The Royal We (46 page)

“Speaking of, where is your sister?” Bea says. “I’ve a verbal horsewhipping for
that
girl that she’s had coming for years.”

I put up my hand and start to speak but Freddie beats me to it.

“Leave it out, Bea,” he says flatly, his voice stripped of its usual exuberance. “Trust me, Lacey could not feel any worse right now. She’ll have gutted herself enough already.”

Bea takes a look at his wretched visage, as he leans against a dark corner of the room staring moodily into a scotch, and her features soften in a way that I have never seen on her. She walks up to Freddie and takes his face in her hands.

“My darling boy,” she says simply. She stands there for a second until he reddens, and then she clears her throat. “Yes, well, if you’d asked me which of us was going to end up blackmailing another, I’d have always said Clive.” She turns on Gemma. “Bex’s judgment is obviously questionable, but I can’t believe
you
were ever with him.”

Gemma wrinkles her nose. “You and I were in a fight! And it was barely dating,” she says. “If it makes you feel better, he’s a terrible kisser. If that’s what you even want to call it.”

Bea frowns. “I have to tell Pudge. She’s still not answering her phone.”

“What if Pudge is in cahoots with him, too?” Gaz says.

Bea folds her arms across her chest. “Have you forgotten how brutal the
Mail
and
The Sun
and the rest of them were to her during her five-year bender? Pudge hates the gossip press. She’s only with him because she thinks he’s writing fluff, like that moronic piece about the county councillor who also sells personalized cheese wheels.”

“She told
me
Clive is mainly her tantric pupil,” Gemma pipes up.

Bea flicks her hand. “The point is, who knows what he’s got on her. My sister is a celebrity, too, of a sort.” She takes her phone out of her clutch. “I’m calling her again.”

“And where is Lacey?” I say, frowning at my own phone. Nick squeezes my leg.

“She’ll turn up, Bex,” Freddie says. “She’s probably with your mother.”

“Paddington Larchmont-Kent-Smythe, your tantric pupil is a bastard,” Bea is saying into her phone. “I want you to take his laptop and run it over with your car and then call me immediately.”

Then she takes a pencil from the gold-plated cup on Richard’s desk and jabs it through a hasty chignon, ready for war. Cilla leans over the back of the sofa and hands me a scotch.

“Drink up,” she tells me. “It will bring you the strength of my forebears.”

“You’re from Yorkshire,” I say, taking the glass from her.

“I have distant family in Inverness,” she says. “It’s quite dramatic, actually—”

“Enough.” Bea stops her. “You can lie about Scotland after we vanquish Clive.”

“I don’t know if I think we
can
vanquish Clive,” I say.

Bea slams her hand on the desk and then lifts it up to reveal the fly, crushed. “I can vanquish anything.”

Nick tugs at his hair. “Let’s assume you can’t, and that this is running tomorrow no matter what,” he said. “What’s next?” He turns to Freddie. “What do you think?”

Freddie is surprised. He didn’t expect to be consulted.

“Er, well. Let’s see.” Freddie pushes off from the wall and starts wearing his own groove in the floor. “I’m not sure what good Marj could do at this point. It’s not like Clive works for the
Mail
. There’s no one above him to call and turn the screws.”

“Should we give her and Barnes a heads-up that this is coming?” I ask. Through a cracked window, I can still hear murmurs from the party. There are going to be some hungover dignitaries at the wedding. Maybe they’ll be throwing up too much to check the Internet.

“We could,” Freddie says. “But if we tell Barnes, he’ll tell Father, who’ll call Gran, and she’ll probably scare up Agatha, who will call Edwin, because if she has to get dragged into this then she’ll think he should, too.” He shakes his head. “Then we’ll all look peaky tomorrow.”

“Unless they call it off,” I say. “I mean, to me, that’s the other issue.”

The room gets quiet. Everyone, I can tell, is wondering which would be considered the greater ignominy: canceling the wedding, or going through it knowing the people gathering under the Buckingham Palace balcony will have read or heard my sister’s testimony and think they’re bearing witness to a sham. I wish Lacey were here, because as much as she was the architect of some of this, it doesn’t feel right trying to solve it without her.

“If they cancel, then I think you’re done, Bex,” Bea finally says.

Gemma nods. So does Freddie.

“Bea’s right,” Nick says. “It’s hard to come back from that in a month’s time and say, ‘Er, sorry about that, big misunderstanding, let’s do it all again, shall we?’”

