by S. A. Gordon
“Wonderful,” David said. “What time would suit you?”
“Ah …” Caitlin calculated how much time she’d need to go home and change into something more suitable for having drinks with a prince. “Is eight okay?”
“Absolutely.” He still sounded like he was smiling. “There’s a bar called Clancy’s way up on the Upper East Side. Does that suit?”
“Sure,” she said. “I live on the Upper East.”
“Terrific. I’ll text you the address. I’m afraid we won’t be alone, though.”
He paused again and her heart sank—it was a group gathering with his friends? She didn’t know if she wanted to meet other new people. She was having a hard enough time getting used to the idea that she’d met him.
“My PPOs will be there.”
“Oh.” Caitlin was so relieved she almost sat on the floor. “Of course. Luckily I’ve already met them.”
David laughed. “You have. Now, Caitlin, you sound a bit different.”
“What do you mean?” she said, too quickly.
“Well, I’m fairly sure that since yesterday you’ve had time to think about our encounter and you’ve talked yourself into being nervous about the fact that I’m … well, you know who I am.”
She swallowed. How could he know that?
“It’s happened before,” he continued. “But I’m just David, okay? My sisters are Alix and Margarita, as I like to call them. My father’s name is James—never Jim.” She smiled, even though he couldn’t see her. “And I want to have a drink with you because I enjoyed your company. I hope that’s the same reason why you’d like to have a drink with me.”
She coughed, once. “It is,” she said.
“Sir,” she heard another man say on David’s end of the phone. “We have to leave.”
“Sure,” David said. “All right, Caity, I have to run. But I’ll see you at eight and I’ll text you the address. Ciao.”
The call was over and Caitlin was left holding the phone to her ear, as if he was still on it. She felt vaguely affronted that he’d ended the call without giving her a chance to say goodbye, but she also knew that he probably had to do that a lot. Despite what he’d said—despite him being “just David”—he wasn’t. He’d called her “Caity,” though—it was reassuringly familiar. He liked her. And she liked him. Maybe that would be all. And maybe that would be enough. She’d just have to find out.
Getting through the next few hours of work wasn’t going to be easy.
*
Despite the dark brown baseball cap pulled low over his ears and the smattering of other men sitting alone in the bar, David was easy to recognize—easy for Caitlin to recognize: tendrils of his hair escaped the cap and curled over his ears. He was wearing his hair longer than the public was used to seeing—just long enough to make him look like a European playboy but not so long that he looked like a sleazy film producer swanning around Cannes trying to persuade models to sleep with him. Still, longer hair or not, Caitlin knew she’d recognize him anywhere. And when he noticed her enter the bar—when the brim of his cap tilted up and she saw the flash of his teeth as he smiled in the gloom of what was possibly the darkest bar in all of Manhattan—it felt like a recognition of her, too. It felt like seeing her oldest friend after a long time apart. Again, Caitlin wondered if her reaction was because she’d seen his photograph so many times that she felt like she knew him well—that she, like millions of other people, had been brainwashed en masse. But the floaty feeling in her belly and the twinge around her heart told her that it was real. Her reaction to him was genuinely about him—about the David she had met on the beach.
Caitlin ran her hands down the long, straight gray skirt she had chosen for the evening. Her legs were long enough to pull it off—she knew she didn’t look dumpy, but she hoped she looked elegant. She’d read somewhere that gray and pastels were a good mix so she’d paired the skirt with a pale pink blouse. She hoped her boots—a little warm for the season, but the most expensive thing she owned—added enough of an edge that she didn’t look like a nerdy editor but, rather, the sort of young woman who belonged at a fashion magazine. Then she realized that she’d never cared about what she’d worn to a date before. And she wasn’t even sure if this was a date.
“You found it,” David said after he had kissed her on each cheek in greeting, grasping the top of her arm as he’d done so. His smile was warm and familiar.
