American Royals (14 page)

Elect the king or queen—what a funny concept. Everyone knew that elections only worked for judges and Congress. Making the executive branch pander to the people, go out begging for votes—that could only end in disaster. That structure would attract the wrong sort of people: power-hungry people with twisted agendas.

Teddy gave an uncertain smile. “I realize this is all a setup, that your parents are the ones who asked you to go out with me.”

She stiffened. “Teddy …”

“I get it,” he said smoothly. “I’m under the same kind of pressure.”

“You only came here tonight because your parents asked you to?”

“No—I mean yes, they did—but I’m trying to tell you that I understand how it feels. Being the heir to a dukedom isn’t that different from being the heir to a kingdom, just on a smaller scale. I know what it’s like to have burdens and commitments that other people can’t understand. And even if they did understand them …”

They would run in the other direction, and leave the tangle of responsibilities with us,
Beatrice silently finished.

Teddy shifted on the seat next to her. “I didn’t go into this thinking that I would
like
you, but I do. So I hope that our first date isn’t also our last.”

Beatrice gave a slow nod. He was right: among all the young men her parents had picked for her, Teddy was a pleasant surprise. “Me neither,” she admitted.

As they returned to the shadows of the royal box, her family cast her a few curious glances, but Beatrice ignored them. She settled back into her chair, smoothing her black cocktail dress around her legs so that it wouldn’t wrinkle.

She told herself that Teddy was right. They might not be
in love
with each other, in a passionate, head-over-heels, romance-novel sort of way, but at the very least they understood each other.

Maybe she was watching for him, or maybe her nerves were just on high alert, but Beatrice noticed the moment Connor slipped into the box. He planted himself just inside the door, standing in the typical Revere Guard manner, his spine straight, his holstered weapons within reach. She wondered if he’d come here under orders, or out of curiosity—to see the musical that brought even Princess Beatrice to tears.

Some foolish instinct made her try to catch his eye, but Connor didn’t look her way. His gaze was fixed on the stage, as inscrutable as ever.

Not even
Midnight Crown
could distract Samantha from the fact that Teddy Eaton was sitting mere inches from her, on a date with her sister.

She spent the entire second act in a low throbbing agitation, hyperaware of how close Teddy was. So close that Sam could slap him across the face, or grab his shirt with both fists and yank him forward to kiss him.

Honestly, she hadn’t ruled out either possibility.

For some masochistic reason, she kept replaying their interaction in her head, examining it from every angle, like a jeweler studying the facets of a gemstone in various lighting. Maybe it was foolish of her, but she’d thought there was something
real
between her and Teddy. What had prompted him to ping-pong from her straight to Beatrice? Was he really just another of those shallow guys who went after Beatrice for the wrong reasons, who wanted nothing more than to be America’s first king consort?

How had Sam’s instincts about him been so off base?

She was relieved when the performance ended and they all filed into the reception hall for the afterparty. Servers passed with trays of hors d’oeuvres: deviled quail eggs, goat cheese arancini, smoked salmon arranged on tiny slices of cucumber. Most of the cast was already here, still wearing their costumes, their faces slick with makeup and sweat.

“You okay?” Nina asked meaningfully. She knew how difficult it had been for Sam, seeing Teddy with Beatrice.

Sam cast her friend a grateful look. She was so glad Nina had agreed to come with her tonight. Something about her friend’s no-nonsense humor, her fierce and unwavering sense of self, made Samantha feel like she could face anything.

“I need a drink,” Sam decided. “Want to come?”

Nina hesitated. Her gaze drifted behind Sam and softened imperceptibly. “That’s okay. I’ll wait for you here,” Nina murmured. Sam glanced around, wondering who had prompted that look, but the only person standing there was Jeff.

When she reached the bar, Sam asked the bartender for two glasses of wine and a whiskey sour, just as an all-too-familiar figure stepped up next to her. “No beer tonight?” Teddy asked.

As if it hadn’t been enough for him to spend the entirety of the performance tormenting her, now he had to ruin the afterparty, too.

Samantha pursed her lips and said nothing, determined to be cool and aloof. She didn’t owe Teddy an answer. She didn’t owe him
anything,
even if her traitorous body persisted in leaning toward him. She tried—and failed—not to remember how it had felt, being pressed up against him in the scented darkness of the coatroom.

Teddy seemed determined to try again. “What did you think of the show?”

