Nina was no longer here, and as King George I once said, history is written by the victors.
“I’m sorry. This is all my fault. All this confusion, I mean,” Daphne explained, in answer to Jefferson’s puzzled look. “I told Nina earlier tonight that I blamed myself. I guess she misunderstood.”
“Blamed yourself? For what?”
“She clearly felt out of her depth.” Daphne said it gently, so that it somehow didn’t come out like an insult at all, but more like a quiet observation. “She wasn’t equipped to handle all the attention she was getting. I tried to give her some advice when we went shopping—”
“You went shopping with Nina?”
“We ran into each other at Halo, and I helped her pick out a dress.” Daphne sighed. “I probably shouldn’t have made an effort. She clearly thought I was interfering. I just wanted her to learn from my mistakes.”
Jefferson nodded, silent. He glanced at the fireplace, above which hung a famously unfinished portrait of his grandparents King Edward III and Queen Wilhelmina. The top half was complete, but the bottom dissolved into charcoal sketch lines, the Queen Mother’s dress transitioning from flame-colored paint to wisps of pencil. After her husband died, she refused to let the artist finish the painting; and so it would remain like this, forever incomplete.
“Nina doesn’t like you,” Jefferson said abruptly. He still wasn’t convinced by Daphne’s explanation.
Of course she doesn’t. Daphne gave a serene nod. “I don’t blame her. She knew what I was thinking tonight.”
“What were you thinking?”
Daphne lifted her eyes to meet his, then swept her thick black lashes down over her cheeks.
“How I still feel about you. I won’t say that I’m sorry you and Nina broke up. Because I’m not.”
She let the words fall between them like dice, tossed in some cosmic game of chance, except that Daphne left nothing to chance. Jefferson wasn’t going to kiss her; she knew that much. It was too soon. She just needed to say the words and let them percolate in his mind.
He shifted awkwardly, as if he wasn’t quite certain how to behave around her after what she’d said. Still, Daphne waited a moment. Too many people were unnerved by silence, but not her. She knew what could be accomplished in a beat of silence, if you were willing to let it unfold.
“Thanks for sharing this,” she said at last, and reached across him for the bottle of scotch, to take another long sip before passing it back to Jefferson.
He cleared his throat. “Remember when we came in here and played Apples to Apples?”
“You and Ethan kept trying to make it a drinking game!” Daphne recalled. “It was so long ago, I can’t remember who won ….”
Jefferson gave a sardonic smile. “Not me, if my hangover the next morning was any indication.”
“Wasn’t that a school day?”
“Oh, yeah. I’m pretty sure I begged you to bring a breakfast sandwich to the alley for me.” The students of St. Ursula’s and Forsythe weren’t supposed to visit each other’s campuses, but there was a narrow strip of grass between the two—uninventively called “the alley”—where you could meet between periods for a quick kiss. Or, in Daphne’s case, to deliver Gatorade and a breakfast sandwich to your boyfriend.
“I miss those days.” Daphne’s smile was tinged with nostalgia. “Everything else aside, I miss being friends with you. So many times I’ve caught myself reaching for my phone, because there was something I wanted to tell you, and then …”
Jefferson’s hand was right there on the bar between them. Daphne knew how easy it would be to lace her fingers in his, but she didn’t want to spook him.
Instead she sighed and looked down, the diamonds in her ears swinging and catching the light. “I wish we could be friends again.”
The prince nodded, slowly. “I don’t see why we can’t be.”
Later that night, Daphne started toward the main double doors of the palace. She had just said goodbye to Jefferson—well, goodbye might be overstating it; she had poured him into the helpful arms of one of his security officers. She had briefly considered going upstairs with him, but decided against it. She didn’t want him to think of her as the rebound from Nina, when Nina had always been the rebound from her.
And anyway, they’d gotten too drunk, sliding that fifth of scotch back and forth as they reminisced and laughed over old memories. Daphne decided that it was better to end now, on a high note. She had rekindled the spark, and that was enough for tonight.
