“A charity in Africa founded by, er…Harry,” he finished lamely. “And Prince Seeiso. Of Lesotho.”
“Oh my God.” I leaned against the bookshelf, half-afraid I was going to collapse. Jamie was a prince. People took his pictures for newspapers. He had Christmas lunch with the Queen. He was palling around Africa with his cousin Prince Harry. And the prince of Lesotho. And who knew how many other royals. The divide between us was so much bigger than just the continents that separated us.
“I am so stupid,” I said emphatically. I felt seconds away from banging my head against the wall. “Did everyone know except for me? Were you all sitting around laughing, like, ‘Oh, ha-ha, you know nothing, Dylan Leigh’?”
“Not at all,” he assured me. Except I was in no mood to be assured. “Well, everyone from here knows, but they no longer think of it as anything other than a, uh, job that I didn’t apply for. The only person who had ever even brought up my title was Pamela, in her horrid confessionals. Asking how it felt to be prince, whether or not it was hard to date as a prince, all these ridiculous, stupid…It’s not something I’m particularly keen to discuss, unprompted.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Cameraman Mike circled around us, getting closer to my face. Too close.
“I didn’t—I couldn’t—”
“Did Pamela put you up to this?” I asked sharply, pulling myself up to my full height, trying to ignore the intrusion of the camera’s lens. I wanted to look Jamie in the eyes. “Did she tell you not to tell me? So it would be a big, shocking revelation? A double whammy of princes in disguise? One last big plot twist on Dusty and Ronan’s Royal Happily-Ever-After Hootenanny?”
“Of course not!”
I couldn’t even hear him anymore. I felt like I was drowning in the warm stuffy air. I groped desperately along the shelf, looking for something to hold on to, my fingers scrabbling on the shiny book covers. Had anything with Jamie been real? Or had our entire relationship been set up by the show?
“Did Pamela tell you to pretend to like me? To kiss me? To lie to me?”
“No! I never lied to you!”
“But you didn’t tell me the truth.”
“No.” He sighed heavily. “I didn’t.”
We looked at each other warily. This was usually the point in the movie where I threw something at the TV, yelling at the stupid chick-flick heroine who was devastated because her love interest lied about something dumb. But right now it didn’t feel dumb.
“Pamela didn’t make me do anything. I swear. I swear on my life. This is real. Everything we have, everything we are. It’s real. I swear it.” He reached for me, but I shrank back against the bookshelf. He dropped his hands despondently. “Do you believe at least that much?”
I took a deep breath and looked at him, really looked.
“Yes,” I admitted, grudgingly. Upset as I was, I couldn’t imagine Jamie as the type of master manipulator who would engineer an entire romance for TV ratings. He couldn’t be that cruel. I knew it. Also he was too weird to not be real. If he had been playing a part, the network would have made him much more generic. And given him more manageable hair and a spray tan.
“It was just…so…nice to meet someone who knew nothing about my family. Who cared nothing for my title. Who knew me only as Jamie. And somehow you liked me only as Jamie.” He shook his head. “It seemed impossible. Too good to be true. I couldn’t tell you who I was. Selfishly, I liked you not knowing who I was far too much. And I was terrified the truth would change things between us. That you would feel different, or uncomfortable, or intimidated.”
“Intimidated? Because I’m such a classless American hick?”
“No!” he shouted. “It’s nothing to do with you. It’s me. People behave differently around royalty. You saw what Florence was like! Honestly, it’s not a big deal, Dylan! I swear it isn’t.”
“It is a big deal!”
“It is absolutely not!” he insisted. “I’m something like sixth in line for the throne.”
“Sixth?! Sixth?! Normal people aren’t in line for the British throne, Jamie! They’re in line for, I don’t know, a hot dog!”
“It could be worse,” Jamie said weakly. “I could be the next Duke of Atholl.”
“This is not the time for an Atholl joke!” I said shrilly. “Read the room, Jamie! Or Gillecroids! Or whoever you are!”
“I’m Jamie!” he said desperately. “I’m still Jamie. I’m exactly the same person I’ve always been.”
