Chapter Thirty-Three
"Princess! Over here!"
Harry turned to see a photographer calling to Ruth and snap pictures. She was immediately startled by the flashing camera in her face. She froze and just stared. Harry immediately grabbed her arm, perhaps a bit roughly, and dragged her across the sidewalk and into the restaurant.
Once inside, she blinked back to reality. "Wh-what…?" she stammered.
"You've got to ignore them, Ruth," he told her gruffly. He let go of her arm and sighed sadly. "Tom'll take care of that one, but we can't just let these things continue."
Over the last month or so, there had been a sudden increase in press attention on Ruth and her family. King Richard was out of the hospital and back home at the palace, but he was monitored constantly by doctors and he was far too weak to conduct official business. And it was unlikely, the doctors said, that he would ever recover any more than he already had. As a result, the royal princes had taken up all of the king's duties between them. Given that Ruth's father was ill himself with his ongoing cancer treatments, Prince Edmund had taken on the brunt of things. It made sense, as he would be the next king. And that allowed Prince James's condition to remain private within the family.
The problem with all this, however, was that King Richard had a very strong hold over the press and keeping them from his family. Prince Edmund did not have the same sort of concerns. Edmund and Juliet, the cow, rather loved the attention. The press had been getting used to the new normal of having royals delighting in the constant photographs and public statements. They seemed think it applied to the entirety of the royal family. And that included Princess Louisa and her husband and his children.
Harry had seen Ruth be dogged by photographers nearly everywhere she went for the last few weeks. He had seen because he and Ruth went nearly everywhere together: to work, out to the theater or ballet, to restaurants, to the various palaces. Harry kept trying to tell her to ignore them, and she mostly did. Or rather he reminded her and she tried to keep her head down. But sometimes the caught her unawares and she got confused and distracted by their presence. Harry adored his wife more than anything, but she was absolutely useless when she was made the center of attention without warning like that. It was as though the flash went off in her face and her brain shut down. It had gotten to the point that Ruth had stopped going out by herself for the most part. Unless Harry went with her, she just stayed where she was. Tom was a fine bodyguard, but he was not really equipped to handle paparazzi; he couldn't very well protect Ruth and scare off photographers at the same time, so that latter duty seemed to have fallen to Harry for the most part.
In the whole time that Harry had known Ruth, he'd only seen her picture in the paper half a dozen times. But since they'd returned home from their honeymoon, it seemed they could not go two days without some deer in the headlights picture of her printed for all the world to see. Privately, Harry was a bit disappointed that she wasn't more photogenic. He found her beautiful always, and he knew that she could be the most radiantly attractive person in the world when the moment was right. He had made the comment once that she didn't much look like a princess in the papers, which matched the fact that she didn't much act like a princess in life. But Ruth's rather morose reaction had stopped those teasing comments for good. The fact that she was bothered by it was the most upsetting thing about the whole paparazzi mess.
"Come on, we're late to the party," Harry said, putting his hand on the small of her back and leading her through the restaurant and up the back staris.
She went with him willingly but it was clear to Harry that she was still feeling out of sorts. It pained him, seeing her go all sullen like this. This was supposed to be a fun evening and a rather important one at that. And if Ruth was going to be in this sort of mood, there was absolutely no chance that Harry would be able to enjoy himself. He was dreading this, but it was her influence that made him agree to it. Now he wished they could just turn around and go home.
But no. They arrived at the very full banquet table in the private back room of the restaurant. It was festively but elegantly decorated. And it was filled with noisy teenagers. One of them wore a plastic tiara and pink sash that read Birthday Girl in flowery white lettering. She stood up and hurried over. "There you are!" Catherine cried. She gave her father and stepmother each a big hug. And Ruth finally gave a very genuine smile.
"Happy birthday, Catherine," Ruth said, kissing her blonde hair.
Harry's smile and birthday wishes were a little forced, thanks to the onslaught of Catherine's friends who were getting a bit rowdy. To his eternal dismay, the guests at Catherine's sixteenth birthday were both girls and boys. He had been very ready to put his foot down as her father and to refuse any males but him and Graham to be present, but Ruth had instead put her foot down. It was Catherine's party, Ruth had reminded him, and Catherine and only Catherine should have full authority over the guest list. After all, he and Ruth were just there to pay for it.
Graham was sitting off in the corner, trying to ignore all of Catherine's friends. Some younger brothers might want to impress the friends of his older sister, but not Graham. He had friends of his own, and he was a bit snobbish over what he viewed as silly, shallow teenagers. Harry made a beeline to join his son to commiserate over their shared view. Ruth found a member of the waitstaff to order some things for them.
