Royal Pain

by Megan Mulry

  Bronte marveled at the sheer audacity of the receding duchess. “I think I just got the cut direct… what say you?” She turned to challenge him.

  He reached over and pulled her back into his embrace, then leaned both of them down and resettled her on top of him. He nuzzled her neck, and when he spoke, his words blew hot and seductive so close to her ear. “I say that was the closest she’s ever come to penance since the dawn of time, and you should take it as a triumphant approval of our pending nuptials. She practically asked to help with the flower arrangements at our wedding reception.”

  ***

  That evening, just before dinner, Abigail finally arrived. Max was refilling his drink at a large sideboard between two grand windows and had just made a joke to Devon over one shoulder. He was still smiling to himself as he put fresh ice into his glass. Everything was looking up. Over cocktails, his crazy, frosty, difficult mother seemed to have undergone a slight thaw toward Bronte—she was able to look at her, for example—but Max couldn’t help notice the return of the maternal ice princess when his younger sister Abigail made her rough-and-tumble entrance.

  His mother often joked—if you could call it that—that she would have no gray hairs if she had stopped having children after Devon. No one really thought it was funny (at all), but Abby, through no real effort, was forever disrupting her mother’s equilibrium. Bronte hated to admit that the duchess was partially right: Abigail could not have been more disruptive had she worn a Halloween costume and come into the room blowing a kazoo.

  The youngest Heyworth sported a prehistoric pair of black, military Doc Martens, laced almost knee-high; a Yasser Arafat black-and-white keffiyeh wrapped carelessly around her neck; a mane of black, wavy hair flying in every possible direction; and her girlfriend clomping behind her in Birkenstocks. Both of them hauled multiple backpacks over their shoulders. The two young women entered the room like a couple of midnight messengers in the midst of a Napoleonic War. Breathless. Eager.

  “Max! Where is she?”

  Abigail Heyworth was like a compact superheroine brought to life. It was impossible to imagine her quaking with fear or even contemplating that she might be wise to acknowledge her fearsome mother. Apparently, she never paused long enough to let her mother—or anyone else, for that matter—pose a threat.

  Lady Claudia and her husband, Bertrand Seeley, Earl Rothwell, had decided to come for one night only and had arrived that morning. Claudia spoke with conspiratorial tones to Bronte, who happened to be sitting by her side. “Can you imagine draping that stellar feminine figure in those rags? It’s a couture tragedy of the greatest proportions!” Bronte laughed despite herself and then watched as Claudia schooled her expression into a benign smile. After years of seeing their wild niece fly into drawing rooms dressed like a terrorist, Bertrand and Claudia were perfectly accustomed to the ruckus that always accompanied Abigail’s theatrical entrances.

  Abigail smiled broadly, removed her neckerchief in a sweeping circular motion, and tossed it on a (probably priceless) side table. Her girlfriend, Tulliver St. John, better known as Tully, held a similarly blasé view of family pressure and casually dropped her backpacks, Birkenstocks, and worries at the door. The two of them traipsed down the length of the formal, Elizabethan drawing room hand in hand and proceeded to greet everyone as the unified couple that they, very obviously, were.

  Any worries Max may have had about the arrival of his (sometimes needlessly rebellious) sister were put to rest when she and Tully reached Bronte Talbott’s side and gave her two warm, substantial hugs. The three of them exchanged a few words, and then Tully plopped down in a seat next to Devon and started laughing almost immediately.

  Abby said she needed to clean up a bit and asked Bronte to join her. Max smiled as the two headed out of the room through a nearby side door and into the large hall.

  Bronte was thrilled to finally meet the independent, hippie, lesbian sister who had defied the dragon lady. The two of them left the drawing room, smiling in a conspiratorial way. Bronte had been in the house only two days, so the general layout was still pretty mysterious. She deferred to Abigail.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Follow me,” the younger sister chimed happily, grabbing Bronte’s hand as she pulled her down the corridor.

  They reached a small sitting room a few seconds later. The door was not immediately visible, and Abigail gave Bronte a mischievous wink over her shoulder as she pushed the hidden door into the nearly invisible hall paneling.

