The Royal We (36 page)

“Bite your tongue,” she said to Freddie. “I’ll expect your support in the form of a very generous bet.”

“Only if you let me have a tipple of brandy out of the Cup when you win,” he teased, poking cheekily at her hat. She swatted his hand away, with the kind of smile you give the overgrown imp you adore in spite of yourself, and headed off to her table. Lacey, across the room nursing a cocktail, waved awkwardly, and Freddie tipped his hat to her before pretending he was thrilled to see Thick Trevor and Dim Tim on the complete opposite side of the room.

“What’s that about?” Nick wondered, watching Freddie go. Before I could answer, Mom stopped over to give Nick a squeeze before making a beeline for Agatha. The two of them set to chatting like a couple of old ladies in their rocking chairs.

“And what’s
that
?” Nick asked.

“That is either a match made in heaven or an unholy alliance,” I said.

“Speaking of which,” Nick said, nudging me flirtatiously, “you would not believe the unholy things I’m thinking.”

“Can you get your mind out of the sack for a second?” I grinned.

“Not a chance,” he said. “I’ve been on the high seas, Rebecca. It makes a man thirsty.”

I laughed. “Settle down, Sub-Lieutenant. I’m a sure thing,” I said. “But first I have so much to tell you.”

“Nicholas!” said Paddington, breezing back from wherever she’d found her meditative bliss. “What a fucking pleasure!” She wetly pecked both his cheeks. “I haven’t seen you since that night we…well. You know.”

“Er,” Nick said, the tips of ears beginning to vibrate.

“He’s such a spiritual lover,” Paddington said to me.

“He…yes?” The implied question mark at the end was unintentional.

“The plane we were on was exquisite. I am so fucking delighted he’s found the right soul to unite with in carnal Nirvana,” Paddington said, and she seemed profoundly earnest about it. “Now if you’ll excuse me, my sex partner is waiting for me over there.”

During the ensuing seconds of silence, I must have burned a thousand calories just keeping my face impassive.

“We were split up. It was just one time,” he said.

“One very
spiritual
time.”

“And it only happened because I didn’t actually recognize her until after. Well, during.” He rubbed his head. “Wait, I’m making it worse. This is why I didn’t want to get into everything that happened during the Dark Period. It was just…you know…things happen over the course of two years and…
two years
, Bex.”

“Relax, I think it’s funny,” I said. “Things happened with me, too. Want me to spill one to even the score?”

I was teasing, but my eyes drifted to Clive. And then, against my will, toward Freddie. Maybe it was time to clear the ledger.

“Emphatically not,” Nick said. “Honestly, I prefer pretending those two years never happened.” He shook his head, as if evicting the thought. “How is everything else? How’s Lacey? How is your mother? Are you eloping with Barnes?” He took my hand. “Are you
really
okay?”

My eyes met his, that cornflower blue I would be able to recreate in oils from memory even if I never saw him again. I felt my jagged edges begin to realign.

“I am now,” I said.

Royal Ascot was awesome, even if Freddie would have poked fun at that very American turn of phrase. Gaz had the first three winners, and every single horse I backed came in dead last, which we agreed was, in its way, also a highly specialized achievement. The din of the spectators was infectious, but when the Gold Cup came around, the Royal Box fell silent. Everyone there had some sum of money—nominal or otherwise—on Dynastic, including Gaz, whose pick-six Jackpot ticket now depended on the filly. When the gates flew open the tension was palpable, and Dynastic, stuck in fifth place, wasn’t helping.

“Come on, get ’er going,” Gaz urged. “That’s the ticket.”

“She’s gaining,” Freddie said excitedly. “Must’ve eaten her Weetabix this morning.”

“Come on Dynastic.” Gaz again, bathed in sweat.

“Come on, Perpetual Ocean,” whispered Bea. “Oh, leave it out,” she said when I gave her a mock-scandalized expression.

And then, right out of
My Fair Lady
: “GO ON, MY GIRL. MOVE YOUR ARSE.”

It was Eleanor.

And it unlocked the room. Everyone began roaring and jumping in place, and when Dynastic galloped across the finish line a nose in first, Eleanor lit up so brightly that she may have emitted UV rays. Spectators below the Royal Enclosure looked up, cheering, the men tossing their toppers into the air to celebrate the Queen’s win. When an impromptu chorus of the anthem rang out, Eleanor waved with more vigor than I’d ever seen, before throwing her arms around a bemused Richard and knocking his top hat askew.

Gaz whooped and twirled Cilla. “My love, that’s four in a row. I’ve never had this kind of luck. It’s all down to you.
You’re
the Gold Cup,” he said, dropping on one knee. “Marry me, you distressingly foxy goddess.”