Was he, though? He’d probably grown up in a castle even bigger than Dunyvaig, riding polo ponies and driving Bentleys and eating caviar with golden spoons or whatever. What would he think if he ever saw my house? The tiny living room, and the bedroom I’d always shared with Dusty? It was probably smaller than his garage.
“Oh no. Dylan. I’m so very sorry.”
I felt something hot and wet on my cheeks and realized, to my horror, I was crying. Jamie looked equally horrified. He reached out a hand, and I flinched as he touched my cheek.
“Dylan?”
Mom stood on the stairs below us, resting a hand on the banister, looking very concerned. And confused. A second cameraman stood behind her. It felt like the cameras were converging on me from every angle. I wish they would all just go away. How had Dusty dealt with this for so many months?
“It’s time for the toasts, sweetie,” she said gently. “We need you downstairs.”
“How many toasts does a wedding need?” I said blearily, wiping my hand across my face.
“We’re just gettin’ started on that front, I’m afraid.” She climbed the last few stairs up to us and placed a comforting hand on my back. “Come on down, Dylan. It’s time.”
Wordlessly, I let her lead me down the stairs and left Jamie behind.
“He’s gonna make a grand gesture,” Heaven said the next morning as she absentmindedly chewed on her straw.
“No, he’s not,” I countered. “He would never make a grand gesture at somebody else’s wedding. That’s way rude.”
“Dude. This is the guy who busted out a horse and carriage for your first date. A grand gesture will be made.”
“Are you hoping he makes a grand gesture?” I asked skeptically. “You’re the one who was all, like, ‘This is ending, let it end, blah, blah, blah, etc., etc.’”
“Well, not hoping, exactly, but—”
“I thought you’d be happy!” I interrupted her. “This is it, right? The story of Dylan’s First Kiss now has the tidy ending you wanted. I kissed a guy in a castle. He lied. We never saw each other again, and we’re not even Facebook friends. The end.”
“He didn’t lie, exactly—”
“Yes, he did!” I protested. “Why are you defending him? Whose side are you on?”
“Yours! Of course yours!” She chased the last drops of soda around and sucked them up with her straw. “I’m just sayin’, technically, he didn’t lie.”
“Lie of omission is still a lie. Meemaw says it all the time.”
“Your meemaw!” Heaven brightened. “Is she here?”
“Meemaw insisted on flying in at the very last minute,” Dusty said, eyes closed as a stylish woman in black swabbed eye shadow on her face. “So her feet wouldn’t have to be off American soil for a minute longer than necessary. Tried to get her in for the rehearsal dinner, but that woman is stubborn as a mule.”
“So it’s genetic, then. Y’all bein’ crazy, I mean,” Heaven said.
Meemaw was crazy. But in the best possible way. Like in the kind of way where she only liked to wear sweatshirts with Tweety Bird on them, which was exactly how I was going to dress when I was old. She was also the only short woman in our family. I harbored a secret terror that she’d once been as tall as the rest of us but had shrunk several feet.
“Can we please no longer discuss Meemaw or Dylan’s boy problems? This is supposed to be my special day,” Dusty whined. “Topics of discussion should be limited to how radiant I am.”
I sighed and leaned back on the couch, propping up my feet on Heaven’s lap, keeping a careful hold on the top of my bridesmaid’s dress. I was mostly ready, except I hadn’t zippered up yet. No need for the boning in the waist to crush my ribs before it was absolutely necessary.
Heaven whistled. “Girl, you have big feet.”
“This is not new information.”
“I swear, y’all could pack for a trip to Hawaii in the bags under my eyes.” Anne Marie, Dusty’s errant bridesmaid, had arrived before I got up this morning and was currently surveying her face critically in a hand mirror. “I need more concealer. This med school thing is no joke, y’all!” She tapped vigorously under her eyes, like she was trying to wake up. “I feel like I’m doin’ an experiment on what happens when you replace all the water in your bloodstream with Diet Coke. I’m gonna be the world’s first fully carbonated human being.”
Med school aside, she appeared to be the same crayon-eating Anne Marie I had always known. I made a resolution not to get sick anytime in the near future and scooted farther down on the couch.
“Honestly, Dylan?” Heaven said, ignoring Anne Marie. “I can kind of see where Jamie’s coming from.”
“Excuse me?” I propped myself up on my elbows to get a better look at her.
