Majesty

by Katharine McGee

  It was time she dreamed something for herself. What would she, Beatrice, do if she had the freedom to choose? If she stopped listening to people like Robert Standish and actually did what she wanted, for once?

  “I’d go on a backpacking trip, all over the world.”

  Lewis leaned his elbows onto his knees with a puzzled frown. “But haven’t you been all over the world?”

  “Sure, inside ballrooms and stuffy conference rooms! I’ve never traveled like a normal person.” Beatrice’s words were faster now, more urgent. “I want to learn to skydive. And scuba dive. And make a dry-ice bomb!”

  The boys laughed at her declaration. “Let me get this straight,” Teddy summarized. “You want to throw yourself out of a moving plane, and learn how to make holes in your wall.”

  Beatrice nodded vigorously. “Yes, exactly! That all sounds fun.”

  “You’re so much cooler than the magazines make you sound,” Livingston remarked, then immediately winced. But Beatrice knew what he’d meant.

  Teddy nodded at his brother’s words. “I know. Isn’t she?”

  * * *

  “You okay?” Teddy started down the stairs next to Beatrice. It was late; Lewis and Livingston had gone back to the main house a few hours ago, leaving the two of them alone.

  “I’m fantastic,” Beatrice declared—but at the bottom of the staircase, she halted. A low, whimpering sound came from across the barn, tugging at her heartstrings. Beatrice set out in search of it.

  “Bee?” Teddy asked, trotting to keep up.

  At the end of a hallway, a yellow Labrador lay surrounded by a squirming, playful pile of puppies. They tumbled over one another in blithe confusion.

  Beatrice sank to her knees on the dusty ground, and one of the puppies started toward her. She sighed contentedly as it crawled onto her lap.

  “You didn’t tell me that your family has dogs.” Her new friend set its paws on her shoulders and began licking her face, little exploratory kisses as if to figure out who she was. Beatrice couldn’t help it; she laughed. The kind of easy laugh that floats through your body like magic.

  Her chest almost hurt from it, as if she’d been compressing that laugh inside her since before her father died.

  Teddy knelt down next to her. “I didn’t realize that we still did. I mean, I knew Sadie had her puppies a couple months ago, but I thought we’d have given them away by now.”

  “Is Sadie your dog?”

  “She’s everyone’s dog. She pretty much has the run of this place.”

  “I’m in love.” Beatrice turned a pleading face to Teddy. “Can we keep him?”

  She’d said we, not I. But she meant it. Beatrice wanted to take care of this puppy with Teddy, together.

  “Beatrice…”

  “We can’t leave Franklin here!”

  Teddy sighed, but she saw that he was smiling, and felt something catch within her at the sight of that smile. “You’ve already named him,” he observed.

  “A patriotic American name. And a smart name.” She tightened her arms around Franklin. “Please?”

  “All right.” Teddy held out a hand to help her to her feet.

  Beatrice had expected him to put up more of a fight. “Really?”

  “It’s not easy for me to tell you no.”

  Ignoring his hand, Beatrice rose to her feet, still holding Franklin tight to her chest. “Because I’m the queen.”

  “No. Because when you look at me like that, I can’t say no to you. I don’t want to.”

  “Oh” was all she managed.

  As they walked back toward the house, Teddy looped an arm around her waist to keep her from stumbling. The vodka was really hitting her, wasn’t it? She remembered something the Russian ambassador had once told her—that being drunk on vodka was the only true drunk. That while beer and wine muffled and muted your emotions, vodka revealed them.

  Perhaps his words were true. As she and Teddy walked back across the moon-drenched grass, their shadows stretching before them, Beatrice no longer felt confused.

  “Shhh,” Teddy whispered as they slipped through the back door.

  “You shhh!” she shot back. “You’re the one making all the noise!”

  He took Franklin from her arms. “Beatrice, you’ve had a lot to drink.”

  “Don’t worry,” she said emphatically. “I assure you, I always behave in a matter befitting the Crown.”

