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Assistant: Title: A Distinctly British Take on Events
        Author: RevJohnO RevJohnO 
        Chapter: 1/33 
        Summary: Henry's take on his relationship with Alex, starting from their first meeting, continuing to the cake fiasco at the wedding, and concluding with Henry being told he has to pretend to be friends with his secret crush by (who else?) Queen Mary.  Though other writers have also had a go at this one, I had to try it also, since (in my opinion) Henry is the most complicated and attractive character in the entire book!  There are probably as many interpretations of what's going on in his head as there are readers of the novel, which is why we all find him just as fascinating as does Alex.  So here goes!
        Contents: Chapter 1: Fiasco Fallout
    

    


  

  
  
    
    Henry walks over to the champagne fountain, selects a flute, fills it, sips, and one corner of his mouth tucks in. He hadn’t expected his grandmother to fill the fountain with Dom Perignon, but he also hadn’t expected something this bad. He has heard of companies in the States that sell boxed fermented grape juice—he can’t dignify the stuff with the word “wine”—but this isn’t even as good as he would expect that to be. This tastes like horse p@ss, he thinks, and then smiles. He remembers once saying the same thing about a glass of wine in his father’s hearing, and Dad commenting, “If you recognize the taste, mate, you’re spending too much time with your polo ponies!" Christ, he misses his father. Especially today. He’s tried to excuse Philip’s behaviour as wedding jitters, but it’s been getting harder by the hour. As Philip’s only brother, he knew he would have to serve as best man, but for weeks, Philip has been even bossier than usual and making snide comments about how much better it would be if Henry enlisted, so he could wear a scarlet uniform with gold buttons and shiny braid. Gran has hinted that she would then induct him into a knightly order—not the Garter, of course, but maybe St. Michael and St. George—so that he could have a sash across his chest, and that she might even invest him with a medal or two for a more impressive show. Though he privately thinks he indeed deserves a medal for putting up with all this nonsense, Henry has pretended not to understand the hints, so instead Philip has forced him into a gold waistcoat with about a million glittering buttons. “Can’t let the side down, mate!” he had said. “Got to make a good show!” Every time Philip calls him by their father’s pet name for him, it sets his teeth on edge. Gran left an hour ago, her parting shot a fake smile and the comment, “Next we’ll have to start looking for a suitable bride for you, Henry dear,” her tone implying that the search would be long, difficult, and likely unsuccessful. Mum left a few minutes later, her eyes filling as she told Philip and Martha, “I wish you every happiness, darlings, and if you find half the joy I found with Pip’s father you’ll be very lucky indeed.” She clearly does not believe that her lost happiness with Arthur could ever be replicated by anyone else. All in all, it’s been pretty terrible, but the nightmare is almost over. He’s stood where they told him to stand and knelt where they told him to kneel, posed for hundreds of pictures, and smiled at the squealing girls. But the one person whose smile he craves has fixed him with a stare of withering contempt whenever their eyes have met, before ostentatiously turning his back to chat with one of the young women who have come with him from Washington. Alex Claremont-Diaz, who has haunted Henry’s dreams since their first meeting three years ago, and who hates him with a passion Henry can’t begin to fathom. Well, he can fathom the passion, just not the hatred. Earlier in the evening, one of Gran’s courtiers had approached him to suggest that he ask the President’s daughter to dance. The man had said, “Of course, His Royal Highness is busy with his bride,” an unctuous smirk on his fleshy lips, almost slobbering at the thought of brides and grooms and the activities they would soon be up to. Henry looked at the man more closely. Marmaduke, that was his name. Some connection of the Norfolks, a Gentleman of the Queen’s Household for about a hundred years. Perhaps Henry’s eyes were a bit too piercing, because Marmaduke had nervously reached up and moved his hair back, settling it at a more natural place for a hairline. Of course, a suggestion from Marmaduke was really an order from the Queen—the man would never have dared such a thing on his own initiative. Henry hesitated a moment, but then he smiled. This would get Alex’s attention, maybe even irritate him a little. He felt a bit guilty using the sister to get at the brother (deliberately snubbing Alex by sliding his eyes over him when he went to collect her), but fortunately June was charming and they had a perfectly decent turn around the floor, which the photographers dutifully recorded.  