Florence strode through the door, nostrils quivering with rage. She was flanked by a gleeful Pamela and a second cameraman, who scooted into the corner, careful to keep out of the shot of the cameraman who was already in there.
“You!” Florence boomed, advancing toward Dusty. There was something clutched in her outstretched hand. Looked like a small white plastic stick. “You…you…scheming, predatory, manipulative, conniving—”
“Choose your next word carefully, Mommie Dearest.” Dusty was wearing nothing but a white silk robe bedazzled with Bride on the back, but she still managed to look downright menacing. Maybe it was because she towered over Florence, even in her stockinged feet. “Don’t wanna say somethin’ you might regret. We’re about to be family.”
“Only because of your…your…chicanery!”
Chicanery? This was so awful, but if you closed your eyes and listened it sounded like we were in a Victorian showdown.
“Why don’t you stop it with the SAT vocab words and just say it straight out to my face exactly what you’re accusin’ me of, hmm?” Florence might have been on fire with rage, but Dusty was stone-cold cool. And I was kind of in awe.
“Of…this!” Florence stuck the white stick up under Dusty’s nose. The sleeves of her emerald-green silk blazer fell back to reveal an enormous bangle in the shape of what looked like a badger. It momentarily distracted me from the white stick. “You tricked my son into marrying you! Finally, it all makes sense!”
“Dude, that’s a pregnancy test,” Heaven whispered.
“How did she get that? Did Lady Florence go Dumpster diving?” I whispered in disbelief.
“But I didn’t—How did you—I don’t understand.” Dusty’s brow furrowed in confusion. “I didn’t take a pregnancy test here.”
Someone coughed discreetly from behind us. I swiveled to look. My money was on Pamela.
“It doesn’t matter where it came from,” Florence said hurriedly.
Dusty didn’t take a pregnancy test here, but Florence had a pregnancy test. I felt like my mind was whirring at a million miles an hour. Pamela had found out about Dusty’s pregnancy. And then the show had planted a fake pregnancy test for Florence to find. Or just told Florence Dusty was pregnant and handed her a prop. Whatever had happened, it was seriously messed up.
“What matters is what it proves,” Florence insisted. “You’re pregnant!”
Dusty’s ice-cold resolve had melted. She looked…tired. Sighing, she placed a protective hand over her belly and closed her eyes.
“Wait!” I cried, not sure why exactly I was speaking. “Don’t do this. Don’t do this, okay?” I looked past Florence to Pamela. Florence was awful and a total snob, but I knew who was really behind this. “We all know the production team planted the test. Just drop the story line. Please.”
“Dylan,” Pamela said icily, all traces of her usual fake smile long gone. “We already had a discussion about cooperating. This is the exact opposite of cooperating. Please don’t speak to me and stop looking at the cameras. Return to business as usual.”
“Wait. Please,” I begged. “If you drop this story line, I’ll do something really interesting. I swear. I’ll flip over a table. I’ll throw my drink at Jamie! No, I’ll punch Jamie!” Pamela didn’t look nearly as interested as I’d hoped she would. I decided to try a different tactic. “No, never mind. We’ll make up. And I’ll sneak into his room at night. And you can film it with a night-vision camera like they do on Bachelor Pad.”
“Good gravy, Dylan!” Mom yelped.
“I’m not saying I’m gonna do anything when I’m in the room; I’m just saying I’ll go in the room! You can edit it in whatever incriminating way you’d like!”
“I’m not sure that’s better,” Heaven said.
“I’d feel better about it.”
“I wouldn’t,” Mom said firmly.
“Thanks for offering to pretend-whore yourself out for me, baby sister,” Dusty said, and much to my surprise, she was smiling. “I didn’t think you liked me that much.”
“I love you, Dusty,” I said, embarrassed but needing to say it anyway. “Even when we fight, I’m on your side. Always. You’re my family. And so’s the baby.”
“Don’t make me cry, dummy; I’ll ruin my makeup,” she sniffled, and pulled me in for a hug. I was shocked to feel a small, but noticeable, bump that had definitely not been there before.
