Beatrice didn’t dare glance back at Connor as she headed up the curved staircase of His Majesty’s Theater. The rest of her family, along with all their security, walked alongside her. Even Jeff was here, which should have surprised Beatrice, given that he usually went to great lengths to avoid the theater. But she was too preoccupied with her own anxiety to notice.
After the Queen’s Ball—after she’d crossed an uncrossable line and
kissed
him—she’d been half afraid that Connor might hand in his resignation. Yet he had just shown up to work the next morning as usual.
They’d barely spoken all week, their usual easy conversation and good-natured teasing replaced by a heavy silence. The few times Beatrice ventured a question, Connor’s answers were clipped and distant. He had clearly resolved to put the entire mess behind him and act like it had never happened.
Which was precisely what she should be doing.
“Beatrice, you sit here,” the queen commanded, as they swept through the curtain that led to the royal box.
Adelaide gestured to the seat that was front and center. It was the most exposed to the other theatergoers: in the orchestra below, on the balcony above, even the other occupants of the private boxes, which wound around the mezzanine in a gilded semicircle. Beatrice recognized all the curious faces on those balconies, from the Nigerian trade envoy to the elderly Baroness Västerbotten, who was openly staring at the royal family through her opera lorgnettes.
Beatrice took the seat her mother had indicated. She clasped one hand over the other in her lap, then reversed them. Strains of music floated from the orchestra, conversations overlapping as people found their way to their seats.
“Your Royal Highness,” said a voice at her shoulder, and Beatrice glanced up into the dancing blue eyes of Teddy Eaton.
She rose to her feet in a fluid motion, only to freeze with indecision. How was she supposed to welcome Teddy? A handshake felt too impersonal, given that this was a
date,
but a hug seemed a bit familiar.
As if sensing her panic, Teddy reached for her hand and lifted it to his lips in an old-fashioned, courtly gesture. His kiss just barely brushed the surface of her skin.
Beatrice swallowed. It took every last shred of her self-control not to turn around and glance at Connor. “Thank you for coming,” she declared, her words hollow and formal even to her own ears.
The moment they took their seats next to each other, a dull roar of interest swept through the theater. People craned their necks to catch a glimpse of them, held up their phones to snap a quick photo. Even the occupants of the other boxes didn’t bother to hide their stares.
Beatrice ground her back teeth, wishing she hadn’t suggested something so high-profile and public.
Of course
people were going to gossip about this. Beatrice never went on dates, and now she was at the season’s most anticipated show with the handsome, eminently eligible Theodore Eaton?
Teddy turned to her, ignoring the flurry of excitement at his arrival. “So, are you excited about the show? They’re saying it’s completely revolutionary.”
Beatrice saw her sister try to slip toward the back, but the queen put her hands on Samantha’s shoulders and steered her into the seat on Teddy’s left. She winced at the memory of how she’d snapped at Sam the other morning. She hadn’t meant to; she’d just been so on edge about what had happened the night before with Connor, and Sam’s accusations had caught her off guard.
“I’m looking forward to it,” she told Teddy, and glanced in her sister’s direction. Maybe she could extend an olive branch by drawing her into the conversation. “Though Samantha is the one who’s really into musicals.”
“Really?” Teddy asked, glancing at Samantha.
“Beatrice is the official patron of the arts, not me,” Sam said sullenly. She turned to her friend Nina, in the chair on her other side.
Beatrice blinked at her sister’s rudeness. “That position is just a formality,” she hurried to explain. “I’ve never had any musical ability.”
Teddy’s eyes flicked briefly to Samantha, and a shadow of something darted over his expression. Then he gave Beatrice a smile. “You’re not a singer?”
“I’m so tragically off-key that I got cut from fourth-grade choir.”
But there was more to it. The truth was, Beatrice had always lacked the patience for theater, for the same reason she rarely read novels: she couldn’t relate to the characters. She remembered how frustrated she’d been as a child, when she saw a play about a princess on a quest. The whole thing had felt so deceitful to her—this story about a princess who drove the action, who got to make
choices.
Because the life of a princess was decided for her, long before she was even born.
Writers got to pick the endings of their novels, but Beatrice wasn’t living a story. She was living history, and history went on forever.
She flipped open the Playbill and saw that the opening number would be performed by Melinda Lacy, in the role of Emily.
Of course, Beatrice realized: the title alone should have given it away. This was the story of Lady Emily Washington, the Pretender—or as some people persisted in calling her, Queen Emily.
The only child of King Edward I, Emily remained one of the most controversial, romantic, and tragic figures in American history. Her parents had done their best to arrange a marriage for her. But despite being pursued by half the world’s kings—supposedly the kings of Greece and Spain once fought a duel over her—Emily refused to ever marry. Upon her father’s death in 1855, twenty-five-year-old Emily attempted to establish her claim to the throne, as a woman, alone.
And then, after just a single day of being the so-called queen, Emily vanished from history.
Scholars still debated what had happened to her. The prevailing theory was that her uncle John had her killed so that he could become king. But rumors persisted, each wilder and more outlandish than the next—that Emily fell in love with a stable boy and ran away to live in anonymity; that she became a lady pirate and spied for the British; that she escaped to Paris, assumed the name Angelique d’Esclans, and married the French dauphin, which therefore meant that the true heirs to the American throne were actually the kings of France.
“I didn’t realize this was about Emily,” Beatrice said softly. “I wonder which ending the show will give her.” She scanned the list of musical numbers in search of a clue.
“I like to think that she escaped to safety. Canada, maybe, or the Caribbean.” Teddy leaned an elbow on the armrest between them.
“Unfortunately,
like to think
isn’t the same as
believe,
” Beatrice argued. “The evidence suggests that her uncle murdered her.”
