American Royals (20 page)

“I see that your sister made it back in time.”

“Yeah,” Samantha said dismissively. She held up her now-empty glass and gave it a shake, a provocative gleam in her eyes. “Care to join me?”

Daphne’s eyes flicked toward the dance floor, where hordes of people were gathered, awaiting the countdown to midnight. Several of the party planner’s interns had begun to circulate glowing necklaces and noisemakers.

Why
shouldn’t
she have a drink, for once?

For the first time in her life, Daphne was drunk in public.

After she and Samantha took that first round of shots, Daphne had insisted on switching to champagne, which at least
looked
classy. But she was on her third—or was it fourth?—glass, and at that altitude, on an empty stomach, it was really going to her head.

She and Samantha were on the dance floor now, jumping and giggling as if they’d always been the best of friends. If Daphne hadn’t been so drunk she might have smiled at the irony of it. For years she’d driven herself to distraction, brainstorming ways to make Jefferson’s twin sister like her—when the entire time, all she’d needed to do was be Samantha’s drinking buddy.

Daphne twirled in a circle, her stack of glowing necklaces bouncing as she moved. Near the DJ booth she saw Sir Sanjay Murthy with his two teenage sons, who’d attended Forsythe Academy with Jefferson. They both winked at her encouragingly. Daphne blew them a breezy kiss in reply.

She’d never known how utterly liberating it was, to drink until the edges of reality felt liquid and blurred. To do something delightfully illicit, just to prove that none of it mattered. Was this how Samantha felt all the time? If so, small wonder she’d turned out the way she had.

A pair of hands closed around her waist, and Daphne didn’t even swat them away, just leaned back provocatively.

“Come on, Daphne. You’re better than this,” Ethan whispered into her ear. His breath was somehow warm and cool at once, sending uncanny shivers down her spine.

“I’m doing just fine, thank you,” she informed him.

When Ethan tried to spin her around to face him, Daphne’s heel slipped, and she lost her balance.

A few people glanced over, but Ethan managed to catch her before she crashed to the dance floor. He expertly folded her into a spin, making it seem like the whole thing had just been an overeager dance move. The onlookers turned away, rapidly losing interest.

“Five minutes till midnight!” proclaimed the DJ, who proceeded to amp up the volume even higher.

Ethan’s arms were still closed tight around her elbows. “I think it’s time we got you home.”

For once, Daphne let her eyes drag unabashedly and appreciatively over Ethan: the gleaming intelligence of his eyes, the soft curve of his mouth. He was wearing a tailored blazer that emphasized the broad lines of his shoulders. Daphne looped her arms easily around them, trying to find her balance.

“I have to at least stay until midnight,” she informed him, and lowered her voice to a whisper. “You can kiss me at the countdown, if you want.” Maybe it would break through the wall of Jefferson’s indifference, make him jealous.

Or maybe part of her wanted to kiss Ethan again.

For the second time that night she’d said the wrong thing. Ethan recoiled at her words, anger—or perhaps hurt—flashing over his features. “You’re being unfair, Daphne,” he said quietly. “You know this isn’t how I want you. Not like this.”

Before she could argue, he’d grabbed her wrist and carved a path through the crowded dance floor. Daphne cast a glance back at Samantha, who hardly seemed to have noticed her departure, before stumbling after him. They turned a corner, past a bar where more flutes of champagne were lined up. She was acutely aware of how narrow the hallway was, how close she was to the heat of Ethan’s body.

“Where are you taking me?”

“You don’t want to leave through the front door. There are way too many people out there with phones, trust me.”

“I don’t trust anyone,” Daphne was drunk enough to admit. It was true. The only people she’d ever trusted were her parents, and even them she only trusted halfway.

“I know,” Ethan said quietly.

Her protests died off as she passed a mirror that hung on one wall. Where her reflection should have been, a stranger’s face floated before her: a hollow face with shadowed eyes and heavy, smudged makeup. Her hair had lost all its curl, to fall damp and listless around her shoulders.

“I can’t go out there,” she said softly, almost to herself. If she did, this image would be all over the tabloids tomorrow morning.

“It’s okay; I have a taxi for you out back.”

