The Royal We (15 page)

It was the sweetest gesture, and one he’d clearly planned well in advance. I gave him a sniffly, tight hug.

“Now, now,” he said, reddening, but clearly delighted. “I know I’m a sexy beast, but I can’t have my mate’s girl throwing herself at me.”

We carried the food into my living room and spent a lively night yelling at the remainder of
The Sound of Music
, cheering so vibrantly at the nun with the carburetor that my downstairs neighbor banged on the ceiling to shut us up.

“God, what a film,” Gaz said when it ended, folding his hands onto his stomach. “That naughty baroness was the first woman I ever saw who drew on eyebrows. I didn’t know if I was afraid of her or in love with her.” He screwed up his face. “Probably both. Might explain a few things.”

“Yes, when
are
you going to declare yourself to Cilla?” I asked casually.

Gaz looked startled. “Is it that obvious?”

“Maybe not to most people,” I said. “But the way you two thrive on goading each other always seemed suspicious to me.”

“You’re bonkers,” Gaz sighed. “She thinks I’m a stuffed git.”

“Cilla doesn’t suffer fools. She wouldn’t spend so much time needling you if she thought you were one.”

Gaz brightened, then his face fell again. “She’s seeing that Tony bloke, though,” he said. “Never mind whatever shady business he’s probably up to with that nightclub of his. All that white powder in the loos doesn’t get there on its own.”

“You’re almost a solicitor. Or a barrister. Whichever it is,” I asked. “Can’t you sue the pants off him for something?”

“That’s tempting,” Gaz said. “I’ll be a solicitor in about a year, and then I can get into business. Maybe that’ll impress her.” He frowned and rubbed his nose. “Maybe if I weren’t such a fat oaf,” he said harshly. “Maybe if I lost a bit of weight and stopped drinking. But I can’t help it. That’s who I am. My feelings have loads of flavors.”

I laughed, but not unsympathetically. “Lose it for yourself, if you want to, but not for anyone else,” I said. “Cilla will see through Tony eventually, and she clearly knows you were the only person for the job of cheering me up tonight. She’ll come around. Maybe even while we’re all in Klosters and Tony is stuck here.”

Gaz shot me a grateful smile. “You’re a real mate, Bex,” he said. “Let me at least return the favor. What do you want to know about this whole Klosters bit? Or have Nick and Clive already briefed you?”

“Hardly. When Nick and I talked about it, I got so fixated on the etiquette part that I didn’t even ask him about the other people coming,” I said. “And I haven’t seen Clive for ages.”

“Yes, too busy doing world-beating reporting like
COUNCIL APPROVES PLAN FOR NEW LIFT AT HOLBORN STATION
,” Gaz joked.

“Poor Clive. I admire how hard he’s trying,” I said. “But I do need it explained why the Palace isn’t more worried about him coming to Klosters. He’s essentially the media now.”

“
Top News
hardly counts as media. It’s barely a step up from words printed on bog paper. People only even see it because it’s forced on them when they’re getting off the Tube,” Gaz said. “But we also sign our lives away, as I’m sure Nick told you. And the Fitzwilliams are thick as thieves with Richard. If Clive ever violates that, Thick Trevor will twist him up so that his nose unloads into his bowels.” He grinned. “This trip is quite good people-watching, actually. I can’t wait for you to experience Pudge.”

I coughed around a piece of pork pie. “What is a ‘Pudge’?”

“It’s a
who
. Bea’s sister Paddington,” Gaz said. “She was an eleven-pound baby, and the nickname stuck. She’s…how to put this delicately…a total drooling gobshite.”

“That’s the delicate option?” I laughed.

“Just you wait.” He rubbed his hands together.

Gaz made it all sound so entertaining, but I was increasingly nervous. Intellectually, I knew I wasn’t being introduced to the extended family as anything more than Nick’s friend, and that Cilla and even Bea being there would bolster that cover. But I wasn’t the kind of moneyed or titled aristocrat with a plummy accent and a Bentley that Nick’s relations were used to; I was a first-time skier whose father made comfortable appliances for beer lovers. I didn’t know how any of that would go over with them, no matter what they thought he and I were to each other—and on that score, Richard was still in severe, sometimes apoplectic denial.

Gaz studied me, then raised his glass. “No need to panic,” he said. “We’ll keep you out of the blast radius.”

