back into it— and maybe it’s true! —but for us on the inside, sometimes… Sometimes, rather than trying to beat the house at its own game, it’s better to never deal yourself in at all.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Whatever you'd like it to mean.”
“It sounds to me like you’re either saying that Henry shouldn’t get married or that he shouldn’t be in the Firm.”
Philip drinks. He taps a finger against his glass. It rings like a bell. “I think,” he says finally, “that marriage will suit Henry very well.”
“Well, damn,” Alex whistles. Philip’s pale eyes flick upwards for a second to meet his own before darting away.
“Hm,” Philip replies. Alex shakes his head.
“Okay.” Alex drags a hand across his mouth. A pleasant numbness has started to sink into his limbs. The contrast makes his speeding thoughts feel even faster. “That’s — okay. That’s not really my decision to make.”
“No,” Philip agrees. “But I know that Henry’s considered it. I believe you’ll remember that he used it as a rather convincing threat.”
“Yeah, and you seemed rather convinced.”
“It’s not as though I want to see him leave the family.”
“Really?” Alex leans closer to him from across the table. “That’s not how it looks from over here.”
“He’s a gay man. What could he possibly gain from the Crown?”
Alex feels his eyebrows disappear entirely into this own hairline. Philip seems to have caught himself a few milliseconds too late. He opens his mouth and then closes it again, a thin muscle twitching at his jawline.
“I don’t want it to be like this. Our family is — I want our family to serve together. One day our mother will be queen and I suspect she’ll have a hell of a time with it. We all share the burden, theoretically, but Beatrice has never taken to it with any true dependability, so that leaves the lion’s share to myself and Henry, whom people have always preferred, because he is a more likable person. I know what I am. I can only play to my own sodding strengths.”
Philip tosses back his glass. It clatters against the tabletop when he snaps it down and fills it again, turning the bottle sideways afterwards to slosh another serving for Alex.
“All of this is a responsibility,” he continues gravely. His melodic accent has started to blur at the edges. “One for which we are handsomely compensated, might I add. So yes, I would prefer for my more popular brother to help me with the damned thing instead of carrying it all myself, but I won’t force him to do it if it bloody kills him.”
Alex stares at him. For the first time in his life he finds himself at a loss for words. It does not seem to discourage the prince sat at the other side of the half-empty bottle of scotch.
“I didn’t know, you know,” Philip continues miserably. “I had no idea that he felt like — that it was so definitively… Not an option. To marry a woman.”
Alex decides not to share that he, too, was at one point surprised to learn that Henry was gay. He suddenly wishes he could summon Nora into the room so that she could plot Philip’s ignorance against some sort of statistical model. The variables are different, at least, surely. There’s no way that he and Philip can possibly commiserate.
Philip glances upwards at him. “How did you know?”
Fuck.
“Huh?” Alex scrambles in a lame attempt to win himself some time.
“That you were homosexual?” Philip asks, tumbling over each syllable like it’s the first time that he’s said the word aloud. Oh. Alex frowns.
“I’m not gay.”
“What?” Philip’s expression collapses into a confused scowl. Alex laughs under his breath and shakes his head.
“I’m not gay. I’m bisexual.”
“I’m afraid I don’t follow.”
“You’re joking,” the scotch says on Alex’s behalf. Philip appears his usual humorless self. Alex’s shoulders sag. “You speak French?”
Philip blinks. “Well. Yes. But I don’t see how that could possibly matter.”
“So you’re bilingual.”
“Yes.”
“So… you follow. You speak English. You speak French. Doing one doesn’t stop you from doing the other one.”
“Christ. Are you serious? You’re in the middle of a Royal engagement and you’re sleeping with other women?”
“What? No!” Alex jams a thumb into the corner of one eyebrow. “Other women— Henry isn’t a w— it’s not literally doing. Jesus!”
“You’ve just said it!” Philip barks. He swings an arm in emphasis. The scotch sloshes and dampens the knee of his slacks.
“It was a metaphor!”
“No, no,” Philip replies with the wild shake of his head. He points a finger at Alex and wags it along with each word: “You said that all of that was akin to a bilingual speaker: one who speaks two languages. Not one faithfully. Two at the same time.”
“Oh, my God. Henry and I are monogamous,” Alex drawls flatly. “Nothing is happening two at a time.”
“What is it, then?”
“I’m attracted to men and women! How can this possibly be a novel concept?”
“If you’re unwilling to provide an explanation, then I hardly know how I can be expected to understand it,” Philip sniffs petulantly.
Alex likes it when Henry does this whole pissy, whiny, rich-boy thing. Philip’s interpretation is not very likable at all. It’s at least reassuring to confirm that his affections are so exclusively restricted. He’s not sure if he could forgive himself for a more general attraction to this bullshit.
