Author's note:
Hello! Thank you to everyone who has followed/favourited/supported this story in any way. I'm sorry for the delay in posting. Chapter Four should be coming soon...
If you are so inclined, please leave a review!
Take care,
-NifflersAndBooks136
CHAPTER THREE
"To be honest, Merlin, I am quite surprised at how quickly Prince Arthur accepted these new arrangements. The Prince of Wales is usually much feistier in the face of royal demand. Oh—here we are." Guias emerged from the closet with a cardboard box. He offered it to Merlin.
Merlin set the box on his desk and began moving his things into it. "I feel as if I've just received a P45." He admitted. The Prince of Wales had accepted his press release well enough, but there had been something in his gaze, his sneer, that had made it very clear that no one had ever dared punch the other man in the face, even if he frequently deserved it. Merlin found it hard enough to hold his tongue in Buckingham Palace; he doubted he would fare better in Arthur's court in Kensington.
"Nonsense." Guias sat behind his own desk and watched Merlin. "This is a fantastic role; and if you do well enough you could be very well placed to succeed me when Arthur ascends to the throne. It is the sort of thing that your mother wanted for you when she reached out to me. When she had you move to London. The military never did suit you, boy. This will."
Guias' words were not unkind, but they did not comfort Merlin. Although he was well placed (thank goodness for his mother's well-connectedness), he felt just as lost and uninterested as he had after six months in basic training. Nothing, it seemed, would ever suit him. But this hadn't been a good enough explanation for Hunith—she had still switched off his Xbox and put him on the train to London. Merlin had known when he left the military that he couldn't spend his life waking up at noon and playing Dragon Age: Origins on his Xbox 360, but he had certainly been determined to try his best at it.
But instead he was standing in Buckingham Palace, across from King Uther's Private Secretary, about to exchange one royal court for another. It was a position that he knew that a million people would kill for.
It just so happened that Merlin was not one of those people.
Merlin set down the stapler he had just picked up and reached for the iPad that work had issued him. He swiped through a few articles about The Prince of Wales. It certainly wouldn't be a boring job, at least. He said as much to Guias.
Guias smiled wryly. "No, it certainly will not be. You know by now that a great deal happens behind Palace walls that is never disclosed to the public. And you will learn soon enough that much of what is covered up has to do with Prince Arthur. To be frank with you, I'm shocked that His Royal Highness has managed to stay closeted for so long. Simon Tomilton was the first, but he certainly was not the last gentleman to be Prince Arthur's secret beau."
"Prince Arthur has had relationships that have stayed secret?"
Guias nodded. "It really is inappropriate of me to discuss this with you, but I fear that you will be disadvantaged in your new role if you do not have some scope of what goes on at Kensington Palace." Turning his computer screen towards Merlin, Guias pulled up a photograph of Arthur at Wimbledon. Beside The Prince of Wales sat another man who by any stretch of the imagination was dashing; and who by any stretch of the imagination knew he was dashing. "This is Lord Gwaine Beufort, who like Prince Arthur, is eager to keep his personal affairs private. Still, I heard that sneaking him in and out of Kensington Palace was quite a nightmare for security."
"Are they still together?" Merlin asked, "Is it something I need to be worried about?"
"Thankfully not, I do not inquire as to the intricacies of Prince Arthur's private affairs, but I was given to understand that they separated earlier this year."
When Merlin had first begun to work at the Palace, he had been shocked by the amount that was kept from the media. But even though he had since gotten used to it, he had to admit that it was surprising that a relationship between an heir to the throne and an aristocrat had been kept secret at all. Seeing Merlin's face, Guias chuckled.
"We do have to pay off some journalists, but if you know the right people, you can make the right calls and keep a great deal out of the papers. You will of course make your own connections within the media, but I will do my best to introduce you to some of my most useful contacts over the coming months. You will certainly need them. And of course, if there is an issue that is too big for you to solve, I will help you."
Merlin shook his head incredulously. "What have you gotten me into, Guias?"
oOo
Prince Arthur watched from an upstairs window as the black car swept into the courtyard before his apartments. His arms were crossed, his tea had long since gone cold, and his brow was creased into a deep frown. A knock on the door jolted him from his perch by the window.
"Enter."
A footman stuck his head around the corner. "Please excuse me, Your Royal Highness, but the Lady Morgana is here and demanding to see you at once."
A voice hollered around the footman head. "Oh please, I'm his sister. Do you really have to announce me like some goddamn Tudor herald?"
For the first time that day, Arthur cracked a genuine smile. "Let her in, she'll do more harm if she's kept waiting."
"Sir." The footman bowed his head and moved to leave the room. Arthur's sister pushed past him before he had even taken two steps. The footman shot Morgana a dirty look, which she pretended not to notice, and closed the door behind him.
A silence stretched out between Arthur and his sister as they regarded each other. Of Arthur's two half-sisters, Lady Morgause Lithgow certainly looked more royal—she had the angular face and blonde hair that were characteristic of the Pendragon dynasty—but few could claim that Morgana had forsaken her father's lineage when she fixed her steely gaze on them. With a flashback to this morning quickly rising in Arthur's mind, he shook himself and was the first to look away.
