The Royal We

by Heather Cocks

  I rub my temples. How did Lacey and I get so far away from each other that we couldn’t hear each other’s complicated feelings as nonjudgmentally as other people did? But I can’t say I don’t understand her actions. Clive—and even Joss—had never been anything but kind to her, and once Freddie disappeared, she’d have had no other sounding board.

  “There’s more.” Lacey looks queasy.

  “How much more could there be?” Mom asks.

  Lacey covers her face with her hands. “The thing is, even though he’s still with Pudge, I was really into him after a while.”

  “Oh no,” I say.

  “There’s something intoxicating about someone who has witnessed your nastiest impulses and likes you anyway,” she says ruefully. “One night, we went out to dinner just the two of us, and we ended up at his place and one thing led to another…” She coughs. “We had sex. By the way, you were right, Bex. He’s a weird kisser.”

  Mom grimaces. “You’ve both…?”

  I look heavenward. “It’s a long story.”

  Mom shifts uneasily. “There is a lot more sex in this than I anticipated,” she says.

  “Is it better if I call it something else?” Lacey asks.

  “Pole-vaulting.” I couldn’t help it.

  “Well, I’m sad to say, I was way into the pole-vaulting,” Lacey says. “Whatever other problems he has, he’s a talented pole-vaulter.”

  “No, go back to saying ‘sex,’” Mom says, bodily cringing. “You’re going to ruin the Summer Olympics for me.”

  “I’ll skip ahead,” Lacey offers. “We cracked a bottle of wine afterward, and then another one, just cuddling and talking. He started stroking my face, saying something about how he couldn’t imagine how you could hurt me so badly. I thought we drifted off after that.” She scrunches up her face. “I woke up thirsty at like five a.m., and he wasn’t in bed, and I heard my own voice coming from the living room. Apparently we’d talked a whole lot longer, and he’d recorded me.”

  “How is that even possible?” Mom asks.

  “I do remember him setting the alarm on his phone, at one point,” Lacey replies. “He must have turned on the memo function. I don’t know if he recorded me any other times, but he definitely got all our pillow talk, because I heard him playing it back.”

  My insides curl at how he used her. “What a sneaky bastard,” I say.

  “And a first-class asshole,” pipes up Mom. She shrugs at our surprised expressions. “Sometimes the only appropriate word for a person is a rude one.”

  “The quality didn’t seem like it was great, but it’s unquestionably me,” Lacey says. “I was saying that you’re selfish, that you froze me out of the Royal Family so you could lord your status over me, that Nick shouldn’t marry you.” Her face is ashen. “I told him you and Freddie were having an affair. I may have called you a sex addict. It was hard to hear. I sound so bitter.”

  A loud knock comes at the door.

  “Bex? Kira is here,” Cilla says, opening it slightly and poking her head around it.

  “Just a sec,” Mom says, sounding very chipper. “Family bonding, dear. You understand.”

  Cilla clearly knows this is a lie. “Five minutes,” she offers, then disappears.

  Mom looks at Lacey. “So you’re not in on the blackmail,” Mom clarifies.

  Lacey shakes her head vigorously. “No. God, no. It honestly took me a minute to even figure out what he was doing. He could’ve just been some weird fetishist, you know?” She looks over at me helplessly. “I swear, I never would have kept hanging out with him if I’d known he was The Royal Flush.”

  “I believe you,” I tell her. And I do.

  Lacey turns back to Mom. “I begged Clive not to do anything with what he had, so he asked what I could give him in return.” She twitches. “I may have leaked the Agatha story.”

  “Ohhhhhh.” I let out the word like air seeping out of a balloon. “Eleanor was pissed.”

  “Clearly I should not have repeated that to you.” Mom looked abashed, then thoughtful. “Although Agatha was rather relieved to have it out there.”

  The story had run two days ago on The Royal Flush, and it alleged that Agatha and Awful Julian would be divorcing quietly during the nation’s giddy afterglow from our wedding. I had wondered how the Flush scored such a scoop, in fact, and its total truth forced the Queen to let Agatha confirm everything—which in turn gave the site even more credibility.

