“Our Nicholas is more of a patron saint of our couch these days,” Lacey said.
Clive let out a surprised laugh. “Careful,” he warned. “You don’t know who’s listening.” Then he bit his lip. “Blast, Philippa’s spotted me. I’d best go put in my time so I can have a bit of fun the rest of the night.”
He set off across the room, squeezing against the tide of guests that the palace’s red-coated, white-gloved footmen were ushering gently up the famous double staircase. The dark wood banister was cool and substantial under my shaking hand as we curved up and around to the second floor, through a series of beguiling reception rooms, every couch supported by a carved lion armrest and every throw pillow punched into a perfect hourglass. Still, there are tiny things that make buffed and burnished Buckingham less intimidating—the odd candle askew in its holder, the light odor of menthol, cords still dangling inelegantly from the marble lamps to the wall. It’s almost comforting. Some logistics, even royalty can’t circumvent.
We were eventually deposited in the Picture Gallery, a dusty-rose rectangle of a room with an arched ceiling whose skylights, by day, toplight the original works by the Old Masters that hang side by side with portraits of royal ancestors.
“Bex, the fire extinguishers are gold,” my mother breathed.
The room swam with VIPs: foreign royalty in ornate baubles that distinguished themselves from the mere dignitaries, who in turn wore whatever medals and sashes they could to outdo us commoners. The motherly hand Mom laid on my arm on the Grand Staircase had gripped me tighter as we’d been led deeper and deeper into the palace, and I had five fat red finger marks on my bicep. I think she just had to squeeze me or squeal, and squealing was too unbecoming.
“You could live here one day, Rebecca,” Mom said, subtly leaning over to fuss with my pendant. “Can you imagine?”
“Please don’t,” I whispered to the statement as much as the fussing.
She just shot me a knowing look and reached out with a curious finger to touch the diamond in my lavaliere.
“That’s from Nick,” Lacey told her.
Mom arched a brow excitedly. “I wondered,” she said. “Oh, Bex, when was this?”
“Ages ago,” I said. “It doesn’t mean anything.”
It actually did, to me at least. As a surprise for Nick, I’d had the diamond put on a shorter fine-filigree chain so that I could wear it out in the open, for the first time, the way we’d wanted to be but couldn’t—like a show of solidarity, a sign that even apart we were still together. But I couldn’t think of a less ideal place to say that out loud.
Gaz to the rescue.
“Not too shabby, eh?” he said, coming up and clapping a hand on Dad’s shoulder—which required him to reach up higher than was strictly dignified. “Quite tolerable, in fact.”
“It’s no Chicago Yacht Club, but it’ll do,” Dad said, shaking Gaz’s hand. “Ever been to Chicago before?”
“I’ve never even been here before, much less to America,” Gaz said.
“You should see this place when it’s set up for a garden party,” Clive said, squeezing in between me and Lacey, and bringing with him that familiar air of enjoying his one-upmanship. “Stunning. There’s a giant vase out there that Napoleon commissioned to celebrate his assured victory at Waterloo.”
“What a stupid short git,” Gaz said. “And I say that as someone who has a soft spot for stupid short gits.”
“I like you,” Dad said to him. “You seem someone who’d know where they keep the beer at this thing.”
Gaz brightened. “A gentleman after my own heart,” he said. “The bar is over where Nick’s face is melting.” He nodded toward the ice sculptures that flanked either side of a bar set against the silk-covered east wall. “I would be delighted to take you there.”
“I’d better go, too,” Mom said. “I don’t know if I trust your father on his own here. He’s done none of the reading I assigned.”
Gaz escorted them away with gallantry. Clive swiftly scooped three flutes of Champagne off a passing server’s tray, and he and Lacey and I made our way as gracefully as we could over to where Cilla and Joss had carved out a spot near a particularly famous Rembrandt.
“Joss, that’s…what an interesting dress,” Lacey said, eyeballing the word dress scrawled up the skirt of Joss’s white gown.
“Isn’t it?” Joss said. “I’ve got this really posh investor on the hook if I can do a whole line of them. Says he likes my whimsy. I’m thinking of calling it Soj, because it’s like Joss backwards, kind of, or maybe The Queen’s Bits, to stick it to my dad for—”
“Soj,” we all said immediately, as Lacey choked on a slurp of Champagne.
“A clear winner,” Clive added quickly, thumping Lacey on the back. “Though they’re both…so special.”
“What’s the matter with Gaz?” Cilla asked, pointing across the room. Gaz was listening intently to my father, who was wearing what I recognized as his Pitch Face.
“Nothing that isn’t already filed under ‘Being Gaz,’” Clive said.
“He’s plainly wasting away,” Cilla said. “That girl has been starving him.”
Gaz had lost about thirty pounds under the influence of his girlfriend, Penelope Six-Names—who’d redeemed her Oxford faux pas one night by helping Freddie avoid a fight between his latest fling and a weeping ex called Mauritius he’d hooked up with in Aruba (or was it a girl named Aruba he’d slept with in Mauritius? Freddie should come with CliffsNotes).
“I think he looks really dapper,” Joss offered. “Very trim.”
“He looked perfectly good just as he was before,” Cilla said irritably. “He’s a solicitor. He needs brain food, not some fitness model who feeds him leaves and berries.”
I raised an eyebrow. “And where is Tony?” I asked.
Cilla’s confidence slid. “He decided not to come.”
“He wasn’t invited, you mean,” Joss said.
“He may have failed the security check,” Cilla admitted, not fully looking at any of us.
“Cilla,” I groaned. “You have got to break up with him.”
“But he’s dead sexy,” she protested.
“So is Gaz,” I said boldly, nudging her.
“And dead skilled,” Cilla added pointedly.
“So is Gaz,” Clive teased, taking a swig of his martini.
“Tony is so shady, Cil,” I said. “You know this. Where is it even going, anyway?”
“From the pot to the kettle,” Joss said blithely.
Lacey set her jaw. “That’s below the belt tonight.”
“Oh, come on, we’ve all said Nick should man up and go public,” Joss said.
“We have?” I asked. “When were we talking about it?”
Joss rolled her eyes. “All the time,” she said.
“Leave it out, Joss,” Cilla said.
“If Cilla is willing to be seen in public with Tricky Tony, then what’s Nick’s problem?”