by Teri Wilson
The school doors opened as she approached and, beyond the delighted faces of the teachers and administrators assembled near the entryway, Amelia spotted Jane.
Amelia knew there’d been some sort of mistake. She was probably supposed to be at a hostel in Camden right then, not at Battersea Nursery School.
“Amelia, you look lovely.” Jane greeted her with a kiss on the cheek. As usual, the scent of Jo Malone’s Orange Blossom cologne clung to Jane’s exquisitely blown-out hair.
“Thank you.” Behind her sister-in-law’s slim frame, Amelia could see tiny children lining the hallway. Some wore plastic tiaras and others held bouquets.
It was all very adorable. Very innocent. Very, very Jane.
“I’m not sure what I’m doing here exactly,” Amelia whispered. “I had a change in schedule, but I’m certain I’m supposed to be someplace else.”
Jane’s expression remained effortlessly serene, as if she’d walked right out of a yoga class. She spoke so quietly that Amelia could barely hear what she said. “No mistake. You’re on mummy duty now.”
“What?” Amelia blurted.
Every head in the foyer swiveled in her direction.
“Be mindful, Amelia,” Jane murmured. Now she practically sounded like a yoga teacher. “People are watching.”
Of course they were. People were always watching. Gregory Beckett was probably lurking behind a bush somewhere right this second. “But I don’t understand. I’m getting married, not having a baby.”
“Not right now, but you will be soon enough.” Jane gave her a knowing a smile.
Amelia had the sudden urge to smack her. She really needed to get a handle on her emotions these days. “Mummy duty? This is insane.”
No one actually expected her to have children with Holden, did they? He already had children. Grown children. Besides, in order to have babies, she’d have to actually sleep with Holden.
Oh God, I’m going to have to sleep with Holden.
“Amelia, everyone is waiting.” Jane’s smile was beginning to look strained around the edges.
“Right. So sorry.” Amelia swallowed.
The principal of the school introduced himself, and she shook his hand. She posed for photographs with a few of the teachers and then pasted a smile on her face and greeted the children. Jane took one side of the hallway while Amelia took the other. She accepted bouquet after bouquet, until her arms were full.
And all the while, she imagined what it might be like to have a child with Holden. Because Jane was right. This was no coincidence. Once the wedding was over, everyone would expect her to get pregnant right away. The Becketts would want an heir . . . an heir that would have a place in succession for the throne.
The thought made her sick to her stomach. She couldn’t even picture sleeping in the same bed with Holden, much less having sex with him.
She should’ve seen this coming. Husbands and wives had sex. Obviously. And Holden was going to be her husband. He was in love with her. Of course he’d want to sleep with her.
How stupid had she been? When she’d agreed to this arrangement, she’d somehow thought that her life would remain largely unchanged. In her mind, it had never been a real marriage.
The plan had sounded so simple at first. Marry Holden. Save the family crown.
No one had said anything about sex. Or children. If they had, maybe she wouldn’t be running around kissing strange American cellists.
Or maybe she still would.
When at last the visit to the school was over and Amelia was nestled safely back inside the Range Rover, Ben asked her if she felt okay. She looked unwell, apparently.
Probably because she wasn’t well. She was panicked.
Mummy duty.
The words rang in her head the entire ride back to the palace. She closed her eyes, leaned her head against the seat and tried to think of something else. Anything else.
But her thoughts had spun away from her, and the car was filled with the heavy scent of flowers. Her stomach churned. She couldn’t catch her breath.
She practically bolted from the car when they reached the palace. While Ben and the others gathered the bouquets from the backseat, she hurried toward her suite. It took every ounce of her self-control not to flat-out run.
Running wasn’t allowed in Buckingham Palace. That was another rule.
Amelia was sick of rules. She was sick of everything about her life at the moment. She knew it wasn’t fair to feel that way. After all, she’d agreed to the engagement. She’d been so enraptured by the idea of making her family proud for once that she hadn’t even had to think twice about it.
After a lifetime of begging for attention every way she knew how, all eyes were finally on her. This was her chance to make up for every bad decision she’d ever made. She was going to be the one to ensure that her brother would one day sit on the throne. Her family was depending on her.
For the first time in her life, she mattered.
Of course she’d marry Holden. She’d have his children if she had to.
But as she rounded the corner to her suite, her footsteps slowed to a stop in front of the wrong room.
His room. Asher Reed’s.
* * *
REHEARSAL LASTED WELL INTO the evening. When Asher returned to the palace, he turned down James’s offer of a hot meal in the dining room in favor of having the page escort him straight to his bedroom. Jet lag had hit hard around seven o’clock, and that had been several hours ago. He was dead on his feet.
Plus, he’d had another shit day.
Jeremy’s comments from the day before still rattled him. For two days straight now, his playing had been mediocre at best.
“Just ring, sir, in the event you change your mind.” James paused outside the door.
“Thank you, I will. But that’s doubtful. I’m heading straight to bed.” He needed sleep. Maybe if he got some rest, he could pull himself together.