“Maybe we call Xandra Deane and give her a counter-scoop,” says Cilla.

“About what?” Bea asks. “What could possibly overshadow this?”

“Quick, somebody plant drugs on Nigel,” Gemma jokes.

“Plant them? More like find them,” Freddie says. Then his eyes widen. “Maybe Lacey and I should elope.”

This suggestion is met with chuckles, until we see he’s not kidding.

“It’s not actually the worst suggestion,” Bea says slowly.

“Yes it is,” Nick and I say, almost in unison.

“Think about it, though,” Freddie says, coming around and sitting in front of us on the coffee table. “We can claim we were having a lovers’ tiff and so she made up all that stuff to Clive. And if we’re married, legally married, it mucks up his entire thesis that I’m snogging Bex and Lacey is furious about it, because if we were, why would she then go off and marry me?”

Bea opens her mouth and Gemma whacks her in the leg, shaking her head sternly. Freddie has turned pale, as if saying the words
I’m snogging Bex
was a step too close to revisiting the inciting incident in front of everyone.

Nick ponders this, then shakes his head.

“No,” he says. “We’ve got a bit to work out, Fred, but that’s a sacrifice you can’t make. I won’t allow you and Lacey to be stuck like that.”

“I’m sure she’d muddle through,” mutters Bea.

“It might be the only thing she and I can do, though,” Freddie says helplessly, spreading his hands. “We owe you. We’ve got to do something.” He is emotional. “
Please.
”

“I appreciate it. I do,” Nick says. “But even discounting all that, we just cannot use the press,” he says. “I think…I think Mum would hate it, if she knew. Don’t you?”

Freddie nods slowly.

“So we batten down the hatches and ride it out,” I say.

“I do think we probably have to tell Marj,” Nick says. “I don’t know if I can countenance giving her a heart attack tomorrow.”

“Giving her one tonight isn’t much nicer,” Freddie points out.

“Maybe not, but I don’t want it to look like she napped on the job,” Nick says. “She might be of help. You never know. She’s got a crafty streak, that one.” He stands up. “But I do have one thing I’d like to do first.”

He takes my hand and scoots down on one knee. “Gran is perfectly welcome to cancel the wedding tomorrow if she’d like,” he says. “But she can’t cancel our marriage. Not if we do it now.” He kisses my palm. “Marry me tonight.”

The words give me a thrill—and, apparently, have the same effect on Gaz, who gasps and clasps his hands together. His mushroom tart falls to the floor.

“Eleanor can have it annulled,” Cilla points out.

“Not if neither one of us signs the papers,” Nick says.

“She can make you abdicate your position,” Bea says.

“I’ll call her bluff. She’d
never
,” Nick says. “It would turn a house fire into an inferno.”

“Plus she’d have to bump me up a notch, which she wouldn’t, because it’s all my bloody fault to begin with,” Freddie said. “And she can’t dock us both and put Edwin two heartbeats closer to the throne. She’d rather marry Bex herself.”

Nick turns to me. “Can I get up now, love?” he asks.

“Oh, shit! Yes,” I say. “I’m sorry. And I just swore during this romantic moment.”

Nick pulls me up to standing position with him. “Wouldn’t be the first time,” he says lovingly. “I seem to recall you using that word when I gave you the ring in the first place.”

“Can we really do this?” I ask.

“Why not?” he says. “We’ve got the marriage license, right?”

He looks at Freddie, who nods.

“And the rings,” Nick says.

“Safe as houses back at ours,” Freddie confirms.

“And we’ve got a whole room full of witnesses,” Nick says. “We can sneak into the chapel at St. James’s from Clarence House. We just need a minister.”

“You can get ordained in five minutes on the Internet, though, right?” I ask. “Gaz would kill it.”

Gaz heaves a disappointed sigh. “As correct as that is, it is my great displeasure to inform you that, in the UK, we need a proper vicar for it to be legal.”

“This reminds me of my cousin,” Cilla begins.

“Now is not the time,” Bea snaps.

“My cousin, the
vicar
,” Cilla finishes, giving Lady Bollocks a piercing look. “He’s actually my mum’s cousin. He would’ve done our wedding, except he isn’t speaking to her.”

“Can he keep his mouth shut?” Bea asks.

“He has with Cilla’s mum,” Gaz pointed out.

“Might be a tough secret to keep anyway.” Nick says. He looks at me. “Bex. My love. Once and for all, are you in?”