At last, Ruth was settled beside Harry. She had a glass of wine. He had a rather large pour of scotch. She'd ordered a seafood pasta dish and he had a chicken risotto. The room was loud with the talking and laughter of all of Catherine's friends. So long as no one broke anything—property or people—there was no problem with letting them have their fun. Harry and Ruth both kept quiet. It was too loud to carry on a conversation otherwise. He wanted to put a hand on her leg under the table, but given her earlier mood, he worried that might not be welcome. They'd have a talk later, surely, when they could sit together quietly away from all this chaos.
"Dad, can I have some?" Graham asked his father.
"Yes, fine," Harry replied without even turning to look at him.
Graham picked up Harry's glass and took a rather large swallow of scotch. "Graham!" Ruth exclaimed. Harry turned to look at her rather than his son and saw a look of utter shock on her face.
"Yes?" Graham asked calmly and curiously. Harry had to admit that Graham had a brilliant way about him of getting excited over good things and perhaps sometimes over worrisome things, but he was not one to rise quickly to anger, unlike Harry and Catherine. He wondered where his son had inherited that trait.
Ruth turned to Harry. "Did you see what he just did?"
Harry was somewhat confused by her outrage, but he tried to keep calm as Graham had. "He asked for some of my drink and I said yes, so he took a sip," Harry said.
"He's fourteen!" she exclaimed. Thankfully the teenagers weren't paying a bit of attention or this might cause an embarrassing scene for Catherine.
"Yes, I'm aware of how old my son is, Ruth," Harry answered. Perhaps he was being a bit snide. But really, what was she getting so upset about?
"I cannot believe you let him drink your scotch. He's fourteen!" she repeated.
It had not occurred to Harry that Ruth had never actually seen Graham drink before. "Oh it's nothing to worry about, darling," he explained. "I let Catherine start drinking when she was fourteen, too."
"A glass of wine at dinner is very different than throwing back scotch, Harry," she countered.
But Harry just shrugged. "He's not having his own, not when we're in public. And he doesn't drink without asking. I think he's fine."
"I am fine, Ruth," Graham parroted, trying to reassure her.
Ruth opened her mouth to make another argument but shut it immediately.
Harry did not like that at all. "What were you going to say?" One of the things he had liked about her from the first was the way she wasn't afraid to speak her mind. At work, that was never a problem. She had no qualms about arguing with him when she had a difference of opinion. And at home, too, they had some rather spectacular fights when one or both of them got in a stubborn mood. And though he'd never really articulated it before, he did have a lingering fear as a result of his first marriage that if he and Ruth ever stopped fighting about things and instead kept opinions to themselves, that would spell the end for them. After all, with the absences and infidelity, Harry and Jane had just given up on each other. And that had been what led to the divorce more than anything else. He refused to have the same fate with Ruth.
She searched his face and sighed sadly. "It's none of my business how you parent your children, Harry. I'm not their mother and I've never tried to be. I'll stay out of it."
He wanted to respond, but before he could, a flash outside the window distracted him. The whole room got distracted. Because this banquet room was on the second floor of the restaurant. And there was a photographer in a tree taking pictures.
Some of the teenaged girls screamed. Ruth froze, as she often did. Catherine looked as though she were about to cry. Harry sprung into action. "Graham, get Tom," he shouted. "Ruth, go out in the hall where they can't see you. Catherine, tell your friends to shut up."
Graham thankfully took Ruth's hand and dragged her out of the room to safety. Harry tried to find curtains or something to cover the window but found nothing. He was left in full view of the camera as he shouted obscenities at that damned photographer. Oh the newspapers would just love this, Princess Louisa's unhinged husband.
"Dad, stop!" came a cry behind him.
He turned to see Catherine with tears streaming down her lovely face. One of her friends had an arm around her shoulder to comfort her. The rest were quiet and uncomfortable.
"Cat, I think maybe we'll go…" one of the boys said.
The look of heartbreak on his daughter's face sliced Harry to the quick. She didn't try to stop them. Though what could she really do? She was sixteen and her stepmother's station had brought ruin on her party.
By the time the teenagers started to file out, the photographer had been shaken out of the tree by Tom and the restaurant staff. Catherine just sat right down on the floor and started bawling her eyes out. For a moment, Harry was at a loss of what to do, but he gave in to the instinct to take his crying daughter in his arms. He sat on the floor and held her. She was so upset, she didn't even push him away.
Graham and Ruth came back in once the crisis had passed. It was just the four of them left. All of the guest had gone.
"Catherine, I'm so sorry," Ruth said softly.
Harry was nearly pushed over as Catherine whipped her head away from him and up to Ruth. She stared daggers and snarled, "It's all your fault!"
Ruth was left speechless, eyes wide and worried, mouth gaping as she struggled to find something to say. Harry wished he had a way to help her. But all of this was very much out of his depth. Things were changing for all of them, and they'd need to find a way to adapt. They just hadn't quite found it yet.