He noted her resemblance to her brother, the curly dark hair, the beautiful brown eyes, the strong jaw; and since she was a writer, they soon found common ground for conversation in their mutual love of literature. Just in time, he remembered that his favorite author was supposed to be Dickens, but it turned out that she loved Oliver Twist, while Henry proclaimed the genius of Great Expectations. A throat clearing beside him snaps him back to the present. It’s Bea. “I’m getting out of here as soon as I can,” she says, looking around the ballroom. “Thank God this catastrophe is almost over. Another hour would drive me to drink.” She eyes him sipping the champagne. “I hear the wine is p@ss.” “Straight from the polo ponies,” he says, and they share a smile. “I saw your dance with the President’s daughter,” says Bea. “She seems nice.” “She is,” says Henry. “Pretty, too.” “Almost as pretty as her brother,” smirks Bea. “He’s been cutting quite a swath among the heiresses. And I’ve lost count how many glasses of wine he’s had.” “Beatrice,” says Henry severely, “paying such close attention to someone else’s drinking betrays a certain unhealthy obsession with the beverage.” She widens her eyes in mock-innocence and says, “Who, me? Oh, God, I think he’s coming this way. And did I just see him grab something off another tray? I’m out of here. He might make a scene.” “Nothing I can’t handle,” says Henry. “American Neanderthals don’t frighten me.” As Bea makes her way toward the door, he thinks of the first time he saw Alex Claremont-Diaz.  Three years ago now, at the Summer Olympics in Rio. Henry was just walking into the Men’s Diving Finals, the odor of chlorine sharp in his nostrils. Confronted with an array of toned male bodies in skimpy bathing suits, he asked himself the question so familiar to every closeted gay man: How would a straight man behave in this situation? He wished someone would write a guidebook with some basic pointers. He always tried to keep his stare resolutely focused on the eyes, but he knew sometimes he slipped—as he did just now at the sight of a perfect American specimen, towel draped around his shoulders, laughing with two young women and a bloke with his back to Henry. The swimmer had evidently just completed his dive, and an array of numbers—all in the high-nines—flashed across the scoreboard. If this bloke ever decided to quit diving, Henry thought, he could start a new career posing as a Greek god for sculptors. Henry also couldn’t help noticing that the man’s brief swimsuit—each hip sporting red stripes flanking a blue panel spangled with white stars, the rest of the suit white in the center back and front—was practically transparent now that it was wet. The young women didn’t seem to mind. The bloke turned away from Henry threw back his head and laughed at something the diver said. His longish hair was a mass of waves and curls, and his skin a golden café au lait. Henry would bet that the colour wasn’t the product of makeup and a tanning bed, like the strange orange tint of the ridiculous American billionaire currently conducting a vanity campaign for the Republican nomination; Henry was sure the boy had no white goggle-marks around his eyes. In fact, Henry would be surprised if he had any tan lines at all, and smiled at the image the thought immediately conjured up. Feeling Henry’s eyes on him, the young man turned, and his eyes lit up in delighted recognition.  His face broke into a genuine smile (probably the last one of those I’ll ever see, Henry thinks as Alex crosses the ballroom) and his hand was stuck out long before he was anywhere near enough for a handshake. “Hi, Your Highness,” he said, “it’s a thrill to meet you.” Henry had always dismissed the adjective “breath-taking” as a cliché, so common as to be virtually meaningless. But looking into the depths of the warm brown eyes fringed with thick black lashes, he literally stopped breathing for a second or two. This was the most beautiful young man he had ever seen. And Henry suddenly realized that the reason certain words and phrases slip into the lexicon is because, quite simply, they are completely accurate. If someone like this ever loved me, he thought, it would set me on fire. And then centuries of duty came crashing down on him, as well as the natural caution of a man who had been in the public eye his entire life, and whose strictly-closeted sexuality, the sexuality he could never express without a signed NDA from his prospective partner, had been hidden from the general public for so long that self-protection reflexively kicked in. I had better stay far, far away. The young man obviously didn’t know that it was the royal prerogative to start a conversation or to initiate touch. “You are Prince Henry, right?  