Ted had no intention of penalising her for a honest mistake; hell, he wasn’t even sure it was a mistake. If the Prince genuinely cared for her, she could do worse; if it was just a fling on both of their parts, it didn’t infringe any regulation. But the media would penalise her, in the guise of making her famous. Her entire life would be dissected, anyone close to her would be tapped as a source of information and she wouldn’t be able to go anywhere without being surrounded by a howling mob of reporters. It wouldn’t fade away either, Ted suspected, even if she did nothing to encourage it. The media would make her their puppet for years to come.
And they’d tear her life apart, he thought. Poor girl.
“You don’t have to provide any details,” Henry said.
“The details will come out,” Ted snapped. He remembered reading one article about his alcoholism that had quoted officers he’d served with before his assignment to Ark Royal. If he hadn’t been a big hero, with the media aware that the public didn’t want to read bad news about him, it would have been a great deal worse. “And her life will be destroyed.”
The Prince wilted. Ted felt a moment of relief. He did care for her. The cynic in him wondered just how far they would have gone, even if Charles Augustus had been a real person; relationships forged in fire rarely stood the test of time. But the media wouldn’t give a shit. They’d tear her life apart, looking for salacious detail they could cram into the tabloids, the more compromising the better. And if she’d taken any… interesting photographs as a young girl, she could expect to see them blasted across the datanet.
“I’m sorry,” Henry muttered.
“Glad to hear it,” Ted snapped. Part of him wished the Prince was his son, so he could disperse some fatherly advice. The rest of him was adamant that he’d better disperse some advice anyway. “You have some choices to make, young man.”
The Prince looked up, surprised. No one who knew who he actually was, Ted suspected, had spoken to him in that tone of voice. But then, it was always difficult to discipline a Prince, particularly when the media was always watching. If Prince Henry had been sent to bed without supper, the media would have started howling about child abuse. But then, what was the endless observation from the media? Beatings would definitely have been kinder.
“If you’re serious about her, and you certainly seem to be, you need to tell her the truth,” Ted said. “Tell her before we get home, before the media starts scouring the ship for ribald stories about your service. She has to know what she’s getting into before she actually gets a very nasty surprise. And if she decides, knowing what happened to some of your other girlfriends, that she doesn’t want to stay with you, I suggest you let her go and respect her privacy.”
Henry flushed, again. Ted didn’t blame him. Anyone, male or female, whose name was romantically linked with one of the Royal Family had the unwanted attentions of the media, tearing his or her life apart. Princess Elizabeth had actually lost a boyfriend after the media uncovered more than a few uncomfortable facts about his past behaviour, back when he’d been a young boy. No one deserved that level of scrutiny just because they might be dating the wrong person.
“Yes, sir,” Henry said. “I didn’t mean to cause problems…”
Ted allowed his anger to show on his face. “You’re a Prince,” he snapped. “You knew, perfectly well, what happens to people who date someone from the Royal Family. At best, you acted in a very poor manner, one that I find despicable. You want to be normal, you want to be common, but you will never be either. I think you could have destroyed her life and career, just by not telling her the truth.
“It’s not fair, I know it isn’t fair, but it’s what you’ve got. Deal with it!”
He met the Prince’s eyes. “I respect what you’re trying to do,” he said. “I respect your desire to earn awards and plaudits for your achievements, not for an accident of birth. And you’re doing very well. But you cannot get away from your birth, Your Highness. And anyone involved with you will become an object of scrutiny when the truth finally comes out. Because it will!”
“I know, sir,” the Prince said, lowering his eyes. “But…”
Ted sighed. The Prince seemed to range between mature behaviour and an immaturity that was shocking, at least in someone who was meant to be a responsible naval officer. But it was understandable, Ted knew. The Prince had never been allowed to grow and mature at a normal rate. He’d been expected to be mature at a very early age — or at least to act mature. It wasn’t a surprise that it caused long term problems…
… But they were problems that couldn’t be tolerated on a starship.
“We will discuss this matter further when we escape Target One,” Ted concluded. There wasn’t time to give the Prince a proper lecture, no matter how much he might deserve it. “And I suggest that you decide how to tell her, soon. Or I will have to handle it myself.”
Henry looked down at the deck. “Yes, sir,” he said.
“And you will report for punishment duty during the voyage home,” Ted added. “You wanted to be normal, didn’t you?”
“Yes, sir,” the Prince said. “But what do I tell her?”
Ted sighed. No one sane would ask his advice on relationships. The last true relationship he’d had had been years ago, before he’d climbed into the bottle. After that, there had just been the occasional visit to Sin City whenever he’d felt the urge for some female company.
“I suggest you tell her the truth,” Ted said. “And that you grovel one hell of a lot.”
He met the Prince’s eyes, willing him to understand. “Dismissed.”
“Poor bastard,” Captain Fitzwilliam said, as soon as the hatch had hissed closed behind the Prince. “Can’t ever get a break.”
Ted rounded on him. “Do you think this is funny?”
Fitzwilliam sobered. “I sometimes think that we walk backwards into pitfalls with our eyes firmly shut, loudly protesting all the time that that wasn’t what we meant to do,” he said. “I can’t fault the Prince for wanting a normal life and normal relationships, but at the same time…”
He shrugged, expressively. “Poor bastard.”
Ted scowled. He understood the Prince’s desire to prove himself to be more than just a title, one granted by an accident of birth, but starting a relationship with anyone would cause its own problems. And the fact he’d started dating the Admiral’s Flag Lieutenant would stink like the starship’s waste disposal tubes… and if it didn’t now, it sure as hell would by the time the reporters and their editors were done with it. He wondered, absently, just how long it would be before they started casting nasty aspirations at Lopez herself. She was certainly in a good position, at least to civilian eyes, to realise who Charles Augustus actually was and set her cap at him.
“Yes, sir,” the XO said. “Should we take steps to keep them apart?”
“I don’t know,” Ted confessed. “Do we have any right to do so?”
The hell of it, once again, was that no regulations were actually being broken. Starfighter pilots who ended up in bed together could expect to be reassigned to different squadrons; command staff who slept together could be dismissed from the service… but people from different sections were allowed to form relationships. Given the sheer size of any carrier and the time they spent away from Earth or Britannia, no amount of regulations could hope to prevent relationships from forming. All they could do was try to ensure that they caused the minimum disruption to the ship and the rest of the crew.