Sam glanced up at him, her eyes snapping fire. “If you must know,” she said coldly, “I thought it was utterly inspired. It reminded me of the Henriad.”

She’d expected the reference to go over his head, but to her annoyance, Teddy nodded in understanding. “Of course—Shakespeare’s early history plays. Because
Midnight Crown
tells America’s story to America the same way that Shakespeare told England’s to the English.” He smiled at her, an off-kilter smile that set her stupid heart racing. “I wouldn’t have pegged you for a Shakespeare enthusiast.”

“Right, because Beatrice is the smart one,” Sam said venomously. “I’m just the girl you made out with in a closet, until my sister finally deigned to meet with you.”

Teddy recoiled at her words. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t what I—”

Sam ignored him, reaching for the drinks that the bartender slid toward her. “See you, Teddy.” Her peacock-blue dress fluttered around her stilettos as she stalked back across the room toward her friend.

Nina was still chatting with Jeff; the sight of them deep in conversation, their heads tipped together with surprising intimacy, caught Sam off guard. She didn’t remember them getting along this well in the past.

“How’d you know I wanted a whiskey?” Jeff exclaimed in delight, reaching for the cocktail as Sam handed Nina one of the glasses of wine.

“That was for
me,
actually, but you can have it,” Sam replied. “I love you just that much.”

“And here I was thinking our twin telepathy had finally started working.” Jeff clinked his glass lightly to hers. “Thanks.”

Sam’s eyes cut back to Nina. “Why does he keep trying to talk to me?”

“I think Teddy is just trying to be polite,” Nina offered, realizing at once who she meant.

Jeff frowned in confusion. “Teddy Eaton? We barely know him.”

“Exactly,” Samantha snapped. Teddy barely knew her, yet already he had judged her, found her wanting, and upgraded to Beatrice. She swirled her wine over and over, building her own little tornado within the confines of her glass.

“What did he say to you?” Jeff asked, clearly confused. Nina shot him a warning glance, silently urging him to drop the subject.

“It doesn’t matter,” Sam said heavily.

She hadn’t told her brother about her and Teddy, but she knew he’d sensed that something was going on. When the twins were children, their emotions had always blurred together: whatever one of them was feeling, the other instantly amplified it. Their nanny used to joke that they were incapable of laughing alone or crying alone. Even now, it was hard for one of them to be happy if the other one wasn’t.

Samantha forced herself to smile. She hated herself for wondering if Teddy was watching—if he even bothered to care how she felt.

“Let’s take a pic,” she suggested, holding out her phone for a selfie. Nina, predictably, stepped aside; she never posed in photographs with Sam. Jeff gave an easy grin and sidled closer as Samantha snapped the photo.

“Are you still Fiona von Trapp?” Nina asked.

Samantha swiped across the screen to add silly cartoon sunglasses atop her and Jeff’s faces. “Jeff is Spike Wales. That’s equally absurd,” she pointed out, fighting back a smile.

The twins’ social media presence was a source of endless frustration in the palace’s PR department. Members of the royal family weren’t supposed to have personal profiles; the only approved account was the palace’s official one, @WashingtonRoyal, which had a full-time manager and photo editor. Ignoring that rule, Sam and Jeff had created private accounts of their own, using fake names, and limiting their followers to their hundred or so closest friends.

It never lasted. Inevitably, the palace discovered the accounts and shut them down. But Sam and Jeff would just decide upon even more outlandish names, pick out cartoon hedgehogs or unicorns or something equally comical for their profile pictures, and start the whole thing over again.

“I’m starving, and these appetizers are bird food,” Jeff announced, draping his arms casually over Sam’s and Nina’s shoulders and pulling them close together. “Anyone want to go home and order pizza? Or we could stop by a Wawa,” he added in a strange tone.

Nina chuckled at that, though Sam didn’t really get why. “We’d better text in the order now,” she said, setting her still-full wineglass on a side table. Of course, no one actually
delivered
pizza to the palace; they would have to send one of the footmen out in plainclothes to pick it up.

As they headed out of the party and toward the front drive, Samantha reminded herself that it didn’t matter what Teddy thought of her. It didn’t matter that the entire
world
thought she was less than Beatrice, as long as she had Nina and Jeff. These two people, at least, knew the real her.

