Princess Adeline, Duchess of Clarence

Chapter Fifty-Eight: I'm Not Okay

19th of October 2019 - York House

"He forgets that our mother fired her bodyguards and the only criticism of her relationship with Dodi was that he was an unemployed playboy that was fond of drugs who ordered a drunken driver to race through Paris," William snapped shaking his head as he stared at the latest headlines that talked about Harry and Meghan. 

Convinced that the audience for their documentary wanted to hear about their suffering, Harry and Meghan had used the backdrop to express pain about their own plight rather than South Africa's human tragedies. 

Harry had retold Bradby how Diana's death had brough him repeatedly close to a breakdown; the trauma of walking behind his mother's coffin in public. 

He talked about how every time he saw a camera that it took him back to the worst reminder of Diana's life as opposed to the best; he had even dropped the bombshell that his relationship with William and Adeline was fractured. 

And convinced that the audience also wanted to hear about her suffering Meghan provided the more explosive interview.

Standing in falling light outside a township of untold deprivation, Meghan told Bradby how 'vulnerable' she felt during her pregnancy, how the pressure as 'hard' and the experience of 'just trying to be a new mother or trying to be a newly-wed' as 'made really challenging'. 

Meghan talked about how she had ignored the warnings from her American friends about the British tabloids and she had tried to adopt this sensibility of the British stiff upper-lip but it wasn't fair. 

She had thanked him for asking if she was okay because not a lot of people did, that it wasn't enough to just survive but that as a person you had to thrive. 

That they were taking it each day as it comes and she didn't know what the future held without saying a word about the South Africans nearby that took each day to survive hunger, disease and violence.

Back in London, they were all aware that the separation from the Royal Family was now underway; reports from their staff in South Africa confirmed the worst. 

The candid interview was now showing everywhere after the 'success' of the South Africa tour of the Sussexes, a tour so successful that they were now taking time off from their royal duties to spend time in California until around Christmas with them expected to return. 

"I don't think he's forgotten. I think he's trying to change the narrative to fit the story that he wants to tell," Adeline stated with a shake of her head, she would never understand Harry's desire to throw his entire family under the bus. 

It was something that would never sit right with her, that he thought he was the only person to have the right to their mother's legacy; that he used her as a crutch for his bad behaviour. 

"He's not our brother anymore but her husband. We need to make our own stand now on how we deal with them," Adeline stated crossing her arms and leaning against the kitchen counter. 

It was hard to imagine when they were kids that it would come to this, that she would be planning the worst for her own brother but as far as she was concerned now Harry was no longer her brother. 

"They're going to make demands. Meghan overestimates how much we need them, she thinks we need her for the future of the monarchy," Adeline stated knowing that many of the 'close friend' states from the press in support of the Sussexes were coming from Meghan herself. 

There was no ignoring how Meghan was trying to manipulate the situation at hand and this was just the beginning, they thought they could strong arm them into doing what they wanted and getting their own way.