Cilla blinked. “What? Are you drunk? You’ve got two to go before your bet pays out.”

“If you say yes, then I’ve already won,” Gaz said. “Look, I’ll rip up the ticket right now to prove I don’t care—”

“No!” Nick and I shouted in unison.

“No, you clod, don’t rip up your bloody Jackpot,” Cilla said, though she had tears shining in her eyes. “I believe you. Of course I’ll marry you. Who else would be mad enough to do it?”

Gaz jumped up, grabbed Cilla, dipped her, and then planted a heroic kiss on her. Nick fairly clutched at me with delight. He’s such a sucker for this stuff.

“One condition,” Cilla sniffled through a joyful smile. “We are not naming our child after any of your grandfather’s fonts.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Gaz said. “The only other one that crackpot invented was called the Serif of Nottingham.”

Once Eleanor relaxed, the level of carousing ticked up a notch. Gaz’s Jackpot ticket did indeed win; Dim Tim started flirting vapidly with Lacey, prompting Freddie to inform him that with his nose’s new location, he’d need to stand six inches further to the right in order to sniff around her with more accuracy; and right before the fifth race, my mother told me she and Agatha had bonded over
Orange Is the New Black
and that Agatha promised to teach her to ride.

“She’s truly suffered at the hands of that dreadful Julian,” Mom said. “She can’t keep blowing out her own candle.”

“Please tell me that’s not a euphemism.”

“It’s from my therapy group,” Mom said. “It means that she’s not letting herself shine. I told her she should leave him.”

And as if my family fomenting Lyons marital rebellion wasn’t enough, I had Lacey to deal with when she corralled me before the sixth race.

“Bex, help me pick a horse,” she said, dragging me over to a quiet corner.

“Well, I heard David Beckham’s Left Foot and IWantItThatWay are hot favorites, but Gaz was talking up Who’s Your Monkey, and he hasn’t lost a race all day,” I said.

“I don’t actually care,” Lacey said. “I just want to tell you my news. I was late today because I had a meeting with a publisher.” She flushed excitedly. “I’m going to write a book!”

“Lace, that’s amazing!” I gasped. “I didn’t know you wanted to be a writer.”

“Neither did I.” She beamed. “But this editor contacted me, and it turns out she thinks I’d be perfect for writing a style book.”

“I’m so proud of you, Lace,” I said. “My sister, the author!”

“It feels really good. Like I finally have a purpose,” she said. “Whistles has been so unchallenging lately. I think my brain is getting flabby.”

I was delighted by the sight of her so thrilled about something genuinely great. All our lives, Lacey was happiest when she had a concrete project—and I hoped maybe her being at loose ends was the cause of whatever had started to curdle between us.

“It’s not a done deal,” she added. “I still need sample chapters, and all that. So when you have a sec, we should sit down and figure out how this might work.”

“We?” My heart started to sink.

“Well, yeah,” she said. “Your transformation from regular to royalty. I mean, honestly, before they made you use that Donna person, I was the driving force behind getting you out of bad pants. I think people will be really interested in how we—Bex, why are you looking at me like that?”

“Lacey, I don’t think…I
really
don’t think they’ll let me do that.”

“Why not?” Her face started to harden. “It’s positive press for you, and people love a sister act. It’ll be the Ivy League all over again.”

“For the hundredth time, that wasn’t a compliment,” I said, hearing Bea.

“You cannot be serious,” she said. “You are not honestly going to ruin this for me.”

I made a helpless gesture. “The Palace is never going to authorize that. I don’t even know how I would begin to convince Eleanor. We’ve only ever spoken twice.”

“Don’t know how?” she asked. “Or don’t want to try?”

“I would love to see you write a book. It just…”

“Sure. Got it,” Lacey said harshly. “Well, excuse me. I need to go place a bet. I hear My Sister’s A Bitch is running in the seventh and suddenly I think it’s a lock to win.”

She stomped away, right past Nick.

“Trouble?” he asked.

I wanted to tell him, but once I started, I doubted I’d stop, and this wasn’t the place. “Let’s just say it’s beyond good to have you back,” I said. “And you seem so happy.”

“I am,” he said, casting a surreptitious glance around the room and then giving me a quick kiss. “Other than missing you, I really love it out there. It’s the first time I’ve had such a tangible sense of purpose. Or that I’ve been confident any accolades I’ve gotten have been merit-based and not just because of…you know.” He waved his arm around the room. “I feel like I’ve been waiting for this my whole life.”

