Chapter 72: One Sausage Less
I was drinking a turmeric oat latte and watching a crow bully a squirrel on the lemon tree when it hit me.
I wasn’t the fun one anymore.
It used to be me—cheeky, unpredictable, the royal wildcard. Party Prince! they’d called me, back when that title still felt like something to be proud of. But now? Now there were memes about Prince Louis in a sailor suit sticking his tongue out at the public. Entire headlines dedicated to his facial expressions. Fan edits. TikToks. A Buzzfeed quiz titled
“Which Prince Louis Mood Are You Today?”
That used to be me.
George was all grown up now. Still a child, but with that old Windsor seriousness etched into his tiny brow. Poor lad looked like Mummy—really looked like her. Same wistful eyes. Same slightly tilted smile. The press couldn’t get enough. Every time he blinked, people cried. Even his awkwardness was golden. I’d seen the Daily Mail describe him as “the soul of a nation in one beige cardigan.” I didn’t even know what that meant.
Then there was Charlotte.
Confident. Sharp. Not just cute, but clever. Always got the best lines at public events—always knew she had the best lines. She reminded me of Aunty Anne, if Aunty Anne had been shrunk down and dressed in Peter Pan collars. Part of me hoped she wouldn’t morph into another version of Anne, because if she did, we’d all be in trouble. But the other part? The other part knew it was inevitable. She already had the royal wave and the side-eye.
And then, of course… Louis.
The new me. Except smaller, louder, and with better PR.
He didn’t even try. He’d just exist—flicking his fringe, yawning at flypasts, wrestling with the King’s robes—and the internet would explode.
“Prince Louis being a chaotic king for 3 minutes straight,” said one compilation.
Millions of views.
I watched them sometimes. Bitterness creeping in, like mould on an old palace windowsill.
It wasn’t jealousy, exactly. Not in the usual way. It was more like… I was being replaced in real-time, by a four-year-old with a bowl cut and no media training.
I started to wonder—would Charlotte feel like a Spare one day? Would Louis? Would they sit in the dark like I once did, wondering what their place in the world was after the balcony appearances dried up? Wondering why George got the bigger room, the shinier bike, and an extra sausage at breakfast?
Because that’s how it starts. One morning you’re six years old, holding a cold sausage, and the next thing you know you’re thirty-five in therapy with a man named Craig, unpacking twenty years of royal seating charts.
I decided to reach out to William.
He picked up on the third ring. Which, to be fair, was fast by his standards.
I said, “Hey… do you ever worry about your kids? About how they’ll handle being—well—us?”
There was a pause. I could hear birdsong. The sound of a zip. Possibly a dog yawn.
Then he said, flatly, “Worry about your own kids, Harry.”
Click.
I stared at my phone. Fair enough.
I did worry about my own kids. Sometimes. When I wasn’t being told to alphabetise, sort, or spiritually declutter something. I liked to think they’d grow up in privacy, far away from the madness. That was the whole point of Montecito, right?
But then Meghan would come in with her camera.
“Quick,” she said, already framing the shot. “Archie and Lili in the dandelions. It’s for the blog.”
I blinked. “You said they’d grow up privately.”
“They are growing up privately,” she said, moving in closer. “It’s just the back of their heads. And it’s for marketing. It’s soft launch parenting.”
I opened my mouth, then closed it again. She had a point. Sort of.
At least it wasn’t like the Netflix bath photo. God, the bath photo. I still wasn’t sure how that made it in. I remember saying, “Are we allowed to show that?” and someone from production laughed and said, “It’s artistic.” Next thing you know, Archie’s little elbow was on screen in 4K, surrounded by foam and freedom.
Still, I was proud of them.
Lili, especially. She was… luminous. All Spencer. Her eyes were a piercing blue— blue, blue eyes - like Mummy’s. The kind of blue you only see in storybooks, or old portraits with tragic backstories. People commented on them wherever we went. Even the woman at the Montecito farmers’ market—who normally didn’t speak unless it was about organic fennel—once said,
“She looks like she stepped out of a Pre-Raphaelite painting.”
I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I knew it was a compliment.
Her hair? Long enough to sit on already. Wild and sun-kissed, like she belonged in a woodland. She had this calm wisdom about her, too, like she’d seen it all before. Sometimes I’d catch her looking at me with the same expression Mummy used to give when I said something incredibly stupid but heartfelt.
She was magic. Truly. A little moonbeam of a girl.
Archie was…also there.
Don’t get me wrong—he’s lovely. Bright, curious, full of questions. He’s just... a lot. Always negotiating snack terms, or demanding explanations about why bees exist. Once he told a man at the park his name was “King Sandwich” and then insisted on being addressed that way for the entire week.
But every so often, I’d catch a certain tilt of the head. A particular squint. Something in the jawline. And I’d think I’d catch a flash of someone else in him. Someone with a greying beard and a fondness for TMZ exclusives. I’d shake it off, but the thought lingered like a stubborn cobweb in the back of my mind.
Thomas.
Later that night, I watched an old clip of myself from a party in Vegas—shirt half-off, Union Jack painted on my chest, holding a flaming shot glass in one hand and a rubber chicken in the other.
I used to be fun.
Now I’m just the guy explaining to his wife why he thought Misogynoir would make a good cologne.
The sun dipped behind the hills. A breeze rustled through the rosemary bush.
Somewhere inside, Meghan was recording a voiceover for her podcast. Something about intentional living. I closed my eyes and sighed.
Louis would probably end up DJing at Glastonbury one day.
I’d just be the footnote.