Alex shoots back his drink and hisses through his teeth. “You like women?”
Philip scoffs, affronted. “Yes, of course I like women.”
“How many do you sleep with?”
“One!” Philip roars, turning crimson. “You’ve got quite the nerve to—”
“So you’re capable of being attracted to other people without having sex with them,” Alex soldiers on. Philip’s mouth snaps shut. He glowers for a moment, but then he nods.
“Yes. I see. Right.”
Alex gestures at him with the flip of his palm, a silent ta-da!
“And Henry is aware of this?”
“Yes,” Alex snorts. “He is aware of this.”
“Hm.” Philip sips on his scotch. “Well. It would have been far more convenient if he felt himself similarly disposed.”
“Jesus Christ. You can’t say that kinda shit, man.”
“Oh,” Philip replies. He sounds genuinely surprised. “I apologize.”
“Uhuh.”
Philip refills Alex’s glass. The bottle gurgles and glugs.
“And it was… Henry said he’s always known this about himself. It was the same for you?”
Shit. He should lie about this one.
“No,” Alex admits. Fuck. Wait. Philip lurches forward slightly as if he’s suddenly very interested in hearing what Alex has to say.
“With the men or the women?”
“The men — the hell you goin’ with this one?”
Philip squints. “I don’t really know,” he admits. There’s a little giggle hidden underneath the words. Alex definitely shouldn’t find that funny. He kind of does. “’S a bit shocking, though, I imagine — look at a bloke and suddenly realize, well, now, hang on.”
Shit. Alex is laughing. He tries to catch it in a mouthful of scotch.
“Yup. Shocking.”
“Were you very old when it happened?”
“Uhuh.”
“Really. Recently?”
“Yep.”
“Really! Is Henry aware?” he parrots for a second time.
“Yeah, man, I’d say so!” Alex laughs.
“What turned the corner for you?”
“Henry!”
“Oh!” Philip replies. His cheeks turn a flustered pink. “Oh. Well. That’s quite romantic, really, isn’t’it?”
Alex laughs and shakes his head. “I mean, yeah?”
“In Brazil, of all places,” he wonders dreamily. It takes Alex a second to catch on to his meaning.
“No, no, after that. He was a dickhead in Brazil.”
“Right, right, I remember,” Philip says sagely. “Awful business, that whole thing. Hey, now, though. Dickhead seems a bit unfair. He can be the sullen sort, but he comports himself better than that.”
“Sure. Right.”
“Earned his keep at Oxbridge, of course. Good with his insults.” Philip’s gaze turns misty and distant, as if he’s recalling some old beloved memory. “Once told Bea that I was an invalid’s own lukewarm porridge sent back to the kitchen for want of anything.”
Alex snorts. “Y’all are so fuckin’ weird.”
Shit. He is not supposed to say fuckin’ in front of Prince Philip. That was definitely a bullet on one of his mom’s PowerPoints.
“Christ, we are, aren’t we?” Philip agrees wistfully. “Mazzy says that we’re all hedgehogs: strange and prickly. When she’s sick of me she calls me Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle.”
There’s no way that Alex can’t laugh at that one. He does so until he’s bowed over himself, tears in his eyes.
“Do you think I’ll fix it?” Philip asks suddenly. “With Henry. Ever?”
Alex straightens himself up again, doing his best not to fall victim to whiplash. Philip looks at him with an open and slightly devastated expression. He can see his siblings in him: Henry’s high cheekbones, Bea’s charming, upturned nose. Maybe it’s a little unfair. He’s the eldest and yet somehow he looks like he’s been made from cast-offs. If he was an only child maybe he would be handsome.
Of course, then again, he’s still a prick with a multi-million dollar market value and, you know, the whole imperialism thing.
“I dunno,” Alex answers honestly. “Like. Look. He knows where you’re coming from,” he says, waving at the paneled walls like Philip did when he invoked Arthur’s memory. “But you didn’t have to sell him out, and you did. You kicked him when he was down. That’s fucked up.”
“Yes,” Philip agrees heartily. He is apparently not keeping track of Alex’s rule-breaking expletives, thank God.
“And, I mean, listen— that thing you said before. About staying. If it were up to me, H would’ve packed his bags and left the family as soon as I met him. But all of you have got this crazy idea that being a royal means something to people and, fact is, I think you’re probably right. He doesn’t just wanna be happy, he wants to help people. Us doing all of this publicly— the engagement, the wedding —it means something. That we’re here, and have always been here, and we’re not backing down now. Better or worse, I think he’s in.”
Philip straightens his posture. He sets down his empty glass and nods. “I see.”
“So. Here’s your last chance. You can stand by and let people call him a fairy and all sorts of fucked up shit, or y’all can finally use your blood money and your fucked up authority for something good.”
