“Yes, best watch out for those animal cruelty people you fundraise for, Richard,” Freddie said, tapping a staccato on the glossy dining room table. “Once they find out you’ve been shoving cats in bags, they’ll be so put out.”
“Shush,” Richard snapped. “If you can’t be serious, you can be excused.”
“You are the one who pushed for this,” Marj reminded Nick.
“But surely there’s another way.” Nick turned to his brother. “What do you think?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Freddie said. “I’ve been shushed.”
“You’re being treated like a child because you are acting like one,” barked Richard.
“This is Her Majesty’s plan, and I’ll box everyone’s ears if you don’t put a plug in it. With all due respect,” Marj added grudgingly. Reflexively, I glanced over her head at a famously unfinished portrait of Eleanor, her gown disappearing into tentative pencil scratchings, and knew why Marj had chosen that seat: to remind us who was really in charge.
“Thank you,” Marj said when everyone fell silent. “Nicholas, you were objecting?”
“It’s far too transparent,” he argued. “And I don’t like dragging Bex into it. I’m supposed to be introducing her to Great Britain, not asking her to smile quietly while I say, ‘Surprise! We all lied, and Mum’s bonkers! But won’t this wedding be a treat?’”
I said nothing. I would’ve reassured Nick I could handle it, but that would be siding with Marj, and I refused to leave him on an island.
“Nick,” Marj said softly. “I should hope you’d know that I am on your team. And this does make sense. Taking advantage of the goodwill from your wedding is our best shot at coming out unscathed, but for that to work, the truth must come from you.”
“But why?” he wondered, softening slightly.
“Because they will hate me,” Richard said.
The room fell thickly silent. This sliver of his soul caught us all off guard.
“They will hate me, but they will forgive you,” he continued. “From me all they will hear is the lie, and none of the tragedy. But if it comes from you…” He pursed his lips. “They love you. They simply tolerate me.”
Nick swallowed hard, then walked to the window and banged the wooden sill with the heel of his hand. Across the park, the imperious fa?ade of Buckingham Palace glared back at us, as if to underscore that we could never hide from it or anything else.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll do it.”
But as Nick and I lay in that freezing Sandringham bedroom, enjoying our last moment of peace before the news cameras and the rest of the world intruded, I could see his innate desire for privacy had him still wrestling with ripping open this wound.
“You made the right choice,” I said, gently touching his cheek. “And you’re not saying anything that isn’t true. These are your feelings. That’s all they need to hear.”
On the mantel, one of Sandringham’s one hundred and eighty-three clocks started to chime six a.m.
“That’s our cue,” I said, kissing his arm and getting a mouthful of parka. “Merry Christmas.”
“Happy Christmas,” he said, kissing me back. “Aren’t Marj and Barnes teaching you anything?”
Barnes and Marj had, in fact, spent hours training me to avoid um and uh, and any déclassé colloquialisms or minor swear words, via an incredibly high-tech system of engaging me in conversation and then poking me if I screwed up. It was primitive, but it was working. So was the teeth-whitening, and the frequent visits from Kira to check on my eyebrows. (I’d gotten tipsy on an uncharacteristically pricey Pinot Noir during the breakup and done some regrettable tweezing, which Kira was trying to fix so gradually that nobody would remember they’d ever looked any other way.) Barnes and Marj constantly reminded me that the real work had not yet begun, but I’d been buffed and styled into enough of a patina of elegance that by the time we found ourselves back downstairs, it had done the work of the armor it kind of was. The real, vulnerable me felt shielded, even from the prospect of international scrutiny.
Nick and I found Agatha lurking outside the room where we’d be blowing open Britain’s best-kept secret, working a groove into the Persian rug, seemingly waiting for us.
“This is so extreme. Are you certain about this, Nicky?” Agatha wondered, as her greeting.
“Leave it out, Ags. You’re always so serious,” said Prince Edwin, bouncing down the stairs. He whacked me on the behind with a rolled-up magazine. “Pleased to meet you, Bexy.”
Agatha’s mouth pursed so tightly it looked like a raisin. “Well,” she said, curling her lip at Edwin. “Nicky, if you’re certain, about Emma…I suppose you’re very brave, dear.”
Kira gave my hunter-green V-neck dress a final tug, then clucked approvingly. Nick put his game face on, and I saw, like the tipping of an hourglass, the fatigued and nervous expression of the boy I loved shifting like sand into the friendly public reserve of the prince I was marrying. And then Barnes poked his head through the drawing room door and nodded to us.
“It’s time,” Nick said. “No going back now.”
Chapter Two
If anyone in the White Drawing Room was bitter about sacrificing Christmas to get this scoop, they were professional enough not to let it show. In order to create the illusion of an intimate fireside chat, the place was clogged with producers in headsets, sound guys toting fluffy boom mics, three very caffeinated cameramen, and more empty-handed yet apparently essential technical personnel than I could have imagined you’d need for a three-person interview. The holiday was over; the production had begun.
Nick and I got a quick handshake from our interviewer—Katie Kenneth, whose On Heir on Freddie’s birthday had been a raging success—before being hustled into our armchairs. Mine was lower than I expected, so I sat down with an awkward jolt, and then winced when someone turned on a light aimed right at my face. It was at least ten degrees warmer in front of them, and I could feel my nerves frothing again under their heat.
Nick leaned over to me. “Don’t forget to mention the syphilis,” he whispered.
I stifled a laugh as the cameraman counted us in and then pointed right at Katie, who slid on a smile and launched into a smooth, stately introduction before turning her warm gaze on us.
“So how did the fairy tale begin?” she asked with a twinkle. “When did you first meet?”
Somehow she was looking right at both of us. Nick and I simultaneously went to speak, then glanced each other, clamped our mouths shut, and blushed.
“Don’t fret. I spent the last month in Maui eating macadamia nuts and drinking mai tais, so I’ll be well off my game,” Katie said with a wink. Nick and I burst out laughing, and her well-timed self-deprecation cleared whatever fog had set in on us. “We’ll polish it up in the edit. Why don’t you take it, Rebecca?”