As we clinked wine glasses, mine cracked and squirted thick red port all over my couch.

“Don’t tell Cilla about that,” Gaz warned. “She’ll say it’s an omen.”

“I don’t believe in omens,” I said.

F
reddie calls Klosters “ten degrees below narcolepsy” because of its lack of nightlife, but I have always found the sleepy mountain village enchanting: clusters of pitched-roof cabins flanked by towering pines, their branches heavy with snow—like Whoville without the Grinch, unless you counted Richard. But for jaw-dropping grandeur, the Swiss Alps might meet their match in the two chalets Richard always rents, for something like forty thousand dollars each. Each spread has four floors, a staff of maids and cooks on loan from Balmoral, a guesthouse for the PPOs, a seventy-two-inch flat-screen, heated bathroom floors, and Champagne on tap. Literally. Champagne actually comes out of a faucet. Once the Coucherator debuted in the SkyMall catalog it had changed my family’s life, but every Fourth of July we still holed up in the cabin in Michigan my mom and Aunt Kitty inherited, with its one bedroom and broken futon. So luxury purely for the sake of luxury was new to me, and as I unpacked in the fourth-floor master that I was sharing with Nick, Lacey’s words echoed in my head:
Your life is insane, Bex
. It hadn’t felt true then. It did now.

“May I come in?”

When I looked up to see Clive standing in the doorway, it struck me that all the gradual tweaks he’d made since Oxford added up to a comprehensive, carefully planned upgrade: He was now more muscular, his hair was artfully spiked rather than slicked, and his recent LASIK offered a better view of the indigo of his eyes. He looked great, even though I missed the brainy cuteness of his specs.

Clive stuffed his hands in his back pockets. “I just wanted to get any initial strangeness out of the way. We haven’t done a lot of sober socializing recently.”

“Good thinking,” I said. “A lot has changed.”

“And in a way nothing has,” he said. “Gaz and Cilla still haven’t had sex or stabbed one another, you and Nick are still a secret…”

“Is that what you came in here to talk about?” I asked, bristling, his words taking me right back to that night in Pembroke.

“No, no,” he said. “I just wanted to make sure everything is good.” He touched me on the arm, never breaking eye contact. It brought back more pleasant memories. “It’s important to me that you’re happy.”

“I care about you, too. Sorry to be so defensive,” I said, sinking onto the bed. “It’s just…well, you know. My situation is complicated. How is life at
Top News
?”

“Dreadfully dull. They made me do a story on holiday shopping,” he said, sitting next to me. “I had to hang about outside stores, flagging down anyone with a decent amount of bags, asking how the economy is affecting their spending.” He grimaced. “The ones that don’t run away immediately will talk for ten minutes and then say, ‘Oh, but you’re not using any of that are you?’ and
then
run away. It’s maddening. I’m so tired of working for a crap free paper doing the stories nobody else wants. I’ve paid my dues, but they keep saying,
one more month
.”

“You’ll get out of there soon enough,” I assured him.

“How’s the art?”

“I’m currently very occupied drawing comforting landscapes for the bereaved.”

He put an arm around me and squeezed. “We’ll
both
get there,” he said. “I’m sure it’s also quite time-consuming being the secret girlfriend of Prince Nicholas.”

“It’s hard not being able to grab a sandwich together on my lunch hour, like normal people. Especially with him being so busy,” I said. “And, I mean, look at this disgusting slum he’s foisting on me.”

Clive laughed.

“Cheers, Clive,” Nick said, walking in from the balcony, a pair of binoculars hanging from his neck.

Clive slowly lifted his arm from around my shoulder, standing up to give Nick a handshake.

“Just catching up with Bex,” Clive said. “We haven’t had a proper talk in ages. But I wanted to chat to you, too. I’m seeing somebody and I wanted to be the person who told you about it.” He took a breath. “Gemma Sands.”

Nick cocked his head. “My Gemma?”

I didn’t miss that. Neither did Clive.

“
My
Gemma,” he corrected.

“She never mentioned to me that she was seeing anyone,” Nick said.

This sounded a trifle like jealousy, and my mind screamed,
How often are you talking to her?

“She may come by, actually,” Clive added. “She’s trying to find a flight so we can ring in our first New Year together.”

“Well, I can’t wait to meet her,” I offered.

