Running With Lions

When Lavin woke the next morning she found herself in the bedroom that had been hers since she was old enough to sleep away from her parents. The third floor bedroom that faced the back lawn from the east wing of Graasten Palace.

It was painted a pale yellow color, a color not hated by Lavin but not chosen by her either.

Lavin let her eyes roam around the room. Her discarded dress lay in a heap by the mirror and her shoes had been harshly tossed into the wardrobe. One lay outside, seemingly escaping its dark prison.

She lay on her stomach, her cheek pressed against the silk-covered pillow, trying to lie very still. As it hurt to just look around the room she was afraid to move anything else.

Then something moved beside her and any hope of sleep vanished. She turned her head slowly, praying that it was just one of Grandma's six pugs readjusting itself under the covers.

Please don't be Harry, she kept repeating to herself.

She let go of a breathe she didn't even realize she was holding when she saw it was only
Gen turning over hugging a pillow as she burrowed her head under another.

"Shut the curtains," Gen groaned.

Lavin winced at the volume of her cousin's voice. She left her head where it was, promising that she wouldn't put herself through such pain again.

Her brain was still throbbing against her skull very much like a racquet ball that was ricocheting off every wall.

Lavin mumbled an incomprehensible reply and pulled the covers over her. She closed her eyes and stayed like that for a while hoping for sleep.

_____

Peter knocked on Ben's door, his bedroom door was located a way down from Lavin's and opposite of his. Peter ran an unsteady hand through his dark hair.

He felt like utter shit and the knocking he was doing wasn't helping his headache anymore than lifting himself out of bed had done.

He looked down at his watch. 9:45 AM.

He, his sister and his cousins had only fifteen minutes to get dressed, take whatever pill that would help reduce their hangovers and try to manage through what promised to be a three hour brunch.

Peter was banging on Ben's door now. After beating the door he pressed his ear to the wood hoping to hear any sound of life from his cousin.

Due to time constraints he decided that privacy was no longer a privilege. Peter gallantly twisted the antique doorknob and entered Ben's room.

It was dark; Ben must have had enough wits about him to the shut the curtains before he passed out on his bed in his underwear last night.

Peter went to the window and drew the curtains, the sunlight poured in, washing over Ben whose face twitched under the new brightness.

Peter went to the bed and stared over his cousin. The sight of Ben was too much; Peter bit his bottom lip, holding back his laughter, as he took his phone out of his pants pocket.

It took a long moment to ready the camera, but quickly he snapped a photo. Peter stared at the photo happily; this would come in handy one day when he would need to blackmail Ben for one reason or another.

Ben's mouth was wide open and he was emitting low growling snores. His left hand was bedded tightly in his boxer briefs that mirrored the red with a white Scandinavian cross that was the Dannebrog, the national flag of Denmark.

"Oh, how you deface the flag, cousin," Peter murmured, smirking wildly, before giving Ben a harsh shove.

"Gerr orrrfff," Ben groaned quietly, rolling onto his stomach.

Peter could no longer contain his laughter now. Embroidered on Ben's backside was the Danish crown.

How pompous, Peter mused before he placed both hands on Ben's back and began bouncing him up and down.

"GET UP!" he said as he continued shaking and bouncing Ben.

Ben managed to flip underneath Peter's hands and he kicked and pushed until Peter backed away.

"Get the hell out of my room, Peter. This is the worst wakeup call I've ever had." Ben said, nearly growling at Peter.

Peter tore the pillow out from under Ben's head and peered over Ben. "I guess I'm the only one that remembered Gran's brunch starts in, ooooh--" He checked his watch "--twelve minutes."

Peter pulled his head away just in time. Ben had shot clear out of bed.

"No!" Ben exclaimed.

"Yes."

Ben was now in the bathroom. "I'm supposed to escort the bloody QE2 to the dining room."

Peter heard the sound of Ben going to the bathroom and decided to leave Ben who was cursing up a storm as he rushed to get ready.

"I'll go wake the girls."

______

Gen heard a noise.

A low thud against wood.

Her mood immediately soured. She wondered what the hell was making such an unnecessary sound when her head hurt this badly. She also thought about the various ways to end the life of whoever was causing her pain.

Another round of thuds sounded.

Now that significant parts of her brain had begun working she deduced that someone was knocking at the door.

"Come on, girlies. Time for tea!"

It was Peter. Gen groaned and smothered the pillow closer to her head, making sure to cover her ears.