He took a long beat. “In fact, they might want me to go out again right away.”

“Okay,” I said uncertainly.

“It’s unorthodox, but it’d be brilliant for me,” he said. “See, they’re recommissioning an HMS
Pembroke
frigate, and they thought I’d like being on its inaugural crew. The
Cleveland
is being benched for an upgrade that’ll take a year, or even longer, so a transfer gives me more practical experience much faster than I’d get it otherwise.” His face was alight. “I’d be back well in time for the wedding. That’s doable, yes?”

I wasn’t sure how to respond. I desperately didn’t want him to leave again, not having just gotten him back, not with the other sands shifting beneath me.

Nick must have seen this play across my face. “I know,” he said softly. “Two deployments in a row is a lot. If you need me, just say the word.”

I wanted to, so badly. But when I looked up at him, I saw every crestfallen face when he told me Richard had denied his requests to join up, and every hurt expression when the media made fun of him for it.

“No,” I said. “You should go.”

“It might not happen,” he hedged.

“Nicholas.” It was Eleanor, calling to us from across the room. “They’ve waited long enough,” she said, pointing toward the public. “Time to give them what they want.”

Nick turned to me, a question on his face. I thought of Lacey storming away. I thought of my father, gone, and my mother, moving on; I thought of the Bex who’d climbed fences and never wanted to answer to anyone, and I thought of the Bex who’d lain in bed with Nick and daydreamed about living as a public couple, loving each other loudly, planning a wedding that would be wholly ours. I wanted to feel
engaged
, and not just like a girl wearing a very big ring. I wanted my best friend back. But there were two people I loved more than anything who’d been scrambling for a purpose. I couldn’t satisfy one of them, but I could help the other.

“I’m fine.” I took his hand. “I’ll be fine.”

I put the brightest smile I could conjure onto my face, and apparently I nailed it, because the pictures of us waving at the window convinced Aurelia Maupassant and most of the world that we were as deliriously untroubled as they wanted us to be. And as I gazed upon thousands of racegoers holding up cameraphones, shouting at us joyously, I floated outside myself and saw a person who was learning for the first time what it was like to belong, not just to someone else, but to something much bigger than herself.

There are few things as horrifying as realizing the
Daily Mail
is even marginally correct about your personal life. Lacey’s book was not, to my knowledge, still in play; then again, after Ascot, we were barely in contact. The press had stopped photographing her walking to Whistles, so the only proof I had that she was even still in England was when I would come home and find she’d used her spare key to raid my closet. But when it came to Nick, though Xandra Deane had turned the volume up to eleven and had pertinent facts wrong, emotionally she was on the correct frequency.

A bare ten days after Ascot, with not nearly enough nights together in between, Nick went off on the HMS
Pembroke
until the New Year. It felt cruelly ironic that a frigate sharing a name with the place that brought him into my life was now sailing him right out of it. I’d wanted to be strong, but when I found out how fast he’d be leaving, my tear ducts overruled me.

“Shit, I’m sorry,” Nick said, searching for a Kleenex, then giving up and handing me a napkin that had been on the coffee table. “You did say you were all right with this, Bex.”

“I know. I hate that I’m crying.” I curled my legs under me on the couch and hugged a throw pillow to my chest. “It just hit me how much I miss having you here. You and Paint Britain are the two things that make me feel the most like myself, and you’re both gone.”

“Then go back there,” he said.

I blinked. “But Marj and Eleanor said I had to stop working.”

Nick shrugged. “Don’t listen,” he said. “I wouldn’t.”

“Since when am I allowed to say no?” I said. “Where were you with that advice a couple of months ago?”

“If you recall, I didn’t know about it until after you’d already resigned,” he said. “I agree it’s not ideal that I can’t be here all the time, and I wish I could, but it’s a fact of life in the Navy. Someday, I’ll be in your hair constantly. But I must serve the country if I’m meant to lead it, and if I quit now, everyone will say I’m no better than Edwin, hoovering up taxpayer money.”

“I know,” I told him. “I do know. I just keep imagining you off on a ship, and me at home juggling babies you only see three times a year. I wish I’d thought everything through, is all.”

He sat back a little. “Or what?” he said. “You wouldn’t have agreed to marry me?”

“No, of course not. I just…” I blew out my cheeks. “I don’t know what I mean.”