My sister’s been in love with you since I was a little kid. She must have had about a gazillion magazines with you as the centerfold.” Conversations about love-struck teenage girls—who had been proclaiming such inexplicable feelings for almost a decade—made Henry supremely uncomfortable, but the young man didn’t seem to register his reaction. “My name’s Alex Claremont-Diaz,” he said. “You probably don’t follow American politics, but my mom is the Democratic nominee for President. And she’s going to win, too. Our first female President.” Henry had taken a Nineteenth Century poetry seminar the year before, mostly to find out more about the American poet Walt Whitman, but a line from another poet, Emily—Dickinson? yes, that was it–came to mind as he stared at Alex: my hair is bold, like the chestnut bur, and my eyes like the sherry in the glass that the guest leaves. Alex’s hair was black, not chestnut, but it was indeed bold, and his eyes the same warm colour as sweet brown sherry. If this bloke were a dog, Henry thought, he’d have eyes of just that colour, and his tail would practically be wagging off. He had a sudden mental image of Alex madly wiggling his @rs@. Really, a good imagination could be quite a distraction. Shaan had been hovering ever since the young American first started making his way over. Henry plastered on his professional smile, shook the hand still hanging in the air, and said, “Delighted.”  Then he turned to Shaan and muttered out of the corner of his mouth, “Can you get rid of him?” He turned back to Alex and saw several emotions chase across his face, each so clear that Henry thought, I hope he doesn’t play poker. First shock, then hurt, then anger. The young man abruptly stopped smiling and turned away, obviously also unaware that one does not leave the presence of royalty without being dismissed. Henry had evaded the danger he had recognized, but he was already regretting doing so. He didn’t want this meeting to end, so he called out to Alex’s retreating back, “Best of luck to your mother in her campaign.” Alex ignored him and kept striding, almost stomping, away. Since then, he’s seen Alex a handful of times, and Alex has been cold to the point of rudeness on each occasion. Henry has sometimes been on the point of asking, “Look, I know I offended you when we first met, and I’m sorry. Can we have a do-over?” But he’s never quite summoned the nerve. Instead, he has always responded to Alex’s insults with studied civility, while avoiding him as best he can. He decides he’ll be faultlessly polite once more as Alex barges into his personal space. If anything, Alex is even more beautiful now than he had been three years ago. The rounded cheeks of a pretty boy have morphed into the lean firmness of a handsome man, and there is no teenage gawkiness about his physique—he is fit, goddammit. But as always, the handsome face is sneering. “When you have one of these,” he says, “you should do two champagne fountains instead of one. Really embarrassing to be at a wedding with only one champagne fountain.” Oh, great, thinks Henry. Perfect. Two bubbling cauldrons of horse p@ss. Part of him also wonders who this git thinks he is, criticizing royal arrangements. But instead of voicing either thought, he merely says in his best cut-glass accent, “Alex. I wondered if I’d have the pleasure.” “Looks like it’s your lucky day,” says Alex with a nasty smile. “Truly a momentous occasion.” Henry smiles in response, brightly, phonily.           Alex frowns, demanding, “Don’t you ever get tired of pretending you’re above all this?” Whatever Henry has been feeling all day, it has not been superiority. He says as crushingly as he can manage, “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.” “I mean, you’re out here, getting the photographers to chase you, swanning around like you hate the attention, which you clearly don’t since you’re dancing with my sister of all people. You act like you’re too important to be anywhere, ever. Doesn’t that get exhausting?” The last person on Earth to whom he feels like explaining himself is the angry American confronting him. He instead merely says, “I’m … a bit more complicated than that.” “Ha,” Alex says. Was that a slight hiccup? Henry narrows his eyes and says, “Oh. You’re drunk.” “I’m just saying,” Alex says, and tries to rest an elbow on Henry’s shoulder. Henry inwardly snickers as the condescending gesture fails and the arm slips, Alex being three or four inches shorter than himself. “You could try to act like you’re having fun. Occasionally.” With his grandmother’s most regal tone, Henry chuckles patronizingly and says, “I believe perhaps you should consider switching to water, Alex.” “Should I?” Alex’s