  “This is too much,” said Bronte.

  “I know, isn’t it the best?” Abigail smiled over her shoulder again as she shut the door behind her. “I’m so sorry Tully and I have been up in Scotland this whole time. We have been having such fun at Findhorn. You and Max have to come up. Or maybe not. I don’t know if that is your thing. We love it, but it’s not for everyone. But—” Abby grasped both of Bronte’s hands in hers and looked into her eyes with the same slate-gray Heyworth wolf eyes.

  “You and Max have exactly the same eyes,” Bronte said slowly. “I don’t know whether to kiss you or to run as fast as I possibly can in the other direction!”

  Abigail laughed with wonderful abandon. “You should definitely run!”

  Bronte laughed as Abby’s grasp fell away and the younger woman turned to go into an adjacent dressing room.

  Bronte spoke toward the open connecting door. “I know we need to go back to the drawing room, but just give me a little family history—some of the dirty stuff that I will never get from your brothers.”

  Abigail had changed out of her farm wear into nothing particularly festive: a clean pair of jeans and a white Oxford shirt. The Doc Martens were tossed into the closet, and she slipped on a pair of expensive driving loafers. Only someone who could afford to volunteer in New Zealand and wear keffiyehs could afford to leave a pair of five-hundred-dollar shoes in the closet at her parents’ house for the rare visit. Bronte was shaking her head from side to side when she realized Abby was asking her a question.

  “What was that?” Bronte tried.

  “I asked if Max is demanding. I never thought he was—he dotes a bit on me, I think—but he has that tendency and I was just curious if he tends that way when he’s, you know, in love…”

  Bronte stared at Abigail Heyworth. She was, quite plainly, the female version of Max. Direct. Eager. Sure.

  Bronte wondered if she should use Abby to plumb the depths of her own relationship or leave it alone, thus preserving her own privacy. A little of both, maybe.

  “He can be, I don’t know, a little controlling. But always with my best interests at heart, so how can I resist?” Bronte smiled at Abigail. The smile said it all: every fiber of my being wants to resist him, but it’s not a factual possibility. I am devoted.

  Abby looked at Bronte and tilted her head, as if to better acquaint herself with the shape and form of the woman who was Bronte Talbott. “He has that effect on people. I’ve never been able to lie to him. That’s why I have to go for months at a time without returning his calls. How can I possibly let him know what I really think until I have had a few months to ponder the truth of my own feelings?” Abby, by that time, had finished adjusting her clothes and sat on the edge of the small settee alongside Bronte. “He has that quality that demands the best, right?”

  Bronte hung her head and then turned to this young woman, with whom she felt unaccountably connected despite never having had a conversation before this one.

  Exactly! Bronte wanted to shout.

  “He… has that quality… yes.” Bronte looked up at Abby and, thankfully, saw a friend. “It’s not always easy since I, well, I don’t always even know my own feelings. But he is so sure. Do you know what I mean?”

  Abigail merely laughed, got up from the small sofa, and walked over to the dresser in the corner. As she brushed her hair, she turned to Bronte and continued, “He is a belligerent seeker of the truth. Don’t let him bully you into rushing.”

  Bronte
looked at her knees, then up at Abigail with a smile.

  Abby continued, “The thing is, he’s so totally genius. I mean, he’s so right about so much, so much of the time, that it’s hard to contradict him. But the truth is, deep down, he knows that he needs a good set down. And you are clearly the one to give it to him. He certainly won’t take it from me. I’m just the little hippie-chick sister who doesn’t know the first thing about personal responsibility. The thing he doesn’t get is the thing he needs most of all: a little ambiguity.”

  Bronte looked up as Abby put the beautiful silver-backed brush down onto the antique armoire. Didn’t these people realize that everything they touched emanated a historical, familial imperative? Everything about Dunlear Castle was steeped in centuries of it. Not for the first time that day, Bronte pushed away the subtle, corroding thoughts that skewed her vision of the very familiar, lovable Max into the vaguely threatening nineteenth Duke of Northrop.