I’m not sure why I didn’t just tell him point-blank that I felt stranded. And in the wake of Nick’s departure, it started nibbling at me that maybe we had been as impetuous as Xandra Deane claimed. We’d careened into each other’s arms after my father died, and the ensuing tide of emotion had carried us here and dumped us and ebbed. Nick’s sense of duty is part of what I love about him, but I should have fought for more time by his side to get assimilated before I lost him to it, and communications to the HMS
Pembroke
were too irregular to talk through the questions that tortured me in the middle of the night. When
could
I say no to The Firm? Did I have the leverage to fight for myself? When was he going to take this promised desk job? Where would we live? What
about
our theoretical children? When was I expected to have one? And how would it make friends, if we were boxed in by a gated-off palace? Cruelly, the person who really could’ve understood was Nick’s mother, physically sitting alone in Cornwall but mentally out of reach.

Planning the Wedding of the Century only exacerbated my unsteadiness, even though all the ingredients were there for it to be a giddy delight: financial carte blanche and the heft of a royal decree. Church closed for cleaning? Finish it early. A groom at sea? Recall the ship. But I myself had very little say. The date was chosen because late April fit Eleanor’s calendar. It had been Marj who’d made the list of designers who could bid for my wedding dress, and selected meaningful flowers for my bouquet. I was told to pick an organist, and flower girls and pages from distantly related blue-blood families I’d never met, and even to pare down the existing guest list to make room for our friends. All of which I did, dutifully, before learning they were perfunctory offers, and Eleanor had already made all those decisions.

Even the autonomy I
thought
I had was illusory. The Palace didn’t want me photographed anywhere unauthorized, which meant Stout had to phone in a request any time I wanted to so much as pop out for an ice cream cone, which was such a pain that I stopped going anywhere at all. Shopping, if you could call it that, now took place in a converted room at Clarence House, where I was expected to stand still and silent so that everyone else’s opinions could be heard. Donna and her team bustled around me, dissecting my body with scientific detachment as they whipped outfits on and off my frame, before bagging and tagging clothes with color-coded notes marking what should be mixed and matched, reworn or archived, auctioned or donated. It was busywork, but busywork that required my presence and attention, even though nobody there ever paused to acknowledge that I was
me
and not just a mannequin. As the months stretched on, I used all my energies to look sparkling during those fifteen-second windows when I was publicly visible, and the rest of the time I diligently obeyed my schedule and studied trivia about our potential guests and jogged on the treadmill Marj sent to my flat (along with an industrial-strength juicer that was louder than my dishwasher). I felt like little more than a prop in a very complicated play—as if I could be anyone, and events would still roll on unchanged.

Unfortunately, the longer I went without another major public appearance, the more screeds Xandra Deane fired off painting me as an unemployed drain on the taxpayers, shirking my official duties in favor of staying home and polishing the Lyons Emerald. Like Nick in his first years out of Oxford, I couldn’t defend myself—there is nothing less sympathetic than blubbering that your self-care regimen has made it impossible to hold down an outside job—so the rumors picked up steam. I understood it. I would have believed them, too. Because even I’d lost sight of myself.

So I did something about it.

I’m not sure why I didn’t act sooner. I think that when the daily grind of my duchess training began, it had provided a welcome distraction from the loss of my dad, and then kept me occupied in Nick’s absence. And because failure at it was not an option, I let it consume me without realizing that
occupied
and
satisfied
are not the same thing. In the end, oddly, it was Prince Edwin who galvanized me (albeit indirectly). One random Thursday in August, I was sitting in Marj’s office, preparing for our regular confab, when two things happened at once: I heard Barnes spitting nails at Edwin’s new press secretary because Edwin went on
Sunrise
to announce he was starting his own experimental theater company—against Eleanor’s specific wishes—and I got an email from Maud at the Soane. The two things started to coalesce in my mind, along with the memory of my dad sending me back here long ago to
go be Bex
. I wondered if he was watching from his Coucherator in the sky, sad that I’d found myself in a situation where me being Bex was considered a hindrance. By the time Marj returned from bullying the old Xerox machine, my spine had returned to me and I had a speech ready. Sort of.

“Right,” Marj said, sweeping in and dropping an iPod in my lap. “In there you’ll find preapproved music for which you are allowed to express a public affinity. Some classical, some pop, some dance, and nobody who’s ever eaten meat in front of Paul McCartney.” She sighed. “That ruled out rather a lot of them.”

I scrolled through it. “Oh, good, I get the Spice Girls?”

“Eleanor enjoys the frightening one,” Marj said. “Now, about your—”

“Excuse me, Marj, if I may,” I said. “I have something for the agenda. I mean, to put on my schedule.” I showed her Maud’s message. “My old boss Maud runs Paint Britain now, and she offered me a spot on the board, and wants to seal it with an event. I’m going to do it.”