He’d noticed the curious, sideways glances of the other musicians as he’d launched into his solo. He knew his rhythm had been a little off. It had been easy enough to blame his subpar performance on exhaustion—or even his mildly damaged bow—but he couldn’t get away with that for long. This was the royal wedding. Jeremy expected perfection. The entire world did.
Sleep would fix things. It had to.
“Very well. Good night.” James nodded and turned back down the narrow hallway.
Asher watched the page for a beat, wondering if he’d grow accustomed to being waited on hand and foot before he left England. He doubted it. The palace was another world, nothing like he’d expected.
He walked inside his room, and as if to illustrate his point, Willow was waiting for him. She was sitting right on the other side of the door, staring him down the way she tended to do.
Only this time, she wasn’t alone.
“Princess?” Asher blinked.
“Finally. I’ve been waiting for hours.” She threw her hands in the air. “And I told you to call me Amelia. Remember?”
“Sorry. Amelia. Did we have an appointment?” He was sure they didn’t. But for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out what she was doing in his room.
“No, but I need your help with something. Come on, let’s go.”
He shook his head. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Especially not with her. He needed rest. And every time the two of them were in the same room together, things seemed to get a little crazy.
“But I want you to help me find the leopard.”
And there it was. They’d gone from zero to crazy in less than a minute this time.
Asher scrubbed a hand over his face. “You’re telling me there’s a leopard somewhere inside this palace?”
She rolled her eyes. “Yes, that’s what I just said. Do you have a hearing problem?”
No, I have a princess problem. He eyed Willow, who’d begun sniffing his cello case. Also, a corgi problem.
Not to mention the myriad of other pro
blems he’d had to face in England, like his newfound stage fright.
And his ex.
And his maestro.
And the odd interaction he’d witnessed between Duke Holden and a woman who was definitely not Amelia.
He had a good number of problems at the moment, but his hearing wasn’t one of them.
“I’m not deaf, just a little baffled.” A lot. He was a lot baffled. But he was also intrigued and admittedly, a little aroused.
He couldn’t take his eyes off her as she paced around the room. She was barefoot, dressed in a plain white T-shirt and faded skinny jeans with a hole in the knee. Yet everything about her still screamed royalty, from her perfect posture to the balletic grace of her movements. There was an elegance about her that fascinated him, so much so that he found himself staring at the tiny patch of exposed flesh through the rip in her jeans.
This is a bad idea.
He couldn’t go sneaking around Buckingham Palace after hours with the very engaged Princess Amelia when he was getting turned on by the mere sight of her kneecap. She’d have to find someone else to take her on an adventure.
Why was she coming to him, anyway? He wasn’t even sure she liked him. Sure, she’d liked kissing him. There was no mistaking her reaction. She’d enjoyed it quite a bit.
But she still had a way of looking at him like she was a princess and he was a commoner. Probably because that was indeed the truth of the matter.
“There’s a leopard in the palace, and I want to see it before it gets carted off somewhere. How is that confusing?” She stopped pacing and planted herself right in front of him. She looked him straight in the eye, and after a beat her gaze dropped to his tie. As per usual.
It seemed she was always either staring at the knot in his tie or at his bare chest. Up close, Asher got the sense that her whimsical bravado was an act. Maybe it was the way she crossed her arms, like she was trying to hold herself together. Or maybe it was the bubblegum-pink polish on her toes—such an unexpected glimpse of innocence. Vulnerability. She seemed almost lost, and Asher wondered if the reason she’d chosen him for her nonsensical leopard hunt was because she didn’t have anyone else to ask.
“When you put it that way, I suppose it makes sense.” It didn’t.
“So you’ll come, then?” Her eyes locked with his again, and her grin was so dazzling that it hit Asher right in the center of his chest.
He cleared his throat. “I will.”
Warning bells were sounding in every corner of his mind, but it was too late. Amelia was already gliding toward the door of his room, moving in that way of hers. The way that reminded Asher what it felt like to play the third movement of Rachmaninov’s Symphony no. 2. It was a piece that vibrated with restrained elegance until the moment it let itself go. Inevitably, it absolutely shattered him in its beautiful intensity. Every time.
Willow trailed at the princess’s feet. Asher loosened his tie—just enough so he could breathe through the sudden tightness in his chest—and fell in step behind them both. He briefly considered suggesting they leave Willow behind. Introducing a dog and a leopard didn’t seem like the safest idea. But as he knew all too well, Willow could hold her own. Besides, he knew better than to tell the corgi where she could and couldn’t go. He’d finally read the packet.
He’d skimmed it, anyway.
The hallway walls of the palace were covered in emerald-green silk. After nine in the evening, unless the palace was hosting an event, the wall sconces were turned down low. Asher had learned that in the packet as well. What he hadn’t anticipated was how still the darkened corridors would feel, as if the building itself were asleep. No wonder he’d been assigned an escort. After the first two turns of direction, Asher was already lost. He had no clue where Amelia was taking him, but she seemed to have a particular destination in mind.
She paused for a beat in front of a set of massive double doors trimmed in gold, glimmering in the shadows.
The leopard’s bedroom?
She pushed the doors open and flipped a switch just inside, flooding the room with light. Asher blinked against the sudden brightness, and some small part of his brain registered a distinct absence of jungle animals.