I smile up at him. “I always wanted a small wedding.”

I
can’t breathe under here,” I cough. “I don’t know how I did this so often.”

“Well,” Cilla says from above me, “you were pretty stonking drunk most times.”

We’d gotten the green light from Nick an hour after our summit. PPO Twiggy was off on his motorbike fetching the vicar, the rest of the gang was gathering the license and rings, and Lacey responded to my all-caps text with a message saying not to do anything else drastic until she got to me. Cilla and I passed the time reverting me from Rebecca into Bex, and dissecting every conversation we’d ever had with Clive for hints at the cunning we’d clearly missed. We came up empty. Other than veiled remarks about Paris, which seemed self-pitying then and now look designed to inspire a servile pity in
us
, there was nothing. Clive’s poker face was expert, and we’d quite simply been had.

“I feel almost sorry for Joss,” I’d said, pulling back on my jeans. “And sorry
about
her. I feel responsible. She really was so angry at me, Cil. Maybe I could’ve done more.”

“That one was born under an irrational star,” Cilla had said as she zipped my Jenny Packham back into its hanging bag. “You can’t worry about her if she’s not worried about you. Let’s get you and Nick sorted instead.”

And thus, I am sneaking into Clarence House in the back of PPO Popeye’s car—or, more accurately, on the floor in the back, under a very familiar, itchy afghan.

“Like old times,” Cilla had laughed when Popeye threw open the Mercedes door to reveal my old nemesis. He’d grinned mischievously, his telltale piece of spinach clinging to his left upper bicuspid. Like old times indeed.

“I can’t believe I agreed to this. Clarence House is basically down the street. I should’ve just walked,” I say, lifting up the blanket. A wisp of cool air comes in and I inhale it hungrily.

Cilla, sitting in an actual seat as Nick used to do, giggles. “Can you imagine? All of these people lined up to see you and you just stroll past, merry as you please?”

“They wouldn’t even look twice,” I say. “Freddie used to pull that in Piccadilly Circus. I don’t know if I’d have the guts.”

“That boy always was reckless,” Cilla says.

A question, still unanswered, bubbles to the fore. “Cil, is this crazy? Can Nick really forgive and forget?” I ask. “Can anyone?”

The sound of Cilla breathing out through her nose tells me she’s considering this very seriously.

“I think he has already forgiven,” she says. “As for the other, I don’t know, Bex, but maybe it’s better if people don’t forget. Because history only repeats itself when they do.” She nudges me with her foot. “We’re here.”

I feel the car turn into the drive, and think how apt it is that we’re taking our next steps at a place built and christened for another important Duke of Clarence: the eventual William IV. As Popeye comes to a smooth halt, my phone buzzes. I give a Pavlovian shudder, but it’s just Lacey:
Good news. Almost there.

Nick is bouncing with anticipation as he opens the door. Then a look that’s of unutterable comfort to me washes over his face; a mixture of love and awe and nostalgia.

“That’s the same thing you were wearing the day we met,” he says, his voice thick.

I glance down. I am in
better
jeans, and a
cleaner
navy-and-white-striped tee, and the Botox in my armpits prevents me from ever getting that sweaty anymore. But thematically he is correct.

“Full circle,” I tell him. “You did just open the door for me.”

Nick leads us through Clarence House, and out to a pass-through into the courtyard of St. James’s Palace, the most senior of them all and the official seat of the monarchy. Portions of St. James’s were destroyed in a fire, but among the bits that still stand is the rectangular Chapel Royal. When Nick pushes open its doors, I see a ceiling fresco done by my old friend Hans Holbein—it feels right that he’s here somehow—and Gemma and Bea lighting tall white tapers at the altar. Nick and I face each other with the hugest smiles. Then he takes my hand and runs a finger over the Lyons Emerald.

“N and B,” he says. “A nice, normal wedding, just for them.”

“I think we need to let N and B out of the house more often. And not just for the Navy, or Paint Britain,” I say. “Our lives can’t always be Marj’s show to run, or Eleanor’s. I want to be what’s expected of me, but there has to be a way to do that while also making sure we don’t lose ourselves again. Don’t you think?”

Nick nods. “I can’t promise it will be easy, but I swear to you, Bex, I will always fight for you. For
us
. We’re a team.”

“We’re a team.”

I squeeze Nick’s hand. I am jittery with basically everything: nerves, anticipation, love, and a lurking fear that Richard will come bursting through the doors to put a stop to this.

