AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Her.” she corrected.
The word released so easily from her lips had a world of weight attached to it. The word settled in the air.
Her.
Her.
Her.
It suddenly made sense to Erin why she was so guarded. Why she didn’t want to have sex with Lord Hugo. Why she was so reluctant to marry.
“Oh, er.. well I wasn’t expecting that response!” Erin laughed and it broke the ice in the air. Alexandra laughed too, more cautiously.
“So, who was she? What happened?” Erin waited for Alexandra to tell her to mind her own business or to never tell anyone else. But she didn’t, the trust was there between them now.
“I’ve never spoken about this before.” Alexandra waited a moment and then spoke. “She was my friend, it was years ago. We had a secret fling for a while, I guess you would say. I had feelings for her. I thought I loved her. She ended up finishing things with me to marry a Lord. She told me there would never be a world that would allow either of us to be with a woman. That the world itself might have progressed, but not our world. Not the world of Royalty. That there would never be a day where it would be accepted for a member of the Royal family to come out as gay. And, as much as I hate it and have hated it ever since, she was right. I’ve looked at it from all angles. From every way there is to look at it. The trouble is, I’m not just a fringe player in the family. I am the heir to the throne. It is different for me; it always has been. There is no way out, I will have to get married to a man, sooner or later and I will have to bear children.”
Alexandra was so nobly resigned to her fate.
“What happened to her? Are you still friends?” Erin asked.
“Oh, she is married now. She has three children. Yes I still see her very occasionally. We have never spoken since about what happened between us. I doubt we ever will. I don’t think her feelings were as strong as mine.”
“I don’t think anything you did would ever change the way the public see you, you know?” Erin said. “Everyone, without exception, adores you. If anyone could change things for the future of the monarchy, you could.”
Alexandra smiled wryly. “Unfortunately, I don’t think it will work quite like that. Also, there’s not exactly a long list of eligible lesbians for Princesses to date!”
“I think you would find that if you came out, there suddenly would be a list a mile long of women who wanted to go gay for Princess Alexandra.”
Alexandra laughed. “Thanks for your vote of confidence. Come on, I’m getting cold. Let’s warm things up.” She squeezed her horse forward into a trot.
Just like that, the conversation was over and Erin held the biggest secret in the world in her hands.
9
The following afternoon, Erin accompanied the Princess and Prince Nicolas of Sweden on a walk around Hyde Park. It was relatively unscheduled which gave them a certain amount of freedom. They wore sunglasses and Alexandra wasn’t immediately recognised and the Prince wasn’t a well known face in the UK. Erin was in the curious situation of gatecrashing their date. She followed at a suitable distance, keen to get to know Prince Nicolas, keen to make her own mind up if he was any good for Alexandra.
Nicolas was tall and nice enough. But bland. Nicolas was bland. This was quickly very obvious. Could Alexandra really reduce herself to this? How quickly would her sharp mind dull when she married a man like Prince Nicolas? How would she manage to hide her true self for the rest of their lives together? How would she find a way to lie down and open her legs for him? Women had before, of course. For the whole of time itself, women had been opening their legs for men they didn’t love, didn’t want, men that repulsed them. Women had forced themselves to endure sex they didn’t want enough times, perhaps Alexandra finding a way to force herself through sex with a man like Prince Nicolas would be nothing new.
The very thought of it made Erin sad. She saw how upset Alexandra had been after the unwanted advances of Lord Hugo. Would Alexandra be able to find a way to distance herself enough to have sex with a man she didn’t want? Alexandra had confided in her about her problems. By the sounds of it, Erin was the only person that Alexandra had confided in. Surely she should have given Alexandra some advice? But, what advice was there?
Don’t marry someone you don’t love.
That would be good advice. But advice for someone in Alexandra’s position, really wasn’t quite that straightforward.
No wonder Alexandra was so guarded. She was guarding the biggest secret someone of her fame could ever guard. Nobody had any idea.
They went for dinner at Nobu and then later in the evening, back at the palace Prince Nicolas went back to Alexandra’s suite with her and Alexandra dismissed the staff. Erin went to her room feeling something was really wrong. She went to her bathroom and vomited. She was jealous. Angry and jealous. Sick with the thought that Nicolas might touch Alexandra. That he might touch the body that Erin had loved and cared for when Alexandra was hurt.
As Erin sat quietly in her room, straining to hear anything through the walls, she knew for sure what she had been suspecting for a while. She was falling in love with Princess Alexandra.
It was late when Erin heard the Prince leave. She wanted again to go and check on Alexandra, but she couldn’t. It wasn’t the way things worked. She lay restlessly in bed.
In the room across the hall, on the four poster bed draped in white, Alexandra lay restlessly too. What was she doing? What did she want?
10
The rest of the week passed uneventfully. Prince Nicolas headed back to Sweden and Erin and Alexandra slipped back into their day to day. Conversations remained professional. Alexandra remained guarded.
