Redefining Protocol: Chapter 2
The week before publication
“One million,” Charlotte said, her voice crackling through Ellie’s ancient iPhone speaker. “Plus royalties.”
Ellie nearly choked on her Tesco Meal Deal sandwich, a sad triangle of egg and cress that suddenly tasted like victory. She glanced around the cramped university library carrel where she’d been attempting to salvage her PhD thesis for the past four hours, paranoid someone might overhear.
“Sorry, can you just… repeat that number? Slowly? Preferably with currency confirmation?” She pressed the phone tighter against her ear, as if that might somehow prevent the figure from diminishing in transit.
Charlotte, literary agent extraordinaire and possessor of the kind of cut-glass accent that made even swear words sound posh, laughed. “One. Million. Pounds. Sterling. Pre-tax, obviously, but still enough to ensure you never have to eat instant noodles again unless it’s an ironic lifestyle choice.”
Ellie’s legs went wobbly. She slumped back in her chair, drawing a pointed glare from the postgrad two desks over who was clearly trying to calculate whether Ellie’s existential crisis warranted interrupting his own.
“And they’re absolutely committed to keeping me anonymous?” Ellie whispered, suddenly conscious of the enormity of what she was doing. “Contractually bound, blood oath, firstborn child, the works?”
“Darling, they’d sacrifice their collective grandmothers to the publishing gods to protect your identity. You’re delivering the literary equivalent of royal nudes. The pre-orders alone will fund the CEO’s third divorce.”
Ellie rubbed her temples, her mind calculating faster than it ever had during four years of academic drudgery. One million would pay off her student loans.
“The publicity campaign kicks off next week,” Charlotte continued. “They’re sending advanced excerpts to select reviewers today. All very hush-hush, NDA-protected. The palace PR machine is already working overtime trying to figure out where the leak came from.”
Guilt twisted in Ellie’s stomach, a familiar serpent that had taken up residence since that fateful day in the charity shop. She thought of teenage Tommy pouring his heart out on those pages, never imagining his most private thoughts would one day be packaged and sold to a public ravenous for royal scandal.
“I still feel like I’m doing something horrible,” she admitted, voice small.
“Would it help if I reminded you that His Royal Highness Prince Thomas, Duke of Clarence, has four houses, seventeen cars, and hasn’t used public transport in his lifetime?”
Ellie snorted. “Slightly.”
“Look, you found historically significant documents that provide unprecedented insight into one of the most mysterious figures in modern royal history. You’re not selling his nude photos or hacking his phone. You’re publishing diaries that were literally thrown away.”
“In a five-hundred-quid Mulberry bag,” Ellie muttered. “Not exactly the bin, is it?”
“The point remains. This is journalism. It’s history. It’s…” Charlotte paused dramatically, “academic research with excellent monetary compensation.”
Ellie glanced at her PhD notes, three years of meticulous research into Omega rights movements that would earn her a fancy title and approximately zero job prospects. Then she thought of her mum, working double shifts at the hospital, voice always tired on their weekly calls.
“Right,” she said, straightening her spine. “One million.”
“That’s my girl. Now, I’m sending over the final contract. Sign it, scan it, send it back, and then perhaps consider upgrading from whatever technological antique you’re speaking to me on. I could barely hear half of what you said.”
“It’s not that bad,” Ellie protested, eyeing the cracked screen of her iPhone 8.
“Darling, museums have more modern exhibits. Get yourself something nice. You’re about to be rich.”
After they hung up, Ellie sat frozen, the familiar background noise of the library—pages turning, keyboards clicking, the occasional muffled sneeze—suddenly seeming distant and unreal.
One million pounds. For finding a prince’s teenage diaries.
“I’m so sorry, Tommy,” she whispered to the ghost of a boy who’d poured his heart out onto those pages decades ago. “But you’ve got a fuckload of palaces, and I’ve got an overdraft that makes my bank manager weep.”