The doors do, in fact, burst open, but it’s just PPO Twiggy and a small, balding man in a crooked clerical collar.

“Oof, sorry if I bumped into you there, Officer Thingy,” he slurs. “I’m a wee drunky, in point of fact. Usually off duty by now.” He hiccups. “Lovely to see you all. Which one of you is my cousin?”

Cilla rolls her eyes. “Right here, Cousin Bernard,” she says.

Bernard eyes the flame-haired Gemma. “You sure it’s not her?”

“Reasonably,” Cilla says, steering her cousin over to a nearby pew, and sitting him down with a pat on the shoulders. “Bernard, I know you’re half in the bag right now, but do you think you could toss together a quick wedding for my friends?”

Bernard squints over at us. “Crikey, they’re a bit tall.”

“Does that affect things, do you think?” Cilla asks patiently.

Bernard considers it. “Shouldn’t think so,” he says. “It’s mildly frowned upon to marry people when you’re as bladdered as I am, but…” He puts his fingers to his lips. “I won’t tell if you won’t.”

Freddie tries to stifle a laugh, the first sign of real lightness I’ve seen from him all day. “Is it too late to book Bernie for tomorrow?” he wonders. “The look on Gran’s face would be worth more than the entire Abbey.”

Next to him, Bea huffs, “I suppose I should not be shocked that there is not a more elegant solution to this muddle.”

“You wanted discreet,” Cilla says impatiently. “There’s nothing better than a man who might wake up tomorrow and think it was all a dream. Besides, this is the only vicar we’ve got. You want to keep faffing around or can we get on with it?”

Cousin Bernard has scooted toward Gemma. “Shall I take your confession?” he slurs, with a suggestive nudge.

“It’d make your ears bleed, Father,” Gemma says cheerfully. “And we need to get this sorted. We’re running out of time.”

“But Lacey isn’t here yet.” I feel a twinge of panic. Our relationship is still bent, but I can’t meet this milestone without her.

“Bex!” I hear, and there she is, like magic, breaking away from PPO Stout. We hug each other tightly, the most enthusiastic one I’ve gotten from Lacey in years, before I notice that she’s also trailed by my mother and Aunt Kitty (who has gone from jet-lagged to looking like she thinks she’s hallucinating). Both are wearing pajamas under their matching trenches, as if Lacey has dragged them out of bed at the last minute—which is probably exactly what she’s done.

“Hi, Nancy,” Nick says, coming down the aisle to meet her. “Sorry about the hour.”

Mom rubs her eyes. “Lacey said something about the wedding? Is it on?” she asks, yawning. “She’s a bit too keyed up to give good details.”

“It is happening right now, in fact,” Nick says, glancing over at me. “Once we tell Marj, tomorrow’s show might not go on, so…just in case.”

“Well,” Mom says after a beat. “That seems sensible.”

“I think I’ve missed something,” I hear Aunt Kitty whisper.

“Just a spot of blackmail,” Gaz tells her soothingly.

“Yeah, about that,” Lacey says. “Good news! I kind of did something.”

There is a collective groan. Even Bernard groans.

“That’s what got us here in the first place,” complains Bea.

“No, no, it’s good. I think,” Lacey says, flushing. “I saw Nick leave the party, and Clive wasn’t even that subtle about sneaking after him, and I just got so mad. I couldn’t believe he had the balls to show up acting like we’re still friends, and then
stalk
you, right there at Buckingham freaking Palace. So I followed him. When I got to Stout and Twiggy, they were more than happy to tell me where the three of you were.” She snickers. “Stout even slipped me a Taser.”

Stout suddenly seems very busy with a button on his coat.

“I was tempted to barge in and use it, too,” she says. “But then I got to the door and I could hear Clive talking. And I got a better idea.”

She pulls her phone out of her pocket, swipes at it, and pushes play. It’s a little quiet, and crackly, but it’s there: “
I did the digging, I manipulated the sources, I got the story, all by myself. The Royal Flush is going to be bigger than Xandra Deane. And you’re at
my
mercy now.
”

“I believe this is what they call being hoisted on your own petard,” Gaz says.

“How did you even get this?” Nick is clearly impressed, and frankly, so am I. Whatever I thought Lacey had been up to all evening, gathering evidence wasn’t on the list.

