The Royal We (44 page)

He half turns to listen to me, his head still down. “The first time, I learned I wasn’t over you,” I say. “And the second time, I learned I never will be. That’s why it mattered. I shouldn’t have let it happen, but when it did, it killed any doubt or fear I felt, and filled me up with you instead. I’m not marrying the monarchy. I’m marrying
you
. And however bad it gets with the press, or your family, or even mine, I will always choose you. I’m yours for life. Whether you want me or not.”

Nick jams his hands in his pockets and spends what feels like forever rattling the change in there.

“It’s not your fault he wanted you,” he finally whispers to the ground. “God knows I understand it. But it’s all I can see when I close my eyes.” His voice breaks. “
Twice
, Bex. Once before we were even engaged. If I’d known then…”

“Okay, let’s play that.” I feel like I’m negotiating for the rest of my life. “You once asked if I’d have turned down your proposal if I’d thought twice about your Naval deployments. The answer is no. Even knowing that this is the way it played out, even if this is the end, I would do it again a hundred times.” I am crying in earnest now. “If I’d told you about Freddie then, would you still have chosen me? Do you still choose me now?”

Nick does look at me this time, long and hard and sad.

“I don’t know,” he says, and he walks out of the chapel, leaving me alone with the ghosts.

K
ira steps back and gives a triumphant hoot. “Nailed it,” she says. “You can barely tell.”

She hands me a mirror. An hour and a half ago, I looked like what’s under the bandages after plastic surgery: splotchy and crimson, with eyelids like cocktail sausages. I’d retreated to The Goring and thrown myself into my mother’s arms, sobbing out to her and Lacey everything I’d had to hold in during the drive; then I bled myself to Gaz and Cilla and haltingly released them to process it in private, telling them that I would respect their choice if they could no longer support me. I pulled myself together a hundred times, only to pop the seams again five minutes later, and hid behind sunglasses on the ride to Buckingham Palace to prepare for tonight’s reception. When I took them off inside the Spartan, utilitarian room earmarked for my styling team, Kira whispered, “Take me now, Lord.”

But she has worked a miracle. She shrank my eyelids with a mixture of compresses, witch hazel, and Preparation H, giving me the faint perfume of hemorrhoid cream of which every young bride dreams. She flushed me out with a gallon of Visine and filled me up with a gallon of water; with all that, some thin white eyeliner on my lower lids, and some artful highlighter, you can’t even tell I spent the day running my heart through a meat grinder. Even I nearly believe the illusion. Apply enough spackle, and you can sell anything.

Kira makes me blot my lips one more time, then holds up her hand for a high five, which Cilla obligingly attempts and bungles.

“Watch the elbow and you’ll never miss,” I say.

They try again. It’s perfect.

“I can’t believe that works. Where did you learn that?” Kira asks, amazed.

My throat constricts as I remember the day Nick taught me, after The Glug. “State secret,” I manage, feeling myself unspool.

Kira stomps her foot. “No. You will not get all weepy on me. Aren’t you an artist? Do not spoil my masterpiece.”

This makes me smile, which is its intent. Cilla hands me a bottle of water with a straw poking out so I won’t disrupt my lipstick.

“Thank you,” I tell her. “For everything. No one would blame you if you weren’t here.”

“I would blame me,” Cilla says. “And not just because I’d be shirking my job. Although perhaps all this happening means I
did
shirk my job.”

“Don’t even say that. Your job isn’t to babysit me, Cil.”

“It is, a bit, but you’re also my friend,” Cilla points out. “I should have noticed on both ends how bad it had gotten.”

“There has been a lot of
why didn’t you tell me
and
I’m not psychic
today, all of it earned,” I say. “Reminds me of when Nick and I broke up the first time.” I catch myself. “Hopefully the only time.”

“Has he said anything since the Abbey?” Cilla looks concerned.

“He’s probably said a lot of things, but none of them to me,” I say. “Which is kind of the crux of the problem. All along, if we’d just told each other everything right away, straight up, it might have been fine. Everyone thinks Americans are so in-your-face, but I was too scared to be a pain in the ass.”

“I am married to Gaz,” she says. “My arse is immune to pain. Remember that next time.”

“You are a better friend than I deserve.”

“Oh, shove it, love,” she says good-naturedly. “This is not the Premier League. There’s no rankings or win-loss records in our friendship. Whatever happens, you and Nick will need us, and we’d be daft as a brush not to be there for both of you.”

She senses danger from my tear ducts, so she shoves the straw into my mouth and turns me to the long mirror.