eyes are almost crossed with the careful concentration of the more-than-slightly-tipsy. “Am I offending you? Sorry I’m not obsessed with you like everyone else. I know that must be confusing for you.” “Do you know what?” Henry says innocently, as if just realizing something. “I think you are.” Alex’s mouth drops open. Henry is enjoying himself enormously. “Only a thought,” he says politely. “Have you ever noticed that I have never once approached you and have been exhaustively civil every time we’ve spoken? Yet here you are, seeking me out again.” He takes another sip of the terrible champagne. “Simply an observation.” “What? I’m not—” Alex stammers. “You’re the—" “Have a lovely evening, Alex,” Henry cuts in, triumphant. He turns to walk away. A rough hand grabs his shoulder. Henry is blindsided for a second—no one, in his entire life, has ever laid an aggressive hand on him (except in football, but of course that doesn’t count). His eyes flash as he rounds on Alex and shoves him. Maybe it isn’t the brightest idea to push a belligerent, drunken American Neanderthal, and Alex stumbles backward, grabbing Henry’s wrist to steady himself. He bumps into the table holding the eight-tier wedding cake. The cake shudders, tips, then seems to freeze in midair for a moment before falling with a crash onto the antique carpet. Henry and Alex both lose their balance and momentum carries them down, down, down, flat on their backs into the wreckage, Henry’s wrist still clutched in Alex’s hand. Henry feels the back of his head slamming into the floor, but something cushions it. Something squishy. Something sticky. Buttercream flowers coat his hair and push into his ears, then gush up between his torso and his arms, covering his black suit and his glittery waistcoat. At the same moment he feels a sting on his cheek and wonders briefly if Alex punched him, before noticing the broken flute he has held onto through the fall. He reaches up and touches his cheek, and when he brings his hand away, he sees blood mixed with buttercream and realizes he has just smeared frosting on his own face. He glances over and sees Alex staring at the ceiling with a bemused expression, his suit ruined, his hair a mess, the left side of his face covered with frosting. Henry feels a strong temptation to pick up a handful of cake and finish the job, but he knows his grandmother would not approve. His grandmother. Oh, Christ. The dungeons at the Tower yawn before him. Bea, Alex’s sister June, everyone in the room stares at them in silent horror. The bride and groom are frozen on the dance floor, and a gathering fury twists Philip’s features. Slowly, clearly, Henry enunciates, “Oh, my f@ck@ng Christ,” and Alex stares at him, eyes widening. Out of his peripheral vision, he sees someone raise an arm, mobile at the ready. A flash goes off. Uncaring of the frosting on his hand, Henry covers his eyes and repeats, “Oh, my f@ck@ng Christ.”***The next morning, Henry awakens to the sound of rain, the dreary, endless rain falling from a sullen sky for which London is so deservedly famous. He buries his face into his pillow, thinking, Thank Heaven yesterday was clear for the wedding, and then the memory of yesterday’s disaster hits him in the gut. Dread coats him like—well, like buttercream coating his suit and hair last night. Not that he sees any trace of the messy clothes—Shaan had arranged their removal as soon as Henry had shed them, murmuring comfortingly that he was sure the royal cleaners would be able to rescue them. Thinking of the horrible waistcoat, Henry had been tempted to say, “Don’t bother,” but he was too eager to get into the shower to take the time. Even after two shampooings, his hair feels slightly greasy, and the cut under his eye still smarts. But the real pain he feels comes from the fear of facing his grandmother, and the mockery and humiliation he knows the tabloids must have in store for him. A soft knock sounds on his bedroom door. He hears Bea’s faint whisper. “H? Are you awake?” He groans in response, and Bea takes that as an invitation to enter. She carries a steaming cup of Earl Grey, and her expression of grave sympathy, the look one might offer to a friend who has just received a negative medical prognosis, confirms his worst fears. “That bad?” he asks. “Well,” she says, “I suppose it could be worse.” True enough, Henry thinks. I could have broken my leg when I fell. “Actually, the tabs have been surprisingly supportive. Alex is the one getting all the bad press—they think he started it, and a few papers are suggesting that cut under your eye came from him thumping you. Everyone’s furious about an American ruffian ruining the wedding, and one headline even says his actions could lead to a second British-American war. It’s a joke, I think.” “Third,” says Henry. “What?” “It would be the third. In addition to their Revolution, there was that dust-up they call the War of 1812, when our troops invaded Washington and burned the White House and the Capitol Building—in 1814, as it happens. They’d burned our Capitol in Toronto, so it was payback.” “You’re probably the only one this side of Oxford who would know that,” says Bea. “The point is, no one thinks this is your fault. Well, Philip, of course. . . .” “Of course,” says Henry.  