Lacey blushes. “It’s a little ridiculous,” she says, “and I didn’t even know if it would work. But I figured, why not borrow from the Douchebag Playbook that got us here? So I used the voice memo on my phone, and kind of jammed the end of it under the door. I spent that entire fight on my stomach in the hallway of Buckingham Palace, praying nobody would go to bed early.” She wrinkles her nose. “The Queen Mum did walk by, but she just poked me with her cane and told me a curtsy would have sufficed.”

“You’re lucky she didn’t crack you on the head with it,” Freddie noted.

“Anyway, I got almost everything,” Lacey finishes proudly. “I stopped just before the very end because I was afraid Clive would catch me when he left, and he would have stepped on me. Plus, I had to get to Pudge.”

“Pudge?” Bea asks sharply. “You’ve talked to her?”

“She was still at the party,” Lacey says. “I remembered you saying she hates this stuff, so I played it for her.” Lacey takes a breath. She is enjoying having the group in the palm of her hand. “She was fuming. Said she was going to go do unmentionable stuff to his chakras. And then she had me email it to her.”

Gaz takes the phone. “Let me hear this,” he says, walking off past Bernard, who is now fully snoozing, his mouth wide open.

“I mean, I don’t know if this fixes anything. His piece can still run,” Lacey says. “But at least we have counter-proof that he’s a disgusting scumbag, and it’s entirely possible Pudge beat him home and put his laptop in the dishwasher. I may have undone the effects of all that time she spent in the ashram, but…”

She trails off. There is a moment of silence in the candlelit Chapel Royal while everyone processes this. Nick and I exchange dumbfounded looks. Then I wrap my sister in my arms.

“Even if it doesn’t work,” I whisper, “you are my hero. Thank you, Lacey.”

Lacey squeezes me back. Over her shoulder, I see Nick watching us. He looks pensive, and I know he’s thinking about his brother, standing alone across the aisle.

Gaz wanders back over to us. “It might not stand up in court, but it’s jolly gripping,” he says. “If it ever needs to fall into Xandra Deane’s hands, a transcript wouldn’t make you two look tremendous, but it would make him look like a sociopath. Hearing it might be enough to shut him up, at least temporarily.”

“Well done, Lacey,” Freddie says admiringly. “And to think, I almost had to rope you into eloping with me to create a diversion.”

Lacey looks alarmed.

“Don’t worry, I never would’ve pimped you out,” I tell her.

“Thank God,” Lacey says. “I think one Porter is all that family can handle.”

We hug again, bringing in Mom and a bleary Aunt Kitty, as Freddie walks over to Nick and extends his hand.

“Thank you for letting me be here,” I hear him say. “I meant what I said tonight. I respect you, and I love you, and—”

Nick cuts him off by grabbing his proffered hand, which turns into one of those guy embraces where they first slap each other on the back, and then give in to it.

Cilla clears her throat. “So, are we actually going to have a wedding, or do you lot just plan to spend all night slobbering all over each other?” But her tone is kind.

She leans over and pokes Cousin Bernard, who jolts awake.

“Did I miss my cue?” He peers at Nick as he clambers to his feet. “Don’t I know you?”

“No,” Cilla says, steering him to the altar.

Watching her wrangle everyone into their places, I pull Lacey to the side.

“Walk me up the aisle. Please,” I say. “You should be up there with me tomorrow, too, but since it’s too late for that, maybe this is our second chance to do it right.” I pause. “Or…our first chance, technically. You get the gist.”

Lacey beams and blots at her eyes. “I do,” she says meaningfully, through a sniffle. Then she processes my jeans and striped shirt and bursts out laughing. “Only you would change out of a designer gown and into jeans for your own wedding.”

I look down at myself and laugh, too.

“I can be a duchess tomorrow,” I tell her. “Right now I just want to be
me.
”

Lacey and my mother and I loop arms, me in my jeans, my mother in her pajamas, my sister still in her ball gown—and, I like to think, my father watching closely from somewhere blissful, in his Cubs cap. Together we walk the comparatively compact thirty feet to my groom, still in half of his tux, the hair on his head agitated from a night of tugging at it. We look at each other with enormous smiles, tears rolling freely down our cheeks, the two of us doing all the sloppy emoting that we cannot tomorrow even if I am allowed up that aisle.

My mother takes Nick’s hand and places it on top of ours.

“We’re not giving her away, sweetie,” Mom tells him lovingly. “We’re bringing you in. Welcome to our family.”

Nick’s lip quivers. They release us and step back, sniffling, as Bernard clears his throat.