Page 31 of Untether

And, given they have a father who’s intent on them following in the Russell family tradition of attending Eton when they hit thirteen, that gives Pip and Kit two and four years respectively to get their shit together before they hit boarding school.

‘It’s not cricket season anymore, Mum,’ Kit points out. ‘It’s football.’ At nine, he’s pure lean muscle, slim and wiry and perpetually in motion. He’s correct, technically, butwhile the new academic year has started at school, this September is still mild enough for cricket.

‘Daddy told me to tell you he’ll get the wickets out given the weather,’ I tell him now, wincing as they emit a delighted roar in unison. They’re still little boys, but they’re somalesometimes, and it’s as unnerving as it is endearing. ‘Go get your whites. He’s bringing your pads and helmets.’

‘Did you pack my Alex Rider book?’ Pip wants to know. He’s more bookish, less naturally athletic than his little brother, butGoddoes he try with every fibre of his being. It breaks my heart a little.

I give him a mom-like eyebrow wiggle. ‘I did not. Basics only, remember? Didyoupack Alex Rider?’

He huffs and rolls his eyes like I’m a giant pain in his backside, and I laugh. ‘Go on. Go get your stuff.’

They race upstairs. My little British boys. Whatever his faults as a husband, John’s a great dad, even if his idea of fathering is a little more old-school British than might be healthy. You know, the whole Eton thing. Being intent on ensuring they can hunt and fish and ride a horse and bowl a cricket ball and nail all those activities that made his exclusive English upbringing so fun for him.

To be fair to him, the upper classes in this country haven’t exactly moved on from those pursuits, so maybe he’s got a point. I knew how traditional he was when I married him.

I just forgot that one of the English nobility’s favourite time-honoured traditions was keeping a bunch of mistresses.

The doorbell rings.

Speak of the devil.

21

AIDA

“All is not lost—the unconquerable will, and study of revenge, immortal hate, and courage never to submit or yield.”

—Milton,Paradise Lost

When you’re CNN’s royal correspondent, and you’ve only actually been in London for a year, and most of your corresponding has been done standing outside the railings of Buckingham Palace or in the huge press pits they shove you into for royal appearances, you’re going to be pretty desperate for some insider access.

Even if you know that, as an American, any chance of insider access is very limited.

So when you get invited to a fancy birthday party at the RAC Club for a royal, you don’t just jump at the chance. You pretty much hyperventilate, and read Debrett’s in therestroom, and bother all of your British coworkers for etiquette advice.

The party was for Peter Phillips, Princess Anne’s son. The invitation was kind of a date, and that’s the part I felt bad about. A nice-looking researcher in the newsroom who’d attended Gordonstoun with Peter asked me along as his plus-one, and I delightedly accepted, mainly because I was hoping to rub shoulders with Prince William and his then-girlfriend, Catherine.

I did not meet Wills and Kate.

I did, however, meet a very posh, very articulate, very charming guy named John who proceeded to get me drunk on Old Fashioneds as he whispered filthy insider gossip—off the record, naturally—about the great and good of the British aristocracy surrounding us.

He was handsome in that sleek, thoroughbred English way. Older than my twenty-nine years—early forties at least. Super smart. Sarcastic and witty in that drawling, devastating manner that Stephen Fry and Hugh Grant share.

It wasn’t until the end of the night, when he asked if he could call me and we swapped cards before he bundled me into a cab, that I discovered his more formal moniker was Lord John Russell.

But by then I was already gone.

Ours has not beena change-the-locks type of divorce. It makes my life a lot easier, in fact, if John still has a set of keys to his family home. But he would never dream of using the keys outside of an emergency, so I’m not surprised when the doorbell rings.

‘Hey,’ I say tiredly, leaning against the doorjamb to let him pass through.

‘Hi,’ he says in that serious manner that used to get me so hot, bending down to kiss me on the cheek. He’ll be sixty next year, but he’s still a good-looking guy. And he absolutely still has that gravitas that women seem to love. ‘You’re looking well. How are things?’

‘Good. Busy. You?’

I shut the front door and head down the hall to the kitchen as John stands back and waits for me to pass. He would never walk in front of a lady. Those superficial manners of his are far too deeply engrained.

‘Yeah, it’s a little frantic at the moment,’ he agrees, and I mentally ratchet that feedback up to understand that things are pretty crazy for him, too. My ex-husband is the master of understatement.

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