"Was it difficult, conducting a romance in secret?" Gavin asked.
After that they were able to talk in more general terms for a while, about the difficulties of being in the closet, so on and so forth. Ben could switch into that less personal mode as smoothly as he could any other.
My God, James thought, he's brilliant at this. Brilliant! Ben's handling this interview as well as any of us who were born to it, and better than most. He's really, truly got it. It felt like the sun was rising inside James's chest. This thing he had thought would be the greatest hurdle for Ben, the most impossible barrier--it was something Ben could manage almost effortlessly.
More pleasantries, more vagaries, until Gavin came to the conclusion: "Now, forgive me if I'm being premature, but will the new law about same-sex marriages apply to you two?"
Their response was so coordinated they might as well have practiced it: They each looked at each other, smiled like conspirators, but then said, in unison, "Premature."
Close and good night. Camera off. Lights out. Nice chitchat with Gavin after about how well it had all gone. Moist towelettes wielded by makeup artists to bring their faces back to normal. Then they made their way out of the studio and back into the car.
The moment the door slammed shut, Kimberley said, "Your Royal Highness, Mr. Dahan, that was brilliant."
"Did you think so?" James was beside himself. "It seemed to go very well to me, but then you never know when the camera lights are on you."
"It wasn't as tough as I thought," Ben said simply, as though he weren't some sort of Olympic interviewing champion.
Kimberley smiled. "Your Royal Highness, your solo section of the interview was impeccable, but I expected no less. I must say, Mr. Dahan, you surprised me, in the best way. The joint interview was--affectionate, articulate, personable, and even intimate without crossing any boundaries. You both came across very well, individually and together."
James clutched Ben's hand. "See? We make a great team in public too." Ben smiled back, but he didn't seem as inclined to gush.
"We can be reasonably confident of fair editing from ITV, sir." Kimberley folded her hands over her bag. By now she looked nearly as delighted as James. "I predict very positive reactions from the public, regarding both of you, Princess Amelia's treatment, all of it."
"Let's hope so." James wondered what his security team would do if he rolled down one of the car windows and gave a victory yell. Best not to find out.
Once they were back at Clarence House, alone in the private suite, James couldn't resist glorying in their triumph all over again. "You were so wonderful, Ben. So incredibly wonderful."
"I don't know," Ben said with a shrug. He was sitting on the floor, receiving slobbery hellos from the corgis.
Although James felt a moment of irritation at Ben's refusal to join in the celebration, he fought back the emotion. Something lay behind this reaction, and it was important to understand what. "What didn't you like about it?"
Ben looked up at him, expression cloudy. "It was an act."
James, whose life was made up of layers of public performance, took a moment to consider this. "To some degree," he finally said. "But it was fundamentally the truth."
"Fundamentally." In Ben's mouth, the word was hollow. "The pretense never bothers you?"
"No. Never." James owed him honesty. "I was raised to it."
"I wasn't." Ben shook his head, obviously trying to clear the cobwebs. "Never mind me. Come on, let's get dinner. I don't know about you, but I'm starving."
So they saw to dinner, but all the while, James couldn't put aside his growing fear that--no matter how well things went for them, no matter how skillfully Ben handled every challenge--Ben would never, ever adjust fully or happily to royal life.
Which meant, perhaps, that it was time for James to seriously ask himself if he were willing to leave royal life behind.
***
Was it cruel, to watch James struggle with this? Ben hoped not, because he understood, absolutely, that this was a stage they both had to go through.
After months of trying to live by the motto "no limits," it was strange to give each other so much space, to not discuss the one question that hung over them every day like a domestic Sword of Damocles. Yet this was one matter that discussion would confuse rather than clarify. Ben loved James enough to live with the suspense . . . even if he wasn't yet sure he could live with the burdens of royalty.
On the one hand, he wanted to mock himself. Oh, no. You fell in love with a handsome prince. He wants you to live in his castle forever. Poor you. Meanwhile there are starving people in this world. Cue the violins.