I was, in fact, very curious about the mysterious virginity-grabbing Gemma Sands, whose very name had the glamorous, smooth finish of an expensive glass of wine, and whose family conservancy in Namibia Nick visited at least once a year. The last time, they’d washed elephants together and helped deliver a baby zebra. A wobbly part of me decided it was in my best interest for her to be romantically occupied.

“You really think Gem is coming?” Nick asked skeptically.

“Hope so, hope so,” Clive said, rubbing his hands together. “We’re both so busy, with my work at the paper and hers in Africa. It’d be nice to steal a moment together.” He smiled widely. “Now come downstairs, you two. Cilla and Gaz are fighting over whether one of her ancestors died while inventing the T-bar lift, and Freddie’s Icelandic party planner has lips that seem to vibrate. You
must
see it.”

Once Clive was gone, Nick turned to me and rolled his eyes. “He and Gemma are about as meant to be as Penelope Six-Names and my grandfather.”

“Your grandfather is dead.”

Nick was in the middle of taking off his sweater to put on another. “Exactly,” he said, through a layer of wool. His head popped out through the top of the crewneck, his hair standing on end like a child’s, and I felt a rush of love for him. “
Exactly
,” he repeated.

I did not have a lot of love for his tone.

“A toast. To the woman who is responsible for us all, who is the mother of our beloved kingdom. God save the Queen.”

Richard raised his glass to the sky in solemnity, and everyone else followed.

Agatha shot me a reproachful look from down the rectangular table. “She’s not
your
Queen.”

“No, but…” I faltered. It had felt weird to glom on to that salute, but it seemed like it would be even weirder if I had ignored it and implied I didn’t think God should help Eleanor out at all.

“Oh, just let ’er drink,” Awful Julian slurred. His foot found mine under the table. I shifted without changing my facial expression.

“What if she doesn’t even believe in God? They have all kinds of atheists in America,” said Lady Bollocks, in a way that suggested she was enjoying adding fuel to this fire.

“They’ve got atheists here, too,” boomed Clive’s brother Martin. “I’m in the running for captain of the national rugby side!”

“Better hope they don’t give IQ tests,” Clive said under his breath.

“Perhaps the girl can say, ‘May a higher power of some sort preserve the Queen of this realm,’” offered Agatha, still fretting.

“For my money, both God and Gran would want us to let it go and tuck into dinner,” Freddie said. “Bex lives in England. She pays VAT. She can jolly well rent the Queen for a while.”

“Enough!” Richard boomed. “Eat.”

Our first evening had been relatively tame. It had begun with subtly studying the cheerfully oblivious Fallopia—her lips did vibrate and even seemed to emit a mild hum, as if her last injection had gone bad—and then took a turn for the militant when our chalet was invaded by Clarence House’s best generals. Marjorie Hicks had worked for either Eleanor or Richard for Nick’s entire life, and Nick and Freddie had selected her personally when Eleanor granted their wish for their own dedicated staff. Marj tended toward woolen cardigans with floral buttons, and wore her iron-gray hair in a close-cropped coif that was too long to be a pixie, but too pixie to be a bob; the boys both greeted her with great and genuine affection—as if she, too, were their grandmother, an Eleanor proxy who could do all the constant hugging and reprimanding the Queen’s schedule didn’t allow. Marj’s equivalent on Richard’s staff was a heavy-lidded fiftysomething man called Barnes, who had a coiffure so elaborate it made Donald Trump look like he suffered from alopecia. Barnes had handed Fallopia and me, as the newcomers, a lengthy nondisclosure agreement and cowed us into signing it in about seventeen different places. Then he and Marj had distributed a personalized schedule outlining which social events we were expected to attend at either Richard’s chalet or those of his titled friends, the dress code for each, and when we’d have free time. Nick’s packet ran at least ten pages. Mine was two.

And yet somehow Nick and I still managed to be late for Richard’s dinner party. We’d had a long day on the mountain, where his attempts to teach me to disembark from the believably deadly T-bar ski lifts were hampered by the fact that we couldn’t stop laughing, and I’d healed my bruises in the hot tub and then passed out on the bed. We didn’t wake up until five minutes before dinner, which is why I’d arrived at Richard’s chalet out of breath, with my hair shoved up into a bun because it was only
nearly
dry and thoroughly frizzy.

“The schedule said your cocktail finest,” Barnes growled, unimpressed by the black long-sleeved dress Lacey had helped me buy. “And you are three minutes late.”

