The Royal We

by Heather Cocks

  Cilla’s confidence slid. “He decided not to come.”

  “He wasn’t invited, you mean,” Joss said.

  “He may have failed the security check,” Cilla admitted, not fully looking at any of us.

  “Cilla,” I groaned. “You have got to break up with him.”

  “But he’s dead sexy,” she protested.

  “So is Gaz,” I said boldly, nudging her.

  “And dead skilled,” Cilla added pointedly.

  “So is Gaz,” Clive teased, taking a swig of his martini.

  “Tony is so shady, Cil,” I said. “You know this. Where is it even going, anyway?”

  “From the pot to the kettle,” Joss said blithely.

  Lacey set her jaw. “That’s below the belt tonight.”

  “Oh, come on, we’ve all said Nick should man up and go public,” Joss said.

  “We have?” I asked. “When were we talking about it?”

  Joss rolled her eyes. “All the time,” she said.

  “Leave it out, Joss,” Cilla said.

  “If Cilla is willing to be seen in public with Tricky Tony, then what’s Nick’s problem?”

  “Not here, Joss,” Clive said.

  I felt myself turning red. It made sense that they had discussed it—hell, I would have, if one of my best friends had been treading water in her relationship for this long. As much as I appreciated their collective allegiance, though, it hit me that there was more to it than pure protectiveness: They pitied me.

  “Where is Nick, anyway?” Lacey asked, rising up on her toes and scanning the room. “I don’t see Freddie, either.”

  Suddenly, I felt a hand on my arm. We looked around to see the Queen’s footmen silently, discreetly, arranging the guests in long, parallel receiving lines of sorts that created two aisles in the Picture Gallery.

  “Asked and answered,” Clive murmured. “Here they come.”

  * * *

  At her coronation, the leading columnist of the day wrote that Eleanor was so beautiful she’d have ended up Queen even if she’d been born a peasant. At seventy-seven, the florid march of love and death had conspired to fold that beauty into something less refined, like taking a gentle eraser to a pencil sketch. But she was still striking, with unmarred bone structure and the same cornflower-blue eyes that she’d passed down to Nick. That day, they glowed as she entered the Picture Gallery in a glorious royal-purple frock, emerald drops in her ears and a glittering tiara perched on her flawless pewter bob. Age had stooped her slightly, but she still walked with the elegance of a younger ruler and the confidence of a woman accustomed to being obeyed.

  Richard, Freddie, and Eleanor’s mother Marta entered next, the men in full military dress—Prince Dick, coldly chiseled, and Freddie eliciting an inadvertent intake of breath from Lacey. The guest of honor emerged last. The sight of Nick in his tux melted me, and I was proud of how composed he was even though I knew it killed him that his father and brother had military regalia to wear and he didn’t. Across the way, I caught Lady Bollocks staring at me, her black gown’s bodice as architectural as her features. She gave me a half nod that was as approving as I was ever likely to get, and so brief that she could plausibly deny having done it.

  Richard and Freddie strolled up our aisle, Marta on Freddie’s arm, with Eleanor and Nick taking the other. I faced them with my back to the wall, and pretended not to watch as they acknowledged people in the crowd, Nick’s face brightening at the sight of a redheaded girl I recognized with a sinking heart as Gemma Sands—currently on the cover of Tatler in a glowing profile featuring her both as London’s most eligible bachelorette, and in the majestic environs of her father’s wildlife preserve while wearing a fluffy feathered couture. She’d looked fantastic. She did again, in tonight’s sleek blue gown, which irritatingly matched Nick’s eyes.

  I tore away my gaze when I sensed Richard approaching. As his eyes swept down our line, he looked for a moment like he was going to speak to me, so I opened my mouth.

  He passed right on by.

  In the void where his body had been, I saw Eleanor across the room flicking her gaze toward me. I was gripped again with one of those intrusive impulses: to stick out my tongue, or scream, or announce I left a pair of underwear at Windsor Castle—did anyone find them?

  Instead, I smiled. She ignored me, too. Bea, in the distance, raised a brow at me as if to say, What did you expect?

  Marta and Freddie passed by in a cloud of cigarette smoke (she smokes two packs a day).

  “Nice dress, Killer,” he murmured.