Daphne didn’t bother heading back into the party; there was no one else she needed to see, and her parents were long since home. She paused at the front hallway to collect her coat from a footman. Even though she’d taken much smaller sips than Jefferson, she felt the scotch pulsing languidly through her veins. She was quite drunk.
And exhausted. That was the thing about success; it could be even more draining than failure. It had felt like a marathon: all these days and nights of scheming and plotting, breaking apart a relationship and holding herself ready in the wings. She’d been running on fumes and raw determination, and now there was nothing left to hold her upright.
The palace’s circle drive was always chaotic after a big party. A long queue of people twisted around the front porch, each of them waiting for one of the courtesy cars, which the palace provided free of charge after a night like this. Daphne allowed herself a sigh and started toward the back.
“Daphne? Can I give you a ride?”
She was somehow unsurprised to see Ethan at the front of the line, holding open the door of a town car.
Daphne paused in the moonlight, her coat dropping from her shoulders. There was something new and sharp in the air, something she should ignore. But she didn’t.
“That would be great. Thank you,” she murmured, and slid after him into the backseat. Ethan leaned forward to give the driver her address.
“We can drop you first. This was your car.”
“It’s okay,” Ethan said quickly, and smiled. “Chivalry, and all that.”
Daphne realized that she didn’t actually know where Ethan lived, had never been to his house, had never even met his mom. She wondered, fleetingly, why he’d never invited any of their friends over—if his mom didn’t approve of them, or if Ethan had reasons of his own.
“So? How did it go?” Ethan demanded. Through the tinted windows, the city was a gold-flecked blur. The skyscrapers of the financial district huddled against the horizon, honeycombed by scattered office windows that were still illuminated.
“Nina broke up with Jefferson.”
“Congratulations.” He gave a slow, quiet clap. “Though I have to say … I’m surprised you’re not still with Jeff, after a victory like that.”
She could have told Ethan that Jefferson was too drunk, that she’d done more than enough for one night. Instead all Daphne said was, “Well, I’m not.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “I’m curious. How did you manage it?”
It suddenly felt like such a relief, sitting here with Ethan, not hiding anything. Throughout the conversation with Jefferson, Daphne had been on high alert, monitoring her every word and gesture. But with Ethan she could just be herself.
She told him everything she’d done to Nina, from the beginning.
The car took a sharp turn, and since neither of them was wearing a seat belt, the weight of Ethan’s body lurched against hers.
He quickly moved away, though with less distance between them than there had been.
“I’m impressed,” he declared, when Daphne had finished her story. “Sabotage and intimidation—you’ve outdone yourself. You really decimated that girl.”
Something about his phrasing needled her. “Did you ever doubt me?” she asked testily.
“Never.” Ethan paused, as if uncertain whether to say his next words, then went ahead and said them anyway. “It’s too bad that Jeff doesn’t appreciate the half of what you’re capable of.”
“That’s not
true—”
He barked out a laugh. “Jeff doesn’t know you like I do. All he sees is what you look like, which is a damn shame, because your mind is the best thing about you. Your brilliant, stubborn, unscrupulous mind, and the sheer force of your willpower.”
Daphne wanted to protest, but Ethan was looking at her with an expression she had never seen before.
It was the look of someone who knows you, knows the best and worst parts of you, knows what you have done and what you are capable of doing, and who chooses you in spite of it all. It was a look Daphne had never seen from Jefferson in all the years they had been dating.
“Stop it,” she hissed, and then again, with greater volume: “Just stop, okay? I don’t know how to win with you!”
“Daphne. It isn’t always about winning.”
“Of course it is!”
She reached up to smooth her hair, feeling powerful and unsettled. Before she could lower her hand again, Ethan caught it in his own. His thumb traced small circles over the back of her wrist—intent, slow, lazy circles that made Daphne’s breath catch. She didn’t pull away, though Ethan’s face was suddenly close to her own. For once there was no sardonic tilt to his full, sensuous mouth.