“A taxi?” Taxi drivers weren’t always trustworthy, especially picking people up from a party like this one.

“You’re paying in cash, don’t worry.” Ethan handed her a plastic Mardi Gras–style mask, lined with writing that said HAPPY NEW YEAR! “You can wear this, if you’re feeling extra paranoid.”

Daphne pulled the mask over her face, then turned to Ethan. “I don’t know why you’re being so nice, but thank you,” she said, summoning as much dignity as she could.

“Maybe I know how it feels, living through a broken heart,” he said gruffly.

Daphne’s breath caught. She couldn’t understand Ethan’s expression. He was looking at her as if she had no secrets from him, as if he could see through the gold plastic of her mask to the second mask beneath—her perfect face—and then even farther, beneath her skin and her muscles to the sticky dark ambition beneath. None of it bothered him.

Ethan nodded once before heading back toward the party.

As he walked away, Daphne’s eyes lingered on the back of his neck, between his hairline and the collar of his shirt. She knew she shouldn’t be looking at Ethan like that. But it didn’t matter anymore, now that she and Jefferson were over.

Except … did it have to be over? Was she really ready to admit defeat?

Daphne closed her eyes, leaning back against the wall as her mind raced through her various options. She smiled in a sudden flash of inspiration.

This game between her and Nina wasn’t finished, not while Daphne still had one last move to play.

The following week, Beatrice woke to Connor stirring alongside her. Early-morning light bled through the curtains of her bedroom, casting a pearly glow over the ivory wallpaper, pale blue carpet, frothy lace pillows. When she’d first moved here from the nursery, Beatrice used to imagine that she was falling asleep inside a cloud.

“Don’t go,” she pleaded, and instinctively tugged him back down so that she lay curled against him. She burrowed deeper into her sheets, which were stitched in the corner with the royal crest.

“Five more minutes,” Connor breathed into her hair. He didn’t bother reminding her how dangerous this was. They both knew the risks.

They had been sneaking around ever since that night at the cabin in Montrose. Beatrice wished that snowstorm had raged on for weeks, wished that she and Connor were still there now, tucked away from the rest of the world. But the roads had reopened the next afternoon, leaving her no choice but to head on to Telluride, to her family’s annual New Year’s party—and to Teddy.

As she’d walked into that party, Beatrice had brushed her fingers against Connor’s: a swift, subtle reminder that she was his. Connor’s only response was a slight tightening of his jaw when Teddy appeared. And the territorial glances he kept sending her all night from the edge of the room.

Beatrice’s life now felt cleaved into two parts. There was her public self, who went to events with Teddy, who mechanically carried out her duties as heir to the throne.

And then there were her stolen moments with Connor.

He snuck into her room each night, when security switched to the late shift, and left again at dawn. They weren’t doing
everything,
but still, Beatrice had barely slept all week. She offered, once, to come by his room instead, but Connor’s refusal was adamant. If someone caught Connor outside her rooms at odd hours, they could at least give a plausible explanation. There was no reason for the Princess Royal to be up on the third-floor staff hallway.

Each morning Connor lingered a minute or two longer, both of them stretching out the night as if they couldn’t bear for it to end.

They talked for hours, about everything in the world except this—the sheer madness of what they were doing. It was as if they both thought that they could keep getting away with it, as long as they never spoke of it aloud.

Beatrice knew that they
should
talk about it. If she were braver, she would turn to Connor and ask him that very question: “What are we doing?” But then, she already knew the answer.

They were being reckless and foolish; they were tempting fate; they were breaking the rules; they were falling in love.

Or they had fallen in love a long time ago, and only now had the chance to act on it.

Lately, Beatrice had started to let another thought in, one so radical that she hadn’t even voiced it aloud.

What if there was a way that they
could
be together?

Sure, no commoner had ever married into the royal family. But no woman had ever sat on the throne before, either. Times were changing. Maybe a future with Connor wasn’t as utterly impossible as she thought.

Beatrice propped herself on one elbow, to gaze down at Connor’s outstretched form. She traced her fingers lightly along his jaw, rough with stubble, relishing the shiver that her touch evoked.

She let her hand skim still lower; over his sculpted shoulders, along the corded strength of his forearms. Connor swallowed. She felt his pulse jumping over his skin, as erratic and feverish as her own.