“I did,” Caitlin replied. “Is this the last Irish bar left above Midtown?”
“You’d know better than I, local girl,” he said, still smiling. “I just like it because they take care of me here.” He nodded once to the man behind the bar and then inclined his head toward a table where his protection officers were sitting. They looked steadily at Caitlin, their faces neutral. She wondered if they were still assessing whether or not she was a threat to their prince.
Caitlin, in turn, nodded at the bartender. “Is he the owner?”
“He is,” David said, gesturing at the man, who strolled over.
“Davey boy,” the man said in a Dublin accent. “What can I get for you?”
“My friend is in need of a beverage.” David turned toward her. “What would you like?”
“Oh …” Caitlin surveyed the offerings behind the bar. “What single malts do you have? Anything peated?”
David blew air out between his teeth. “Single malts? Just what have I got myself into?” He winked at the bartender.
“I have a Laphroaig,” the bartender said, shrugging a shoulder in the direction of an array of whisky bottles. “Have you tried it before?”
“No. But I’m game,” Caitlin said.
“How do you take it?”
“With a bit of water on the side, please.” Caitlin sat down on the barstool at last.
“Davey?”
David raised his half-empty pint of Guinness. “Still going,” he said. “Come back in precisely two minutes.” He winked.
“Right you are, Your Royal Highness.” The bartender grinned and reached for the bottle of Laphroaig.
Caitlin’s drink appeared in a matter of seconds and she reached for her wallet, but David stopped her. “No, it’s fine,” he said. “I’m running a tab.”
“Then I’ll pay at the end,” she said, smiling.
David took a sip of his beer. “We’ll see,” he muttered into the glass.
“Excuse me?”
“I said we’ll see,” he said, lifting his head to look at her, his eyes dancing. “I asked you to come here for a drink so I think the drink’s on me.”
Caitlin was about to retort with a line about how that didn’t entitle him to anything but she stopped herself. This man could be—had been—with an array of beautiful women who probably wouldn’t even expect to be taken for drinks in exchange for enjoying his company. He didn’t need to buy her with one shot of whisky.
Wordlessly, Caitlin poured some water into the whisky glass and took a sip, enjoying the sensory experience of the aroma of the liquor that was so different to how it tasted.
“So how do you know that man?” She used her head to indicate the bartender.
“We played rugby together at university,” David said, taking another sip. “Or, rather, we played against each other. He was headed for a representative career, so I used to try to keep out of his way. I wasn’t nearly big enough to withstand the impact.”
Caitlin’s eyes appraised the muscles in David’s arms and chest. She saw him notice but she liked that—she wanted him to see that she appreciated his masculinity. In the past she would have been mortified if a man had noticed her checking him out. She would have rushed to explain herself in a way that usually made them both embarrassed. But now she said nothing when she looked him in the eyes once more and was met by those dark pools of brown, inscrutable but welcoming.
“Plus, he’s from the Republic,” David continued, “so he was a little friendlier toward me than his Northern Irish teammates—or mine, when I think about it.”
“I don’t know enough about Ireland—the history of all that.”
David took a sip and smiled as he put the glass down on the bar. “And I’m not going to tell you tonight. I’d rather talk about more recent history.”
Caitlin narrowed her eyes. “Such as?” she said.
“Such as … how you came to be available to have a drink with me on short notice, when I would have imagined that your dance card would be quite full. Certainly that fellow Liam seemed to want to fill it.” David raised his eyebrows enquiringly.
“Oh.” Caitlin’s cheeks were suddenly aflame and she noticed David grinning. “What?”
“It’s very sweet that you blush,” he murmured. “I don’t know many people who do.”
“Well, I wish I didn’t.”
“Why?”
“It’s the sort of thing teenagers do. Like giggling.”
“Nothing wrong with a giggle. And you haven’t given me an answer.” He kept grinning. Caitlin thought she should, perhaps, be annoyed by it but in truth she found his interest flattering.