She packed up her laptop, her mind already drifting back to that day six months ago when fate, the Northern Line, and a criminally expensive leather bag had changed her life forever…
“Bollocks, bollocks, triple bollocks,” Ellie muttered, coffee sloshing dangerously close to the rim of her takeaway cup as she speed-walked toward Twice Loved. The charity shop’s mint-green facade loomed ahead, its tasteful gold lettering gleaming judgmentally in the morning sun.
Fifteen minutes late. Again.
She’d spent the night wrestling with her thesis chapter on “Omega Rights Movements in Post-War Britain,” only to wake up with her face stuck to page sixteen and exactly twenty-three minutes to get from her dingy Camberwell flat to Brixton. The Northern Line had other plans.
Ellie shoved the door open with her hip, the little bell above jingling with what she imagined was disapproving cheeriness. Inside, the shop smelled of lavender air freshener and the unmistakable mustiness of pre-loved clothes.
“Morning, Pippa. Sorry I’m late. Tube was absolute murder,” she called out, already slipping behind the counter and stashing her bag beneath it.
Pippa materialised from between two racks of designer blouses, clipboard in hand and displeasure written across her perfect features. She wore a cream silk shirt that probably cost more than Ellie’s monthly rent, her blonde hair tied in an artfully messy bun that had definitely taken forty-five minutes to achieve.
“That’s the third time this week, Ellie,” Pippa said, her voice carrying the plummy vowels of someone who’d attended boarding school in Switzerland. “I do understand the challenges of public transport, but punctuality is rather important in retail, don’t you think?”
Ellie nodded contritely while mentally calculating if she could afford to eat something other than beans on toast for the fourth night running. (Answer: no. Not unless she wanted to choose between dinner and keeping the lights on).
“Absolutely. Won’t happen again.” She smiled with just the right amount of apologetic deference. It was a skill she’d perfected after three years of post-grad poverty, the delicate art of placating people who’d never had to check their bank balance before making a purchase.
Pippa sighed, a sound of gentle aristocratic disappointment. “We’ve had quite a massive donation this morning. Kensington address. Two Range Rovers full.” She gestured toward the stockroom. “The cashmere alone is worth sorting properly.”
Ellie’s interest perked up. Kensington donations usually meant top-quality items, which meant higher price tags, which meant better commissions. “I’m on it.”
“Splendid. I’ve got Pilates at eleven, so I’ll need to pop out. You can manage, yes?”
Of course Pippa had Pilates. Probably followed by lunch at some absurdly expensive place where they served artfully arranged individual peas on slate tiles.
“I’ll be fine,” Ellie assured her, already heading for the stockroom, mentally composing an email to her supervisor explaining why her revised chapter would be late. Again.
The stockroom was piled high with glossy shopping bags and expensive-looking suitcases. Ellie whistled low. “Hello, trust fund breakup,” she murmured, recognising the hallmarks of someone either moving abroad or dumping a partner’s possessions.
She sorted methodically, creating piles: silk blouses (barely worn), cashmere jumpers (still with tags attached, the absolute waste), designer jeans (multiple pairs of identical black skinny jeans in ascending sizes, which told its own sad story).
Beneath a stack of what appeared to be unworn yoga clothes, she spotted the corner of something in that distinctive mulberry leather. She tugged it free, her eyes widening.
“Well, hello gorgeous,” she whispered, running her fingers over the butter-soft leather of the Mulberry Holdall. Even secondhand, it would fetch at least £200. Enough to cover her heating bill for the month.
Ellie glanced toward the shop front where Pippa was now engaged in an animated phone conversation, gesticulating with her free hand in a way that suggested this particular call would last at least fifteen minutes. Perfect.
She carried the bag to the small staff bathroom at the back of the stockroom, locking the door behind her. It wasn’t stealing, she assured herself. Just… thorough examination of merchandise. Part of her job description, really.
The bag was heavier than expected. Ellie unzipped it, half-expecting to find someone’s forgotten gym clothes or, if she was particularly unlucky, damp swimwear festering since last summer. Instead, she found five exercise books bound together with a fraying elastic band.
“Who donates a £500 bag without checking the pockets?” she muttered, pulling the books free. They were standard school notebooks, the kind sold in WHSmiths for about £2 each, with blue marbled covers and slightly yellowed pages. Nothing remarkable, except for the thick black felt tip on the first book: TOMMY.