“Ethan …” Daphne meant to sound reproving, but her voice came out dangerously uncertain.
When he finally lowered his mouth to hers, it seemed inevitable.
The kiss snapped down her body like a drug, coursing wildly along her nerve endings. Daphne pulled him closer. She knew this was a foolish mistake—that she was throwing away all her years of hard work. She didn’t care.
The choice should have been so simple: on the one hand was Jefferson, the prince. Everyone wanted them to be together: Daphne’s parents and Jefferson’s parents and all of America and, ostensibly, Daphne.
Yet here she was. It was as if the touch of Ethan’s lips on hers had short-circuited her brain, and nothing else mattered anymore.
Somehow she’d moved to sit atop him, straddling his lap. They both fumbled in the dark, shoving aside the frothy mountain of her skirts. His lips traveled down her neck, and she tipped her head back, letting her hands curl possessively over his shoulders. She felt as if she and Ethan had become a pair of blades striking to make fire, like sparking against like.
Ethan was right about one thing: Jefferson didn’t know the real her, and he never would.
BEATRICE
Beatrice couldn’t grab a moment alone with Teddy until the party was nearly over.
There were simply too many guests, all of them eager for their own personal moment with the groom- and bride-to-be. She caught Teddy’s eye a few times, and an invisible flicker of communication would pass between them—but then another well-wisher would pull him aside, or the photographer would request Beatrice for a photo, and they would again spin off in different directions.
A few partygoers still lingered on the scuffed dance floor. Footmen approached them with glasses of water, gently trying to herd them toward the entrance, where a long line of town cars stretched around the circle drive. Even the flowers in their towering arrangements seemed to have lost their bloom, stray petals already falling to the floor.
Beatrice finally turned to Teddy and asked for a moment alone. He nodded in understanding, and she led him toward the side of the dance floor, behind a column of rose-colored granite.
“Teddy, I’m so sorry about everything,” she hurried to say. “I hope you know that I … I mean, I never should have …”
“It’s all right,” he assured her, his blue eyes subdued. “As long as you’re okay.” The sentence upticked at the end, making it into a question.
“Not yet,” Beatrice admitted. “But I think—I hope—I will be.”
Teddy gave her a soft smile, one that she certainly didn’t deserve. “What can I do to help?”
It twisted her guilt like a knife, that Teddy was being so honorable and thoughtful at a time like this. That even when she was breaking off their engagement, he still focused on making things easier for her.
“Please don’t tell anyone yet.” She was eerily reminded of making the same request when she proposed, though for drastically different reasons. “I need to break the news to my dad first. Then we can figure out the next steps.”
Teddy nodded. “I’ll keep behaving like your fiancé until I hear otherwise from you.”
“Thank you,” Beatrice murmured. “And thank you for being so understanding about all of this. For not hating me, even after what I’ve put you through.”
“I could never hate you.” He reached for her hand, nothing romantic in the gesture, but as if he wanted to forcibly transfer her some of his strength. “Whatever happens, know that you can always count on me. As a friend.”
Beatrice nodded, unable to speak.
When they reemerged into the remains of the party, the Eatons had lined up to say their goodbyes.
They were all here: Teddy’s parents, the Duke and Duchess of Boston; Teddy’s younger brothers Lewis and Livingston; and the youngest sibling, their sister, Charlotte. Even if she hadn’t met them already, Beatrice would have known at once that they were related. They all had that look about them. A golden-haired, patrician, photogenic look that made you think of playing football outside, fresh-baked apple pie, and windswept Nantucket summers. They seemed utterly at ease in their ball gowns and tuxedos, as if they woke up and got dressed in black-tie attire every morning of their lives.
“Thank you for coming,” Beatrice told each of them, with a clasp of their hands; this family wasn’t the hugging type.
