Red, White & Royal Blue(111)

“What in the hell is a ‘cullen skink’?” Alex asks once she’s hung up.

“Smoked haddock chowder,” she says. “Enjoy your first royal dog show, Alex?”

“It wasn’t too bad,” Alex says, smirking.

“Mum is beyond,” Henry says. “She offered to edit my manuscript this morning. It’s like she’s trying to make up for five years of absentee parenting all at once. Which, of course, I love her very much, and I appreciate the effort, but, Christ.”

“She’s trying, H,” Bea says. “She’s been on the bench for a while. Let her warm up a bit.”

“I know,” Henry says with a sigh, but his eyes are fond. “How are things over here?”

“Oh, you know,” she says, waving her phone in the air. “Just the maiden voyage of my very controversial fund upon which all future endeavors will be judged, so, no pressure at all. I’m only slightly cross with you for not making it a Henry Foundation–Beatrice Fund double feature so I could unload half the stress onto you. All this fund-raising for sobriety is going to drive me to drink.” She pats Alex on the arm. “That’s drunk humor for you, Alex.”

Bea and Henry both had an October as busy as their mother’s. There were a lot of decisions to be made in that first week: Would they ignore the revelations about Bea in the emails (no), would Henry be forced to enlist after all (after days of deliberation, no), and, above all, how could all this be made into a positive? The solution had been one Bea and Henry came up with together, twin philanthropic efforts under their own names. Bea’s, a charity fund supporting addiction recovery programs all over the UK, and Henry’s, an LGBT rights foundation.

To their right, the lighting trusses are going up quickly over the stage where Bea will be playing an ￡8,000-a-ticket concert with a live band and celebrity guests tonight, her first solo fund-raiser.

“Man, I wish I could stay for the show,” Alex says.

Bea beams. “It’s a shame Henry here was too busy signing papers with Auntie Pezza all week to learn some sheet music or we could have fired our pianist.”

“Papers?” Alex says, cocking an eyebrow.

Henry shoots Bea a silencing glare. “Bea—”

“For the youth shelters,” she says.

“Beatrice,” Henry admonishes. “It was going to be a surprise.”

“Oh,” Bea says, busying herself with her phone. “Oops.”

Alex looks at Henry. “What’s going on?”

Henry sighs. “Well. We were going to wait to announce it—and to tell you, obviously—until after the election, so as not to step on your moment. But…” He puts his hands in his pockets, in that way he does when he’s feeling proud of something but trying not to act like it. “Mum and I agreed the foundation shouldn’t just be national, that there was work to be done all over the world, and I specifically wanted to focus on homeless queer youth. So, Pez signed all our Okonjo Foundation youth shelters over.” He bounces on his heels a little, visibly tamping down a broad smile. “You’re looking at the proud father of four worldwide soon-to-be shelters for disenfranchised queer teenagers.”

“Oh my God, you bastard,” Alex practically yells, lunging at Henry and throwing his arms around his neck. “That’s amazing. I stupid love you. Wow.” He yanks back suddenly, stricken. “Wait, oh my God, this means the one in Brooklyn too? Right?”

“Yes, it does.”

“Didn’t you tell me you wanted to be hands-on with the foundation?” Alex says, his pulse jumping. “Don’t you think maybe direct supervision might be helpful while it gets off the ground?”

“Alex,” Henry tells him, “I can’t move to New York.”

Bea looks up. “Why not?”

“Because I’m the prince of—” Henry looks over at her and gestures at the Orangery, at Kensington, sputtering. “Here!”

Bea shrugs, unmoved. “And? It doesn’t have to be permanent. You spent a month of your gap year talking to yaks in Mongolia, H. It’s hardly unprecedented.”

Henry moves his mouth a couple times, ever the skeptic, and swivels back to Alex. “Well, I’d still hardly see you, would I?” he reasons. “If you’re in DC for work all the time, beginning your meteoric rise to the political stratosphere?”

And this, Alex has to admit, is a point. A point that after the year he’s had, after everything, after the finally opened and perfectly passable LSAT scores sitting expectantly on his desk back home, feels less and less concrete every day.

He thinks about opening his mouth to say as much.

“Hello,” says a polished voice from behind them, and they all turn to see Philip, starched and well groomed, striding across the lawn.

Alex feels the slight flutter through the air of Henry’s spine automatically straightening beside him. Philip came to Kensington two weeks ago to apologize to both Henry and Bea for the years since their father’s death, the harsh words, the domineeringness, the intense scrutiny. For basically growing from an uptight people-pleaser into an abusive, self-righteous twat under the pressure of his position and the manipulation of the queen. “He’s fallen out with Gran,” Henry had told Alex over the phone. “That’s the only reason I actually believe anything he says.”