He pauses. “Any word from Gran?” “Um,” says Bea. She looks down, clearly unwilling to say what she has to say next. “She wants to see you at Buck House after church today, at two o’clock. She wanted Mum there too, but Mum says she’s too upset. I asked if I could tag along for moral support, but Gran said no.” “Of course not,” says Henry. “Cold-blooded murder is best carried out without witnesses.” “True,” says Bea. “But knowing Gran, the wheels are already turning to spin this to the royal advantage. And poor Alex--just imagine what his mother will have to say to him when he gets home, which, since his sister hustled him out and straight to Heathrow, he should be doing right about now.” Henry snorts and takes a sip of tea. “Yeah, poor Alex. My heart breaks for him. But I wonder how he got to the airport. I can’t imagine a limo driver wanting that mess smeared into his upholstery.” “Staff arranged for him to get a shower before he left Buck House, and he borrowed a jumpsuit from the maintenance crew,” says Bea. “Shaan told him not to bother about sending it back, but that we’d see to getting his clothes to him after they’re cleaned.” Again Henry thinks, Why bother?  The suit is just as f@ck@d as he and I are. At two sharp, Henry is standing outside the door of the Green Drawing Room at Buckingham Palace. He is dressed as if for a funeral, dark suit, starched white shirt, black tie, his shoes polished to mirrored perfection. He is freshly shaved, and miracle of miracles, he thinks he has washed the last of the oiliness out of his hair. If only he could make his stomach stop cramping. He knocks, and he hears his grandmother say, “Enter.” He opens the door, takes a step, bows, another step, a second bow, and then approaches her. She is standing—never a good sign; she’s receiving him with the formality she would accord a total stranger. But her tone is polite, if icy, as she says, “Henry, dear.” She does not invite him to sit. “Your Majesty,” he says. It doesn’t seem the right moment for Grandmother, much less Gran. “Have you seen these, dear?” she asks, gesturing towards the Sunday papers on the tea table. “The press seems to be having a field day.” Actually, he has seen them.  Each of them prominently features a photo of him and Alex flat on their backs in a pile of cake. Whoever took that picture must be making a mint from the royalties, thinks Henry. No pun intended. “Fortunately, no one seems to hold you responsible, dear,” says the Queen. “Aside from Philip, of course. But he has other duties to attend to.” Henry closes his eyes with a slight shudder—Philip’s marital duties are the last thing he wants to think about. “I suppose one really couldn’t have expected better behaviour from that . . . boy,” the Queen says, acid contempt dripping from her well-modulated voice. “But we really can’t count on the continuation of favourable coverage. Every gutter rag will be searching for a new angle to sell more newspapers, and they may well swing round to attack you.” She pauses to let that sink in, waiting for Henry to look sufficiently shaken before adding, “Fortunately, my senior press officer has come up with a strategy of damage control.” Some response seems expected.  “Ma’am?” “We’re inviting Mr. Claremont-Diaz for a visit this coming weekend.” “What?”  Henry remembers that one does not shout at the Monarch, so he controls his tone. “I mean  . . .  Ma’am?” “We’re inviting him back to England. We have just released a statement that the unfortunate events at the reception yesterday were a terrible accident, and that despite only rarely being able to meet, you and Mr. Claremont-Diaz have actually been close personal friends for several years. His visit will clear up any misunderstandings about the nature of your relationship.” “But, Gran!” He forgets formality in his agitation, but his shout emerges more like a wail. “He hates me! He’s unspeakably rude every time we meet, and this time was the worst of all! He grabbed me! And then he pulled me down into the bl@@dy cake!” “Language, Henry,” she says. “Mr. Claremont-Diaz is coming, and you are going to receive him in as polite and as friendly a manner as you can manage, given his background and lack of breeding.” The words hang unspoken in the air: and his ethnicity.   