  Bronte stood up and Abby slid an arm into hers, patting Bronte’s forearm in sisterly affection as the two headed back to the drawing room. “You can handle him.”

  ***

  The following day offered a glorious midsummer backdrop for the unveiling of Martin Ellsworth’s folly. Everyone, even an appropriately somber duchess, trudged the exact mile from the castle to the site.

  The slight rise where the structure had been built afforded a wonderful view of the surrounding hills and nearly to the sea, five miles to the south. Ellsworth had built a dovecote of sorts that incorporated a fantastic array of ironwork over six arched openings. Max was simultaneously pleased with the outcome and overwhelmed with the sense of loss that it evoked.

  Rather than solidifying some idea of his father as he had anticipated, the folly seemed to stir up endless memories of careening through the woods of Yorkshire on his father’s back or being thrown in piles of leaves or simply following him around for hours as he checked on various parts of this property.

  Max’s arm was firmly around Bronte’s waist, his head leaning toward hers. They stood for many minutes that way, silently taking it all in. There was no service or organized speech of any kind. Max simply wanted everyone together, and as the sun started to wane, casting lovely crimson light through the lush, speckled cover of leaves, he felt he had done right.

  Bronte stayed as long as she could, but after an hour, she had to go. She whispered into Max’s ear that the Virgin Atlantic limo was going to be there in about twenty minutes, and she needed to throw the rest of her stuff into her bag.

  Abby, Tully, and Devon waved them on, the three of them preferring to remain under the dappled canopy of trees until the indigo darkness came. All the others had already headed back to prepare for their own returns to London, the duchess even taking a moment to wish Bronte a safe journey. Max was going to meet with several of the Dunlear staff in the morning, so he was staying on an extra night.

  When she was packed and standing by the limo, Bronte gave Max a warm kiss good-bye, then hugged him with possessive ardor. She was trying to let him know, beyond words, that very soon, she would always be there to alleviate some of that indefinable weight and to share in all of the new joys that awaited the two of them.

  “I’ll see you in three weeks,” she said in a low voice as her lips trailed along his ear and down his neck. They were standing in the spectacular forecourt of the castle. She felt completely out of scale, like a speck on the map of someone else’s life.

  “I love you,” Max whispered. Bronte wasn’t sure, but she thought his hand may have lightly trailed across her abdomen when they pulled away from one another.

  As the black limousine drove away and Max stood with his hands in his pockets watching her go, she looked out the back window until her neck cramped. When the long driveway turned and she could no longer see Max standing there, Bronte looked down absently to see that her hand was resting unconsciously across her womb.

  Totally implausible, she thought again.

  ***

  Two weeks later, when Bronte found herself standing alone and barefoot in her bathroom in New York City, staring dumbly at the very dark blue plus sign that indicated she was, in fact—however implausibly—pregnant, she was absurdly reminded of that line from The Princess Bride. Apparently the word implausible did not mean what Bronte thought it meant.

  Had she purposely waited until ten at night to take the test so she could pretend that calling Max at that hour, three in the morning London time, would be inconsiderate? She didn’t know what the fuck she was doing or why. She threw the offending plastic wand into the little garbage can to the right of the toilet and crawled into bed.

  Tomorrow was Saturday, thankfully. She was exhausted.

  And pregnant.

  Brilliant.

  ***

  Max knew it was impetuous to fly back to New York to see Bronte. They had only been apart for two weeks—and he was already planning on going to New York next week anyway—but his negotiations had finally come to a close, every last document signed, and all he wanted to do to celebrate was get ahold of Bronte and roll around in bed for a couple of days.

  He had managed to go standby on the Saturday morning flight, which got him into JFK around one thirty local time. He had flown with only a small overnight bag as his carry-on, so he whipped through customs after he landed. Within twenty minutes of deplaning, he was in a taxi and making his way to Bronte’s apartment.