“All right, now, y’all, let’s calm down.” Dusty pulled herself out of the hug, patting away nonexistent mascara stains from under her eyes. “There is absolutely no need for you to engage in any of those reality-show theatrics, Dylan, although I appreciate the offer. I’ve got this. Pamela.” Dusty turned and looked her dead in the eyes. “I’ll take it from here.”
Then Dusty took a deep breath, turned to Florence, and said, “Yes, I’m pregnant. And we couldn’t be happier about it. For the record, I found out I was pregnant after we got engaged, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that I love your son. And he loves me. And that’s why we’re gettin’ married, not because I tricked him or trapped him. You and I both know I ain’t after his money, because he doesn’t have any. And I don’t give a flyin’ crap about bein’ the next Lady Dunleavy.” Florence’s nostrils quivered in distaste as I stifled a giggle. “Seriously. You can keep the title, and I’ll just be plain old Mrs. Murray. That is fine by me.” Dusty took a deep breath. “We are buildin’ a family together. A family. And that means somethin’ to me. So I suggest you get on board. Because I am goin’ absolutely nowhere. And I ain’t scared of you. ’Cause I’m from Mississippi,” Dusty said proudly. “And we Southern girls take crap from nobody. Ya hear?”
I’m not sure who was more surprised when Dusty poked Florence in the chest, Dusty or Florence. Florence looked down at Dusty’s French-manicured finger in disbelief, then back up at Dusty with an expression that looked like admiration.
“Do we understand each other?” Dusty asked, flushed.
“I believe we do,” Florence said crisply. “And I believe you may do rather well, after all. All appearances to the contrary.” She sniffed. “I suppose you’d better finish getting ready. It’s terribly bad form to be late to one’s own wedding.”
And with that, she turned on her sensible heels and left, Pamela and one of the cameramen following her.
“Well, hot damn, baby.” Dusty patted her stomach. “This is a moment when I could really use a drink,” she said ruefully.
“Wow…That was…Wow.” Heaven shook her head in disbelief. “Dylan, I think your sister might be my hero.”
“I think she might be mine, too,” I said softly.
Dusty looked up at me, surprised, but then smiled a real, genuine smile. Nothing like her pageant smile.
“I’ll drink for you!” Anne Marie volunteered. She raised a glass of mimosa that had materialized seemingly from out of nowhere. “To Mississippi girls!”
“To sisters,” I said.
“To babies,” Heaven suggested.
“To my girls,” Mom said.
“To all of that, and all y’all,” Dusty said, a note of finality in her voice. “Now drink that mimosa, beautiful.”
Anne Marie raised her glass high, as Heaven made little whooping noises. Mom reached out to take one of my hands, and one of Dusty’s.
It was funny—I might have been four thousand miles from Tupelo, but right then, I was home.
Easy navigation was not one of the advantages of castle living. I had a little map Dusty had drawn for me on a cocktail napkin clutched in one hand and her exhortations not to be late ringing in my ears. Heaven, patron saint of best friends, had thrown a very convincing fake tantrum about not being able to do the Scottish Grand March on camera at the wedding now that Anne Marie had arrived. She’d chucked a champagne flute at the wall in a fit of pretend pique, and I’d slipped out the door in the ensuing chaos, unnoticed by the cameras.
Up a flight of stairs, around a corner, down this hall, one more corner—Wait no
, wrong way—back down that hall, one more corner, farther down the hall—and there it was. A door just like mine.
Knock-knock-kna-knock-knock-knock.
“Er, come in!”
I pushed the door open. Jamie was crouched on the floor in his formal dress kilt, drawing on a poster board with an enormous red Sharpie. I shut the door behind me and walked toward him, toes of my cream ballet flats lining up with the edge of the poster. He looked up and made eye contact with my ankles.
“Is that a…” I trailed off as I looked at the red splotch on the poster. “You know what? Never mind. I give up. I have no idea what that’s supposed to be.”
