American Royals (22 page)

Not that she hadn’t been considering it.

“Miss Gonzalez, that part of your relationship is none of my business,” Robert hurried to say. “I’m simply here to discuss
appearances.
As long as you and His Highness are together, we’ll need to strictly regulate any trips that you attend with the Washington family, make sure you stay in a separate building. If I had known,” he added forcibly, “I would have housed you in the guest cottage at Telluride, along with Lord Eaton. But you were
supposedly
there as a guest of Her Highness Princess Samantha.”

It was irritatingly pompous, the way Robert couldn’t talk about anyone without using their full titles.

But if she wasn’t allowed to stay over at the palace … “Does that mean that Jeff can come see me in the dorms?”

Robert winced. “That would be far too public.”

Nina pursed her lips. She couldn’t help wondering how this conversation had gone when the palace had attempted it with Daphne Deighton. Or maybe they never had. Maybe Daphne was so perfect and proper that no one had ever needed to reprimand her for anything.

“I get it. No royal sleepovers,” she said stiffly.

“And we’ll need to discuss your security as well, now that you’re a figure of public interest.”

“My … security?”

“Unfortunately, unless you are engaged or married to a member of the royal family, we cannot provide private security using taxpayer dollars. I encourage you to reach out to your local police chief—or the campus security when you’re at school—if you ever feel unsafe. Especially if any of the reporters and photographers attempt to gain illegal entry to your home.”

“What?”
Nina’s mom cried out, her face a dark thundercloud.

“They’ll start going through your trash, so either shred it or drive it all the way to the processing center yourself,” Robert said in a maddeningly matter-of-fact tone. “Especially sensitive items, like receipts or prescriptions—they will sort through the bins for that kind of thing. I sincerely hope you don’t keep a diary.”

“Not since I was in third grade.”

He nodded. “As for your wardrobe. Unfortunately, unless you are engaged or married to a member of the royal family”—he had this speech down pat, Nina thought, unamused—“the palace cannot be seen funding your wardrobe. However, we were hoping you might invest in some new pieces if you plan on attending any upcoming events with His Highness. I know that you and Her Highness Princess Samantha are friends, but you can’t be seen constantly rewearing dresses of hers. The fashion bloggers track her clothing choices; they’re bound to take notice.”

Her mom let out a low hiss. Nina held the chamberlain’s gaze. “I didn’t realize my outfits were such a problem,” she said levelly. Didn’t he have better things to do than worry about her
clothes
?

The palace had definitely never had
this
part of the conversation with Daphne, because Daphne never looked less than absolutely perfect.

Robert visibly struggled to find an answer. “The palace does prefer that hemlines be kept to right above the knee. And it might be better if you refrained from being photographed in sweatpants in public.”

“She’s a
college student,
” Nina’s mom cut in. “She’s perfectly entitled to wear sweatpants!”

But Robert had already moved on. He held out a manila folder containing a heavy stapled packet. Nina glanced at the opening line: THE UNDERSIGNED, NINA PEREZ GONZALEZ, HEREBY AGREES TO ENTER INTO THIS CONFIDENTIALITY AGREEMENT.

It was a nondisclosure contract.

Nina had seen these before: they were distributed to Samantha’s and Jefferson’s friends, to anyone they invited over to the palace or who attended one of their parties. But never in all her years of friendship with the princess had anyone requested one from her.

Her mamá stood, gesturing toward the front door. “I think we’re done here. Please feel free to tell the gathered press that they can leave as well.”

But something else had occurred to Nina. “Even if you can’t touch the press, can you do something about the online commenters? What they’re saying about me … doesn’t it count as abuse?” she asked quietly.

Robert’s features relaxed into something approaching sympathy. “Unfortunately,” he began—Nina waited for him to say
unless you are engaged or married to a member of the royal family,
but instead he went on—“freedom of speech is a constitutional right in America. I sincerely wish I could have those comments removed, and have the commenters banned from the internet. But it’s completely legal to be ugly, and petty, and mean-spirited. I truly am sorry, Nina,” the chamberlain added, sounding human for the first time that day.

Isabella shut the door behind Robert, then turned to lean against it. “Oh, sweetie. Are you okay?”

Nina struggled to hold back the onslaught of tears. “Honestly, mamá, I’ve been better,” she managed, with a broken attempt at a laugh.