More knocking.

"I'll give you one more second and then I'm coming in." Peter's muffled voice called through the door. "Just hope to God that all your dirty bits are covered; I really don't want to see them."

Gen heard Lavin groan irritatably beside her.

"What do you want, Pete?" Lavin asked loudly.

Gen winced, her cousin's voice vibrating in her head.

"We have ten minutes until Gran's brunch!" Peter told them.

Gen bounced violently against the mattress as Lavin shot up and stared at the opposite wall in shock.

"Fucking hell," Lavin muttered as she threw the covers off herself, and mistakenly Gen too.

Gen grabbed her head with her hands and pressed hard. Her brain was definitely going to ooze out of her ears if she had to withstand anymore sudden movement or noise.

"Ten bloody minutes!"

Gen could tell by the distance of Lavin's voice that she was in the bathroom and with all the rattling that followed she was digging through the medicine cabinet.

Gen then felt a depression in the bed very near her.

"Open your mouth," Lavin instructed.

Gen obeyed and three pills stuck to her dry tongue.

"Water."

Lavin sighed. "I have some. Sit up and I'll give it to you."

Gen did so and swallowed the pills. She watched as Lavin threw three pills into her mouth and finished off the rest of the water.

Lavin then looked to the clock mountain high on the wall across from the queen-sized bed. "Shit. We have to move if we want to look presentable and at least half alive for this damned brunch."

Lavin took to pushing Gen out of bed.

"All right, I'm going. I'm going!" Gen said as she shuffled out of Lavin's bedroom, one hand held her head and the other guiding her along the wall until she found the door.

She met Peter outside already in dress pants and little else who only smirked when he saw Gen still in her dress from last night and wearing only one high heel.

______

Lavin rummaged through her wardrobe for a minute or two before settling on a pale pink shirt dress that came to mid-thigh that she cinched at the waist with a thin brown leather belt.

Her stomach kept churning. Even the smell of her eye shadow was putrid.

"I'll never drink champagne again," she vowed to her reflection in the mirror.

In less than three minutes she was able to brush her hair, twist it into a somewhat elegant braid that draped over her shoulder, and apply a faint amount of makeup before grabbing the first pair of nude flats she saw.

Outside in the hallway she found Peter dressed, his cheeks flushed as he leaned against the wall near his bedroom.

"Why are you red?" she asked, her voice cracking roughly in her throat.

Peter cocked his head. "I can ask you the same thing. Getting ready in such little time is no simple task."

Lavin bobbed her head in agreement. She could hear a muted commotion behind Gen's door that was near the end of the great hallway.

"Where are Ben and Alex?" she asked, dropping her flats to the ground. They landed with a great slap before she struggled to slip the leather shoes over her feet.

"Ben had the pleasure of escorting old Lizzie to the dining room and I guess I forgot about Alex."

"You forgot Alex?!"

Lavin rushed to Alex's door which was at the end of the wing. She found it open and the bed empty.

"Did we leave him outside?" Lavin asked, checking under the bed and glancing out the window

Peter peered into the bedroom from the hallway. "No, I'm almost positive that he was in front of me when we came in last night."

That's when they heard a retching sound from inside the bathroom.

Lavin's eyes nearly popped out of her skull and she immediately pressed her ear against the door.

"Everything alright in there?" she asked.

The loud gurgling of a toilet flush was heard before Alex's voice was.

"Yeah, fine."

She heard the rushing of the sink and the rough fibers of a toothbrush against hard enamel. Then the bathroom door opened. Alex was already dressed.

"How long have you been up?" she asked, taking in his combed hair and clean face.

"An hour or so," he replied.

"Do you have a headache?" she said.

"Nope. Was a bit queasy but after that --" Alex thrust his finger back towards the toilet "-- I feel fine."

Alex checked his watch. "We should probably head downstairs. It's nearly ten."

Lavin stared, amazed as she followed behind her little brother.

"There's no way that little bugger doesn't have a hangover," she muttered to Peter as they walked down the hallways to Gen's bedroom.

Peter only shrugged, mild amusement alighting his face.

"Hey," Alex called over his shoulder as he smiled at Lavin and Peter. "The magazines don't call me 'Alexander the Great' for nothing."

With that he turned to the left down the hallway that led to the grand staircase.

A crash of wood against solid wood startled Lavin and Peter from their reverie.

"All ready?" Gen asked as she tucked her hair behind her ear. She had dark sunglasses over her eyes.