“It was supposed to be a whole…Beauty and the Beast…thing,” he said sheepishly, looking up at me from under a flop of dark hair. “But my rose looked nothing like a rose, and then I became concerned about the implications of Stockholm syndrome, so I attempted to turn the rose into a heart, which resulted in the splotch you see before you. Dylan. Wait. Why are you here? Am I late? Is it time for the wedding? Oh God, is it time for the wedding?”
He scrambled up to his feet, panic in his eyes.
“No! Relax, no!” I grabbed his forearms to steady him. “We’ve got, like, six minutes. Maybe.” Now would have been a great time to have owned a watch. “So don’t relax too much.”
“Not a moment to lose, then. Dylan, I’m glad you’re here. I am so, so—”
“Shh.” I placed my index finger in front of his lips. “Save it, okay? I understand why you didn’t tell me. And it’s okay. I promise.”
“Mmrph,” he said. I hastily took my finger away.
“And I hope you know this already, but you being a prince isn’t like any kind of incentive for me to try to be your friend or your girlfriend or whatever. I have no interest in being a princess.”
“You wouldn’t be. If we married, I mean. You’d be a duchess, like my mum. Not that we’re getting married. Right now. Ha!” His laugh sounded strangled and embarrassed.
“Duchess. Princess. Whatever,” I said. “I don’t care about being any of those things. I don’t want any of that. It’s kind of a major drawback, honestly.”
“That’s not any better!” he exclaimed. “That’s another reason why I absolutely should not have told you—”
“But that’s what I’m saying!” I insisted. “I understand. Why you didn’t tell me you were a prince in disguise. Sorry,” I interrupted Jamie before he could say anything, seeing the protest rise on his lips. “Prince. Not in disguise. Because if I’m being a hundred percent honest with myself, I probably would have treated you differently. Maybe not in the way you expected—like, I wouldn’t have fawned all over you or whatever—but things still would have been different. So I’m glad you didn’t tell me right away.”
“You are?”
“Yes. Because it meant I got to really know you. In exactly the same way you got to know me, the me I really am. Although you should have told me the truth before Florence outed you.” I glared at him. “That was not cool. Nobody wants to be scooped by Florence.”
“That is an excellent point. And I apologize profusely for that. I should have told you sooner.”
“But not too soon.”
“Not too soon,” he agreed.
“I’m sorry,” we both said in unison, in a rush, then smiled at each other. He pulled me into a hug.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” he murmured into my hair.
“I’m sorry I overreacted,” I mumbled into his shoulder.
“Well, then.” He patted my back. “Everyone’s terribly sorry. Does that mean things can go back to normal?”
“Yes, please,” I said fervently.
“Thank God.”
He crushed my mouth with his, so excited to kiss me he nearly knocked the wind out of me. I clung to his arms so I didn’t topple over, relaxing into the rightness of Jamie’s embrace. Far too soon, we pulled apart.
“If we stand here snogging all day, we really will miss the wedding,” he said.
“And then Dusty would murder us.”
“And it really would be the most dramatic season of Prince in Disguise ever.” He did a pretty good impression of the voice-over from TRC. “First kisses. Long-lost fathers. A double homicide. This truly was the most dramatic season of Prince in Disguise…ever.” I laughed. “You have to say ‘the most dramatic season ever’ approximately twice a minute; otherwise no one will believe you that it actually was the most dramatic season ever.”
“For once, I don’t think the drama’s in doubt. Now we really do have to go,” I said nervously. “I think the wedding’s going to start really soon. Like, uncomfortably soon.”
“Right. Hang on a moment—just want to toss an extra hanky in my sporran for Ronan. I have a feeling today will be a four-hanky day for everyone’s favorite weepy Scotsman.”
“What’s a sporran?”
“This large furry, purselike item.” He gestured to the front of his kilt, where there was, in fact, a dangling furry purse.
“I’m sorry—I can’t look at it.” I shaded my eyes. “It feels obscene. It’s just, like…right there.”
“Well, look away, then, while I fetch my hanky.”