Nina’s mom still held tight to her hand. Isabella moved swiftly to her other side and began rubbing her back with soft, soothing gestures. “I wish you’d told us.”

“I’m sorry.” Nina felt awful that they’d had to find out like this: from the media, instead of from her. “I wanted to wait until I figured out whether there was anything real between me and Jeff.”

“And is there?”

She glanced around their open-air first floor, with its warped wood dining table, ferns and succulents cascading off various surfaces. Along one wall, an old library ladder had been repurposed as a bookshelf.

“I thought there was,” Nina admitted. “Except …”

“It’s a very big
except.
” Her mamá heaved a sigh. “Trust me—I know firsthand how it feels, being pulled into the orbit of the royal family. It’s a lot to sign on for. We would understand if you wanted to walk away from it all.”

“Is that what you think I should do?” Nina asked slowly.

“Yes,” Isabella declared, just as Julie said, “Not necessarily.”

Her parents glared at each other over Nina’s head. Clearly, they hadn’t had time to get their official verdict ready before her arrival.

“This is
exactly
what I always worried would happen,” her mamá went on, reaching to gently tuck back a strand of Nina’s hair. “From that very first day I interviewed at the palace and found you running around with Samantha, I worried about you. Living this royal life when you aren’t actually royal … it messes with your sense of reality. And now you’ve been forced into the spotlight, where all those awful people can judge you. It’s too
public.
”

“Your job is public,” Nina reminded her. “People write hateful things about you all the time.”

“I’m a
grown woman,
and I took on this job knowing exactly what it entailed!” Isabella burst out. “You are eighteen years old! It isn’t right that people are saying all these disgusting, heinous things about you. It’s vile, it’s perverted, it’s—”

Julie cast her wife a warning glance, then turned back to Nina. “Sweetie, you know all we want is for you to be happy. But …” She paused, hesitant. “
Are
you happy?”

If her mom had posed this question a week ago, Nina would have said yes without hesitation. But even then, she’d been leading a double life.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. How could she still be with Jeff, knowing what America thought of them? “The things those people wrote …”

Her mom placed her hands firmly on Nina’s shoulders. “Don’t you
dare
worry about what those people think. They are small-minded and jealous, and frankly, I feel sorry for them. The people who love you know you for who you are. The rest is all just noise.”

At least she would always have this, Nina thought gratefully. No matter how utterly messed up the rest of the world became, at least her family would always be on her side. “Thank you,” Nina whispered.

They leaned forward, and all of them held each other tight in the same three-person hug they’d been doing since Nina was a toddler.

Her phone kept buzzing, but Nina ignored it. She had no idea when she would be ready to talk to Jeff. Maybe she never would.

What did one wear to one’s own proposal? Beatrice thought, with an oddly clinical sense of detachment. Something white? She settled on a long-sleeved creamy lace dress and matching heels.

“You look beautiful,” Connor told her when she stepped into the hallway, and started across the palace toward the East Wing. “What’s the occasion?”

She felt color rising to her cheeks. “No reason.”

Beatrice had been in a silent, screaming turmoil since the conversation with her father a few days ago. Every morning she would wake up next to Connor with a bolt of happiness—and then the knowledge of her dad’s sickness would hit her all over again, flooding her body with excruciating waves of grief. Yesterday’s news about Jeff dating Sam’s friend Nina hadn’t even been enough to snap her out of it.

She and Connor had just reached the Oak Room when a figure appeared at the opposite end of the hallway. Right on time, of course.

“You didn’t tell me that this meeting was with Theodore Eaton.”

“Connor …,” she said helplessly.

“I’m kidding, Bee.” He turned to her with a smile so genuine, so intimately trusting, it knocked the air smack out of her chest. “I promise I won’t be a jealous idiot anymore. I know what’s real and what’s just for show.”

He leaned forward, lowering his mouth toward hers—momentarily forgetting that Teddy was right
there,
halfway down the hall and closer every second, because Beatrice knew from the look in his eyes that he was going to kiss her.

She made a strangled sound deep in her throat. Connor startled to awareness. He managed to turn the movement into an abbreviated bow, as if he were responding to some command of hers. His face impassive, he went to stand near the door.

Beatrice forced herself to smile at Teddy. “Thank you for coming.”

“Of course I came. You don’t exactly ignore a summons from the future queen.” He said it lightly, but the words twisted like a knife in her gut.