Peter laughed. "Take those off."

Gen sighed dramatically before tugging the pair of shades off her face and tossing them over her shoulder onto her bed.

"Off to brunch we go," she said unpleasantly.

_____

Ben had to admit the seating was strange at the morning brunch for their Grandmother. While his grandparents remained at either end of the long table, the rest of the two royal families were seated at random.

He, for example, was sandwiched in between Prince Charles and a great aunt of his who he hadn't seen nor heard of in years. Her name even escaped him but they rambled on in a pitiful conversation about her fascination with an American television show called "The Golden Girls".

From what he had been told for the last fifteen minutes was that the show was about four old women, whom she felt she identified best with Blanche -- whatever that meant -- and their qualms of growing old and continuing an active adult life.

Ben eventually lost patience with this conversation and pointed out that Aunt Evelyn and Queen Lucy were having the most wonderful debate about women's fashion.

He saw that Lavin who was across the table and two seats down next to Kate and Prince Phillip was snickering quietly behind her cloth napkin. Her eyes on him.

Ben shook his head, covered the side of his mouth that faced the delirious aunt and whispered: "Who is that?"

Lavin only shrugged before she was queried into a conversation about Phillip's stamp collection.

Ben had to admit that the food was wonderful despite the queasiness in his stomach but there was something off about the older folk that sat around the table.

He looked to his right.

Lucy, who was normally talkative, was abnormally loquacious this morning, jumping from topic to topic with a frightening pace. Ben knew this behavior; it was the same sort of disordered babbling that Lavin sometimes indulged in the day after a good binge.

Ben smirked. Lucy was hungover too.

Gen who was sitting next to her mother was not interested in anything around her, in fact she seemed annoyed.

His eyes fell onto his Uncle Grant, the notorious bachelor of their family. Ben didn't like to admit out loud that he idolized his uncle, but Grant's sexual prowess with women both older and younger than him was nothing short of amazing.

Grant's amber-colored eyes were bloodshot. He winked at Ben and then looked into his lap and smiled. Ben assumed he was texting his latest lady but felt his phone rumble in his front pocket.

Carefully he extracted, making sure no one saw him pulling out his phone for he would definitely be chastised. Indeed it was his uncle that had texted him:

FUCK THIS.

Ben had to try very hard to conceal the upsurge of giggles that grew hard in his chest as he swiftly typed back a response:

STILL DRUNK?

Grant checked his phone and physically nodded before he tucked into his poached eggs.

Placing his phone back into his pocket, Ben looked to the left of him. Alex was chatting animatedly with Pete, Will and Harry about their upcoming polo match on Wednesday.

Ben, who had heard about what transpired upstairs by Lavin, still couldn't believe that Alex wasn't hungover but his attention was quickly eaten up by his grandfather who looked to be having an uncomfortable conversation with Camilla.

The biggest surprise came when he eyed Kate, normally the classiest woman in the room, who looked downright ill as there were bags under her eyes and pale. At events Kate always kept her attention on what was going on around her but this morning he found her staring down to her lap, texting no doubt.

It was only thirty minutes later that she and Lavin excused themselves from the table and disappeared into the cavernous palace.

Definitely odd behavior, Ben thought as he began playing with his pudding.
_____

Kate walked with Lavin around the grounds of Graasten Palace with sunglasses covering their sensitive eyes. She had her arms clasped behind her back as she listened to Lavin retell her and her brother's meeting at a coffee shop in London a week ago.

As Lavin continued some memories of this same story bloomed to the forefront of Kate's mind. Her thoughts foggy from last night and this morning's hangover.

"I'm not so sure this is a good idea," Kate said.

Lavin linked her arm through Kate's. "All I require of you is to act as a friend to Caroline, and help me do my best to remain cordial with the girl. We also need to scare her a bit about becoming royalty."

Kate nodded although her eyebrows knitted together with worry. "There will be hell to pay for both of us if this backfires, Lavin." Her voice was stern.

Lavin shook Kate playfully. "Not to worry. I normally get what I want, one way or another. And if caught --" She moved to stand in front of Kate, one hand raised in the air and the other outstretched over an invisible bible. "-- I will solemnly swear that I acted alone. You're name will never be mentioned."

Kate allowed herself to laugh at Lavin's theatrics and roped her arm through Lavin's again, continuing on their path around the side garden.

"Fine," Kate finally said and at that moment a piece of advice flitted through her mind that she heard throughout her years in school.

Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.