Harry
Her words paralyzed me.
It was funny, just an ice-breaker question, when I asked it of Samantha. But thrown back at me, the question was impossible to answer. I might have all the resources in the world at my fingertips, and money was pretty much not an issue, but there was no way I could shake myself free of my responsibilities—of who I was. Who I was expected to be.
I remember being a tiny little boy and my mother holding me in her arms at some big public event—Trooping the Colour or something like that. And afterward Mum explained to me, very quietly, that we did such things because Gran was the Queen, and Dad was a prince, and I was a prince too, and when I grew up I would have many more special duties to do, that it was a job like being a firefighter or a baker.
"What if I don't want to be a prince?" I asked, thinking that being a firefighter or a jet pilot might be far more interesting.
Mum laughed. "It's not just a job. It's who you are. You'll always be a prince because Daddy is a prince."
"Doesn't he ever get tired of it?" I persisted. "What if he doesn't want to be a prince any more?"
"It's not something you can just stop being," she said, and I remember that she looked very sad for a moment. And then she got her old silly grin back and tickled me until I shrieked with laughter, and then she took Will and I out for ice cream.
"Harry?"
I snapped back to the present, shaking my head a little at finding myself in a dark pub, with the telly still showing the soccer game and the smell of meat pies and crisps all around me. I looked across the table at Samantha, realizing that now she held my hand—not clutching at it like she was afraid I would escape, like Meg did, but just gently squeezing my fingers.
"You don't have to answer," she said. "It's a silly question, anyway."
I took a deep breath, and willed myself to speak the first words that came to my mind. "I want to be outdoors—to ride and hunt and shoot and ski and climb mountains. I want to do things, not just sit around and watch other people doing things and talk about doing them. I want to make a difference in people's lives, like my mother did. I want to have a private life that I don't have to share with anyone except the ones I love. I want to know that people like me for who I really am, deep down inside, and not for what I am. And I want the freedom to be who I really am...if I ever figure out who that is."
I freed one hand and tossed down the rest of my pint, not meeting Samantha's gaze. I was afraid of what I might see there, afraid that I had said too much too soon. Afraid that I was trusting someone I was barely acquainted with, even though I knew how dangerous that could be.
And yet...Sam didn't seem to be like any of the others. She knew what I was, but that knowledge just sort of floated around us. It wasn't the center of attention. It was like she could see through me, could penetrate my walls and defenses.
"I think you know exactly who you are," she said softly, "but you're afraid that people won't accept that version of you."
Now I met her gaze. "You might be spot on with that assessment," I said, trying to be light-hearted but not entirely pulling it off. "There are very few people that know the real Harry. Sometimes I feel like I don't know him very much at all."
"You need to let him out more often," Samantha said, smiling. "Do some of those things you want to do, and don't give a rat's ass what anyone else thinks."
"You know what I want to do right now?" I asked, not realizing until the words were out of my mouth what that was.
"Yes," she whispered.
"Then you won't mind if I do it?"
"What's taking you so long?" she asked. "Stop talking about it and do it."
And so I leaned across the table and kissed her...a warm, slow, gentle kiss.