“That very same uncle is your ancestor,” Teddy reminded her. He had a point. “And until you, Emily was the only woman who could ever claim to have been America’s queen. Don’t you want her story to have a happy ending, even in fiction?”
What use was fiction when confronted with cold hard facts? “I guess so,” Beatrice said noncommittally.
She felt relieved when the houselights dimmed and the curtain lifted, shifting Teddy’s attention, and that of most people in the theater, away from Beatrice at last.
An actor in a braided red jacket and paste crown stepped onstage, accompanied by an actress in a glittering rhinestone tiara: most likely the pair playing King John and doomed Queen Emily. Their eyes fixed on the royal box directly across from them, they both sank into a deep reverence.
It was a tradition dating back to the founding of this theater two hundred years ago: any actors portraying royalty must bow and curtsy to the
real
royalty before the show could begin.
The lights softened, gleaming on the reflective sheen of Emily’s costume. The rest of the world dissolved into oblivion as she began to sing.
And Beatrice’s self-control began to slip.
She’d never heard music this powerful and emotional and poignant. It reached deep into her core, grabbed at the feelings that were tangled there in hot angry knots and unspooled them like a skein of thread. She leaned forward, rapt, her hands clutching tightly at the program. She felt so brittle and transparent that she might snap in two.
Emily sang of nation-building, of legacy and sacrifice. She sang of love gained and lost. And as the score swept toward the end of the first act—as Emily launched into a heart-wrenching ballad about how she would need to give up the person she loved, for the good of her country—Beatrice realized that she was trembling.
She stumbled to her feet and fled, ignoring the startled glances of her family and Teddy. The hallway was mercifully empty, save the flock of her family’s security stationed outside the door to their box.
She didn’t let their murmured protests slow her down, didn’t stop even when her heels almost tripped over the red carpet. She just charged frantically down the hallway, not sure where she was going, knowing only that she couldn’t bear to be still.
“Are you all right?” Connor fell into step alongside her. “Did that duke say something to upset you? Because if so, I promise I’ll—”
“It’s okay. I just got emotional, watching the show.” She tried to dab at her eyes without Connor seeing, but he reached into his jacket to give her a handkerchief.
“A musical made you cry,” he repeated, with evident disbelief.
Beatrice gave a strangled laugh. “I know it doesn’t sound like me.” But then, she hadn’t really been herself since the Queen’s Ball.
She drew to a halt partway down the mezzanine’s hallway. Snatches of music drifted through the closed doors to the boxes. The light of the ornate wall sconces fell on Connor’s uniform, on his hair, on the molten steel of his eyes. Those eyes were now locked meaningfully on Beatrice’s.
So many things lay unspoken between them, and Beatrice didn’t know how to begin to say them.
“Connor,” she whispered. His name on her lips was a plea, a prayer.
He ventured a step closer, so close that Beatrice could see each individual freckle dusted over his nose. Her face tilted upward—
“Your Royal Highness! Are you okay?”
At the sound of Teddy’s voice, Connor took a quick step back. Beatrice had to bite her lip to keep from reaching for him again.
Quieting the expression on her face, she turned around to where Teddy was striding briskly down the hall in their direction. “I’m fine,” she said evenly. “I just needed a minute, after that song.”
“And here I thought you weren’t really into musicals,” Teddy said gently. His eyes drifted to a velvet-covered settee against the wall. “Do you want to wait a minute before we head back?”
Beatrice couldn’t help looking over at Connor, who gave an imperceptible shrug. “Whatever you want, Your Royal Highness.”
The way he said her title was utterly cold. As if he needed to remind himself, remind
both
of them, of her rank.
Beatrice sank wordlessly onto the cushions, trying not to glance over to where he stood: a few meters away, but most likely within earshot. What was he
thinking
? Was his blood sparking and spinning with as much wild abandon as hers?
Teddy came to sit next to her. Slowly, the panic in Beatrice’s veins began to subside. Neither of them rushed to speak, yet the silence didn’t feel tense or awkward, just … simple. Companionable, even. Perhaps because, alone among all the courtiers she’d met, Teddy had made no demands of her.
Everyone else wanted something. They wanted money or a title or a position in government; they wanted their names next to hers in the papers. Except Teddy. He hadn’t asked anything of her, except perhaps for honesty.
Which she wasn’t entirely sure she could give.
“When I was little, my parents used to bring me and my siblings to the opening night of every show.” Beatrice stared down at her lap, but she could feel Teddy’s gaze on her. “Sam always begged my parents to let us leave at intermission.”
“Why?”
“She hated unhappy endings. Or really, she hated
all
endings. I think Sam preferred to imagine her own ending, rather than stay and watch everything unravel into a tragedy.” Beatrice glanced over at Teddy. “Now I know how she felt.”
“We don’t have to stay,” he offered, and Beatrice knew he understood that this was about more than the musical.
“I’m sorry for running out like that, and for the way everyone was staring at us. I haven’t been on a lot of dates before,” she fumbled to say, “but I do know that they aren’t supposed to go like this.”
“Our first date was never going to be normal.”
Beatrice managed an uncertain smile. “Probably not, but we still could have gone somewhere without a literal audience.”
Teddy chuckled at that, then quieted.
“Beatrice. I want you to know that I …” He spoke slowly, as if choosing his words with care. “Respect you,” he decided at last.
That didn’t sound particularly romantic, but Beatrice realized that Teddy wasn’t striving for romance. He was just telling her the truth.
“Thank you,” she said cautiously.
“Before we met, I wasn’t sure what to expect of you. I didn’t realize how thoughtful, and smart, and dedicated you are. You’re going to be an amazing first queen. If this was a world where people could, I don’t know,
vote
for their monarch, I know that America would still pick you.
I
would pick you.”