Later that evening, Sam yawned as she shimmied into an old T-shirt and silky blue sleep shorts. They had devoured two enormous thin-crust pizzas and watched a bad action movie—the opposite end of the spectrum from
Midnight Crown,
at least as far as cultural sophistication went. She wished Nina had stayed; there was a guest bedroom next to Sam’s suite that they normally used for sleepovers. But when she suggested it, Nina had gotten a weird look on her face and stammered that she should probably head to campus.

It dawned on Sam that Nina might be going back for a boy. But if she was dating one of her classmates, why hadn’t she told Sam about it?

Sam’s thoughts were interrupted by a hesitant knock.

“Come in,” she called out, and was startled to see her sister, hovering uncertainly at the entrance to her suite.

“I guess congratulations are in order,” Sam heard herself say. “The internet practically broke itself tonight, drooling over you and Teddy.”

“What?”

“You guys are trending nationwide. Hashtag #Beadore.” Sam gave a derisive snort. “Personally, if I was going to smash your names together, I would have gone with Theotrice, but no one asked me.”

“Oh … all right.” Beatrice looked surprisingly young and vulnerable in a silk robe and white pajama set. Her hair, which earlier tonight had been twisted into an intricate updo, spilled in a great dark river over one shoulder. “I didn’t see you at the afterparty,” she went on.

“Nina and Jeff left early with me, to get pizza.” Sam was surprised by the hurt that darted across Beatrice’s face. Was she feeling left out? “Did you want something?” she went on, with a little less bitterness.

Beatrice sighed. “Sorry to bother you. I just … I keep wondering …”

Sam’s resentment began to gutter and die out. She couldn’t remember the last time Beatrice had come to her room like this. They lived just down the hall from each other, but they might as well have been on separate continents.

“What is it?” Sam gestured to her couch, an eighteenth-century love seat that she’d unearthed in palace storage and reupholstered in a bright persimmon-colored silk.

Beatrice sank wordlessly onto the cushions. She glanced around the room with something like confusion, as if she were seeing it for the first time—the mismatched bamboo tables, the multicolored pillows. Sam had the strangest sensation that her sister was trying to figure out how to ask for her advice, or maybe her
help.

“Do you think Aunt Margaret is happy?”

Whatever Sam had expected, it wasn’t that. She sat tentatively on the other side of the couch. “What do you mean?”

Beatrice played idly with the fringe of a silk pillow. “Because she was in love with that airplane pilot when she was younger, and Grandma and Grandpa made her give him up.”

“They didn’t
make her
do anything. Aunt Margaret could have married him if she wanted. But she would have given up her titles and income and status, and relinquished her place in the order of succession. If she’d
really
loved him, don’t you think she would have chosen him anyway?” Sam had always thought of the pilot as just another of Aunt Margaret’s youthful acts of rebellion. Which Sam could relate to.

“Maybe she did love him, but felt that it was impossible for them to be together, because she was a princess,” Beatrice said softly.

“I don’t know.” Sam shrugged. “She wasn’t the heir to the throne. If they’d gotten married, she wouldn’t have even been exiled or anything. She could have found a way to make her life work.”

Beatrice’s head shot up. “Exiled?”

“A British king tried to marry a commoner and was forced to abdicate over it. He lived in Paris the rest of his life.”

Her sister blanched, hugging the silk pillow tighter to her chest.

Sam shot her a confused look. “Beatrice, what is this really about?”

Before her sister could reply, steps thundered down the hallway, and another knock sounded at Sam’s door. It opened to reveal the king and queen.

“Beatrice! Here you are,” their dad exclaimed, his features creased in a smile.

Of course he hadn’t actually come to Sam’s room looking for Sam.

The queen smiled at Samantha, but then her eyes, too, rounded on Beatrice. “You and Teddy looked like you were getting along tonight. Everyone certainly loved seeing you together.”

Sam wondered if her parents had seen the internet’s wild surge of excitement at #Beadore.

“He’s very nice,” Beatrice replied.
Nice
—the most meaningless of all adjectives. A word you reserved for distant acquaintances and events you had no desire to attend.

Did Beatrice even
like
Teddy?

“Of course, it was just a first date,” Beatrice added, as if to explain away her lack of gushing enthusiasm.

Their parents exchanged a glance. “We’ve been thinking the same thing. Which is why we invited Teddy to Telluride for New Year’s,” the king announced proudly.