Finally her fingertips came to rest over his heart, above the sweeping lines of his tattoo. She loved that she could see it at last.

“Will you tell me the story behind this?”

It was an eagle, drawn over the broad planes of Connor’s chest in stark black ink. Its massive wings were unfurled, stretching from the top of his ribs up to the base of his throat. There was a boldness to the lines that evoked movement and a firm eternal strength.

“It’s the original symbol of the Revere Guard, from back when the Guard was just a few men guarding King Edward I. Well, not the
real
symbol,” Connor amended. “None of the drawings of that one have survived. This is just a modern sketch, based on descriptions from old journals. I got it after our first tour of service—after I lost one of my fellow Guards,” he added, his eyes shadowed.

Beatrice held her palm against the steady beating of Connor’s heart. “Who drew it for you?”

“I did it.”

He looked away, self-conscious, but Beatrice kept her eyes on his. “It’s magnificent. I had no idea you were an artist.”

“I’m not. My mom is the artist,” Connor argued. “I’m just a guy with a pen and ink.”

“Hmm,” Beatrice murmured. “As much as I’d like to debate your artistic talent, I can think of better ways to spend our time. If I only get a few more minutes, I’m going to make them count.” She leaned forward to steal a quick kiss.

When she pulled back, she was startled by her Guard’s expression. “I’m sorry, Bee. I wish it didn’t have to be this way. I’m sure no other boy ever made you skulk around like this.”

“First of all, I can’t believe you said
skulk,
” Beatrice declared, which elicited a ghost of a smile. “And secondly, none of those guys mattered. Prince Nikolaos and I had the most miserable dates of all time.”

She was purposefully avoiding the mention of Teddy, but pushed her guilt aside.

“What about you? Who have you …” She trailed off before she could finish the sentence.

“No one, really,” Connor replied. “The Revere Guard doesn’t leave time for much else. Like you, I haven’t had the opportunity.”

“But the night of the Queen’s Ball, you told me you’d been in love before.”
I’m happy for you,
she had said coldly, to which he’d replied,
You shouldn’t be.

It seemed to take Connor a moment to remember the conversation. When he did, his blue-gray eyes glowed from within. “Bee. I was talking about you.”

The world slowed, then stopped.

Before Connor could react, Beatrice had flipped herself up so that she was sitting on top of him, straddling his torso. “I love you, too,” she told him, laughing a little at her dizzying, delirious joy. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

It felt to Beatrice that she was the first person in history to say those words—that they had just been empty syllables before, had never meant anything until she spoke them now, to Connor.

She said it again and again, kissing him each time: on his nose, his temple, the corner of his mouth. A kiss for all the nights they had spent apart before they discovered each other. A kiss for everything Connor had suffered, for the lines of ink that swooped over his skin. A kiss for the future that Beatrice hardly dared hope for.

She felt Connor smile, even as a low growl echoed in his chest. He reached to pull her closer, running a hand down her back, the other tangled in her hair—

The intercom on Beatrice’s bedside table emitted an angry buzz.

She heaved a sigh and slid off the bed, pressing the intercom’s bright green button. “Yes?”

“Your Royal Highness, your father has requested to see you in his study.” It was Robert.

“Now?” Beatrice glanced over her bare shoulder at Connor, but he was already out of bed, fastening the buttons down the front of his shirt. “Are we going for a run?”

“No,” Robert replied. “Just come as soon as you’re ready.”

“I’ll be there in ten,” Beatrice conceded. She heard the whisper of the front door sliding shut, and realized that Connor had already slipped out.

When she emerged from her sitting room wearing jeans and a deep aubergine sweater, he was standing at attention in the hallway, as if he’d just arrived for the morning. “Oh—Connor,” she made a show of saying. “Walk me to my dad’s office?”

He nodded and fell into step alongside her. “I seem to recognize that uniform,” Beatrice added nonchalantly. “Any chance it’s the one you had on yesterday?”

“I’m going to make you pay for that,” Connor said. His gaze was still fixed straight ahead, but his mouth curled in a smile.

“I look forward to it,” Beatrice replied, and was gratified by the way Connor almost stumbled.