“Liam is … It was Liam’s ex-girlfriend who was the unexpected visitor yesterday.” Caitlin quickly tasted more of her whisky.
David’s expression shifted as he picked up his beer. “So you were a bit upset about that?” He looked at her seriously.
Caitlin shrugged. “Yeah.”
“You’re … keen on him, then?”
She shrugged once more. “I thought I was.”
David looked down into his beer and then back at her. “That’s an interesting use of the past tense.”
“Interesting from a linguistic point of view or from a story choice point of view?”
He seemed amused by her. “You’re attempting to divert me from this topic,” he stated.
A flash of irritation crossed Caitlin’s face. “Maybe I want to,” she said.
“Too bad.” He sipped his beer. “Keep talking.”
Caitlin tried an exaggerated sigh but David seemed unmoved.
“All right,” she said. “You know how sometimes you can be interested in people because they seem to tick all these boxes? All the boxes they’re meant to tick?”
David didn’t respond.
“Right, this probably doesn’t happen to you,” Caitlin said.
“I’m human too,” David said softly. “I just have different boxes, perhaps—or additional boxes—to other people.”
Caitlin looked at him sitting there with his beer, suddenly seeming more slight than he had before. She put her hand on his arm. “I’m sorry. I was being judgmental. I have no idea what your life is like.”
He gazed at her, then chuckled. “You are the first person I’ve met who has apologized for voicing an opinion about me.” There was weariness in his voice, but no rancor. She wondered how often he encountered people who felt entitled to say all sorts of things to him about him. What a strange life it must be.
“Back to your boxes and the ticking of them,” he said.
“Right.” Caitlin shook her head quickly. “Well, Liam is the classic great catch, you know? And he was there, in the house. His cousin is my friend and she’d set us up. It all seemed to fit. So it seemed to follow that I’d be interested in him.”
“And he in you,” David said quickly. “Of course.”
Caitlin frowned. “Not necessarily. I’m not the sort of girl he’d usually even meet, let alone be interested in.”
“Why would you say that?”
“Because I’m not … like him. Or like his cousin.”
“Like him?”
Her cheeks colored again. “Privileged,” she said quietly. “I don’t have that background.”
“That doesn’t matter, does it?”
“Doesn’t it?” Caitlin said fiercely.
David raised his hands in surrender. “I believe we’ve hit on a touchy subject.”
“From what I’ve seen, when people have grown up a certain way—with access to lots of things, shall we say—they tend to expect that everyone else is like them. And that’s because everyone they meet—at school, at college, at work—usually is. They tend to like to hang out with the people like them, not with people who don’t understand the code.”
“The code?” He frowned.
“The code. Whatever code it is you all know about how to behave and how to talk and what to wear and where to go on your vacation and where to buy your jewelry. That code.”
“‘You all?’” David’s frown deepened.
Caitlin made a noise that sounded close to a guffaw. “David, you can’t honestly tell me that you don’t include yourself in that group of people I just described. It’s like your family is the apex of it.”
David’s nostrils flared as he picked up his pint and drained it before placing the glass down and signaling to the bartender for another. All the while, Caitlin wondered if she had gone too far. She had sounded like a bitter little middle-class wannabe and she hated herself for it. She didn’t even know where that outburst had come from.
“Are we having a fight?” David said, looking up at her with a twinkle in his eye.
Caitlin’s face almost collapsed with relief. “We may be,” she said.
He nodded and smiled. “Good,” he said.
“What? Why?”
“Because no one ever challenges me, Caitlin,” he said, turning his body completely toward her. “Well, no one outside of my family. And I’m sick of it. It is more than a novelty for you to challenge me now—it’s a gift.”
Caitlin hurriedly sipped more of her own drink, unsure how to respond.