But that didn't get at the problem. Ben cared no more for riches now that he had them than he had when he'd been content to live out of a backpack. James's wealth was immaterial. Ben felt they'd have been just as happy in the Islington flat, maybe more. The gifts James brought to their relationship were not material ones.
As for the burdens, well, they might be the ultimate definition of "First World Problems," but the First World seemed to be where Ben had ended up, despite himself. Remaining with James forever would mean living in the public eye, every move and word examined, open to criticism and bigotry from every moron with an Internet connection, unable to choose where he would live or travel, obliged to learn and obey the antiquated absurdities of royal protocol . . .
Ben simply could not make himself accept it.
He knew he had to try. Before that last threat to James's throne, Ben had determined to create a role for himself as a potential royal consort, and he threw himself back into the effort. When the royal interview went over just as well as Kimberley had hoped, he found himself in the strange position of being liked, more or less. That didn't make it any less odd to be stared at every time they went to the theater or a concert, but at least the stares were friendlier.
His book came along well, and he was even able to turn in a first draft of Bubbles: Speculation and Scandal Throughout the Ages before he had to start his promotional work for The Corporation: A Biography. Prepublication buzz was extremely strong--for all the wrong reasons, in Ben's opinion, but his publishers didn't believe in the existence of wrong reasons for buzz. Already they were begging him for another proposal, and hinting at advances large enough that any jokes about his being James's "kept man" would permanently lose their sting.
Still, when the book came out, Ben's celebrity was more likely to work against it, at least so far as any critical reception went. Reviewers wouldn't be quick to lavish praise on an author they'd first seen all but naked on the cover of a tabloid. Sales would be mostly the result of curiosity. Could he live like that, making all his own money by acting as a sort of remora to James's fame?
It might not be like that, Ben would tell himself. The book might be reviewed fairly. Your career as an author could wind up being everything you'd hoped.
Not bloody likely.
He was even starting to swear like James.
Ben knew that he and James became more a part of each other day by day; the Britspeak was the least of it. They weren't the same people who had met in Kenya because they'd changed each other in the best possible ways. When Ben looked at James, he saw someone far more centered and confident, someone less likely to beat himself up and more likely to take on a challenge. When he looked at himself, Ben saw more patience and tolerance than before. More humor. More kindness. He had never felt the lack of those qualities before, and yet now he realized he liked himself better. The man he was with James was closer to the man he truly wanted to be.
And yet there was still something in him that struggled with collar and leash. Something that hungered for freedom, for privacy, for the right to live honestly every moment of every day. Something that did not like smiling his way through television interviews, or introductions in the royal box at the Royal Albert Hall.
He was musing about this one evening instead of reading the book in his hands when James said, "Ben?"
"
Hmm?" Ben's heart sank. Had his doubt been written all over his face?
Yet James seemed calm. "I was wondering whether you'd be willing to take a short trip."
"What, to Scotland or something?" Ben had already been informed he'd have to wear a kilt for the Braemar Gathering. He had yet to discover the traditional tartan of the ancient Hebrews.
"Shorter than that. Just a quick walk, really. Tonight--right now, if you're game."
This was unlike James, though he was becoming a little more spontaneous, much to the security team's chagrin. "Okay," Ben said. "We're going out for an evening stroll? I guess we've seen that it can work." Maybe James would do the Scottish accent again. That was hot.
"Tempting. Maybe sometime." James's smile was difficult to read. "But no. We won't leave the palace complex."
Ben put aside the unread book, marking his place just in case he could concentrate better later. "All right. Surprise me."
They left the private suite, left Clarence House altogether, and strolled back along the familiar route that led to St. James's Palace. This was the journey Ben had taken every time he came to see James back in their earliest days--the trip back out into the regular world. It made him wistful to think about how, once, he'd been able to set everything in this palace aside so easily.
Everything but James.