  At least I had one ally.

  We ate in the Ballroom—paradoxically, the formal dancing later would happen in the Throne Room—which is like stepping inside a very fancy music box, right down to the gargantuan early-nineteenth-century pipe organ across the back wall of the room. The chandeliers had been dimmed to give way to the candles on each of the thirty or so round tables, scattered below the long, raised rectangular one where Nick and his family and some carefully selected seatmates were placed. With one noteworthy absence: This time, the official story was that Emma had bronchitis. Prince Dick’s seatmate for the evening was instead Princess Christiane of Greece, a fleshy and foxy middle-aged woman Richard had (per Nick) come very close to marrying thirty years ago. Freddie, wisely forbidden to select his own date, was placed next to the British prime minister’s daughter, to her obvious delight. Lacey did not even look at him when we entered the Ballroom. So far they had done their level bests to steer clear of each other—but Lacey was already on her fourth refill of bubbly, so it was anybody’s guess whether either of their level bests would hold.

  Lady Bollocks was stuck at a table nearby with her parents and a variety of poncey-looking middle-aged folks who were carrying on in stage whispers about the relative gaucheness of the fish knives that had been included in the place settings (only among Britain’s upper crust would there be a cutlery scandal). Bea was feigning interest in a hilariously dismissive way, until something at the head table caught her eye. I followed her gaze. The clusters of cream roses in our centerpiece partially obscured Eleanor and Freddie from me, but I had a clear view of Nick, who’d just entered with his dining companion for the evening: one Gemma Sands.

  “That’s interesting,” Clive said, reading my mind.

  Prince Nicholas in his spit-shined capacity was distant enough from my slovenly, Twinkie-inhaling boyfriend that I could, at first, consider Gemma’s placement with anthropological curiosity. And then the meal began, and I had to sit through six courses of the two of them putting hands on each other’s arms, telling rip-roaring jokes to other members of the table, and being solicitous of each other to the extreme—and I had to do it in a room full of people who read the papers, and thus recognized me and saw that I was plonked in the worst seat in the house. But it was during the salmon course that I felt the Queen’s particular gimlet eye on me once more, and was suddenly quite sure that she was gauging my reaction to her seating chart. In the face of our denied request to become official, giving the nod to Gemma Sands in front of everyone Eleanor cared to impress felt like a chess move. And everyone knows the Queen is the most powerful piece on the board.

  Screw that, I thought.

  So I straightened my back and resolved to have an epically delightful time. I threw myself into every conversation, smiling, laughing at Cilla’s story about how one painting in the Portrait Gallery had belonged to her great-great-great-aunt until the Prince of Wales won it in a high-stakes game of whist. I sipped daintily at the tremendous wine from the palace cellar of more than twenty-five thousand bottles, dredged up some stories from the greeting-card trenches that were passably entertaining, and overall ensured I visibly held my own as a lively—but not overtly loud nor showy—dining companion. If anyone in the House of Lyons wanted to beat my spirit into submission, he or she would have to strike harder.

  Which eventually, Nick himself did. The evening closed with a giant cake, lit with sparklers, and a round of “Ha
ppy Birthday,” which Gemma punctuated with a highly affectionate kiss on Nick’s cheek—a moment I instantly knew would be the lynchpin for all the gossipy reports in the papers. Lacey reached under the table and took my hand, Cilla and Gaz swapped a look, and my parents, bless them, betrayed not even a flicker of surprise nor irritation. Then Nick took his seat and leaned over Gemma to speak to the prime minister, and I looked at Lacey, who had just dropped her butter knife onto the floor and was trying to fish it out from under the table with her toe. I felt extraordinarily out of my depth.

  * * *

  “You’re spending this entire party just watching Nick,” Lady Bollocks accused me.

  We had moved into the throne room for digestifs and traditional ballroom dancing (designed to appeal to the Olds, as Freddie called them, until they retired and a DJ took over). My parents were taking a surprisingly graceful turn around the dance floor, and I felt a surge of pride at how fleet of foot Dad looked, and how beautifully that simple act thumbed its nose at anyone who’d painted him as a beer-swilling baseball hooligan. But, although I’m loath to admit it even now, I was paying more attention to how many people Nick greeted and spoke to before he made it to me (currently, he was stuck with a posse of Danish relatives who were hugging him copiously). I knew I was being watched, so I couldn’t even spy as flagrantly as I wanted to, and if Bea had noticed, then possibly so had other people. So I turned my back on him and pasted on the most contented smile I could muster. Nobody bought it.