  Teddy snorted back a laugh and led her up the stairs. Beatrice found herself so unexpectedly grateful for him. She’d never done this before, never trusted anyone enough to just…keep drinking. She’d always been so terrified of doing or saying the wrong thing.

  When they reached her room, Teddy grabbed a box from the closet and set Franklin down in it. “We’ll get a real crate in the morning.”

  Beatrice kept trying to undo the buttons of her sweater, but her fingers no longer seemed to work properly. “Can you help with this?”

  “Yeah,” Teddy said hoarsely. “Sure.”

  She stood there quietly, swaying a little on her feet. Teddy’s hands fumbled for a moment, almost as if he was nervous, but then he unbuttoned the sweater, from her throat all the way down to the hem, and helped slide it off her shoulders. Underneath she was wearing nothing but a whisper-thin tank top.

  “Let’s get you into bed.” Teddy pulled back the covers for her. Beatrice obediently sat down—but before he could walk away, she closed a hand over his arm.

  “Don’t go. I can’t sleep.”

  “After all that vodka, I bet you will,” he said lightly.

  “Please. Ever since my dad died, I’ve had these nightmares.” Her throat felt raw; she swallowed. “Please just stay, for a little while.”

  He nodded and walked around to sit on the opposite side of the bed, like some kind of sentinel.

  “You can lie down, you know.”

  He hesitated. “Just until you fall asleep,” he compromised, and stretched out on his back.

  Moonlight edged around the brocaded drapes over the window. Beatrice could barely see the planes of Teddy’s face. There had always been so much distance between them, so much ceremony and formality. She had grown used to looking at him without actually seeing him.

  But now, Beatrice let her eyes travel unabashedly over him.

  The only word for Teddy’s body was…well, beautiful. His bones were long and gracefully drawn, his muscles flowing over them in taut smooth lines. He was still wearing his long-sleeved shirt, though its hem rode up a little at his stomach, revealing the carved outline of his abs.

  Beatrice propped herself on one elbow, watching the rise and fall of his chest, the beat of his pulse, as rapid as her own.

  Sensing her gaze, Teddy turned on the mattress to face her. In the dim light his eyes seemed to have turned a deeper shade of blue, almost cobalt. She heard his breath catch, and the sound made Beatrice feel curiously brave.

  She shifted forward and pressed her lips to his.

  Perhaps out of surprise, his mouth opened beneath hers, letting her tongue brush up against his.

  She and Teddy had kissed plenty of times: PG-rated, chaste, performative kisses at engagement parties and official events. Kisses that were meant for America, not for the two of them.

  This was something else entirely.

  Suddenly, somehow, Beatrice was next to Teddy, curled up against the warm length of him. Her arms snaked around his shoulders to pull him closer. She could feel the rapid pounding of his heart.

  She tugged impatiently at his shirt, trying to pull it over his head, but Teddy tore himself away. A small groan of disappointment slipped from Beatrice’s lips.

  “We can’t do this,” Teddy said hoarsely.

  Beatrice sat up, letting her hair fall in a tumble around her shoulders. Unsatisfied desire clawed at h
er insides. She braced her hands on the mattress, tangling them in the sheets to ground herself. She felt dizzy and aching and hot and cold all at once.

  “We’re going to be married, you know,” she reminded him, with irrefutable logic.

  “We can’t do this tonight,” he amended.

  “But I want you,” she added, drunk enough to speak baldly.

  “Bee—you’re too drunk to make this kind of decision. No matter how much we both might want it,” he added, in a softer tone.

  Some part of Beatrice wondered if she should feel embarrassed for throwing herself at Teddy. Yet she didn’t. Perhaps because Teddy made everything feel so steady, so clear.

  Falling in love with Connor had been a breathless, heart-stopping whirlwind. While this—whatever it was between her and Teddy—didn’t stop her heart or crush the air from her lungs.