“It’s like…you know how much you hate it, at home, when everyone’s like, ‘You’re Dusty’s sister? Really? The Dusty Rose Leigh? Oh my Lord, that girl is so perfect she poops diamonds!’?”
I snorted, in spite of myself.
“See? You know exactly what I mean,” Heaven said smugly. “Now imagine that times a bajillion. That’s what Jamie goes through every time he meets someone new. ‘Oh, Your Royal Highness, thank you for blessing us with your princeliness!’” she simpered.
“I don’t care how royal he is. He should have told me. Up front.”
“Should he have, though?” She cocked her head at me like an inquisitive bird. “Be honest with yourself, Dylan. You would have freaked out.”
“Would not.”
“Would, too. Well, maybe ‘freaked out’ is a strong term,” she said, reconsidering, “but it would have changed things, and you know it.”
“Nooo,” I said quietly, but I’m not even sure I believed myself. Maybe it didn’t matter so much how I would or wouldn’t have reacted; what mattered more was how Jamie felt. Heaven was right—being the younger sister of Miss Mississippi was nothing compared to being the only son of a prince. And in all fairness, I don’t think I ever told him my full name, either. Maybe he felt the same way about being a prince that I felt about my middle name being Janis. Which is that I would prefer people not know about it.
“Man.” I sighed. “I acted exactly like one of those dumb girls in a romantic comedy, didn’t I?”
“How to Lose a Prince in Ten Days,” Heaven said.
“I cannot believe I’m getting involved in this,” Dusty piped up. “But I am. And I can’t move ’cause I’m waitin’ for my lash glue to dry, so come over here.”
Grumbling, I hoisted myself up off the couch, carefully holding my dress against my chest. Dusty waved the makeup girl away for the moment and lay back with her eyes closed, lashes resting against her cheeks. They looked like big plastic bugs, so dark and spiky.
“I would just like to say, on principle, that I am not pleased we are having this discussion today. Today is about me. I should be the only thing we are discussing. Today is my special day.”
I rolled my eyes. Then remembered Dusty couldn’t see me.
“Okay, Dusty, I acknowledge your formal complaint. Thanks for indulging me,” I added sarcastically.
“Did you not think to ask your big sister for advice? Your big sister who was once in literally this exact same situation?”
“Oh. Um. Yes. I mean, no,” I said, honestly, sort of embarrassed by my obtuseness. “I didn’t think about it.”
Oddly enough, even in the castle, surrounded by cameras, I had sort of forgotten the whole “in disguise” part of the Prince in Disguise aspect of Dusty and Ronan’s courtship. After all, I did only meet him once when he was still in disguise. For the vast majority of my experience of knowing Ronan, I’d known him as the Right Honorable Lord Whatever. They’d only filmed Prince in Disguise for six weeks, after all. Dusty had spent those six weeks thinking she was just on some Bachelor-type show, and I’d only seen her during the episode where she brought Ronan home to meet us. Ronan had progressed pretty quickly from “I met the cutest boy!” to “Surprise—I’m engaged to a prince!”
“That is because you are dense as a tree stump, sweet li’l Dilly. Especially when it comes to boys.”
I bristled silently in response, but I had no good comeback. Because she was, unfortunately, right.
“I will say this once, clearly, so even you can understand. And then we will go back to today being my special day.” Dusty took a deep breath. I leaned in. “It. Does. Not. Matter.”
“Excuse me?”
“Did I stutter?” She cracked one eye open. “Oh, good, they’re dry.” She blinked a few times, fluttering the thickest, darkest lashes I’d ever seen. “You heard me. It doesn’t matter, Dilly. Doesn’t matter one teeny little bit.”
“How does it not matter? He’s a prince, Dusty,” I said almost in a whisper. “A prince. That’s crazy. Too crazy. I don’t know how to talk to a prince!”
“Of course you do, dummy.” She rolled her eyes. “You’ve been doin’ nothin’ but talkin’ to a prince for the past three weeks.”
“But I didn’t know he was a prince!”
“And it doesn’t change anythin’ now that you do know. It really ain’t all that different from when I dated Ricky Lindsay. His daddy was the Mattress King, remember? Over on 178?”