  “Has he even spoken to you yet?” Cilla asked.

  “Does this morning count?” I said.

  “This is a lot to deal with, Bex,” Lacey ventured sympathetically.

  “Stop encouraging her tiresome moping. It’s not as if he can stroll up and ask her to dance,” Bea said. “The reporters here would be all over that bit of foreplay.”

  Cilla looked at the whirling couples wistfully. “Pity. The dancing looks quite lovely.”

  Gaz drew himself tall and held out a hand to Cilla. “And you look stunning, and Tony is a deep-fried wanker for missing the chance to twirl you around this room,” he said, as gallantly as anything involving the word wanker can be said.

  Cilla blushed. “Go on, you,” she said, but she was beaming, and took his hand, and Gaz whisked her away like a man who’d been practicing for weeks.

  “He’s been practicing for weeks,” Clive said.

  “You read my mind,” I said.

  Clive offered me his hand. “I hope I’m reading it again.”

  I involuntarily glanced again at Nick, and saw him give Gemma a quick hug in passing.

  “You are,” I said, accepting.

  And so Clive and I performed a passable waltz, giggling as we tried not to step all over each other. Freddie and Bea even joined us, the latter holding her dangerously pointed chin high in the air as Freddie tried whatever goofy move he could to upset her iron posture. When the music ended, I noticed Eleanor’s eyes pausing again on me.

  “Stop checking the approval meter,” Bea hissed.

  Gaz bowed low to Cilla. “Can I interest the lady in a drink?”

  “Bloody hell, yes,” Cilla said, her cheeks sweetly red.

  “Me too,” Clive said somewhat obliviously. “And I saw Joss’s father going blue in the face yelling at Tom Huntington-Jones about something, so I’d best buck up and go fish for the scoop from Philippa. Coming, Bex?”

  I scanned the room again. I couldn’t see Nick, but I did see my parents at the edge of the dance floor, entangled in a conversation with Nick’s agitated-looking Aunt Agatha.

  “You go ahead. Let me check on my parents first.”

  “…show jumping in Great Britain simply hasn’t been the same since he threw his hat in with the Dutch,” Agatha was saying when I reached them. She sounded accusatory.

  “I am sure you’re right,” my mother said, in a tone I recognized as the one she used when she wanted to be conciliatory and also had no idea what the other person was talking about.

  Agatha seemed pleased by this response, before turning to me with a stare that was evaluative at best. “Can I help you, Rebecca?” she asked after a beat.

  I gestured at Mom and Dad. “These are my parents, Your Highness,” I explained.

  Agatha looked at them, then back at me again, an expression of consternation on her face. “Really?” she said.

  “I’m afraid it’s true,” Dad told her.

  “I was quite sure you were related to Maxima,” Agatha said, in a tone that implied that she was still fairly certain that she was correct. She turned to me, grudgingly. “Rebecca, how are you enjoying the palace?” No one has ever sounded more pained by a pleasantry.

  “It’s stunning,” I said. “One of my favorite Vermeers is hanging in the Portrait Gallery.”

  “Oh yes,” Agatha said. “The Milkmaid.”

  It was a test. I was about to pass.

  “No, ma’am, I believe that one is in the Rijksmuseum,” I said. “I’m talking about The Music Lesson. Up close you can really see the way Vermeer injected himself into the work by adding that reflection of his easel. It’s breathtaking in person.”

  “Of course,” Agatha said, looking almost disappointed that I’d been right.

  In your face, was my elegant thought.

  Then Agatha’s face fell even further. “Excuse me. Julian is…well, excuse me,” she said, hustling toward the bar, where I saw Awful Julian dumping two shots of whiskey into his soda.

  “Do I even want to know what that was about?” Mom asked.

  “I think Princess Agatha was making sure that I’m not both a greeting-card artist and a bullshit artist,” I said.

  “I can only assume you showed her up magnificently,” Nick said, suddenly at my side. “I apologize if she was rude.”

