American Royals (35 page)

Beatrice felt like a mechanical wind-up doll, reciting the same few sentences over and over:
We are so glad you could make it; Thank you for the warm wishes; We are both thrilled.

She couldn’t afford to think too closely about the import of her words, or she might actually faint. Already she felt sweat sliding down her back beneath the stiff fabric of her dress.

Somehow it managed to evoke
bridal
without actually looking like a wedding gown—its silk panels a shade of cream so dark that it verged on light gold, adorned with taffeta detail. Her hair was styled in an intricate updo, the Winslow tiara perched on her head. Diamonds blazed like teardrops in her ears.

Countless nobles stood before her in order of precedence, all of them waiting to congratulate her and Teddy on the engagement. They wound around the side of the ballroom in a near-interminable queue. Beatrice kept imagining them breaking into dance, like some kind of aristocratic conga line.

She glanced over at her sister, who’d planted herself resolutely to Beatrice’s left, as if Beatrice might suddenly need to lean on her for support. Ever since their conversation in the kitchens, Beatrice had noticed a new maturity to Samantha. She wasn’t the same princess who’d laughed her way blithely through high school. There was a new edge to her, a new weight to her words.

Sometime in the last year, while Beatrice hadn’t been paying attention, her little sister had grown up.

Beatrice had held it together through the dukes and marquesses, but they were still only halfway through the earls, and she felt herself beginning to fray. The line of courtiers seemed to stretch on and on forever.

Teddy—she still couldn’t think of him as her
fiancé
—rested a hand on her back in a silent gesture of support. Maybe he’d noticed her drooping a bit.

“Robert.” Beatrice turned to the chamberlain. “Could we take five?”

Robert’s eyebrows drew together in a frown. “Your Royal Highness, it is customary for newly engaged members of the royal family to receive congratulation from all the gathered peers at the start of the celebratory ball.” One of Robert’s greatest skills was telling royalty
no
without actually saying the word.

To Beatrice’s relief, Teddy cut in, his voice firm. “It’s all right, Robert; we can pause. Or if you don’t think it’s inappropriate, I’m happy to accept congratulations on the princess’s behalf.”

“Thank you.” Beatrice shot Teddy a grateful look. Gathering her plentiful skirts with both hands, she slipped out of the ballroom.

The moment she turned in to the hallway, Beatrice began to run. She didn’t care where she was going as long as she kept
moving,
away from that room where everything was printed with an interlaced
B
and
T.
Beatrice didn’t even remember giving her approval for that wedding monogram, but she supposed she must have. Everything related to the wedding had become a blur.

She stumbled past one of the downstairs sitting rooms, where the guests had deposited their gifts at the start of the night, only to halt in her tracks.

“Connor?”

He stood near a wooden table that groaned beneath the weight of presents, most of them wrapped in ivory or silver paper. Although Beatrice and Teddy had insisted that all they wanted were charitable donations, everyone seemed determined to shower them with gifts.

“I know I wasn’t invited,” Connor hurried to say. He was out of uniform, wearing jeans and a sweater that brought out the blue-gray of his eyes. In his hand was a box tied with satin ribbon. “I just wanted to give you this, before …”

“Thank you,” Beatrice said, because she had to say something, and her mind was currently incapable of forming any other words.

The right thing to do was to walk onward, away from Connor. To return to the ballroom, where her fiancé—and all the rest of her predictable royal future—awaited her.

Instead Beatrice stepped inside, pulling the door soundlessly shut.

“There’s no need, Your Royal Highness,” Connor said, a sharpness to those last three words. “I know you have to get back to your party.”

“Please don’t
Your Royal Highness
me.”

He crossed his arms defensively. “What do you want from me, Beatrice? You made it perfectly clear how things stand between us. We’ve already said goodbye,” he reminded her. “I just hope you’re happy with the choices you’ve made.”

“Maybe I’m not.”

It came out barely a whisper.

Connor didn’t move. “What does that mean?”

Beatrice felt her controlled court persona slipping away as easily as if she were unzipping a dress.

“I mean that we aren’t over. Or at least,
I’m
not over
you.
” She took a heavy breath. “No matter what happens, I’ll never be over you.”

Slowly, she stepped forward and lifted a hand to his face: to trace over every freckle, every curve and shadow that had become so utterly familiar to her. More familiar even than her own reflection.

“Bee—” he said gruffly.

She grabbed his sweater with both hands and pulled him in to kiss him.

His mouth on hers was searing hot. Beatrice closed her eyes and clung tight to Connor. It felt like she’d been living in an oxygen-starved world and now could finally breathe—as if raw fire raced through her veins, and if she and Connor weren’t careful, they might burn down the world with it.

When they finally stepped apart, Connor kept his hands wrapped tight around hers, as if he couldn’t bear not to have some part of him that touched her. They both hurried to speak.

“I’m so sorry—”

“I never wanted to—”

“Beatrice,” Connor cut in, and she fell silent. “I’ll come back, if you’ll have me. Be your Guard again.”

The embroidery at the top of her gown stirred with her breath. “Really?”

He nodded solemnly. “These last couple of weeks have been torture. I realized that I can’t bear the thought of a life without you. I’m not saying that I’ll enjoy watching you marry him,” Connor added, stumbling a little over the words. “But I get it, Bee. You’re the heir to the throne and can’t make your own choices.”

He would come back to her. They would be together again. Beatrice tried to be pleased by this … but suddenly all she could see was Connor, kneeling before her in the garden, his heart in his eyes.

“I know better than to try to pick and choose which parts of you to love,” he was saying. “I love you, Beatrice.
All
of you, even the part of you that is sworn to the Crown. Even if it means we can’t really be together.”

“I love you, too.”

“All right, then. I’ll ask to be reassigned to you.” Connor smiled down at her. “At least this way we’ll have each other.”

Beatrice knew she couldn’t take him up on his offer.

This thing between her and Connor was
real.
She was his and he was hers—that was simply the truth, perhaps the most powerful truth in this entire court. And something that true was something worth fighting for.

“No.” Beatrice stepped back, shaking her head. “I can’t ask that of you. You deserve so much more than a half life.”

“What are you saying?”

Beatrice slid the diamond engagement ring off her finger, revealing the line of Sharpie inscribed beneath. For the first time in weeks, her smile wasn’t forced.

“It’s still there?” he asked, incredulous.

She hadn’t been able to stand the sight of her finger without it. “I touched it up myself,” she confessed, and took a breath. “Connor, I’m calling off the wedding.”

Seeing Connor again was a sharp reminder of everything that Teddy wasn’t. Beatrice liked Teddy, and understood him, and knew without a doubt that he would have been a great first king consort. If she’d never met Connor, maybe that would have been enough.

Except that she
had
met Connor. They’d managed to find each other in this messy, confusing, deeply flawed world. And now that she knew what it was like to truly love someone, Beatrice couldn’t accept anything less.

“Really?” The naked hope in Connor’s expression nearly undid her.

“Yes. I’ll talk to my dad tonight, tell him I can’t marry Teddy.” Her stomach knotted in dread at the thought of that conversation.

“What do you think he’ll say?”

Beatrice wished she could tell Connor that it would all be fine. But after everything they’d been through, he deserved the truth from her. “Honestly, I don’t know.”

“He won’t approve of me,” Connor said quietly. “Neither will America. Look how much they freaked out about Jeff and Nina, and he’s not even the heir. They’ll never accept their future queen dating her
bodyguard.
”

“If they really feel that way, then maybe I don’t want to be their queen.”

Connor gave an exasperated huff. “Don’t be flippant.”

Beatrice stepped forward, folding her body into his. After a moment, Connor let his arms loop over her and pulled her closer. She pressed her face against his chest, inhaling the familiar warm scent of him. The whole world felt suddenly lighter.

“I already lost you once. I can’t bear to lose you again,” she murmured. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, or how people will react, but we’ll figure something out. Whatever it is, we’ll do it together.”

A clock chimed in the hallway. Beatrice wondered, suddenly, how late it was. All those viscounts and barons were probably still lined up to congratulate her for an engagement she had every intention of breaking before the night was over.

“I’m sure they’re looking for you,” Connor said, as if reading her mind. He grinned. “The sooner you go, the sooner you can take that ring off your finger.”

Beatrice took a step toward the door and hesitated, torn. She hated the thought of walking away from Connor so soon, when she’d only just gotten him back. “Would you come with me? You could get in uniform, tell everyone you’re assigned to me again.”

“No offense, but I’m not going anywhere near that party,” Connor said wryly.

“None taken.”

“I’ll be here for you when it’s over,” he assured her. “And, Bee—good luck with your dad.”

“Thank you.” She rose on tiptoe to brush her lips against Connor’s one more time.

As she started back down the hallway, the princess straightened her rumpled dress, tucked back a piece of hair that had come loose from her bun. Her eyes were very bright, her lips a vivid pink. And she was smiling to herself, a secret flickering smile that made her seem to glow from within.

She looked, to everyone who saw her, like a young woman in love.

Nina was in the first-floor ladies’ room when she heard the group of girls walk in. Their heels clicked in unison over the floor, their voices lilting and conspiratorial.

“Did you
see
what she’s wearing? She sure upgraded fast, once she got hold of the prince’s money.”

“You really think he bought her that gown?”

“Her mom sure didn’t, on a government salary.”

Nina froze.

“I heard that she’s so desperate for cash, she’s been selling photos of
herself
to the tabloids.”

A snort of disapproval. “You’d think she would have more style, having grown up around the palace.”

“Come on, Josephine, you know you can’t buy class if you weren’t born with it.” There was a chorus of snide giggles at that.

I dare them to say those things to my face,
Nina thought, and swept furiously out of the bathroom stall. Her gown rattled with crystal beads like hail on pavement.

The trio of girls had clustered before the sink, which was made of an enormous slab of backlit pink quartz, its faucets shaped like swans’ necks. Nina washed her hands, coolly ignoring the others. They exchanged a glance among themselves before fleeing the bathroom in a voluminous rustle of skirts.

She refused to let their small-mindedness ruin her night, and yet … Nina swallowed. When it was just her and Jeff, everything felt so simple. But at times like this, the rest of the world came rushing back, in all its sordid ugliness.

Daphne Deighton chose that moment to walk into the bathroom. She looked resplendent in a delicate champagne-colored gown.

“Nina.” Her gaze prickled on Nina’s in the mirror. “You look amazing. It’s too bad about the whole miscommunication at Halo, of course, but that gown is divine.”

She was smiling as always, yet Nina had the sense of something hard and unyielding beneath the superficial warmth of her voice.

“Thanks,” she said cautiously. Then the full import of Daphne’s words hit her, and she paused. “How did you know about the mix-up at Halo?”

Daphne’s self-control flickered, so quickly that Nina wouldn’t have even noticed if she hadn’t been watching for it. “Damien told me, of course. He felt terrible about the whole thing. I’m so glad it worked out!”

Nina could have nodded and left it there, but a suspicion had ignited in her mind, and she needed to know.

“Daphne,” she said carefully, “are you the one who canceled my gown order?”

She expected Daphne to flat-out deny it. But to her surprise, the other girl spun on one heel and marched up and down the row of stalls, pushing on each door to make sure that they were empty.

Nina watched, speechless, as she returned to the entrance of the ladies’ room and bolted the main door.

When Daphne turned, all trace of a smile had been wiped from her perfect features—as if a mask had dropped, and now Nina was finally seeing her for real.

“It was me,” Daphne said simply. “It was
all
me, everything that’s happened to you since you first got involved with Jefferson. I gave the paparazzi your dorm address and helped them find incriminating photos of you. I planted the story in the tabloids. I called the boutique, pretending to be you, and canceled your gown order.”

Nina blinked. She felt oddly caught off guard by the bluntness of Daphne’s confession. “You did all that, just to try to get Jeff back?”

“‘All that’?” Daphne smiled, a sharp glittering smile that matched the light in her bottle-green eyes. “Nina, I’m just getting started.”

Nina stumbled backward. “You’re insane,” she said hotly. What had she been thinking, letting Daphne lock them in a bathroom together?

“I really do think you’re a nice girl, so I’m going to give you some free advice. You need to end things now, before you end up hurt. You will never make it in the Washington family, not with your kind of background.”

“My kind of
background
?” Nina spluttered. “For your information, the king and queen have always liked me.”

“As Samantha’s best friend, as the daughter of one of their
employees,
sure. As the girlfriend of their only son? I don’t think so.”

“My mom is a Cabinet minister, not a chambermaid,” Nina said quietly. “And I’m sorry, what about your background makes you better qualified, the fact that your dad is a lord?”

“A baronet,” Daphne corrected crisply, “and yes. Unlike you, I have been training for this job my entire life. Because it is a job.”

“I don’t—”

“Do you know who to call Your Serene Highness and Your Imperial Highness as opposed to Your Royal Highness? Can you identify the heir to the throne in every country—the Prince of Wales and the Princess of Asturias and the French dauphin? Do you know the lineage of each of the thirteen sovereign duchies? How do you properly address a federal judge or a member of Congress?” Daphne paused from her monologue to take a breath. “You have no
idea
what it takes to be the prince’s girlfriend.”

Nina couldn’t believe the bizarre list of job requirements Daphne had just rattled off. “Whatever your relationship with Jeff was like, ours is different. He doesn’t care about those things.”

“Your relationship with Jefferson is never just you. It’s a public position. You are living in a goldfish bowl—constantly on display, and on trial.”

Nina shook her head, though Daphne’s words were eerily similar to what she said to Jeff not that long ago. Daphne saw that sliver of hesitation and pounced on it.

“The king and queen will never give Jefferson permission to marry you,” she went on. “Never.”

“Who said anything about marriage? We’re
eighteen
!”

“Ah. I see.” Daphne had the feline, self-satisfied look of someone who was very protective of her territory. “You’re just messing around with him until he finds someone serious. Good. In that case, you won’t be disappointed when it ends. Because there is no way you and the prince can ever have a future together, Nina. You’re skating on melting ice. He might be into you now, but it’s only a matter of time.”

“A matter of time before
what
?”

Daphne lifted one shoulder in a sinuous shrug. “Before he realizes that you aren’t long-term material.”

Nina hadn’t even thought of marriage—but now she couldn’t help wondering if Daphne might be right. If she couldn’t see herself ever getting serious with Jeff, what was the point of letting herself fall for him, and eventually being hurt?

Stop it,
she admonished herself. This was exactly what Daphne wanted: to make her doubt their relationship—doubt Jeff.

Daphne took a step forward, probably expecting her to retreat, but Nina held her ground. Despite their ball gowns, their jewels, their elaborate hairstyles, they seemed to Nina like a pair of warriors tensely circling each other on the field of battle.

“You know what?” Nina declared. “I feel sorry for you. If what you say is true, if you really devoted your entire life to being some perfect princess figure—that’s pathetic.”

There was a dangerous gleam to Daphne’s eyes. “Oh, no.
You
do not get to feel sorry for
me.
”

“I do,” Nina repeated. “Because unlike you, I care about Jeff, the
person.
Not the fact that he’s a prince.”

Daphne laughed, but there was no mirth in it. “They’re one and the same thing, Nina. You can’t want Jeff like an ordinary man and ignore his positions and titles. If you don’t know that, then you’re a fool.”

“Better to love him for real than to love him
because
of his positions and titles!”

“Oh my, you
love
him.” The other girl smirked. “That really is too bad for you. Because Jefferson is going to come to his senses and get rid of you soon enough. Until then, I’ll be right here, making your life a living hell.”

Nina knew, with a chilling certainty, that Daphne meant every word.

“I’m going to tell everyone the truth about you. That you’re a lying, manipulative—”

“I’d love to see you try.” Daphne cast her a withering glance. “Who do you think they’ll believe? I’m America’s Sweetheart, and you’re the gold-digging fame whore he rebounded to, before he eventually comes back to me.”

Nina opened her mouth to retaliate, but no words came out, because she knew deep down that it was true. America would take Daphne’s side over hers.

“Someday you’ll thank me for this,” Daphne said quietly. “You don’t have the stomach for this kind of life. I’m doing you a favor in the long run.”

With that, she turned the bolt on the door and stepped out into the hallway.

Nina blinked, dazed. There was a love seat in the corner; she collapsed onto it in a sloppy heap of beads.

She sat there for a while, her chin tucked into her hands, staring blankly at the opposite wall. Light fell from the crystal chandelier overhead, which suddenly looked to Nina like a torrent of tears, frozen mid-fall by an evil snow queen.

How stupidly naïve she’d been, thinking she could just stroll into this party in a beautiful dress and everything would be okay. She didn’t know how to navigate this court, with its layered promises and barbed favors. This court rewarded people like Daphne—cold, brutal people who did whatever the hell they wanted and never looked back. Nina couldn’t compete with those people. She didn’t
want
to.

This wasn’t her world, and it never would be.

Nina ran her hands up and down her bare arms against the cold. The wings of the palace sprawled to either side of her, flooded with moonlight. She was out on the balcony, the one with the birds’ nest, where she and Jeff had watched the fireworks all those weeks ago.

This time, Nina wasn’t surprised when his footsteps sounded behind her.

“There you are.” Jeff’s voice was warm, but then he seemed to take in her pallor, the bleak look on her face, and he hurried to close the distance between them.

“We need to talk,” Nina said heavily.

Jeff slid out of his jacket as if to tuck it over her shoulders, but she drew back. He let his arms fall to his sides, chastened.

“Nina, are you okay? What happened?”

Your ex-girlfriend happened.
She tightened her grip on the wrought-iron railings.

“I was so excited about tonight,” she began. “Getting to be here with you, at an event that’s important to your family. I thought we were ready for this.”

“We
are
ready for this, Nina. I hope you know how much it means to me that you’re here.”

She shook her head. “You might be ready for this, but I’m not. All the lies and pretending, that ballroom full of two-faced people—I can’t do it.”

“I told you, forget the internet commenters,” Jeff insisted. “My family loves you; everyone who matters loves you.”

“Are you sure your family approves of me?” Nina forged ahead before he could interrupt. “I’m not talking about Sam; I’m talking about your parents. Do you honestly think they would give us permission to get married?”

She half expected Jeff to defend her, but instead he flinched. “Isn’t it a little soon to be talking about marriage?”

“It would be, if we were a normal couple and I didn’t have to worry about whether or not I’m
suitable
!” Nina hated herself for parroting Daphne. But like all good insults, Daphne’s words had contained a kernel of truth. That was why they cut so deep.

“I’m not trying to freak you out, or be unreasonable,” she added helplessly. “But I also have no desire to enter a relationship that’s doomed from the start. I don’t want to date someone whose parents are ashamed of me.”

Jeff reached for her hand, and this time Nina let him take it. “Where is this coming from?”

She let out a breath. “Daphne cornered me in the ladies’ room and told me to break up with you. She’s been out to get me from the beginning. She sabotaged my gown—”

“What happened with your gown?” Jeff cut in, confused.

“—and she’s the one who planted those photos of us in the tabloids, the ones taken outside my dorm! She
sent
the paparazzi there that night!”

“Daphne had no idea about us. No one did, remember?”

“Are you sure you didn’t tell her at New Year’s?” Nina couldn’t keep the jealousy from her voice. “I saw you two talking out on the patio at Smuggler’s. You looked pretty close.”