  Exhausted from the lengthy meetings with his tenants, the investment advisory board, and the irrigation engineers, Max was feeling satisfied and more than a little proud about the final outcome. After nine months of intense preparation, weeks of arbitration, and numerous sleepless nights, Max honestly believed he had structured the deal in a way that benefited everyone concerned. The current technology and attention to environmental responsibility offered a real opportunity to prove that it was possible to be green and profitable.

  Max’s mind started to clear and he was mesmerized by the arched, white tile walls of the Midtown Tunnel as the glowing reflections of the passing cars threw a repetitive pattern of strobed light across the curved surface. He smiled, anticipating Bronte’s reaction to his stealthy, unexpected entrance into her tidy little apartment.

  She had given him a spare key in early June, so if she wasn’t there when he arrived, he could hang out and wait for her until she came back.

  In the event, he made his way silently into the apartment, set his bag down near the front door, removed his shoes, and padded across the living room into the bedroom. He was surprised, then thrilled, to see Bronte still in bed at two thirty in the afternoon, a sleepy, sultry mess of sheets, bare shoulders, punched pillows, silky chestnut hair, and soft, even breath. His heart faltered for a second, then accelerated as he stood there, taking her in. Then he headed quietly into the bathroom to clean up and join her in bed.

  ***

  As Bronte rolled over, she pulled the comforter down slightly from her upper arms and had the odd feeling that Max was nearby. She could almost smell him. Even though her sleep-addled brain wanted to believe it, she was starting to wake up enough to remember that she was back in her own apartment in New York, and he was far away in his own sweet mews house in London.

  Her first incoherent morning thoughts floated through her murky brain. Seemed like a quick wedding wasn’t such a bad idea after all, she mused, letting a sleepy smile cross her lips. As corny as it sounded to her jaded ears, she was starting to believe in antiquated phrases like “my place is with him,” wherever that might be. In the week she’d spent with him in England, she had become perfectly accustomed to their homey routine, his brief touches in passing or as they sat together reading or talking. She closed her eyes and savored those memories, of the two of them winding themselves into each other’s dreams on that velvet couch in the library or holding hands as they fell asleep in London.

  A few seconds later, she rubbed her eyes and tried to force herself to wake up a little bit more, stretching her legs toward
the foot of the bed and reaching for her cell phone on the bedside table.

  No messages. Small wonders.

  Then she saw the time. Half past two in the afternoon? This pregnancy was going to knock her flat on her ass.

  She put her phone back down, then stretched her neck, turning it first toward the window to her left, then right, toward the bathroom door. She screamed and almost had a heart attack when she saw a man standing there, then caught her feverish breath when she realized it was Max.

  It was Max all right, standing there in the flesh, holding the white pregnancy-test plastic wand between thumb and index fingers in pincer fashion, and staring at her with a look that somehow managed to combine rage and tenderness in a terrifying mix.

  “Bron?”

  “Oh my God, Max, you fucking terrified me.” She scrambled to sit up, wrestling with the sheets. “What the hell are you doing here? I mean”—she smiled seductively—“I’m so glad you are here—”

  “Bronte.”

  It wasn’t a question. He raised the plastic test a few inches.

  “I just took it a couple of hours ago. I swear. I had no idea, for sure, until this morning.” And why was he making her feel all defensive? Why wasn’t he hugging her and loving her up?

  “Then why didn’t you call me right then? Were you ever going to tell me?”

  “Max. Please. That’s such a ridiculous thing to say.” But she felt the tiniest flash of guilt as she thought of her relief the night before, that she wouldn’t have to tell him right away.

  “You text me when you see a ripe avocado at the store for chrissake, Bron! Why wouldn’t you—”

  “Max, please!” Her voice was sharp.

  She felt justified.

  About something.

  She hoped it wasn’t merely postfeminist indignation. If she wanted to have a few hours, or days even, to herself to contemplate a decision that would have an infinite effect on the rest of her existence—not to mention on the existence of an entirely new being—then she was damn well going to take a day or two to be alone with her thoughts. She thought of Abby having to go to another country for months at a time to avoid that penetrating look from her brother that was skewering Bronte at that very moment. Why did he have to be so… so… formidable?!