I wilted a little under his stare. I hate being late. But I’ve also never mastered the art of estimating how long it takes me to get anywhere or do anything. Now all my official schedules are done in BST—Bex Standard Time—which is elaborately coded and changes every day in case I accidentally crack it. If only we’d thought to invent it sooner.

“My fault,” Nick covered smoothly. “I could only find one sock.”

“I hope Frederick’s excuse is as compelling,” Marj said tartly. “His Royal Highness is also tardy.”

Nick squinted at the floor-to-ceiling glass window, into the pitch-black night.

“Is that him out in the snow, Marj?” he asked. “He’s not wearing a jacket.”

Marj tsked and bustled to the window. “That boy. He’ll catch his death. It’s below zero.”

She knocked on the glass and began to call out Freddie’s name, when a thunderous thwack sounded, followed a split second later by Marj’s scream, and gales of laughter. A giant snowball, easily half ice, had hit the window right where her face had been.

“NICHOLAS!” she thundered. He was doubled over, gasping with mirth. “I NEVER.”

“Wasn’t me…don’t know what you mean…”

“You were in it as much as your no-good brother and you know it,” Marj panted, fanning herself. “That rapscallion, I ought to—”

“Ought to what, Marjie?” Freddie asked innocently, walking in and whistling under his breath. “Gosh, have you had a fright?”

“You’re as good a liar as you are a person,” Marj scoffed at him. “Conspiring to give heart failure to an innocent old woman. I ought to staple you to the table.”

“That’s my Marj,” Freddie said, looping an arm around her neck. “It’s just not the holidays until I’m victimized by her bloodlust.”

Freddie was my salvation that night. With Nick on the other side of the elaborately carved dining room, Freddie kept me talking, deftly drowned out his seventeen-year-old cousin Nigel’s announcement that I held my utensils in the wrong hands, and now had stuck up for me during the inane argument about how, or whether, I should pledge my allegiance to the monarch of the country that was allowing me to live and work in it.

Gaz had been right about the people-watching, at least. Clive’s divorced father was arguing boisterously with Agatha about Western-style riding, and Clive’s brothers’ limitations had indeed proved distinguishable: Martin was boomingly stupid, confident he was always right even though he never was, while Thick Trevor came off like his brain was working very hard yet going nowhere (it made me sad the one called Dim Tim hadn’t come, just for the comparison). Bea’s parents were her clones, patrician and perfect with chins like upside-down Gothic arches. Conversely, her sister Pudge was the apple that fell so far from the tree that it rolled into a ditch and landed in a pile of snortable substances. Alarmingly gaunt, with a haircut she might have given herself with safety scissors, she’d disappeared to the bathroom six times already that night, and seemed to view everything with a deep, miserable hatred. Even from three seats down I’d caught her blitz of f-bombs about the food, the company, even the butter dish, though everyone pretended not to hear.

And after three long hours of this dysfunctional family dinner writ large, the menfolk—Richard’s exact word—excused themselves for brandy and cigars (and presumably talk of topics too weighty for our tiny ladybrains). On my way out the front door, I found Bea trying to lug a clearly queasy and spaghetti-legged Pudge out of the bathroom, a spot of vomit on her shirt and an indiscreet smattering of powder under her left nostril.

“Come on, Pads,” she was saying, as gentle as I’d ever heard her. “Let’s get you home.”

“Can I help?”

She looked up at me, startled, and then a flash of embarrassment flickered across her face. It wasn’t an emotion I generally associated with Lady Bollocks. But she was in a pickle, and she knew it, so she nodded and let me drape Pudge’s arm around my shoulder.

“Easy, Paddington, we’ll get you,” I said, trying to use her full name out of politeness, although frankly I’m not sure it was much better.

Pudge’s head lolled on her shoulders until she jerked it in my direction. “Your hair smells like violets.”

“Thank you.”

“Violets fucking stink,” Pudge snapped.

We trudged outside, saying nothing but stopping three times to let Pudge decorate a variety of bushes with the contents of her stomach. Bea’s resentment about depending on me for help fairly radiated off her. Once we got inside our chalet, Bea and I hustled Pudge to the room they were sharing, I brought her water and a puke receptacle, and we spent a wordless period putting them alternately to her lips until she passed out on her bed.

“Thank you,” Bea said grudgingly.

“Sure,” I said. “This can’t be easy, and—”