Alice Windsor | BRF Story

25.

Highgrove House, Gloucestershire

2005

Everyone knew and no one could know. 

It had been hours now that her baby had been born, healthy as a horse, thank goodness, and screaming his lungs out every two hours asking for his mother for food, for anything it seemed like, but Alice was just as exhausted and still crying even after everything was said and done. Although the doctors had said she was healthy and only had some minor tearing she was fine to resume her normal life, Alice, however, didn't feel fine. 

As expected, and agreed beforehand, just a few moments after her placenta was safely delivered her doctors cleared the room and a call was made to Scotland, where dinner had just been finished with and everyone was still clueless that Alice had spent that past day in pain and pushing out a nearly 9 pound baby while she herself was so petite. 

She didn't know what was said between the Prince of Wales and the doctors, or even between the Prince of Wales and the Queen once news were spread around, however, the following morning when Alice woke up from her poorly spent night there was a light knock at her door and the butler, who by now knew Alice better than most of her family, announced that the Prince of Wales was outside and waiting to see her.

Alice wasn't presentable, she was far from it actually. One of the ladies who worked for her father and was there the previous night had helped her wash with a rag and change into a clean nightgown, after spending the day with the same one she was wearing when her waters broke, but she was still bleeding and she was now lactating, even if she wasn't feeding the baby herself, and of course not forgetting the fact that she was still in excruciating pain after having just pushed out a baby without any medicinal help.

But she wasn't going to change clothes just to welcome her father into the bedroom she had just given birth in, given birth to his first grandchild, him liking it or not. So she nodded and the door opened again, this time so her father could come in and the butler could leave, clicking the door closed behind him. His father was wearing a kilt, having been in Scotland since earlier this morning of course, and a suit and tie, as he always seemed to be wearing one. On his left hand his signet ring, with the Prince of Wales feathers, and a thin band form his marriage to Camilla. 

"How are you?"

"Tired. In pain. Bleeding."

It was useless to lie, not because it was her father, but because she was tired of lying after having done so for eight months, after having kept the existence of her child and her pregnancy a secret from the world for too long. And... because she knew she would have to do it for the rest of her life from now on. She would have to lie about those eight months of her life like they didn't exist, and if she decided to have another child with another, better man she would have to lie to the world and pronounce that she was once again carrying, this time proudly, her first child. 

"And the baby?" 

"Asleep, I think, in the room next door."

They had called upon her old nanny, Tiggy, to take care of the baby, at first Alice thought it would only during the night, especially seeing as the baby had been born during the evening, but as she slept in that morning she noticed it would probably be better if didn't have anything to do with the care of the baby. 

"The doctor will by this afternoon to check on the baby. If everything is alright..." There is a hesitation on her father's part as he cleans his brow before continuing. "We can call the parents to come in the early evening."

Alice nodded and looked away, out into the garden, the place she had spent so many hours while growing her baby and hiding from the world. But this had been her decision, she had handpicked the parents who would take her baby away and love him like their own because Alice just wasn't ready to be a mother, even after the better part of eight months growing the baby and getting to know him. She was only nineteen, she wasn't even out of university, and she wasn't ready to deal with the backlash she would face from not only the press but also the public when the too young princess announced she not only was pregnant but already had a baby, out of wedlock no surprise, while the baby's father was now married to someone else and himself with a newborn in his arms.

No. Alice wasn't ready to be a mother, she wasn't sure she would ever be ready, but for now she at least had peace of mind knowing her baby was in safe hands, away from the press and away from the cruel world she had grown up, because right now she wasn't sure any child should be born into the world, the gilded cage, she had grown up in.