“Are you?” Marj fastidiously removed her glasses and placed them, folded, on the desk.

“I am.” I hoped she didn’t catch the waver in my voice. “I think I’ve been a pretty good pupil over the last several months, and I appreciate the time and care everyone is putting into me, but I’m starting to lose my mind a little. I need to produce something other than myself. And I need to show people what I bring to this family other than reformed hair and well-chosen coats. If Edwin can go off-book and mount some weird interpretive Shakespeare in Hay-on-Wye, or whatever Barnes was yelling about, then I think I should be allowed to take on some public philanthropy. Especially for a charity
I
started, of which Richard is a patron. It would be good for everyone.”

Marj stared at me for a full minute.

“We will finalize the details,” she said simply.

Adrenaline shot though me. “And I’d like our friend Joss to pitch a dress for me to wear,” I blurted. Marj raised an eyebrow. “Please. Donna was just saying we should try to boost some smaller British designers. If it’s a mess, I promise I won’t ask again.”

Marj closed her eyes, as if praying for deliverance.

“Have her sketches to me tomorrow,” she said, and then handed me a folder about the history of indoor cycling in Britain.

I opened my mouth.

“Do not press your luck,” Marj said. “Now, velodromes. Let’s begin.”

The Paint Britain event coincided with Nick’s twenty-eighth birthday (Marj loves a mushy PR spin), which he was spending on the waters of Someplace, presumably looking sexy doing whatever he did with weapons. Paint Britain had been my refuge from missing Nick before, and the prospect of a day doing what I loved bolstered my spirits again. Unfortunately, it was not as giddy an occasion for my old friend. A confident Joss had presented Marj with a sketch for a white dress in a cheerful paint-splatter pattern. It was lively, if a bit on the nose, but Donna instantly recognized it as a copy of a year-old dress from a high street store, which itself was questionably similar to a Chanel. If we had trumpeted plagiarism as a custom original, the press and the blogs would have had a field day—especially Bex-a-Porter, which noticed if I so much as repeated a bracelet.

“Please let me try again,” Joss had begged me, tears running down her face.

“Maybe this is a sign you need a break,” I said as kindly as I could. “We’ve all been there, where the pressure and stress makes your eyes cross.”

“Right, like you know stress,” she sobbed. “My father’s jammed too far up the Royal Family’s privates to support my company. The only cash I have coming in is from my subletters, so I can’t tell them to leave. One word from you and I could have a dress that sells out all over the world, and you won’t help me.”

“I did help you. I
tried
. You set me up for a scandal,” I said. “I know you didn’t mean to, but come on. I can’t ask the Palace to take that chance again.”

“Oh yes, wouldn’t want to make the Palace cross. What if they take back that big fat rock?” Joss snapped. “I knew you never liked me as much as the others, and now it’s showing.”

“Joss—”

“Piss off, Princess,” she said savagely. “Clive said I can stay with him.
He’s
a real friend.”

I was miserable about how badly this had backfired. I’d been so sure Lacey’s book wouldn’t fly that I’d never even tried broaching the topic with the powers that be; this favor for Joss hadn’t seemed so out of reach, and yet now we were on the outs, too. With my personal relationships looking as shaky as my mental state, I was even more grateful to be—in a sense—going back to the work that had held me together once before.

The Tate Modern had arranged for Paint Britain to set up creative stations outside on the South Bank, the London Eye looming picturesquely across the Thames in every photo. Part of the price of getting what I wanted had included co-billing with our lofty patron Richard, and I’d dreaded spending the day with him, but I’ve never seen him so alive and kind—getting dirty with the kids as they did spin art and dug into some sculptors’ clay, and doing a lovely impromptu pencil sketch that he donated for our fundraising efforts. The two of us went head-to-head in a paint-balloon contest to see who could make a bigger splatter (he won), and one child did such a gorgeous watercolor that Richard and I got into a bidding war for the piece, and then each agreed to pay our highest offer if she would do another one and let us hang it in the Tate—an idea Richard had on the spot, which led to a permanent Paint Britain exhibition there.

“That was awesome,” I said after we posed for one final photograph and were returning to our lounge. “You were amazing!”

“It’s a lovely charity,” he said stiffly.

“We should do this more often,” I babbled, high on how far Paint Britain had come from its days in the Soane basement. “You’re really talented. That watercolor you left at Cornwall—did you ever finish it?”

Richard turned so rapidly that I almost crashed into him. “We are not friends,” he said evenly.

“Excuse me?”

“We both love art, and you are marrying my son, but we are not pals.” He gave emphasis to the oh-so-American word. “Nor do we need to be.”