GOING DUTCH: FREDDIE HAS A ROYAL STEADYAnd Clive Fitzwilliam Hears Wedding Bells
After three years of upheaval, the royal family finally has something to celebrate: a royal romance between playboy Prince Frederick, 29, and Daphne, Princess of Orange, 33, heiress to Holland’s throne. You can take it exclusively from me: This clandestine coupling is more than titillating talk.
“A wedding is absolutely in the cards. They’re utterly besotted. Everyone at the palace is over the moon,” confides our exclusive source. “The Queen loves her. Princess Daphne is serious, well educated, and refined.”
“Besotted,” Nick said. “This is Bea, isn’t it?”
“Sure sounds like her.”
“This was her plan? Freddie’s not going to like it.” He hauled himself up to lean against the back of our headboard. “Nor will Daphne.”
“Neither will you,” I said. “Read the rest of it.”
What a refreshing change of pace from our recent royal bride, Rebecca, the Duchess of Clarence, an icon of impropriety who has stirred up scandal in her wake. Per our latest report, succession itself is now threatened: Rebecca’s refusal to take proper care of herself has led to suspicions by royal doctors that she is barren and unable to bear the heir that history and a hereditary monarchy demands, meaning the line will sidestep the cuckolded Clarence duke and his salacious succubus and—as it did with the Queen herself—land in Freddie’s lap. How might a Dutch union complicate that?
Nick’s eyes got progressively wider. “Crikey. That is rubbish,” he said. “What was Bea thinking?”
I grabbed my phone and opened Twitter, after sending up a little hello to Marta, whom I imagined trawling the internet from an armchair in the Great Beyond. People were abuzz with the romantic fantasy of it all: Daphne’s abduction made for a particularly juicy backstory, and so the Tragic Princess Finds Safety with Hero Prince fanfic wrote itself.
“Interesting. Check this out,” I said. “Apparently on Sunrise this morning, they really let Clive have it for some of this.”
I hit play on a clip that was going around of new substitute anchor Penelope Ten-Names—whose second husband had brought with him two more hyphens—and her cohost looking aghast as they passed around the morning papers.
“It’s jolly for Freddie and all, but those comments about the duchess’s fertility are beyond the pale, don’t you think?” said the main anchor.
“I do,” Penelope said. “Implying Rebecca is to blame for those issues, if they’re even real, is disgraceful. Abhorrent. And after he ran those photos of her during the royal tour, it’s clearly not reporting; it’s a vendetta. He should be run out of town.” She turned to the camera with a snarl. “And you can take that from me.”
Nick looked impressed. “That’s going to go viral.”
“It already has,” I said. “You’re welcome, Penelope.” Then I scrolled further and shot Nick an uneasy look. “The Daphne stuff is already getting messy, though.”
When the story broke, someone thirty thousand feet above Europe tweeted that Daphne was at that moment sitting in first class on their commercial flight to Gatwick. The paparazzi swarm lying in wait when she exited the airport was so overpowering that she stopped dead in her tracks, turned on her heel, and fled back into the airport.
“Goddammit, Bea,” Nick said, almost to himself. “You threw them under the bus for me.”
* * *
“I didn’t throw anyone under anything,” Bea said to us later that morning in her office. “This is how the game is played.”
“It’s not how Marj played it,” I said.
“It’s how the game is played by people who know what they’re doing,” Bea retorted sharply. “All due respect to Marj.”
“But it’s not even true,” Nick said. “Won’t Clive be angry when he finds out? What’s stopping him from releasing the story when no engagement materializes?”
Bea shrugged. “People break up all the time,” she said. “He can be the first to get that scoop, too. You said you trusted me, and so I did what I thought was best, and now the world is fawning over Frederick instead of hiding in Annabelle’s bushes.”
“Why would they be hiding in Annabelle’s bushes?” Freddie asked, rounding the corner into the office. “Bea, we need to talk about Daphne. It was a mob scene at Gatwick. Father had to charter her a plane back to The Hague.”
“I’m so sorry,” Nick said.
Freddie furrowed his brow. “It’s not your fault that Clive got bored of waiting you out and turned on me.” He took a beat. “Did he not get bored of waiting you two out? What am I missing?”
Nick reached over and kicked the door closed with his toe.
“Clive was going to publish a piece alleging that Nick and Annabelle Farthing slept together on New Year’s Eve two years ago, and have continued their affair ever since,” Bea told him.
“What?” Freddie said.
“It didn’t happen,” Nick said quickly.
Freddie was agape. “But there was reason for suspicion?”
Bea stood and gestured for Freddie to take her chair. “First of all,” she said, “I need a bigger office.”
“I’ll give you an entire floor if you can convince me this was necessary,” Nick snapped.
“We had to act. So I gave him a better story in exchange for his silence,” Bea said. “It’s what you’ll recall I was in favor of doing before your wedding, too.”
“That story also would’ve involved me, so I suppose I’m the go-to fall guy, then,” Freddie said.
“And it was an idea you originally volunteered,” Bea shot back. “Forgive me for borrowing from your playbook, Frederick, but you were so enthused about it last time. And it worked here.”
Freddie ran a hand through his hair. “Using Daphne is outrageous.”
“She may not like the attention, but the implication will not be unpleasant,” Bea said. “I did what had to be done.”
“I mean, congrats, then, I guess?” I huffed, crossing my arms over my chest.
“Finally, someone speaking sense. You’re welcome,” Bea said.
“You danced with the devil,” Nick said, getting up as if he wanted to pace, before realizing he didn’t really have room, and sitting back