  He made her pulse race faster, made it easier to breathe. As if she’d been trapped in a sealed room and now someone had finally thrown open a window.

  Teddy had started to move off the bed, but Beatrice shook her head. “Stay. Just to sleep,” she pleaded. “I wasn’t lying about the nightmares.”

  He hesitated, but leaned back onto the pillows.

  Beatrice yawned and nestled herself against him, her head tucked onto his chest. Teddy shifted one arm carefully around her, playing idly with the strands of her hair; as if this weren’t strange or new or unusual, as if they’d done it a thousand times before. Within minutes Beatrice’s breaths had evened out, and she drifted to sleep, safe in the circle of his embrace.

  For the first time in months, she slept through the night.

  Nina started toward the palace’s front drive with weary resignation.

  When she got to the party tonight, she’d been so worried about Ethan—and what she would say once she saw him—that for once she hadn’t really panicked about the prospect of running into Jeff.

  All week she had been replaying that kiss in her head. She’d been too nervous to text Ethan, figuring that this was the type of conversation they should have in person. Then, when he hadn’t shown up at journalism class, she’d assumed he was avoiding her: that he wanted to pretend the whole thing was a drunken mistake and move on.

  But what if Sam was right, and he was only staying away out of loyalty to Jeff?

  Nina sighed when she saw the line that snaked around the front steps, unruly partygoers all waiting for one of the palace’s courtesy cars. This always happened when the twins’ parties ended too abruptly.

  Earlier, after her talk with Sam, she’d gone back to the party and circled the dance floor in search of Ethan. But then Sam and Marshall had decided to go and make out in the pool, and now the party was rapidly disintegrating. Nina had offered to stay the night—so she would be there when Sam had to face tomorrow’s social media firestorm—but Sam kept insisting that this was precisely what she’d meant to do. She was acting like none of it bothered her, but Nina knew better.

  She blinked, startled, when moonlight glinted on raven-dark hair at the front of the portico.

  “Ethan!”

  Before she could think better of it, she’d stepped off the sidewalk and was trotting down the driveway toward him. He paused, one hand poised on the car door, to glance uncertainly back at Nina.

  “Hey,” she breathed, tucking a strand of hair behind one ear. She felt tentative and eager and uncertain all at once, as if she were standing on the edge of a precipice and wanted desperately to jump off.

  “Can I get a ride? I mean—we’re going to the same place, right?”

  After a beat of hesitation, Ethan stepped aside, holding open the door for her. “Sure. Of course,” he said gruffly.

  “Thanks.” Nina slid into the backseat, and Ethan followed.

  “King’s College,” he told the driver.

  The car turned obediently out of the driveway, and here they were, the two of them alone at last.

  As they reached the edge of John Jay Park, light flickered over the tinted windows, the sharp beams of other cars’ headlights crisscrossing the lazy glow of streetlamps. A tense, taut silence stretched between them.

  “I was looking for you tonight,” she said at last.

  “Really?” Ethan gave one of his usual careless shrugs. “It was a crowded party. That tent definitely isn’t meant for the kind of dancing I saw inside.”

  “Come on, Ethan, don’t act like we aren’t—like we didn’t—” She flushed, but went on with more certainty. “We should talk about what happened last weekend.”

  “Nina…” There was a note of warning in his tone, but something else, too, that sounded almost like yearning.

  “Ethan, I like you.”

  Nina hardly recognized herself. Sam was always the one who wore her emotions on her sleeve, while Nina usually poured every ounce of energy into concealing those feelings, even from the people who actually needed to hear them.

  Yet here she was, professing her feelings for Ethan—and the words had come out so easily, as if they’d been shaken loose from deep within her.

  “I like you, too.”

  At those words, Nina looked over, trying to catch his gaze in the darkened car. But his features were inscrutable as ever.

  “I know it’s weird, and a little complicated—”

  “More than a little,” Ethan said under his breath.