Security staffers at various points gave them curious looks, but obviously James was free to go wherever he wanted. Ben wondered where they were headed that would make security even stare at the Prince of Wales.
Then they came to an enormous set of doors, and James smiled as he went for the handles. "Here we go."
James pulled them open to reveal a large, grand space with red and white walls, a high, intricately gilded ceiling . . . oh, Ben thought as he saw the enormous canopy against the far wall and the ornate chair beneath it. A throne room.
"Why isn't this in Buckingham Palace?" he said as they walked inside.
"There's a throne room there as well, actually." James shut the doors behind them before joining Ben on his stroll toward the throne. "But St. James's Palace is the senior palace of the two."
Did he want to know what that signified? Ben decided he didn't. He simply went with James to stand before the throne. The canopy around it was thick red velvet, embroidered with the ornate crest Ben had become familiar with despite himself: lion and unicorn crowned. As for the throne, it was deeply cushioned with more red velvet, and a crest stitched into it featured the large, crowned letters GR with the Roman numeral IX, slightly smaller, within the curve of the G.
"It looks comfortable," Ben said. "Is it?"
James still had that strange, almost sad smile on his face as he nodded toward it. "Want to try it and see?"
Ben wasn't overly impressed by such stuff, as a general rule. The loot of the world, he thought, remembering the old line from Citizen Kane. Yet it felt inexpressibly strange to step up to the throne and sit down. Although he refused to be awed by it, Ben couldn't help wondering what it would be like to belong in this seat, to look out at a sea of people who expected you to be there. Heady, he imagined. And illusory.
"When it's yours," Ben said, "the stitching on the back--"
"The royal cypher," James supplied.
"The royal cypher. That will be, what, a J and a Roman numeral III? But wait. What's the R for?"
"Rex. Back during the days of the Empire, sometimes it was an I for imperator. Or imperatrix, in the case of Queen Charlotte."
"So you'll have an R."
After a long moment, James said, "I would have done."
"James . . ." The question died before Ben could utter it. He knew the answer.
"I brought us here tonight because I wanted you here with me to--to say good-bye to this room, and everything it means. You don't want to lead a royal life, Ben. I understand that. I accept it. And I'm willing to step aside to be with you."
At first Ben could only stare. He'd prepared himself for this, or thought he had, but not for the shattering depth of the love he felt for James as he stood there, trying to change his entire life for Ben's sake.
But all the love he felt didn't change what he knew.
Ben wondered if James had really understood how he'd phrased this, if he had wholly faced his own reluctance. It didn't matter, not really. "Thank you for that," Ben said softly. "I love you even more for it. But you won't step aside."
James's wing-arched brows knitted together in a frown. "I just told you I would."
Not I will. Not I'm stepping aside. James believed he had no doubts, but Ben had glimpsed the truth.
So Ben rose from the throne and took James's hands. The red platform on which the throne stood meant that he loomed even higher over James than usual--though to him, James had never looked so strong. Very quietly, Ben said, "You're going to become king."
"It's my choice now," James replied. "And I want to choose you. Yes, of course we have to wait for Indigo to recover further--and if she doesn't, then, what the hell, let Richard have it. He's always thought the contents of this room could make him happy. Maybe I should give him the chance. Once he doesn't have anything to prove, he might not be that bad."
Ben had to smile, though the moment felt inexpressibly sad. James didn't understand that he needed to be king even more than Richard did, and for far better reasons. "This role is a part of you, James. If they'd thrown you out, yes, you could have created a new life for yourself outside of royalty. But you could never walk away from what you see as your duty. That's not the man you are."
James protested, "I could! I love you that much. More than that. Besides, this way we can have the life we dreamed of. Cambridge, or New York, or anything else we wanted."
Ben had to shake his head at the perfect irony of it all. He had come to James because he knew his role as Prince of Wales would always stand between them; he'd been proven right in ways he'd never envisioned. "We wouldn't have that life, because you'd regret your choice, more deeply than you could imagine. That regret would follow us--to Cambridge, to New York, any place in the world. Duty is as much a part of you as your skeleton or your skin. Maybe as much as your heart. You know that, don't you?"