Her posture as rigid as a ballerina’s, Beatrice stepped into the Oak Room, and Teddy followed.

She’d chosen the Oak Room for its privacy. She could have invited Teddy to her sitting room, but that felt too intimate—which was ridiculous, really, given the conversation they were about to have. But the Oak Room was the type of place nineteenth-century courtiers might have gone to whisper treasonous secrets. It had only one window, and was lined in heavy oaken panels the color of dark honey, so thick that no sound escaped.

This conversation would be painful enough, without Beatrice having to worry that Connor might overhear from the hallway.

She had broached this topic with her father the other day, once her initial wave of shock had begun to subside. Any proposal would have to come from Beatrice. Like so many queens before her—the British Queen Victoria, Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, supposedly even Mary, Queen of Scots—she would have to ask the question herself. That was just part of being next in line to the throne. She was so stratospherically high in the hierarchy that no one could presume to ask her for her hand in marriage.

“Teddy,” Beatrice began, sounding formal and tense even to her own ears. “There’s something I wanted to ask you.”

“Okay,” he said hesitantly.

How different he felt from Connor, who had looked at her just this morning with such clear, vibrant love. Compared to that, Teddy was a stranger. Yet she was about to ask him to spend the rest of his life with her.

She dug her fingernails into her palms, trying to remember the words she’d memorized.
Think of it as a speech,
she reminded herself,
like you’re addressing Congress.

“Teddy, in the time we’ve spent together, I feel like I’ve gotten to know you. Or at least, I know the important things. Your love for your family, your warmth, your thoughtfulness.”

He was looking at her so intently that Beatrice had to close her eyes. She couldn’t say what she needed to, not beneath the scrutiny of that gaze.

“I know all the important things,” she repeated, her voice wobbling only a little, “which is why I’m ready to ask you this. I know it might seem … fast, or rushed. But trust me when I say that I have reasons for asking you now.

“Being with me wouldn’t be the easiest decision of your life. Or the simplest,” she said earnestly. “So I want you to really think this over. You don’t have to answer right away. Teddy—”

She had practiced this part before a mirror, struggling to meet her own gaze. But no matter how many times she said it, the sentence failed to make sense. It just didn’t sound like it had anything to do with her.

“Will you marry me?”

Teddy stared at her with visible incredulity. “Are you sure?” he said at last.

“Would you believe me more if I got down on one knee?”

She was curiously glad when Teddy laughed at that. “Sorry,” he said swiftly, “I just didn’t think …”

I didn’t either,
Beatrice silently agreed.
Not this soon—really, not ever.

She held his gaze. “I believe that you and I could accomplish great things together. That we could be a fantastic team. But I understand that it is a sacrifice to be wedded to the Crown.”
To be wedded to
me,
when we both know that we don’t love each other.

She didn’t insult Teddy by reminding him of the implications of his decision. He knew it just as well as she did. If he said yes, if they went through with this, it would be for life. As her grandmother always said, divorce was something only the
European
royals did.

Teddy was silent. He seemed to be reaching some decision deep within himself, various weights and tumblers falling into place in his mind. His eyes held hers, and Beatrice saw that he’d guessed what was going on: maybe not everything, because he couldn’t know about her relationship with Connor, but enough.

He reached to take her hands in his. The shock of his touch was like a bite.

To her consternation, Teddy knelt before her and bowed his head. A beam of sunlight sliced through the window to touch upon his golden hair.

“You don’t have to …,” Beatrice began, but fell silent at Teddy’s next words.

“I, Lord Theodore Eaton, solemnly swear that I am your liege man. I will honor and serve you in faith and in loyalty, from this day forward, and for all the days of my life. So help me God.”

Teddy had just sworn the Oath of Vassal Homage. The words that peers of the realm recited upon the accession of a new king.

He was speaking to her not as a woman he was going to marry, but as his future sovereign.

Beatrice glanced down, marveling at how strange and awkward his grip felt, as if their hands were puzzle pieces that didn’t quite fit. It felt fundamentally
wrong,
but she supposed she would get used to it in time.

There was a scripted response to the oath—
I humbly and gratefully accept your service
—but it didn’t feel right. Beatrice settled for gently pulling on Teddy’s hands, to tug him to his feet.

His blue eyes met hers, and he nodded. Beatrice knew in that moment that they understood each other, both of them conscious of the pledge they were making—and what they were giving up.