Obediently, I did and noticed the room for the first time. It had the same basic layout of my room, and the same tartan curtains, but there was something different about it. It looked like someone actually lived here. Books cluttered every available surface. A throw blanket printed with a fancy blue lion and a Chelsea Football Club banner lay draped over the end of the plaid bedspread. And in addition to the horse paintings, there were posters tacked up on the walls. I saw Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes, a couple hobbits, and then I snorted as my eyes landed on a somewhat sexy Emma Watson poster, from her post-Hermione days.
“Are you chuckling at my Emma Watson poster?” he asked, affronted. “I’ll have you know she’s a terrific actress.”
“Yeah, she just about acted herself out of her pants there.”
“She didn’t—I mean, she’s not—”
“Relax, Jamie, I’m teasing you. You have, like, a room here. I mean this is your room.”
He nodded. “Yes.”
“Are you and Ronan really old family friends?”
“In a way. We’re also second cousins.”
“Aha!”
“Damn. I suppose I did outright lie about that, didn’t I? Far more ethically murky. I only didn’t want you to assume—”
“That you were also a Right Honorable Lord Whatever? When in fact what you are is so much worse?”
“Worse?” he asked, affronted. “Being a prince isn’t ghastly as all that.”
“It’s horrible. That’s why America had a revolution. To get away from ghastly princes like you.”
“That’s quite enough, you ungrateful Yankee. We started your bloody country. Now just try to get away from this ghastly prince. I dare you.”
“You’ll never catch me!” I shouted, and burst out of the room, laughing as I sprinted down the hall.
“Dylan, you’re going entirely the wrong way!”
“I knew that! Hiiii-yaaa!” I screamed as I blew past him and thundered down the hall. “You still can’t catch me!”
“Of course I can’t, you’re quite a bit faster than I am!”
I wasn’t entirely sure where I was going, but after a couple turns and long stretches of sprinting down hallways, the staircase appeared. I flew down the stairs, Jamie hot at my heels, and then something tugged on my tartan sash and stopped me in my tracks.
“Hey!” I turned to see Jamie holding on to my sash. “Stupid butt bow,” I muttered. “Unsportsmanlike conduct! Unhand me this instant, you blackguard!”
“Blackguard? I’m sorry, have I apprehended Charles Dickens by mistake?”
“Just let go of the damn butt bow.”
“There’s a better way. A faster way.” Jamie grinned and turned from the front door. I ran after him, absolutely no idea where we were going, until all
of a sudden Jamie was pushing open a door and we were in the library.
“Oh God, don’t tell me: The Premeditated Trapdoor Returns?”
“That’s what we’ll call the television series,” Jamie said as he made his way to the center of the room and pushed the rug off the trapdoor. “Once The Premeditated Trapdoor has been turned into a film and I’ve gone Hollywood.”
“His Royal Shyness, a sellout?” I shook my head. “I expected more.”
“Hush, you.” Jamie swung the trapdoor open. “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.”
“Why, exactly, are we climbing into a black hole right before the wedding?” I asked as I took the first few steps down into darkness.
“I told you the tunnel system was quite extensive. It’s a shortcut, Dylan.” The door swung shut behind us, then the flashlight clicked on, casting an arc of light in front of me as I made my way down the stairs. “I’m afraid we haven’t time to run across the grounds. And I’d die of mortification if our tardiness delayed the wedding.”
“Do you know where you’re going?”
“Naturally.”
With his free hand, Jamie grabbed one of mine and led me down the tunnel, turning decisively this way and that. I wondered if he’d left bread crumbs down here or something; everything looked exactly the same to me.
“I feel like we just walked in a really big circle,” I said as we approached a set of stairs that looked exactly like the one we’d initially descended.
“Your lack of faith appalls me. After you.”
I climbed the stairs and pushed on the trapdoor. It didn’t move. I pushed harder. Still nothing.
“Jamie,” I said, dismayed to feel the first few beads of panic sweat, “we’re trapped! We’re going to be stuck down here and miss the wedding and die.”
“These are exactly the sort of dramatics we’ll need for The Premeditated Trapdoor Returns!” Jamie said cheerfully. “But for the moment, I’d suggest knocking.”
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