  “I figured giving up that info didn’t really hurt anyone, and I thought I could buy us some time,” Lacey explains. “Maybe until after the wedding. He seemed thrilled, but I guess he was just toying with me.” Any cheer she has managed suddenly vanishes. “He called me this morning and told me…let’s see if I can get it right…‘I stand with Freddie and the rest of the world on this one. You’re just the appetizer. She’s the main course.’”

  The strength of my gasp catches even me by surprise.

  “Disgusting.” A year’s worth of anger at her dissolves. “It is amazing how disgusting.”

  “He is, as we’d say in my day, a cad,” Mom says.

  “I still can’t believe Clive is The Royal Flush,” I say. “Nick is not going to like this.”

  Nick is not going to like a lot of things. That particular thing, in fact, is just icing on the cake of Things Nick Won’t Like.

  “I just don’t get where Clive is coming from,” Lacey says. “Disliking you two is one thing, but this is beyond. What did he tell you?”

  I heave a deep breath. Just thinking about the call makes me queasy.

  “He just said he was sick of waiting for his turn, and that it was long past time for me to help him become a smash. And if I didn’t, he’d do it himself by destroying me.” Clive had sounded so calculating, so cool, that I instantly knew he’d practiced this threat a hundred times. “Basically, he freaked me out so badly that I hung up on him, so he started sending all these capsy texts.”

  As if on cue, my phone buzzes.

  BEX. DO IT MY WAY AND WE BOTH WIN.

  “This is a mess,” I say, my voice catching. “Why the hell couldn’t I just pull my shit together like a grown-up?”

  “It’s not your fault,” Lacey attempts.

  “It is completely my fault,” I say. “I wish I could blame someone else, but the fact is that if I’d been smarter, or stronger, there would be nothing to tell.”

  “Bex,” Mom says, getting up and coming to me, boring through me with her stare. “You have to be honest with me. If Nick isn’t satisfying you as a lover, then—”

  “That’s where your head went?” Lacey squeaks.

  “It’s a fair question. If these Freddie incidents mean Bex needs satisfaction elsewhere, then she can’t marry Nick,” Mom says firmly. “I will put it in terms your father would have used. You can’t just pick the best starting pitcher. You need middle relief and a closer.”

  I groan. “Dad would have left the room ages before that analogy was even necessary.”

  “Then Cosmopolitan will back me up. I’ve been reading a lot of it lately and it’s quite enlightening,” she says. “I even clipped some of those how-to guides. Mostly for Agatha, but—”

  “Stop,” Lacey and I say at the same time.

  Mom rolls her eyes at us. “You two are the ones who brought up all the sex in the first place.” She turns to me and gently runs a hand over my hair. “But it’s not my only concern. Honey, remember at Nick’s birthday party, when your father told you that you’d have to really love Nick to go through all of this? Earl was more right than he ever knew.”

  “He usually was,” I say, tremulously.

  “Please don’t self-sacrifice here just because you feel like it’s too late. Is all this worth it? The press, all the scrutiny, the rigid rules? Because if you don’t really, really love him enough to put up with it, then I will call Eleanor myself and tell her the wedding is off and we can disappear someplace tropical and let the papers publish whatever they want. Speak
now or forever hold your peace, baby. Is it too much?”

  “It is a lot,” I tell her. “But to me, he is worth everything.”

  A tear falls. Then another. Mom draws us both in and kisses the tops of our heads. Our last hug like this was the night Nick gave me the Lyons Emerald. And now I might have to give it back.

  I pull away and look at them, beseeching. “What am I going to do?”

  “We,” Lacey says.

  “Thank you,” I say, barely choking out the words. “But I think this one is on me alone.”

  “Well, you can’t kill Clive without me,” Lacey says. “You have to exsanguinate the body into mason jars so there’s no blood trail. It’s a two-person job.”

  “That is disturbingly specific,” Mom says.

  Lacey shrugs. “I was in med school for about five minutes, remember?” she says. “We had weird late-night discussions.” She sounds wistful, which I take as a sign that another long-missed part of my sister may come back to me.

  “Bex!” booms Cilla, banging on the door. “Get a move on, or I’ll send Gaz in wearing nothing but a crumpet.”