“You’re a picture, Bex,” she says softly. “He’ll melt.”

Donna had procured a plum gossamer Jenny Packham with elbow-length sleeves and a chic, slouchy neckline. My hair is swept into a glamorous, bouncy ponytail, Kira’s clever nod to the Bex from Oxford whom Nick rarely saw any other way, and Eleanor had proffered the Surrey Fringe as a choker but I opted instead for my diamond pendant. Even through my haze, I love how I look. I hope Nick will, too. If he shows. Intellectually I know it’s unlikely he’ll stand me up tonight—I’d have heard by now; he has too much respect for duty to jilt three hundred guests without a word—but given how we left things…well, it’s little wonder we fell in love over a show specializing in cliffhangers.

“Right, go in, mingle, get out,” Cilla says, checking her clipboard. “Early to bed tonight. We are going to proceed as if this wedding is happening.”

“If this wedding doesn’t happen, then he is dumb as the box of hair I put on your head every month,” Kira says, clicking shut her giant toolbox of makeup. “I don’t care who started it, or who slept with what, or whatever went on with you kids, but shit happens and when it’s people who matter, we deal with it. You, Rebecca Porter, are a catch. You’re the only person I’ve ever worked for who knows when my birthday is and asks about my family. If HRH can’t get over whatever his problem is, then you go be a goddess someplace else.”

We are silent.

“That was a better speech than mine,” Cilla observes.

“You’re both going to make me cry again,” I say.

“Don’t you dare.” Kira smudges my blush one last time. “Blot your lippie if you reapply. It kills me that you never do that. Now go slay him.”

Sure enough, Nick is exactly where he is supposed to be, in a small space off the gardens. I hang back to take in the sight: Prince Nicholas, dressed for ceremony in a devastating tux, washing down a granola bar with a Coke and nose-deep in a binder labeled
The Lesser Royals of Southeast Asia
. My mouth goes dry. We used to pretend we weren’t madly in love before tearing into one another in private; now, everyone believes we’ve never been happier, yet I have no idea if we’re even speaking. Out of all the illusions we have created, from my hair to my walk to the color of my teeth, pretending we are fine will be the biggest, and the flimsiest. The Lyons Emerald has never felt heavier on my finger. I wonder what they’ll do to the engraving if I have to give it back. Maybe Nick can replace me with another
B
.

“There you are, Rebecca,” says Marj, whom I hadn’t even noticed in the corner of the room. Nick jerks up his head, then gives me a long, appraising gaze that I can’t read. I shift under the weight of it, and feel the prick of my secret talisman, the flag pin, tacked covertly to my bra.

“Come in,” Marj says. “Do you need one last look at the cheat books?”

I shake my head. “If I don’t know it now, I never will.”

“Is any of this lot even coming?” Nick asks.

“One must always prepare,” Marj says, taking his binder and heaving it over to a folding table next to ten other ones like it, plus three volumes clearly for Freddie labeled
Comfortably Distant Relatives
,
Potentially Awkward
, and finally,
Seriously Do Not Touch
. I wonder if she has a
Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off
binder. Knowing Marj, the answer is yes.

This is the first time I’ve seen Marj not wearing a cardigan, even in summer, and cocktail wear suits her. From the frock’s silvery color and matching cropped jacket to the low, chunky heels, it all could as easily have come from the Queen’s own armoire—apt, as she’s effectively as much Nick’s grandmother as Eleanor is. But there’s fatigue around her edges. Should tomorrow go smoothly, her husband will ply her with cocktails on a hard-earned Carnival Cruise and hopefully toss her mobile overboard. When Nick does not greet me, much less kiss me hello, Marj betrays no reaction. If anyone deserves to live in crisis denial right now, it’s her.

“You look marvelous,” she says, giving me a kiss on both cheeks. “Like a right royal highness yourself. It’s been quite a year, but you’ve come out of it brilliantly, Rebecca.”

I flush, from shame, not pleasure, but she won’t discern the difference.

“Thank you,” I say. “If I ever seemed ungrateful, or cranky, I really am sorry. I know how hard you and Barnes worked to get me here.”

Marj barks out a laugh. “When I started here, my equivalent on Emma’s staff was a woman named Elaine who seemed like as much of an old battle-ax to me then as I seem to you now,” she says. “One day Emma marched into her office, slammed a pile of these sorts of binders on the desk, and said, ‘Shove it with knobs on, you stroppy old cow.’”

Nick looks astonished. I laugh in spite of myself.