  “But I also know that I don’t feel this way very often.” Only once before, in fact. Nina shoved that thought aside. “I understand if you can’t go there, because of Jeff. But for what it’s worth, I’ve really liked hanging out with you lately. Last weekend…” Nina’s pulse was going haywire. She realized that she was drawing a line in the sand—that they could have gone on pretending that last weekend was a drunken mistake, until now.

  She took a deep breath. “I think there’s something here, and whatever it is, I want to give it a shot.”

  Was it wrong of her to feel this way about Ethan when she had loved Jeff for so many years?

  But that was the thing—she had loved Jeff since they were children, and her love for him had never really matured. It had always been a little girl’s love. Nina had never even questioned why she loved Jeff; she had just taken it as a given.

  If she hadn’t been blinded by Jeff in all his dazzling princely glory, she might have noticed Ethan so much sooner.

  She felt him shifting, sliding into the middle seat between them. His eyes blazed as if he was searching for something in her face.

  Whatever he saw made him reach some decision, because he leaned away. “You shouldn’t want to be with me,” he said heavily. “There’s no need for you to get wrapped up in all my mess. If you only knew…”

  “Knew what, Ethan?” she exclaimed, frustrated. “That you’re irritating and insufferable and also smart as hell? That you’re my ex-boyfriend’s best friend, and being with me would violate some kind of bro code? That you gave me the most intense kiss of my life and then went completely silent all week?” Nina clenched her hands tighter in her lap. “I already know all that, and I’m still here!”

  Ethan hesitated. Nina could feel the weight of his conflicted emotions, and for an instant, she wondered if she should be worried. Then he leaned forward, and her concerns evaporated.

  “I want to try this, too,” he said hoarsely. “No matter how complicated or selfish it is of me to say that.”

  He reached for her hand, lacing their fingers. Even in the darkness, Nina could see that he was smiling.

  “What?” she demanded.

  “The most intense kiss of your life?” he repeated, sounding unmistakably smug.

  Nina’s heart pounded against her rib cage. “To be absolutely certain, I’d need another data point,” she said, and now she was smiling, too. “For scientific accuracy.”

  “Well, if it’s for the sake of sc
ience,” Ethan agreed, and leaned in to kiss her.

  Nina stopped worrying about how reckless and wrong this was, or whether it would hurt Jeff, or whether she was making a mistake. There wasn’t room in her mind to think of anything but Ethan.

  Unsurprisingly, Sam was summoned to her mother’s study the next morning.

  When she knocked at the door, Robert Standish answered. He gave Sam a disdainful nod before settling into a wingback chair. Queen Adelaide—wearing a cream-colored top and a loose scarf, her hair tucked behind her usual crocodile headband—sat behind her desk, scrolling in silent shock through her tablet.

  The queen’s study was in the opposite wing of the palace from the monarch’s, a holdover from previous centuries, when couples had married for political alliances and wanted to spend their days as far from each other as possible. It was a smaller, more intimate room, with pale blue wallpaper and delicate furniture. Queen Adelaide, like most royals, still corresponded by hand; Sam saw that her desk was littered with notes, from Sandringham and Drottningholm Palace and Peterhof and the Neues Palais.

  “Well, Samantha,” her mom began. “When I planned to leave town this weekend, I certainly didn’t expect that I would have to fly back this morning because lewd photos of my daughter are all over the internet.” She held up her tablet, her voice low and vicious as she read various headlines aloud. “ ‘Princess Wet and Wild.’ ‘A Bad Heir Day.’ ”

  In the photos, Sam’s legs were wrapped around Marshall’s waist, his hands splayed on her lower back. She hadn’t been wearing a bra, and the soaking white halter dress clung to her with all the modesty of a wet tissue. She might as well have been photographed naked, given how little was left to the imagination.

  Sam waited for a flush of outrage, but all she felt was a weary disappointment. She’d expected her so-called friends to leak images of her and Marshall. And they had surpassed even her expectations.