  My mother burst into girlish laughter. The two old women next to us glanced over and, in sync, raised penciled-in brows.

  “Not at all,” Mom chortled. “I found her quite fascinating, actually.”

  “Happy birthday!” My father shook Nick’s hand. “Quite a place you’ve got here.”

  “Thank you both very much for coming,” Nick said warmly. “It means a lot to me to have you here, and I know Bex has been missing you very much.”

  “Well, obviously, we’re delighted to be here,” my mother said, launching into what sounded like a TripAdvisor review. “It’s tremendous, and the level of service! I can’t even begin to imagine the planning.”

  “Luckily, all I had to do is show up,” Nick said, smiling. “I don’t want you to think your daughter would have anything to do with the sort of person who would approve an ice sculpture of himself riding a polo pony.”

  “He barely even rides,” I said. “Because of the wooden leg.”

  “Bex!” Mom gasped.

  “Don’t tell,” Nick said conspiratorially. “I’m so sorry I can’t stay and chat longer, but Gran will have my head if I don’t circulate.” He caught my eye, and did a quick double take. “Nice necklace,” he added.

  “Happy birthday,” I said, holding his gaze, unwilling to melt. “My best to Gemma.”

  Before he could react, he was whisked away. It was the last I talked to him that night.

  After another hour, the footmen began notifying the older guests that their cars were lining up outside. I desperately wanted my parents to stay, but Mom and Dad had an early flight back to the United States, where my father had a long-standing meeting with the SkyMall board to discuss the Coucherator 2.0, which came with the option for a full sleeper sofa.

  “This was marvelous, Bex,” my mother gushed quietly, as we were saying our good-byes. She gently touched my chin. “And you were dignified and composed and wonderful. A credit to any family, even a royal one. Maybe especially.”

  “Stop it, Mom,” I said. “You’re going to make me cry.”

  Mom kissed my cheeks—both of them, European-style—and moved over to say good-bye to Lacey. I went to hug Dad, and he squeezed my shoulders very
paternally.

  “This is a strange kind of life,” he said, looking me square in the eye. “There’s always going to be a part of it that looks different from the outside than inside. And that you can’t share. With anyone.”

  Nothing escaped my father. “I know, Dad,” I said.

  “And you really have to love a person to put up with that,” he continued. “Love the person, not just the trappings. Because the rest of this…”

  “Is fabulous,” Mom supplied, bouncing over as Lacey drifted back toward the party.

  “Is a lot to hitch your wagon to,” Dad said. “Especially for someone like you, Bex.”

  “What does that mean?” Mom twittered. “She’d be grand at it.”

  I think this was a beginning of her quasi-English accent.

  “It means this is the antithesis of someone as free-spirited as Bex is,” Dad said to her. “Or used to be, anyway. And I worry about that.”

  There was a moment of silence among the three of us. My mother looked thoughtful.

  “I really do love him, Dad,” I finally said.

  But as I watched my parents disappear down the Grand Staircase, I chewed on what Dad had said. I’d had to swallow an awful lot of irregularities to be with Nick, many of them hurtful, and all of them starting to chip away at my core.

  While we’d dined and danced, the Picture Gallery had been transformed into a tiki theme, with potted palm trees lining the walls and a thatched roof over the bar, which was dishing out cocktails in coconuts. Someone had even wrangled an enormous tank, full of colorful tropical fish, against the far wall. That someone had to be Tony, whom I spied standing in the corner, talking animatedly to Cilla. Near the door, Gaz slumped against a totem pole.

  “Freddie got Tony a gig designing this,” Gaz said, gesturing around the room. “He only pretended to fail security. Top secret. So impressive.” He sighed. “I feel a right pillock.”

  “Pillock.” I tossed the word around in my mouth. “What is that rhyming slang for?”

  “Not a bloody thing,” Gaz said morosely.

  Nick was dancing loosely with a cluster that included India Bolingbroke and Gemma Sands. His bow tie swung open and carefree, his eyes not searching for mine the way they would have a year ago, and I knew there would be no covert rendezvous later. I leaned against the pole with Gaz, my partner in feeling inconsequential and insufficient. The room was buzzing with energy and people and revelry, and even as I looped my arm around my friend, I had never felt so alone.