“We’ve invested quite a bit in green energy, you know,” Philip mumbles. Alex stares him down. He flushes slightly and looks away, scratching at the back of an ear.
“No. No. You’re right. Of course you’re right. On all counts.” Philip draws in a deep breath. “I promise you: I will. Whatever you need. I can’t say that I’ll always know what to do, but if you help me get on the right track, I see it to the end.”
“Okay,” Alex says. It’s the only response that the moment deserves. He knows better than to trust in Philip implicitly. For all he knows, they’ll wake up in the morning and Philip will have instructed the staff to turn Alex out in the snow for his lack of decorum. But he wants to believe him, which is a start, not to mention an unusual feeling. He grabs the bottle of Macallan and shows it, topping off their glasses again and finally extending his own for a proper toast.
“Here’s to last chances, then,” he says. A smile, both sad and hopeful, appears lopsidedly on Philip’s mouth.
“To last chances,” Philip agrees. Their glasses clink. “Done well.”
Alex nods. He tilts his glass afterwards, inspecting the thick legs of his drink appreciatively. “This is good, by the way. Must cost a fortune.”
“Yes, surely, but Christ, if it isn't dreadful,” he simpers. “Like drinking an old boot.”
“What!” Alex laughs. “You brought it.”
“Well, there wasn’t much else to be had. It was this or Pol Rodger— which is pure rubbish, honestly, and I wasn’t about to bring champagne if this all went pear shaped.”
“Huh,” says Alex, because he guesses that makes sense, even if he’s probably in a state in which he could be convinced of nearly anything. “What’s your poison, then?”
Philip shrugs. He takes another sip. This time he doesn’t bother to hide his puckered wince. “I don’t drink much. Mazzy’s fond of a good sherry, the old girl— she’s just like her father.” He says this fondly, which is strange, but Alex decides that he'd rather not be enlightened. “Suppose if I must, I’d go for a tequila.”
“Bull-fucking-shit,” Alex answers. Philip’s thin eyebrows leap across his forehead.
“What’s that for?”
“Who is givin’ you tequila? What are you doin’, drinkin’ margaritas in the orangery?”
Philip blinks. “That sounds like a lovely idea.”
“Oh, my God.”
“You’re the one who’s asked!” the prince replies petulantly. Alex sighs and shakes his head.
“How ‘bout this: no more questions tonight.”
“Well,” Philip huffs. “All right.”
Maybe Philip should interpret this as an overdue hint to leave and turn in for the night. He slings himself sideways to stretch his legs along the length of the cabriole instead. For some reason Alex settles himself more comfortably on his own seat, too, listening with bemused half-interest while Philip hiccups his way through a meandering story about one of his horses.
Whatever. It could be worse. It is one hell of a scotch.
“I… honestly don’t know what to say.”
Alex isn’t hungover. He’s still drunk. That’s crazy. He’s way too old for this sort of shit. Last time this happened, he and Nora finished off a handle of bottom-shelf vodka and accidentally beheaded one of Jackie Kennedy’s rosebushes. This isn’t supposed to happen anymore. Shit. In four months he’s gonna be the Duke of fuckin’ Kent.
He groans and peels open an eye. The first thing he sees is the underside of the bed’s canopy, which looks weird until he realizes that he’s looking at it from the wrong angle because he’s draped himself sideways across the mattress. He didn’t manage to pull back the duvet, but he's got a frilly throw pillow hugged across his chest.
There’s a shuffle and the clearing of a throat and then suddenly he’s privy to an unflattering view of Henry’s nostrils. Deep, powerful, and slightly erotic affection fills his chest.
“He-ey, baby,” he says. Henry huffs and crouches to level himself with Alex. He brushes the hair away from Alex’s brow. Alex sighs and leans into it, letting his eye flutter closed again.
“What on earth did you do to yourselves?”
There’s another sound in the room: a faint, miserable wheeze, like an old tire deflating.
“Good morning, Henry,” the wheeze says. The new voice is enough of an unexpected surprise for Alex to open both eyes. He summons all of his strength and leans up onto his elbows. Henry leans away enough for Alex to peer over the foot of the bed. There, a few paces farther, is Philip, sprawled across one of the cabrioles in the little sitting room, looking every bit the part of an ailing consumptive urchin.
“Philip,” Henry greets him. He sounds both bewildered and deeply amused.
Philip’s bloodshot eyes slowly track past his brother to catch Alex’s gaze. He squints slightly, as if he too is in the process of recollecting the past six hours and finding them equally befuddling.
“Alex,” he says finally. The name has lost its usual edge. Alex nods.
“Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle,” Alex replies.
Henry draws in a sharp breath. A low, hoarse laughter builds from the couch until it’s echoing in the rafters. Henry looks at the both of them as if they’ve lost their minds.
Yeah. They probably have. But it’s a long time coming, Alex thinks.