  “Now what?” Lacey whispers.

  “We get a move on,” I say, wiping my face. “I don’t want to know where Gaz would put the crumpet.”

  “But you haven’t decided anything,” she says. “We haven’t helped yet.”

  “You have, actually,” I say. “More than you know. I think…” I make sure it feels right; it does. “I’m going to tell Nick.”

  Lacey pales. “No. We can go to Clive. Surely he’ll see sense. There has to be a way.”

  “Not this time,” I say. “This all happened because I felt powerless. I can’t take away Nick’s power to decide. It’s not fair. And I can’t hide one lie by dumping other ones on top of it. I’d hate myself. It would kill whatever’s left of me that still feels like me.”

  “She’s right, sweetie,” Mom says to Lacey. “Begin as you mean to continue, as they say.”

  “I have to tell Freddie, too.” I rest my forehead on my bent knees. “It’s going to ruin their relationship. I hate that the most. I’ve been without my sister, and it sucks.”

  “It will work out, Bex,” Mom says. “Just be honest. Have faith.”

  I hear in this the same advice I gave Nick the day he told the truth about Emma. It had worked then; was there enough faith left to help me now? I feel Lacey’s hand reach out and stroke my hair, and I luxuriate in the familiarity of this, like there was never a gulf between us.

  “Your hair extensions seriously are fantastic,” she murmurs. “I know there are no freebies, but would it kill you to hook a sister up?”

  The door bursts open just as we both start to giggle.

  “Time’s up, Porters,” Cilla says. “If Bex is late, we’ll all be sent to the Tower.”

  “Are you ready?” Lacey asks me.

  I shake my head, halfway between laughter and tears. “Do I have a choice?”

  * * *

  An elderly couple has draped the metal barricade outside Westminster Abbey with a banner claiming they’ve witnessed three generations of Lyons weddings. “Congratulations!” they cry out when my car door opens.

  “Rebecca! Give us a wave!” shouts a younger woman. She is wearing Union Jack–printed novelty sunglasses and a light-up tiara.

  “You look so pretty!” lisps a little girl at the front, no more than six or seven. She wiggles a bouquet of freesias at me.

  I can get in and out of cars nearly as gracefully as Eleanor now, and as I glide to my feet, I am struck not only by the sheer number of people gathered to wish me well, but by their intensity. Once the calendar flipped into the year of our wedding, a switch congruently flipped in the hearts of the public and much of the media. I don’t know why; maybe just the anticipation of the global spectacle, or the uptick in stories about Regular Girl Nabs Prince Charming (applications to Oxford from US exchange programs reportedly tripled, even without a prince in residence to lure them). Or, it’s possible everybody decided that this was happening regardless, so they might as well get on board.

  British and American flags bob vigorously as the teeming throng chants, sings, and cheers, at least a quarter of them wearing ghastly paper novelty masks of my face that will dance in the foreground of my nightmares for the rest of my life (matched for creepiness only by the time Nick put one on and danced around in his boxers, just to goad me). Nick and I have encountered friendly support at the few events we’ve done this year, but this is the first time it’s been on such a massive scale—people who have waited all day for me to arrive at the rehearsal, and will stay overnight to see me come back tomorrow—and as I look back at them, I know the expression on my face is of unladylike shock and delight.

  The little girl bounces and shouts, “Daddy, she sees me!”

  I’m not supposed to engage people yet, but she is darling, missing two front teeth, with golden pigtails and a fluffy pink party dress. She reminds me of Lacey, an eternity ago.

  I scoot over to where she stands. “Freesias are my favorite,” I say, squatting and accepting the bouquet. “How did you know?”

  “I read it in heat magazine. Mummy keeps it in the loo and says I’m not to touch it because it’s for grown-up ladies.” She beams proudly at me. “I was naughty.”

  “I’ll never tell.” I grin back. “What’s your name?”

  “Adelaide.”

  “Can I tell you a secret, Adelaide?” I ask. She leans eagerly into me. “I’m a little nervous,” I confess.

  “Mummy bet Daddy ten pounds that you’ll mix up his names,” she says.

  “Nah, I’ll be fine,” I say. “His name’s Harold, right?”