She flipped open the first book, noting the dates in the top corner of each entry, putting aside a piece of paper emblazoned with the Eton Coat of Arms, some ticket from the library. Late 1990s. The handwriting started childish, all awkward loops and uneven pressure, improving as the pages progressed. A child’s diary, then. Or a teenager’s.
Her eyes caught on a passage dated May 11th, 1997:
Something’s happened. Something awful, I think.
It all started last Tuesday when I got this weird hot flush during Latin. Thought I was coming down with something, which would’ve been brilliant timing with exams coming up. But then it kept happening, and I started feeling… odd. Can’t explain it properly. Like my skin didn’t fit right. Like I was waiting for something but didn’t know what.
Then yesterday, that ghastly Davison boy from Upper Sixth cornered me behind the cricket pavilion. He just… sniffed at me. Actually sniffed, like some sort of deranged bloodhound. Said I “smelled different.” Was about to tell him to sod off when Mr. Pemberton appeared out of nowhere, looking absolutely horrified. Next thing I know, I’m being bundled into Grandmother’s Bentley without so much as a chance to grab my trigonometry homework.
Latin. Upper Sixth. Grandmother’s Bentley. This wasn’t just any posh kid’s diary. This was serious old money.
The doctor’s office was all beige walls and those plastic chairs that make your legs stick to them. Grandmother kept patting my hand and making these strange little cooing noises. She’s never cooed at me before. It was terrifying.
The doctor, a balding beta with breath that reeked of coffee, made me pee in a cup (mortifying) and took some blood (even more mortifying, as I may have whimpered slightly). Then he asked Grandmother to step outside with him.
They were gone ages. When they came back, Grandmother had this look on her face I’ve never seen before. Like she’d just discovered the family silver wasn’t actually silver-plated but solid gold all along.
“Thomas, darling,” she said, in that voice she usually reserves for potential donors to her charity galas, “you are a very special, precious boy.”
The doctor kept nodding like one of those dashboard dogs. “Extraordinarily rare,” he kept saying. “One in three million. Quite extraordinary.”
And then came the bombshell. I’m an omega. A male omega.
Grandmother practically floated out of the surgery, already chattering “dynastic implications” and “unprecedented match potential.” She mentioned the royal family. Twice.
I don’t really understand what being an omega means, except that now I have to see a specialist and there’s talk of something called suppressants. And Grandmother keeps looking at me like I’m the golden ticket in a Wonka bar.
The way the older boys whisper about omegas at school makes my stomach twist. And now I’m one? The rarest kind?
What will this all mean for me???
Ellie froze, her academic brain suddenly firing on all cylinders. Thomas. Tommy. Eton provenance. Male omega. Late 1990s.
“Holy shit,” she whispered, her fingers tightening on the pages. “Holy fucking shit.”
There was only one male omega who’d attended Eton in the late 1990s. Only one whose status had been announced to the press in a carefully orchestrated statement from his aristocratic family. Only one whose engagement to Prince Arthur at eighteen had captivated the nation.
Thomas Ashby, 14th Duke of Brunswick/Duke of Clarence. The omega royal widower. The father of the current king.
She was holding the teenage diaries of the most famous male omega in Britain.
The bell at the front of the shop jangled, startling Ellie so badly she nearly dropped the book.
“Ellie?” Pippa’s voice called. “I’m heading out now. Remember we’re getting that influencer in at two, so make sure the Stella McCartney section is properly arranged!”
“Got it!” Ellie called back, frantically shoving the diaries back into the Mulberry bag. Her heart raced as she heard the shop door close behind Pippa.
Alone now, she pulled the books back out, staring at them with a mixture of academic fascination and something uncomfortably like avarice.
These weren’t just historical documents. These were dynamite. The unfiltered thoughts of a teenage omega who’d later become one of the most tightly controlled, carefully managed royal figures in modern history.
Her thesis supervisor would have an academic orgasm if she brought these in.
The tabloids would pay a fortune.
And either option would mean she could finally afford to eat something besides beans on toast.