“Being a prince of England is a little bit different than being a mattress prince, Dusty.”
“Is it, though? I was so intimidated by how big their house was. Little did I know where I’d be movin’ into a couple years later,” she said ruefully. “This ain’t somethin’ Jamie chose. It’s just what he’s been born into. And maybe it’s a bit more rare than bein’ a mattress prince, but the idea’s the same. Who your daddy is doesn’t determine who you are.”
I was silent for a minute, thinking about Cash Keller. I was pretty sure that wasn’t what she meant, but I thought of him just the same. And how he had nothing to do with who I was.
“And I promise, it ain’t that big of a deal,” she continued. “You know the monarchy over here is mostly for show, anyway, right? They just welcome dignitaries and dedicate wings of hospitals and watch the Trooping the Colour and stuff. It’s pretty much just volunteer work.”
“But he lied—”
“Okay, first of all”—she held up one finger for silence as she interrupted me—“Ronan legit, straight-out, full-on lied, gave me a fake last name and a fake hometown and a fake job and everythin’. Lie after lie after lie. But not about anything important.”
“No, just about every single aspect of his identity.”
“That’s not who he is, dummy. Your name isn’t who you are. And I know you know that and you’re just arguin’ with me for the sake of arguin’ with me because apparently that is what you were put on this earth to do.”
“Nuh-uh.”
“Put aside your natural tendency to contradict me at every turn and listen.” Those were a lot of big words, coming from Dusty. “He just wanted you to like him for who he is, not who his daddy is. And looks like that’s exactly what happened.”
“Mmrph,” I mumbled noncommittally.
“Don’t leave it like this, Dyl. Tell him it wasn’t cool if you like. But forgive him, and dance with him, and kiss him good-bye. Don’t leave mad.”
“Anythin’ can be repaired, Dylan,” Anne Marie said kindly. “Even a brachial plexus injury.”
I scowled at the two of them, just on the principle of the thing, but privately, I felt they were right. Even if I didn’t know what a brachial plexus was.
&nb
sp; “Nothing’s changed. He’s the same big ol’ goofball who likes you,” Dusty said. “Crown or no crown. So who cares if he’s a prince?”
“Did you know he was a prince?” I asked suspiciously.
“Hell no. Ronan didn’t mention anything about it, and I’ve got better things to do with my time than google Ronan’s groomsmen. There are too many royals over here to keep track of.”
“Even I didn’t know he was a prince, Dyl,” Heaven piped up. “And I have a Royal Wedding mug.”
She’d bought it at a tag sale for fifty cents and kept pencils in it, but still. I supposed that showed some interest in the royal family.
“It doesn’t matter who knew, anyway.” Dusty shrugged. “What matters is that you make things right.”
“Oh God.” I swallowed noisily. “Does this mean I have to make some kind of grand gesture?”
Visions danced through my head, each more horrifying than the last. Me serenading Jamie with a microphone and karaoke machine. Me showing up with a bunch of posters that said To Me, You Are Perfect. Me standing outside the castle with a boom box above my head. Dunyvaig had, like, four hundred windows. I would never find Jamie’s room.
“No!” Dusty shouted. “Just be normal, Dilly.”
“Dusty!” Suddenly, Mom burst into the room, so out of breath she was panting, hands on her knees. “I don’t know how she did—but she did—and she’s—Oh, fudge.” Mom looked straight at Dusty. “She knows. And she’s coming.”
Dusty went white under her foundation. And her spray tan.
“Gird your loins, ladies,” she said grimly. “The She-Beast approaches.”
“Is this gonna be like the Kappa formal?” Anne Marie sprang to her feet. “Gosh darnit, I took my rings off.” She cracked her knuckles menacingly.
Maybe Anne Marie was slightly more interesting than I’d remembered her being.
“What’s happening now?” Heaven quietly asked me.
“Um…she knows…she’s coming…” I quickly put the pieces together. “Oh no. Florence found out about the baby. And she’s on her way.”
Heaven’s jaw dropped as my stomach did somersaults of distress. I guess I wasn’t surprised—ever since Mrs. McGregor let news of Dusty’s bun in the oven slip, I’d known this was coming—but I thought it was low, even for Pamela, to drop the baby bomb mere hours before the wedding.
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