“Thank you for entrusting me with your future happiness. I swear that I will try to be worthy of the honor you are doing me.” Teddy sounded as if he was accepting a job offer, which, she supposed, he was.

Teddy might not be the love of her life, but he was so many other things—honorable and true, reliable and steady. He was the type of man a girl could lean on in an ever-shifting world.

She just hoped it was enough to build a life on.

“So I can take that as a yes?” she asked.

“Yes,” he assured her.

Slowly, with a quiet reverence, Teddy kissed her.

Beatrice had sensed that this was coming, and tried not to think about it too closely—not to think anything at all. But it took every ounce of her willpower not to recoil from the feel of Teddy’s lips on hers.

Just this morning she had been tangled in bed with Connor, their kisses so electrified that they sizzled all way down each of her nerve endings, while this kiss felt as empty as a scrap of blank paper. She wondered if Teddy sensed her reluctance, if that was why he kept the kiss so swift and chaste.

Beatrice cleared her throat. “One more thing. I know we’ll both share the news with our families, but would you mind if we didn’t tell anyone else, just until the press announcement? I don’t want to risk a media leak.”

She didn’t need Connor finding out any earlier than he absolutely had to. Maybe it was selfish, but she wanted as much time as possible with him before he knew.

She didn’t think he would look at her the same way once he learned what she’d done.

“Press announcement?” Teddy glanced down at their hands, and his eyes widened. “Should I bring you a ring?”

“You could pick one out from the Crown Jewels collection and give it to me at the press conference,” Beatrice offered, and managed a smile.

Teddy nodded. Normally when the heir to the throne proposed, he brought his fiancée a ring from the royal vault. Except that every heir to the throne up till now had been a man.

Beatrice had considered bringing Teddy a ring today, but honestly, she hadn’t been able to face the thought of going down to the vault to pick one out. It would make all of this feel too sharply real.

“That sounds great. I’ll call my parents now with the good news, but don’t worry, I’ll swear them to secrecy,” Teddy replied.

Beatrice nodded her thanks. She had to force herself not to reach up to her lips, where that unfamiliar kiss still lingered, now grown cold.

Beatrice paced across her room with all the caged panic of a jungle cat. It was almost midnight, and Connor still wasn’t here.

She knew she wouldn’t be able to fall asleep, not after what had happened today. She kept envisioning the way Teddy had knelt before her like a medieval knight, swearing to forever bind his life to hers. It was too much, far too fast, and her heart simply couldn’t keep up.

Before she could second-guess herself, Beatrice had pulled an old college sweatshirt over her pajamas. She ducked out of her suite and started soundlessly across the palace: down a series of hallways, then up another flight of stairs. The marble floor pushed the cold up through the soles of her slippers.

She only had to knock at Connor’s room once before the door cracked open.

His eyes widened when he saw her standing there. He reached for her arm to quickly pull her inside, then shut the door behind them.

“What are you doing here?” he whispered, looking as if he would rather shout at her for her recklessness.

“I just …” She swallowed. “You didn’t come, and I needed to see you.”

“How did you even know which room was mine?”

“I looked it up. Top security clearance.” She tried to sound flippant, but she knew he heard the tremor in her voice.

“Are you okay? What happened?”

She blinked back her tears, looking around the room as she took a moment to collect herself.

It was small but very tidy, the narrow bed made with crisp military precision. On a wooden dresser stood a series of framed photographs: Connor and his family at a theme park; Connor and his sister as small children, their arms thrown around a golden retriever puppy. And then, to Beatrice’s surprise, a picture of her and Connor from her Harvard graduation. She barely remembered
taking
that photo.

“We need to replace this. You’re not even looking into the camera,” she informed him.

“I would,” Connor said carefully, “but this is the only picture of you and me.”

Oh.
Beatrice’s mind flew to all the photos people had taken of her and Teddy—hundreds, maybe thousands of them—in magazines, all over the internet. She hated herself a little, for not taking more pictures with Connor while she had the chance.

“What’s going on?” he asked again. “Do you want to talk about it?”

When she didn’t answer, he put a hand on the small of her back, as if to steer her out the door. “Then you really need to leave.”

Beatrice stubbornly shook her head. “You’ve been in my room plenty of times. Why should this be any different?”

“Because my reputation doesn’t matter, and yours does.”