Still, the scene before him was staggering. The room was enormous, carpeted in rich crimson from one end to the other. Even the walls were red, draped with colossal swags of ruby-toned velvet. Portraits of queens and kings hung in lavish gold frames as far as the eye could see. The massive table that stretched down the center of the space told him he was standing in Buckingham Palace’s legendary banquet room.
“That’s the longest table I’ve ever seen,” he said.
Beside him, the princess shrugged. “One hundred seventy-five feet, give or take.”
Nearly half the size of a football field.
Asher stared at gleaming silver trays, gold flatware, and more teapots than he’d ever seen in one room before. Every square inch of the table was covered with random paraphernalia. Not just dishes, but all sorts of things—paintings, statues, swords, and, oddly enough, a totem pole.
If Asher hadn’t known better, he would’ve thought someone was busy preparing for the world’s most opulent yard sale.
He glanced at Amelia. She’d gone quiet since she’d turned on the light. And if he wasn’t mistake, a bit pale.
“What is all of this?” he asked.
“Wedding gifts,” she said flatly.
“Holy shit,” he said before he could stop himself, then clamped his mouth shut and shot her a sideways glance, certain he’d just broken some sort of royal protocol yet again.
But when she met his gaze, laughter danced in her eyes. “Thank you.”
He lifted a brow and tried very hard to ignore the fact that he was enjoying himself. Quite a bit, actually. “For what? Not one of these gifts is from me.”
“Are you sure? Not even the totem pole?” Her lower lip slid forward into a pout.
God, she was gorgeous.
If she’d been anyone else, he’d have been tempted to kiss her again. Right then and there. Not that he’d kissed many women since Serena. None, in fact. Just the princess.
He cleared his throat. “Not even the totem pole. Although as far as wedding gifts go, it’s a solid choice.”
She shook her head, and the humor in her eyes dimmed. Asher could see her sadness coming back with each passing second. Even Willow seemed to notice it. She let out an uncharacteristically subdued whine and plopped on top of Asher’s right foot.
“Why are you really thanking me, Amelia?” he murmured. The walls in his bedroom might not have ears, but surely the ones here did.
She sighed. “Because you’re the only one who seems to appreciate the absurdity of this situation. I mean, look at all this stuff.”
“It’s definitely absurd.” He chuckled, but something in her eyes made him suddenly unsure exactly what they were talking about.
The gifts? The leopard?
The wedding itself?
“Your groom was at rehearsal yesterday.” He hadn’t meant to bring up her fiancé. In fact, he’d been planning on avoiding the topic at all costs.
But it just slipped out. At least that’s what he told himself, because he sure as hell didn’t want to believe he was meddling in her relationship. The kiss notwithstanding, obviously.
Meddling is exactly what you’re doing, and you know it.
“Oh.” Either Asher was imagining things, or her face fell for the briefest of seconds before she nodded and smiled. “Duke Holden. Right. He’s lovely.”
“So you’ve said.” Shut the hell up. Her smile was fading fast. If he kept talking, he was sure to push her away again.
He didn’t want that. He was enjoying her company, probably more than he should be.
Yet on some level, he was tempted to mention what he’d seen the day before—the way the duke had held onto the other woman’s hand and the implied intimacy of the gesture.
He wouldn’t, obviously. What could he pos
sibly say, anyway?
He hadn’t actually witnessed anything inappropriate. He just had a sick feeling in his gut at the way the two of them had looked at one another. It was the same way he’d noticed Serena and Jeremy looking at each other before he knew the truth.
Amelia narrowed her gaze. “What are you trying to say, Asher?”
That I think your duke is in love with another woman.
He swallowed the words down, intent on saying something else. But before he could utter a word, a familiar voice rang out behind him.
“Amelia? Mr. Reed? Whatever are the two of you doing in here?”
Willow flew to her feet, and trotted past him. Asher knew who’d walked into the room without even turning around.
The queen.
CHAPTER
* * *
EIGHT
“Mum.”
Amelia regretted the word the moment it flew out of her mouth. She knew better than to address the queen of England so casually in front of a guest of the palace. She also knew better than to sneak around after hours with said guest, but that hadn’t stopped her, had it?
“Your Majesty.” Asher bowed. When the queen said nothing, but simply stood there gazing at him with thinly veiled disdain, he bowed again.
Her mother sighed and turned her gaze on Amelia. “What’s going on here?”
Amelia shrugged and feigned nonchalance as best she could. Not an easy task when her heart was beating so fast she felt like a hummingbird was trapped in her chest. She hadn’t been this nervous any of the times she’d stumbled into the palace after a night out drinking with her friends. She didn’t even know why she was so frightened. It wasn’t as if she’d broken any rules.
This time.
“I’m just taking a look around. You’ve been after me for days about the gifts and the thank-you notes. Remember?” Amelia gestured toward the table piled high with treasures.
She didn’t dare look at Asher. She hadn’t figured out how exactly to explain his presence. And while exploring the darkened palace with her wedding cello soloist might not technically be breaking any rules, it didn’t look good.