When they reached the entrance to His Majesty’s study, Connor stepped aside to stand opposite her dad’s Guard. Beatrice knocked at the double doors, waiting for her father’s muffled
come in
before she pushed them open.

This had always been her favorite room in the palace, all warmth and dark wood. A pair of massive bookcases held her dad’s private library, mostly leather-bound volumes of history and law, though tucked away here and there was a paperback thriller. On the wall gleamed a biosecurity-enabled alarm panel.

Before the window sat the king’s desk, made of heavy oak and topped with leather. It was scattered with papers and official requests. A ceremonial gold-plated fountain pen—with which the king signed all official laws, treaties, and correspondence—sat propped on its stand.

Her dad was on the leather couch near the fireplace, an old photo album in his lap. Beatrice sat down next to him, uncharacteristically stilled by something in his manner.

“Sorry for asking you here so early. I couldn’t sleep,” the king confessed. “I need to talk to you about something, and it can’t wait any longer.”

“Okay,” Beatrice said hesitantly.

He passed her the photo album. “This was the happiest day of my life, you know. Except for the day I married your mother.”

He had paused on the photos from St. Stephen’s Hospital, taken the day she was born: close-ups of Beatrice wrapped in a white wool blanket, her tiny fists closed, and then the posed family photos on the steps outside.

“These are great pictures.” It never failed to amaze Beatrice how gorgeous her mom had looked right after giving birth. She’d made a point of wearing her old pre-pregnancy jeans home from the hospital, just because she could.

“Your mother and I were utterly infatuated,” the king went on, his gaze softening. “You were this perfect creature who belonged to us, and yet it was clear that you belonged to everyone else as well. There were such scenes outside the hospital that day, Beatrice. Even then, America adored you.”

Beatrice loved it when he smiled like this. When he stopped being the king, and went back to being her dad.

She continued to flip through the pages, past school pictures and photos from the garden, to a state dinner where Beatrice had fallen asleep in her mother’s lap. “What made you decide to look through these?”

“Just … reminiscing,” her dad said vaguely. “By the way, I have something for you.”

He shuffled over to the desk, returning with a tattered clothbound book. The pages were crinkly and yellow, with that distinct smell of aged paper. She opened it to the first page, curious.

The American Constitution,
it read, in bold block letters.
Article I: The Crown.

Someone had underlined the opening paragraph:
The King is the Head of State, the symbol of its Unity, Glory, and Permanence. Upon ascending the throne of this Realm, the King is charged by God to administer this Nation’s government according to its laws, and to protect the rights of its People. The King assumes the highest representation of the American State in International Relations ….

The King, the King,
it said over and over. The Founding Fathers had never imagined that a
woman
might run their nation.

Beatrice made a mental note to revise the Constitution so that it said
the Sovereign
instead.

“This was your grandfather’s old copy, and then mine. You’ll find some of our annotations in the margins. I hope you’ll seek guidance from it,” her dad told her in a strange tone. “Being the monarch is a solitary job, Beatrice. When you have a question someday, after I’m gone, promise me that you’ll look in here for the answer.”

He wasn’t usually this morbid. But then, that was always the weirdest part of being heir to the throne: the fact that she spent her entire life training for a job she would only assume once her father died.

“Luckily that won’t be for a long time,” Beatrice said firmly.

The king stared down at the rings on his clasped hands. “I’m not sure that’s the case.”

Her heart skipped a beat. “What do you mean?”

When her father looked up at her, every line of his face was etched with sorrow. “Beatrice, I’ve been diagnosed with stage-four lung cancer.”

The air seemed to abruptly vacuum from the room. Everything was silent, as if the grandfather clock in the corner had halted in time, as if even the wind outside had stilled at her father’s words.

No.
It couldn’t be possible,
no, no, no
—

“No!”
Beatrice didn’t remember standing, but somehow she was on her feet. “Who’s your doctor? I want to come with you, review your treatment plan,” she said frantically, thinking aloud. “You can
beat
this, Dad, I’m certain you can; you’re the strongest person I know.”

“Beatrice.” Her father’s voice broke. “This is stage four. There is no treatment plan.”

It took a moment for the implication of his words to sink in.