Henry has read that his ancestress Queen Victoria had been remarkably free of class and racial prejudice (it makes sense, Henry has always thought; if you’re the pinnacle of society, you probably don’t care about petty distinctions of who is more inferior to you, noble or commoner, white, brown, or black). But Gran obviously does not share her great-great-grandmother’s tolerance, and her contempt for Alex’s brown skin is obvious. To Henry, she offers a small smile, probably meant to be encouraging but actually even more frightening—like an asp baring its fangs and preparing to strike. “I know this will be difficult, dear, but I also know that you can do it.” She means to sound like Queen Elizabeth rallying the troops facing the Spanish Armada, but he feels more like Elizabeth’s father Henry VIII has just threatened him with the block. “But how can I pretend we’ve been friends for years?” he says. “One knows things about friends. I know almost nothing about him!” It’s not quite true. He has read compulsively about Alex since Rio, and his obsession has led him down all sorts of Internet rabbit holes. Just the other day he read a speculative piece about Alex having had a steamy encounter with a mystery brunette after an environmental fundraiser. The article broadly hinted that the lady in question might be the Vice President’s granddaughter, Nora Holleran, with whom Alex had had a fling a few years ago and whom Henry vaguely remembers from the Olympics. She had attended the wedding yesterday with Alex and June. The press has dubbed them “The White House Trio,” and despite school and career commitments, they’re always lending their names to one good cause or another (all carefully chosen, Henry suspects, by the President’s advisors to appeal to their age demographic). Recalling him to the present situation, his grandmother replies, “That will not be a problem. One of his mother’s aides was on the phone this morning with your equerry compiling a list of Mr. Claremont-Diaz’s  traits, interests, and . . . peculiarities.” A hint of steel creeps back into her look and tone. “You will study it and commit it to memory. We don’t want the press catching you in any unfortunate errors. Or, should I say, any more unfortunate errors, like your encounter yesterday. Thankfully, we already had your pre-approved biographical information on file in the Press Office to give to them.” The piffle about mutton pie and Dickens. “Do you have any questions, dear?” “Why do we have to host him? I don’t want him downstairs all weekend.” “Since we suffered the loss of 55,000 pounds for the wedding cake, we thought it only fair that he should have his schedule disrupted and suffer the jet lag, not you.” Henry has a sudden suspicion (if not certainty) that it’s the cost of the wrecked cake that bothers her far more than negative press and Henry’s humiliation, because despite being one of the richest women on Earth, his grandmother is notoriously tight-fisted. She has a way of going round Buckingham Palace flicking off lights in what she thinks are unoccupied rooms, more than once plunging unnoticed housemaids into complete darkness. “But the White House insisted that you pay them a visit in return, given your share of responsibility for the incident,” she continues, a faint accusation in her tone. “The Prime Minister is invited to a State Dinner in late January, and you will accompany her. But that gives you four months to prepare for your next American interaction.” She pauses. “Any more questions?” He wants to say, Just one. How do I get out of this? But what’s the point? If the grey men of Whitehall have decided that this is the tack he is to take, he might as well just sail with the wind. There really is no appeal. “No, Ma’am,” he says. “Good,” she says. “I would offer you tea, but you have some studying to do, don’t you?” She gestures toward a folder near the newspapers on the table. “You may go, dear.” This time she offers her cheek for a formal kiss of submission. He takes the folder, kisses her, and backs away without turning. He reaches behind for the doorknob, opens the door, and escapes, closing the door softly. He had half-hoped his mother might be outside to offer a comforting hug, to ask, “How did it go, my baby?” But of course she’s not. He pulls out a handkerchief, wipes his brow, then straightens his shoulders and heads down the hall. When he passes the ballroom where yesterday’s reception had taken place, he glances in to see a cleaning crew working on the antique rug. They had been talking and laughing, but they fall silent when they see him. He nods distantly and keeps walking.'
User: Summarize the chapter based on the content provided, ensuring to follow the set format and emphasize key aspects within the specified length.
User: Summarize the chapter based on the content provided, ensuring to follow the set format and emphasize key aspects within the specified length.
Assistant: