The Royal We (29 page)

Sir John was an architect, and an inveterate hoarder, and the space is crammed to the gills with his eclectic souvenirs: almost eight thousand books, sixty or so Greek and Roman vases, three hundred and twenty-three gemstones, a pair of leg irons, and a mummified cat. The byzantine, tight space means the museum only admits eighty people at a time, and it scrupulously bans cell phones, so it could never become dangerously jammed with amateur paparazzi once people figured out I was on staff. This meant I could fill in for a docent without causing much of a stir, and I was grateful not to be treated like a plague (if my notoriety was good for business, the Soane never once exploited that). And in late May, I hit the jackpot. The Soane was so pleased that Paint Britain was a hit—bigger museums were sniffing around about partnerships—that my boss Maud rewarded me with the Picture Room when the regular docent caught a mysterious rash. The Picture Room is a compact space where Soane ingeniously turned the walls into doors as a way of multiplying the amount of art he could display. Every twenty minutes, whoever is assigned to that room opens them to display a layer, sometimes two, of hidden paintings and architectural renderings hiding behind them. All told, there are about a hundred, usually commanding the most experienced historians.

And the space is snug. So after I gave my second pack of gawkers a moment to appreciate the initial view, I hustled all twelve of them back out and pulled open the south planes to reveal William Hogarth’s
A Rake’s Progress
. The eight paintings depict a debauched evening of gambling, drinking, and whoring in an infamous London tavern before the titular rake is imprisoned and then sent to Bedlam, and in Soane’s day it was considered scandalous. As I explained this, an eleven-year-old boy near the front made bored clicking noises.

“If it’s so scandalous,” he scoffed, “then where are the sexy bits?”

“An excellent question,” said a guy in the back in a dark ball cap, a leather jacket, and aviators, whom I hadn’t noticed earlier. “Where
are
all the sexy bits?”

And then Freddie took off his sunglasses, grinning, and stuffed them into his pocket.

“Holy shitballs,” an American girl hissed.

“Shh, don’t make a stir, or we’ll lose the intimacy of this moment,” Freddie told her. “I love
A Rake’s Progress
. Also the working title of my autobiography.”

Everyone tittered, except the cranky octogenarian who’d asked me if this was the Tate.

“You heard the young man,” Freddie prodded me. “I believe he wanted sexy bits.”

I glanced at the boy’s mother, but she seemed as interested in where this might lead as the rest of the room, so I pointed to the orgy in the third painting. The kid peered closer.

“I’ve seen worse on TV,” he said.

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Freddie said, edging to the front. “You’re right. Hugely disappointing. What I’ve been longing to see, though, are some saucy drawings of
buildings
.” He rubbed his hands together. “Are there any of
those
sexy bits around, please, madam?”

“But of course,” I said, stifling a laugh as I closed up
A Rake’s Progress
and opened the opposite planes. I sped through the rest of the spiel, so as not to give Freddie much time to make a spectacle of himself; he did his best PPO Furrow imitation and clapped loudly when I finished.

“Brilliant,” he said. “Ladies and gentlemen, please head down to whatever terrifying hellhole that rickety staircase takes you to.”

“That’s the Monk’s Parlour,” I explained. “For the imaginary monk.”

They stared at me blankly, then clattered down into the basement.

“This Soane chap really was a nutter, eh?” Freddie said, the floorboards creaking under his feet as he took in the sheer quantity of stuff—no, Stuff—all around us. “I only own one piece of art. It’s a photo of me scoring a goal past Father at a polo match, and it’s priceless.”

“I hate to break it to you, but I’m pretty sure you own a lot more art than that,” I said. “How did you get in without anyone freaking out?”

“A lady named Maud let me in the back,” he said. “She’s a firecracker, that one. Told me she’s knitting trivets as a wild change of pace from scarves. If you’re keeping score, that means changing from a rectangle all the way to a square.”

“That’s our Maud,” I said affectionately.

“I hope to be a steadying influence on her, in time,” Freddie said. “But first, come have a long lunch and a pint.”

“I can’t blow off work anymore, Freddie.”

“Aha, but I told Maud I was on a fact-finding mission about fundraising.”

“Is that true?”

“Perhaps,” he said. “And if Maud thinks you chucked a potential patron, she’ll never speak to you again about how the bridge tips from the Sunday
Times
are working.”

We dined at one of the ancient gentlemen’s clubs to which the monarchy belongs—or, perhaps, which belong to the monarchy. It was a dimly lit cavern full of burnished oak and leather and antique globes no one ever spun, and was staffed solely by cantankerous old men, one of whom seated us with a whiff of mistrust and stepped on my foot as he went.

“Don’t mind him,” Freddie said. “He’s been making that face ever since Gran forced them to let in women.”

He ordered a shepherd’s pie and I got a big plate of crispy battered cod and chips; we made small talk until the food arrived, at which point Freddie picked up the table’s bottle of malt vinegar and deluged my fries before taking a few.

“You’re welcome,” I said dryly.

“I know,” he said smugly, poking one of the chips into the mashed-potato top of his pie. A belch of steam came out. “I miss giving you a hard time, Killer. Why don’t you ever come out with Lacey and me anymore?”

“Wait, so first I was partying too hard, and now I’m not partying enough?”

“A mild over-correction,” he said. “Easily repaired.”

I took an extra-large bite of fish, to our waiter’s consternation. “I don’t understand why you’re not nearly as paranoid as Nick is about the media,” I said. “We both know why he’s so sensitive, but why aren’t you?”

Freddie tapped his knife against his plate thoughtfully. “I think I was too young. Nick actually has memories of Mum.” He all but mouthed the word. “I envy him those, sometimes. But then I think maybe his normal memories, of
before
, make the bad ones that much worse. Maybe having nothing at all is better.” He stared into the distance. “It’s a bit like when you hear about a plane crash, and it’s awful, but it also doesn’t haunt your life. Nick was on the plane when it went down, and I just read about it in the papers. Does that make sense?”

“Perfect sense.” I let it settle for a second. “It’s hard to explain to Lacey sometimes, though. Not that I mind keeping your confidence, but I feel bad that she’ll never understand the whole story. She’s actually
miffed
Nick tried to call off the paparazzi. Like she’s being denied her rightful place in the papers.”

“I doubt it’s that simple,” Freddie said.

“Says the expert on my twin.”

“In some areas, I probably am,” he said, and I snorted. “Not
those
areas,” he chided. “I mean, yes, those too, but what I mean is, Lacey is the only other person I know who understands being the spare.” He swigged his scotch. “It is a peculiar person to be.”

It was disarmingly, alarmingly, honest, and it hit me so hard that I actually leaned back in my chair with a thump.

“Freddie,” I said. “Nobody thinks of either of you that way. ‘The heir and the spare’ is just a jokey expression.”

“Perhaps to you,” Freddie said. “Truthfully, I think Knickers would rather be that than the heir sometimes. I’m sure he thinks it looks easier, and in some ways it is, but…” He shrugged. “Everyone had expectations of Nick, or for Nick. Nobody ever had any of me. And after a while they didn’t have much interest in me, either.”

I bit my thumbnail, unsure of what to say.

“But Nick might have it worse,” he continued. “My biggest problem is feeling pointless, and his biggest problem is that he basically
is
the point, and that consumes his whole life. So if I can muck about with outrageous people and give Dick something else to fume about, I’ll do it.”

“Only you could get away with turning serial dating into a selfless act,” I teased. “But I hate that you feel so superfluous. Does Lacey honestly feel that way, too? Do I treat her like that?”

“No,” Freddie said firmly. “Sometimes it’s hard not to feel like
the other one
, that’s all. But I probably shouldn’t be speaking for her. Just give her time to find her own footing.”

“Well, since we
are
speaking for her,” I said, gesturing at him with my fork, “she’d kill me for saying this, but I think she feels a connection that may not be there for you, and if it’s not, I’m scared she’s going to get really hurt.”

“I know. I don’t want that,” he said sheepishly. “I’ve been selfish about it, because she’s hard to give up. She’s clever, and she’s fun. Even if her sister is a bit of an ogress.” He drummed his fingers. “Perhaps in another life, she’d be it for me, but in this one it’s not very realistic.”

“It could be,” I said. “Your roadblock is gone, remember.”

“Aha, but I think we both know that even if you’re not quite
in
Nick’s life, you’re never actually gone from it, either,” Freddie said.

We lapsed into our thoughts, filling the air with the clattering of our silverware. I felt guilty for talking about Lacey with him, but I couldn’t keep turning a blind eye to how much she hoped for more and how little Freddie thought he could give it.

“This lunch took a somber turn,” he said. “I thought we were going to trade juicy personal gossip.”

“That would have been a lot more interesting for you six months ago.”

“Still, let’s give it a whack,” he said. “I’ll go first. Nigel got chucked out of St. Andrews. He had cocaine in his room.”

“Damn. Awful Julian must be so proud,” I said. “My turn. Gaz and Cilla hooked up the night he punched Nick.”

“Finally!” Freddie crowed. “Nick didn’t bloody tell me, the bastard. I wonder if I won the pool. Right, let’s see. Barnes had a girlfriend for about twenty minutes and it made him into an entirely different and wonderful person.”

“I can’t imagine a pleasant Barnes,” I said.

“He sang a lot of show tunes,” Freddie said. “He’s quite a good Sally Bowles, it turns out. You’re up. With one about
you
this time, please.”

“Yours weren’t about you, either!”

Freddie frowned. “If I must. Persimmon slept with Tony after I wouldn’t let her plan a birthday party for me,” he said.

“My last boyfriend had a third nipple.”

“My new girlfriend’s name is Santa.”

I cackled so loudly that our ancient waiter had to sit down and collect himself at a nearby table—which already had three diners at it.

“You made that up!” I accused him.

“It’s deadly true.” He grinned smugly. “She has a large bag of toys.”

“Well, Third Nip and I broke up because he found it erotic to suck on—”

“No! My virgin ears!” Freddie laughed, grabbing them.

“—my
chin
,” I finished. “It’s rough out there, Freddie. This is why I’m all nights in and quiet country house parties now. It’s all I can take.”

Freddie polished off his pie. “Shows how much you know. I’ve gotten into more trouble at country house parties than anywhere else,” he said. “I take it you’re going to Cilla’s do?”

Cilla’s sister owned a home in the countryside of Berkshire, which differed from her home in the countryside of Yorkshire by about two thousand square feet and a swimming pool. Apparently she’d refused to leave the family birthplace, so her rich husband bought them a mansion they could remodel, in the hopes of making her fall in love with it and want to live there permanently. Cilla had permission to throw a weekender there before they knocked it to rubble.

“I was thinking about it,” I said. “It sounds relaxing.”

“It won’t be,” he said. “But I think you can handle it. You don’t need another calm weekend reading some big fat book.”

“How about a civilized game of croquet?”

Freddie grinned. “Not unless you think strip croquet is civilized.”

“Depends on who’s stripping.”

He tipped his scotch to me. “There’s the Bex I remember.”

T
he time Nicholas and Rebecca spent apart was exquisite agony
, Aurelia Maupassant proclaimed, before spending two and a half
Bexicon
pages glossing over my bikini period, Nick’s apparent dustup with Gaz, and a variety of other juicy transgressions she could’ve unearthed if she had wanted to confront reality. Instead, she claimed we were saintly hermits:

“That ball was out, Bex. DRINK,” Gaz bellowed.

“Too close to call,” Lacey said from a deck chair that was doubling as an umpire’s seat. “That means you both drink.”

“What’s the score?” I asked.

Lacey blinked. “Whoops. Six? Is that a thing in tennis?”

Gaz invented Drunk Doubles years ago, because he said he wasn’t comfortable letting someone club a yellow missile at him unless he was off his head. The rules change a lot because no one ever quite remembers them, but it starts with guzzling something potent if you lose a point or a set, if you ace a serve, at deuce, and at match point. The longer it goes, the harder it gets to
see
the ball, much less hit it, so it devolves into ineptitude and arguments and offers of replacement dares. I had already played an entire game wearing Gaz’s trousers, my partner Joss served backward, and for the last two points, Cilla had worn socks on her hands. Freddie had been right; the weekend was not, perhaps, a bucolic PBS-style affair.

We’d drawn up to the three-story ivy-covered manse late Friday night and woken in the morning to an actual rooster crowing and Bloody Marys on the peaceful terrace. Freddie’s warnings had seemed misplaced, until lunchtime came, and with it, a steady stream of thirsty guests. By the time we’d reached this late-afternoon stalemate at Drunk Doubles, there was an equally boozy game of lawn bowling down by the vegetable garden, suspicious smoke wafting from the tree house, and some convoluted gin-soaked swim relay. The estate teemed with the kind of young, preppy aristocrats who regularly retired to the country to escape the rigors of day jobs they bemoaned yet could never explain in specific terms. I vaguely knew a handful of them from Clive’s glossy party reports, but I wasn’t sure how they connected to Cilla, and she was too busy snogging Gaz on the court to ask.

“I think we win by default,” Joss declared.

“Hang on, you can’t punish a man for being in love,” Gaz shouted.

“Love means nothing in tennis,” I said. “Literally, in fact.”

As I reclaimed my pint from a peeling wooden bench, I spied Clive sitting by the pool, tapping away on his laptop and chatting to the dreaded Gemma Sands and Lady Bollocks—the former of whom I’d still never met and didn’t care to, and the latter of whom I was equally pleased to avoid. There were several single guys milling around whom Cilla had invited as a favor to those of us who were likewise uncoupled; one of them, appealingly, resembled Brad Pitt in his prime. He was playing a game of (non-strip) croquet with Freddie, and he was bracingly hot.

“Now
that
is a view,” Lacey said, slinging an arm around my neck. “You want dibs?”

“They’re all yours,” I said.

“Well, yeah, I know you don’t want Freddie,” she said. “But that other guy might do nicely.” She grinned naughtily. “For either of us, if Freddie doesn’t get his act together.”

“May the best Porter win,” I said with a smile.

She pulled my ponytail. “Done. But we have to clean up first. You look like you were just electrocuted.”

Cocktail hour coincided with one of England’s more cinematic summer twilights, scented by a blooming, exuberant garden growing up around the old stone terrace where we congregated. Movers were coming to the house in three days to clear out the antiques worth keeping—Cilla’s brother-in-law bought it furnished—and the rest of the gabled building and its picturesque patio would be demolished and built into something bigger and more modern and probably uglier. I wondered if Cilla’s sister had even seen it; to me, its cracks and chips gave this old place character.

I didn’t get to luxuriate in any of it, though, because Lady Bollocks marched right up to me as soon as I walked through the terrace doors. I’d hoped to summon enough sorcery to escape her entirely, but the sight of her so inflamed—angular brows, squinting eyes, sequined minidress shooshing as she stomped toward me—against such an august backdrop was so amusing that my nerves abandoned me.

“That isn’t awful,” she greeted me, flicking a finger at my slim-fitting patterned dress. “Which can only mean you didn’t pick it out yourself.”

“Oh, buzz off, Bea,” I said. “If that’s all you have to say, then go back to ignoring me.”

Bea took a sharp bite out of her martini olive. “Someone had to pick Nick in the divorce.”

“Most people had the strength of character to choose both,” sassed Lacey from her perch on the low stone wall of the terrace, where she was nursing a bottle of something orange-flavored called Hooch.

“Frankly, I’m beginning to see why Nick should have picked
you
, having been forced to endure all the other nitwits coming after him lately,” Bea said.

“I’m sorry my breakup has been so difficult for you,” I said. “How’s your sister?”

“Fucking great,” said a raven-haired girl who uncoiled herself from a chair near Lacey.

I peered closer at her. “
Pudge?
”

“I go by Larchmont Kent now,” she said. She was groomed to within an inch of her life, with luxurious long hair, and wore a slouchy white romper that was insanely ugly in that annoying way where it also looked fabulous. She appeared to be sans underwear.

“She’s modeling,” Bea said, prickly pride masking a bit of concern. “Discovered by a scout who was in rehab with her at the Priory last time. She just did Japanese
Vogue
.”

“Fashion is redemption,” Ex-Pudge said dreamily. “No judgment. Just an embrace.”

Bea squinted at her. “Are you high
now
?”

“If you mean high on serenity, then yes,” she said patiently. “I was meditating. I may need to find the koi pond.”

“There’s a koi pond?” I asked Bea, looking at her sister’s retreating figure.

“Focus.” Bea snapped her fingers in front of my face. “I will only say this once, so listen well. You are far less irritating than Nick’s other options, so I need you to get back together.”

“Oh! Well, if
that’s
what you want,” I said.

“It is,” Bea said, missing my sarcasm. “You were good for him. He was so much lighter with you. If only you’d met last year, it would have been considerably easier for everyone.”

“Yeah, Bex really blew it for you,” Lacey said.

“Your face need not be part of this, so feel free to shut it,” Bea said haughtily.

“Bea, I appreciate what you’re trying to do,” I said, trying to mean it. “But Nick and I have moved on.”

Bea arched her crazy-arched brow, which I hadn’t imagined was possible. “Are you quite sure?” she said.

I would have thrown up my hands with frustration, except I didn’t want to spill my Pimm’s Cup. “I sent him back a box of his sweaters. It’s over.”

“Oh, please, that’s absurd. He probably never even got them.” She poked me in the sternum. “I saw you dribbling over the eye candy this afternoon, and my advice is that you do not touch. Nick will be ready soon enough.”

“What? Like a pan of brownies?” Lacey asked. “It’s not 1925. She’s not going to twiddle her thumbs and wait patiently while Nick is off playing solider and sleeping around.”

“I’m not suggesting she take up needlepoint,” Bea countered. “I’m merely saying that timing is everything.”

“And our timing was terrible,” I pointed out.

“Once,” Bea said airily. “Maybe not forever.”

“Stop fucking with my head, Bea.”

“I am
fixing
your head,” she said. “And before you decide to listen to your sister on this topic, may I remind you which of us has known Nick since—hang on, is that Duddy Fitzherbert? He cheated me out of the most beautiful filly at Tattersalls. I have
words
for him.”

She swept off.

“She apparently has words for everyone today,” I said to Lacey. “I wonder if she showed up with a list.”

“Do not let her get to you,” Lacey told me. “Nick hasn’t given you any indication that he is coming back.”

“I know,” I said.

“And you will regret wasting time on a faint hope.”

“I
know
.”

“You’re not getting any younger.”

“Now who’s acting like it’s 1925?” I retorted.

“I just don’t want you to get sucked into Bea’s magical thinking,” Lacey said.

“I doubt Bea’s engaged in magical anything in her entire life,” I said. “And I don’t want to spend the rest of mine talking about how I almost ended up with Nick. Can we move on?”

“Sure,” Lacey said, gesturing with her bottle of Hooch. “Freddie’s over there with Penelope Six-Names. What’s that about? He can’t be into her.”

“Here’s a challenge,” I said. “Let’s see if we can avoid talking about Wales boys altogether.”

Lacey glared at me. “I’m not sure if you’re less fun with Nick, or without him,” she said, and walked away, leaving me with plenty of people staring but nobody who wanted to talk.

In that moment I decided I might hate country house parties.

Suddenly, a gong rang out; I turned to see Gaz standing near the French doors, beating a giant golden disc hanging from a wooden frame with a carved Chinese dragon across the top.

“Dinner is served,” he announced.

“You’ll make a great butler someday,” I teased. He responded by bopping me on the arm with the velvet-covered mallet.

The dining room had a mahogany sideboard that functioned as a hot-food buffet, and a massive table in the middle of the room covered with cold dishes. I grabbed a plate and fell in line behind Clive, who was juggling his with a white wine spritzer. There are a lot of reasons Clive never turned my crank enough to be the love of my life, and one of them is that he likes white wine spritzers.

“That looked like a fun scene outside,” he said.

I stabbed some roast beef like it had insulted me. “The next person who says N…um,
Steve’s
name gets a fork through the neck.”

“Watch out, Clive. She’s always been a danger to others,” Freddie said, cutting in behind me. “Who are half of these people, anyway?”

“How it is possible
you
don’t know?” Clive asked as we carried our plates to the bottom of the house’s sweeping, chipped wood staircase and sat down to eat. “I’d have assumed you’d slept with at least that many.”

“A gentleman never kisses and tells,” Freddie said. “Certainly not to a reporter.”

Clive waved his glass. “This entire party is off the record.”

“Nothing is ever really off the record,” Freddie said. “I’m actually surprised you’re free today, Clive, what with so many important galas to cover, like Lord Whatsit’s Charity Pet Statue Auction.”

“Reporters need to keep their feet on the ground,” Clive said, missing the insult. “I am massaging my sources. Speaking of…”

He nodded at a fetching brunette giving him the eye from across the foyer. Clive and Davinia were still together, as far as I knew, but she was in London, and clearly no handsome, ambitious party reporter—or at least not this handsome, ambitious party reporter—worked a room with total chastity.

“That’s Hilly Heath-Hedwig’s niece,” he told us. “She’ll have loads to say about
that
divorce.”

As he left, Freddie made a gagging face. “I prefer his brothers,” he confided. “They might be clods, but they’re also very straightforward.”

“Clive is
lovely
,” I said, before I caught myself.

“Point proven.”

“Why are you here on your own?” I asked. “Santa too busy in her workshop?”

“Making toys for other boys,” he said. “If you must know, I’m currently single.”

“Are you ill?” I gasped, feeling his forehead.

“Cute,” he smirked, swatting me away. “No, I’ve just been thinking about something you said a while back. It
is
rather juvenile, selecting my girlfriends specifically to annoy Father. So I’m taking a break.” He nudged my empty plate. “Which we are supposed to do, too, from each other. At dinner parties it’s customary to change conversation partners between courses.”

“Please, let’s not,” I said, pointing to the couple behind us on the landing, who were alternately fighting and feeding each other cornichons. “I can’t jump into that.”

Through the wide archway into the family room, I spied Lacey leaning against a mantel, twirling her hair and chatting up none other than British Brad Pitt.

“I might have wanted to jump into
that
, but it looks like I’m too late,” I added.

Freddie looked guilty. “I believe I led that lamb to the slaughter.”

I smacked him in the arm. “Are you saying you pimped out my sister?”

“I merely hinted—in the form of an explicit statement—that he’d do well to talk to Lacey because she’s very nice and very available.”

“So am I!” I protested.

“Yes, but
you’re
not on my scent,” he said. “As part of this new leaf I’ve turned over, I also considered that since it’s inevitable that we’ll get drunk and stupid, I should make sure Lacey is otherwise occupied.”

My phone buzzed in my purse, which was a surprise. Almost everyone I knew was at this party. But the ID indicated an unknown caller.

“Miss Porter, this is Barnes,” the voice on the other end said, sounding a lot more relaxed than the Barnes I knew. “I have the Prince of Wales on the line for you.”

I rolled my eyes. “Very funny, Gaz, but Barnes sounds more like he’s been impaled on a spike.”

At that very moment, I saw Gaz scurry across the hallway, demonstrably not on the phone. Freddie’s eyes bugged out and my stomach sank.

“When you’re through being hoisted on that petard, Miss Porter, kindly loan it to me so I may resume a more familiar demeanor,” Barnes said. “Please hold for the Prince of Wales.”