  She giggles. “No!”

  “Yes, Prince Harold Tiddlywinks Cadbury, I’m sure of it,” I say.

  She giggles harder. “You’re very silly. Are you allowed to be silly?”

  I grin. “I hope so, Adelaide.”

  PPO Stout puts gentle pressure on my arm. My impromptu sojourn has to end. I split the bouquet in half and hand part of it back to her.

  “Here, you keep half, and I’ll carry the rest tomorrow,” I say as I stand. “For good luck.”

  Camera flashes go off like crazy. I’ve just unintentionally given The Firm its banner pre-wedding publicity moment, and almost laugh at the irony of providing the very best headline right before the very worst. As Stout pulls me away, I pause to take in the immensity of this, that rare species of mob that is entirely loving and positive. I’m so sorry, I say silently, before waving what might be my final good-bye and riding the swell of their good cheer through the doors.

  Westminster Abbey is a transcendent, transporting place, all soaring stone arches and marble columns, capped with fan vaulting a distant hundred feet above our heads (which is, somehow, still only a fraction of the aisle that I’ll walk). Right now, men in bright yellow work vests lug flowering shrubs inside, which will be blessed and replanted in public parks on Sunday, and the juxtaposition is so unexpected that it looks like a movie set. The greenery was Nick’s suggestion. In fact, his return had given the entire creative team a jolt of inspiration, like finally finding the missing piece to our jigsaw puzzle and tapping it in place with glee. After a desperate and lonely year, the last four months passed in a giddy breeze.

  Until this morning.

  I hear a loud sniffle. Gaz is walking toward me, blotting his face with a hanky.

  “Just a little emotional. Nothing I can’t handle tomorrow,” he says, patting my arm in a fatherly way, as if getting into the spirit of his role. “You look lovely, Future Duchess, but no offense, you cannot hold a candle to your sexy matron of honor.”

  “I reckon the words sexy and matron don’t get paired up often,” Cilla says from behind me, taking Adelaide’s freesias and giving her husband a peck.

  “They will now,” he says. “Can’t I be called man of honor in the program, if I’m giving away the bride and married to the matron?”

  “We printed
it up in Garamond, isn’t that enough?” she teases.

  Suddenly, the roar of the crowd trickles in again as the Abbey doors open.

  “Right, everyone’s here, let’s get on with it,” Marj says.

  I swivel around to see her and Nick and Freddie. We are only rehearsing our part, as the rest of our families have roles that mostly come down to their drivers and styling teams staying on schedule. Nick looks flushed and self-conscious, even tense, as he always does after the dog-and-pony-show part of his job. He’s in rolled-up shirtsleeves and navy pants—his frequent uniform, approachably debonair—and after all these years, even knowing that I’m going to have a catastrophic conversation with him later, the sight of Nick still makes my heart swell against my ribs. Slipping back into our cozy trio with Freddie has been both easier and harder than I thought—easier because Freddie and I love Nick, and don’t love each other; harder because we feel the burden of proving, even to an unknowing Nick, that everything is normal.

  “The bride and groom! What an honor,” says the Dean of Westminster, approaching in my periphery. As he crosses the nave, he and Nick reach me simultaneously.

  “Hi,” I whisper.

  Nick gives me what can only be described as a perfunctory bump that involves less lip than it does his own cheek grazing mine. When we break away, he is staring elsewhere, and a glance behind me shows that Freddie’s own jaw is clenched and his gaze is locked straight ahead of him. I realize with a sinking feeling that I have misread Nick’s expression. He is not tense from the crowd, nor his shyness, nor nerves.

  He knows.

  Chapter Two

  Your Highness, sir, are you in place at the altar?” the Dean of Westminster shouts.

  We hear Nick’s faint call of assent.

  “Need a walkie-talkie in this old heap, eh?” the dean says, winking and clapping merrily. “Right! Let’s get cracking. Rebecca, you’ll be greeted here by me and the Archbishop of Canterbury for a little chitchat, how’d you sleep, did you eat your brekkie, while everyone gets your skirts in order. The archbish loves a spot of marmalade in the a.m. so file that away for easy small talk. And then you and your, er…”