“As for what you say, though—to be frank, my family exists in an almost singular dimension. It’s not even a dimension that other royal families share because none of them enjoys the same …” He sighed. “Profile as us. No one except us understands what it’s like to live with that much scrutiny. Our wealth is the least part of it, I can assure you. The palaces, the liveried horses, the pomp and circumstance of it all—that exists no matter how much money we have. We’re so far beyond a code … But I do appreciate what you are saying. I guess I’m trying to tell you not to worry about it with me.” He sipped his beer and grimaced. “I’m so far beyond any of it that the rules are my own. Not even my sisters share them.”
Caitlin’s face hardened in concentration. “Why not?”
He looked weary, and not a little sad. Caitlin would have hugged him but she knew that wouldn’t be appropriate.
“Do you really want to hear all of this?” David said.
“Only if it’s not boring for you to tell it.” Caitlin smiled sympathetically.
“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone what I’m about to tell you.” He put his hands around his pint glass and looked at them.
“Why not?”
He captured her gaze once more. “No one has ever asked the questions you’re asking me now.”
“Oh, David, if I’m being too rude, honestly, I—”
He waved a hand. “You’re not at all rude. It’s just … I’m not used to it, as I mentioned,” he said softly. “That’s all. It doesn’t mean I don’t like it. But once I’ve answered your questions, I hope you will let me ask some about you.”
Caitlin nodded.
“All right.” He took a gulp of beer. “So, as you may or may not know, when I was born I was the heir to the throne. Then the law was changed to make Alix the heir, as she’s the first born.”
He glanced at her and she nodded encouragingly.
“I honestly don’t care that I’m not the heir. I have a lot more freedom than my sister does. But the changed situation puts me in the position of still being the heir in some people’s minds. There are people who don’t approve of the idea of my sister becoming the monarch. They think …” He smiled to himself. “They think only men should rule—if they’re available. And these people … they come out of the woodwork. They can get a little …” He grimaced. “Clingy. And if they’re also people who think my mother sho
uld be sainted, that’s another layer of clinginess.”
Caitlin smiled vaguely and they looked at each other for a few breaths.
“People want a lot from you,” she said finally. “They want you to represent a lot for them.”
David nodded as he drank his beer. “They do. I don’t mind most of it. Representing my father, representing my country—all of that I am beyond privileged to do. But it’s the personal things—the person they want me to be when they meet me—that cause the problems. I can’t be the suave prince, you know.”
“You do all right,” Caitlin said, nudging him.
He looked almost surprised. “That’s sweet, but I’m not suave. I know I’m not. Neither is my father. We’re just not designed for it. My mother’s father—now, he’s suave. But Papa and I are nerds, really.”
Caitlin half snorted as she laughed. “Yeah, right,” she squawked.
“What? We are!”
“David …” Caitlin rolled her eyes. “You cannot be unaware of what women think of you.”
“And don’t forget about my gay fans, Caity,” he said, winking.
“Exactly,” she said, nudging him again. “I don’t think anyone but you thinks that you’re a nerd.”
David smiled to himself. “My sisters do.”
“They’re allowed.”
“Anyway …” He drank some more beer, then turned to her. “Shall we eat? They have decent food here. It’s a bit heavy on potatoes but …” He shrugged. “It is an Irish bar.”
“Sure,” she said, trying not to smile too much. She didn’t want him to think that she was a bit dizzy.
“Then you can tell me about your family.” He looked at her kindly.
“Bad news—no kings in my family.”
“Ha! I think I have enough in my own.”
“So you really don’t mind that you won’t be king?” she said, not even believing that she was asking him the question—and now worried that he wouldn’t like that she had. But he shook his head and smiled wanly.
“I really don’t mind,” he said quietly. “Alix will be a brilliant monarch. And my grandmother was amazing. All those people who think that boys are better … well, my grandmother proved the power of women at the top. The history of our country—of our empire, if you want to call it that—proves that it’s the queens, not the kings, who oversee stability and progress. Kings just …” He grinned.