"So, the Daily Mail told me your ex-boyfriend holds a major grudge—or perhaps needed a quick pile of cash, and a little bird told me that you're engaged."
"For an illegitimate princess, you do know an awful lot about what happens behind palace walls."
Morgana shrugged and smiled. "It's not like I don't live in a Palace." To Queen Igraine's horror, Uther had offered his daughters apartments in royal palaces when they had turned eighteen, and Morgana had accepted. "And besides, it's much easier to know what's going on around here when you're the one who staff gossip to, not the one they gossip about." She sank down in a chair. "Also, I'm dying of a hangover. Please, for the love of God, can you ring for coffee?"
Arthur shook his head. "You're mental." Still, he busied himself with calling for coffee—anything to avoid the inevitable conversation that he knew his sister had come to have. Morgana stood and walked aimlessly around the room, pausing to read a list of titles that Arthur had stacked on a shelf. She ran her finger along the spines and turned back to Arthur.
"You haven't addressed my questions. Do you know why Simon Tomilton published that story? I mean, why would he come forward now? You left Eton seven years ago. Surely if he was going to need cash, it would've been when his parents cut him down to only four hundred quid a week while he was studying at Edinburgh."
Arthur shrugged. "My guess is as good as yours, Morgana. But it was bound to come out some day, in some form that the Palace couldn't ignore."
"Mmm, and I expect that it would be ridiculous to try and contact Tomilton—if he's gone to the fucking Daily Mail of all places, we know that he's not above sending text screenshots to them, too."
"Well, that's the problem." Arthur sat down, throwing his hands up. "He's too well connected to really be excluded from guest lists without everybody noticing. He can't exactly be exiled as it were. And I know that the press team is going to be very against pressing any charges. Silence is golden behind these walls."
"Silence indeed!" Morgana sounded incredulous, and Arthur raised an eyebrow. "What was that statement that you released this morning?"
"I thought it was rather good. It was written by the Private Secretary that our dear father and Guias forced upon me."
"God, you're as bad as Daddy is. Issuing toneless, smarmy denials without another thought. I don't understand why you don't override his wishes and publish your own truths. It's not like they can exclude you from the line of succession, and even if you never had any biological children, there's still plenty of people lined up for that dusty old crown." When Arthur said nothing, Morgana sank into a chair. This was a conversation that the pair had had many times before. After a beat, Morgana sighed. "I think you need to carve your own path. Parliament can't exclude you from the succession for being gay, and for goodness' sake Arthur, these are modern times."
"They may be out there," Arthur jerked a thumb toward the window. "But you know it's not like that in here. And besides, I'll marry, have an heir and a spare, and then…" Arthur stopped. And then what? Send his wife off to the countryside? Exile her to France? Thank you for marrying me and bearing my children, now please fuck off so that I can continue fucking men behind closed doors. He shook his head. "You know that Father would cart me off to the Tower if I let Fredrick and his lot take the crown."
"Father would be dead, Arthur. That's kind of how succession works, excluding the odd circumstance."
A knock at the door spared Arthur from answering for the moment. But once their coffee had been poured, Morgana pounced on him again.
"Who would you even marry?"
Arthur shrugged. "I suppose Merlin will draw up a list of candidates."
"Merlin?"
"My new Private Secretary, he was working as Guias' aid until this morning. He should be settling into his offices right now. I suppose I'll have to go and meet with him soon."
Morgana looked thoughtful. "Guias' assistant, you say? Is he dark-haired? I'm certain that I've seen him around. Are you planning on sleeping with him?"
"What?!"
She sipped her coffee with an innocent expression. "My gaydar is very rarely wrong, Arthur, and he seems like the type. Awfully handsome, too, if you can ignore those dreadful ears."
"I'm not going to sleep with him, and I don't think he's gay."
Morgana shrugged. "You could always cop a feel and try to find out. He's your secretary, after all. If it's so medieval behind these walls, you'd merely be adhering to the ancient and revered tradition of harassing your employees."
"What an appalling thing to say."
Morgana shrugged and reached for a biscuit. "You're such a hypocrite. You'll let Daddy lock you in a closet as high as Rapunzel's tower, but you won't harass your staff. Figure out where you stand, Pendragon."
Arthur made a face. He knew that Morgana didn't truly stand behind what she was saying, but it still wasn't something he felt comfortable joking about. But she did have a point, he supposed, staring into his coffee. Not about harassing his employees, of course, but there was a certain irony in that Arthur tried to be progressive in the causes that he supported and in the work he did, and yet he was trapped by the least progressive family in the world.
Could he tell his wife the truth? Would being The Queen be enough to entice a woman to marry him, and be his partner, even though he knew that he would never truly belong to her? Was he as bad as the men that Morgana joked about, who he rallied against? Could he even do this?
Inside, an angry voice reared its head. Pick, damn you. Your time is running out.