Page 7 of The Unlikely Spare

I offer a tight smile. “I’m sure His Royal Highness and I will get on grand.”

As I exit the office, I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve just walked into a pub brawl with my hands tied behind my back. Something about this assignment feels dodgy as fuck.

Have I just made a massive mistake? I joined the force to protect the vulnerable, not to babysit one of the most privileged men in the world.

Still, this is bigger than what I think about silver-spoon wankers. Traitors within our ranks. Terrorists targeting our institutions. And apparently, Prince Nicholas Alexander—second in line to the throne, professional party boy, and royal spare—might be in danger.

I glance down at his photograph in my hands one more time. That practiced, perfect smile. Those eyes that have never seen real hardship.

This will definitely be interesting.

Chapter Three

Nicholas

I wanted you to be the first to know.

The message, from my half-brother, a.k.a. the Prince of Wales, sits on my phone like a bomb inside a velvet cushion.

Attached to the words is a grainy image that looks like it’s from an alien horror movie. Well, if aliens had a fondness for NHS ultrasound machines.

Because this blob is the first photograph of the future king or queen of the United Kingdom. It’s less “take me to your leader” and more “I am literally going to be your leader.”

I fire off a reply.

Tremendous congratulations to you and Oliver. I can already see the family resemblance.

I put my phone in my pocket after I’ve pressed send, and stare out over the sprawling gardens of Rosemere Hall, the estate that has been in my mother’s family for twelve generations. It’s mid-November now, so the garden is a palette of browns and greens beneath a pewter sky.

A prince brooding on a balcony. I’m quite certain this particular scene has featured in a few fairy tales throughout history.

The emotions inside me due to my brother’s news are impossible to describe.

There’s excitement, definitely, that Oliver and Callum’s foray into surrogacy has worked. It means in eight or so months, I’ll have my first niece or nephew. I’ll have the chance to instruct them on how to ride a pony because leaving that to Callum’s questionable horse-riding technique would not be a good outcome for anyone. I’ll be able to teach the correct technique for sledding down the lawn of Frogmore House on silver serving trays “borrowed” from the butler’s pantry, along with the art of smuggling biscuits from state banquets without leaving incriminating crumbs.

I already know Callum and Oliver’s child will have a rather different childhood than I did. They’ll have two affectionate, adoring parents who will raise the United Kingdom’s future monarch with care and devotion.

I mean, sure, the poor child won’t have it completely idyllic. Instead of the usual bedtime stories, they’ll probably have to endure lectures on sound economic policy because that’s what happens when one of your fathers is the former prime minister. I can just imagine it now. “Once upon a time, there was a little GDP who wanted to grow up big and strong…”

Come to think of it, the alarming blend of Callum’s American optimism and Oliver’s British cynicism has the potential to create either the most well-adjusted or thoroughly confused royal in history.

Regardless, I’ll have a special place in the new prince or princess’s life as their only uncle because relatives are thin on the ground for Callum and Oliver.

Callum’s and my only other sibling, Amelia, is currently in Surrey enjoying the hospitality of Her Majesty’s Prison Bronzefield after she was part of a conspiracy to murder Callum, so I don’t think she’ll be crafting baby booties anytime soon. Unless prison craft hour has become remarkably posh.

But I have to admit that excitement isn’t my only emotional reaction to becoming an uncle. Because in our family, the impending birth of a child also means a reshuffle of the royal pecking order, the fun flowchart that determines who gets to become irrelevant in which order.

For me, the arrival of Callum and Oliver’s child is a demotion. I’ll go from being the spare to the almost spare.

I don’t want the throne. I don’t. I swear it on the life of the last Sumatran rhino in captivity—which, incidentally, I once drunkenly tried to “adopt” at a conservation gala.

But my life has been utterly upended over the last few years. I was twenty-two, having just finished my degree at Oxford, and trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, when I was suddenly vaulted from twelfth to second in line to the throne due to my uncles’ and cousins’ unfortunate habits of accepting bribes in exchange for favors.

The palace had desperately needed me to become a working royal, to cut ribbons with oversized scissors and pretend to be fascinated by local cheese production.

Two years on, and I’ve found myself situated in a baffling kind of no-man’s land whenever I consider the rest of my life.

I’m never going to be king.