At first James couldn't respond. Eventually he managed, "Perhaps I've already done my duty."
"You don't really feel that way, and you know it. Besides, once you become king, for the first time in generations, the monarchy will actually mean something."
To think that he was defending the honor and position of a king. Once Ben would never have been able to imagine himself doing such a thing. But he wasn't defending some anonymous king somewhere. He was defending James.
He watched James struggling, trying to protest further even though he obviously recognized the truth of what Ben was saying. "I'd be leaving of my own will, Ben. Nobody could ever say I was forced out for being gay."
"They could say it. They'd be wrong, but when has that ever stopped anyone?" Ben felt one moment of temptation, the swift desperate urge to say, Forget it, you're right, let's go immediately, tonight, you and me. Instead he held on to what he knew James truly needed. "All that tradition and pomp I thought was so ridiculous--lay it at the feet of an openly gay man, and it's transformed. Turned upside down. Don't you see? To preserve its own sense of history and dignity, a nation has to not only accept your homosexuality but also embrace it. Your reign will take the current cultural shift toward tolerance and make it part of the national character. Something to be defended as fiercely as anything in here." Ben gestured around the throne room, the grandeur of centuries gone. "You can't walk away from that, James. You know you can't."
Poor James. He still wanted to fight it, even though this duty was at the very core of everything he held dear. Ben thought he had never fully realized how much James loved him until now, when he saw him all but willing to hollow himself out.
Finally James sighed. "No. I can't."
Ben squeezed his hands. "It's all right."
"But what does it mean for you?
For us?" James lifted one of Ben's hands to his mouth and kissed it.
They were silent for a while. Ben wanted to be able to answer clearly, but he couldn't. His emotions were in a tumult that wouldn't be sorted out in a night, or a week. "I can't promise you anything yet."
"Ben--"
"I'm sorry! I know it would be better if I could just say yes or no, for once and for all." Now Ben was the one struggling. He couldn't swear to live forever in the royal spotlight even as a hypothetical; he didn't even want to speak the words. "I'm trying, okay? That's the only thing I can promise right now. But I'm not going to allow you to do something that would wreck you. And it would, James. Abdicating would destroy you. I won't let you do that just for me."
James let go of Ben's hands, stepping up on the platform to stand next to him, both of them looking at the empty throne. Ben wondered if he was envisioning it there, the J III R that would mean so much more than just James's name. "I hadn't realized until now how much I simply wanted to know. I honestly believed I'd made up my mind, but . . . it was less about wanting to leave royal life and more about wanting to know once and for all that we'd stay together."
"I'm sorry," Ben repeated.
"No. You're being honest. That's all I can ask." James glanced back with a soft smile. "Come on. Let's go back home."
As they walked out, Ben stole a glance over his shoulder at the throne, empty, waiting for James.
***
Maybe, James thought to himself in the days that followed, if we fall into the right rhythms, if we create the life we need, Ben will just . . . forget about leaving.
Ridiculous, of course, but he took his hopes where he could get them.
It helped that he knew Ben wasn't simply stalling. He was genuinely trying to find a way to fit into James's world. At the next meeting of the charity trust, Ben stepped up yet again, and James could see that he had already earned the respect of most of the board members. His research into the various programs they had sponsored, and could sponsor, was impressive in its depth and insight. This was a job Ben could do brilliantly--if he wanted.
Ben came with James to the next meeting of The Firm, one of the larger meetings at which virtually everyone (save, of course, Indigo) was present. Richard could not manage friendliness, but clearly attempted to be civil; the queen almost seemed pleased to see Ben, which had to just be some strange alignment of the planets, but it helped. Ben listened closely, took notes, and asked James about their different debates and issues later on. The way in which he did this made it clear he wasn't simply making conversation; Ben was truly trying to understand, from the point of view of someone who thought he'd need this information later on.