“I’m so thrilled. So thrilled!” Teddy’s father boomed, throwing a jocular arm around Teddy’s shoulders.
Beatrice caught the awkward half hug of goodbye that Teddy gave Samantha, and stifled a smile. Maybe if they were lucky, both Washington sisters might end up with a happy ending.
It wasn’t until the Eatons had left that Beatrice cleared her throat. “Dad? Could I talk to you? Alone.”
“Sure. Let’s go to my office for a nightcap,” he suggested, still beaming.
Beatrice followed, to settle opposite her father in an armchair. A footman must have kept the fire going all night, because it blazed contentedly in the massive stone fireplace.
She wished she could relax into the chair like the young woman she was: pull her feet up onto the cushions and tuck them to one side, lean her head back. But she wasn’t permitted that kind of informality, because right now she wasn’t a daughter talking to her dad.
She was a future queen, talking to the current king. That was the context in which she and her dad had begun this discussion—a matter between monarchs, he’d said, when he told her that he was sick—and that was how she would continue it.
The king reached for the decanter on a side table and poured bourbon into a pair of cut-glass tumblers. He handed one to Beatrice, who immediately took a sip. Liquid courage, right?
“What a night,” he mused, still buoyed by his good mood. “You looked so beautiful, Beatrice. So regal. I’m proud of you.”
The only way to spill the news was all at once, she thought, and steeled herself.
“Dad, I want to call off the engagement.”
The jubilant smile slid off his face. “What are you talking about?”
“I can’t marry Teddy. I don’t love him.”
There was a sudden urgency to her words, as if she’d broken open a tap and now they were pouring out like water, faster than she could catch them. “I tried to fall in love with him, really. I knew how much it meant to you. But I can’t do it, Dad. Not even for you.”
The king nodded. “I understand,” he said, and the knot in Beatrice’s stomach began to loosen. This had been so much less arduous than she’d expected. She should have known her dad wouldn’t pressure her—
“We’ll push back the wedding. That gives you and Teddy more time to get to know each other,” her dad went on, oblivious to Beatrice’s dismay. “We haven’t announced a date anyway. We’ll tell
the planning committee that you need another six months, slow down the pace. Maybe you and Teddy could take a trip—spend quality time together, away from the all the public appearances. I know my illness has put everything on a compressed schedule,” he added, his eyes downcast. “I’m sorry that I made you feel rushed.”
Beatrice’s hands clenched frantically in her lap. “The timing isn’t the problem, Dad. A year from now, I won’t want to marry Teddy any more than I do tonight.”
Anger flashed in the king’s eyes. “Did he do something to hurt you?”
“Of course not,” she said impatiently. “Teddy is great, but—”
“Then what is it?”
“I’ve fallen in love with someone else!”
“Oh,” her father breathed, as if all he could manage right now was the single syllable. Beatrice didn’t dare reply.
“Who is it?” he asked at last, in a wooden kind of shock.
“Connor Markham.”
“Your Revere Guard?”
“I know he’s not from your preapproved list of options,” Beatrice hurried to say. “That he isn’t a nobleman. But, Dad—I love him.”
The wind whistled and howled at the windowpanes. The fire hissed, sparks flying up as logs resettled. Beatrice reached for her glass, to take another nervous sip of the bourbon. It glowed a deep amber in the light of the fire.
“I’m sorry, Beatrice. But no,” the king said at last.
“No?” she repeated. Was that really his response—to flat-out deny her request, as if she were a child asking to stay up past her bedtime?
“Surely you see that it’s out of the question.” Her father paused, giving Beatrice time to nod in agreement. When she didn’t, he forged ahead. “Beatrice, you can’t break off your wedding with Teddy Eaton—who comes from one of the very best families in the country, who is smart and honorable and kind—because you’re in love with your Guard.”
She tried not to wince at the way he said one of the very best families in the country, as if that were something the centuries-old titles actually measured and ranked. “Connor is all of that, too, Dad. Smart and honorable and kind.”
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