“Your mother had a lot more spirit in her than anyone remembers,” Marj says to Nick. “Whatever went wrong, mark my words, it was fated that way. She had an iron streak, from what I saw.” Then she turns to me. “We put you through a wringer of the sort Emma never had to endure. I’d not have blamed you if you had a tantrum in my office. You probably ought to have.”

“I am terrified of Barnes,” I admit.

“That man has a Bunny-A-Day calendar in his desk drawer, and if you ever breathe a word of that, I will make up an outrageous lie about your medical history.” She pauses. “Rebecca, I have no doubt you’re ready, but if you ever need bucking up, I’m here.”

Her eyes are misty. It’s so bittersweet to hear this now, long after it’s needed, and I think the only reason I am not crying is that my peripheral vision is trained on Nick, and the way he is listening, and whether this is changing anything. His face betrays no answers.

Marj collects herself and ushers us toward the terrace doors. Eleanor isn’t coming, preferring to save her grand entrance for tomorrow, which means that tonight Richard is the Head Bastard In Charge—a free preview of a movie that won’t come out for another decade—and he is being very formal about it, right down to making a footman bang a gold-and-black-striped stick on the ground and announce the guests as they enter down the terrace steps. Marj whispers in his ear and he gives the instructed five poundings before booming our arrival. Our smiles snap into place. Nick is much faster at this than I am. He has had a lifetime of practice.

“May I present the guests of honor, His Royal Highness Prince Nicholas of Wales, and his bride, Miss Rebecca Porter,” he booms in a perfect voice for radio. “Who shall tomorrow become Duke and Duchess of Clarence, Earl and Countess of Athlone, and Baron and Baroness of Inverclyde, by the grace of Her Majesty the Queen.”

“It was decided an hour ago,” Nick mutters through his teeth. “Surprise.” He does not sound excited.

Nick and I are separated by well-wishers as soon as we reach the bottom of the stairs. I wish I could appreciate the romance of the garden’s landscaping and soft amber lights, but for the next ninety minutes, I am too busy cycling through every etiquette lesson Barnes and Marj drilled into me. I hold my Champagne in my left hand and sip it openly, leaving my right empty and dry; I do not eat; I ask people with children about their children, and people with dogs about their dogs. I remember that our pageboy’s mother is called Kristen, and our flower girl’s mother is Kirsten. I recognize Gregor of Hanover, whose calling cards dub him a sock baron; the trio of temptresses from Marta’s family in Sweden, all most likely in the binders meant to warn Freddie away; and two of Nick’s toff godparents for whom my notecards had read only,
Don’t mention Transylvania
(which might be too tempting to resist, if I need to create a diversion later). I introduce Cilla to anyone of whose name I am not certain, forcing them to repeat it when they shake her hand so I can sort through my mental Rolodex and pull out helpful conversational tips—like that the Bulgarian Tsarina owns an original prop from every Harry Potter film, or that the Margrave of Baden prefers not to explain what a Margrave is but that the Landgrave of Hesse will wax for hours on the derivation of Landgrave, so it’s best to avoid both topics.

“Aren’t you exhausted?” Lady Elizabeth asks, as two Comfortably Distant Relatives from Norway wander away in search of more caviar. “All this palaver is why we didn’t have a whole to-do. Well, one of the reasons.”

She rests a hand on her pregnant belly; a third baby is coming in four months’ time. “This one is going to be big,” she groans. “It was a bit soon, really. The Maldives are just such an aphrodisiac. You should see Eddybear in his Speedo.”

I try not to imagine this, and fail, and genially tune out while Lady Elizabeth rhapsodizes about pregnancy sex (by the look on her face, the Thai princess nearby understands more English than she’s let on). Lacey keeps shooting me glances that say, alternately,
are you okay
,
what is up with Nick
, and
that dude with the tray of lollipop lamb chops never comes over here
. It’s a comfort that I can read her mind again, but the catharses we’ve had are not the same thing as fixing what went wrong. I can’t get complacent and forget that we still have so much work to do.

“Listen to me, blathering on about episiotomies when you’ve got a wedding night ahead of you,” Lady Elizabeth says airily, giving me a sideways hug. “We have our whole lives to talk about these things. Go have fun. I need more olives for my orange juice.” She makes a face. “It tastes like Agatha’s hairspray smells, but I can’t get enough right now.”

She sails off and I feel a pang, because if the worst happens I will miss her. I can’t wallow, though, because I have to chat up the King of Bhutan about land reform, and Christiane of Greece about wrestling (she is a lifelong fan of The Rock). Richard, right in my eyeline, pretends not to watch Christiane as she laughs. There is a lovely what-if quality to his face before he thinks to erase it, underlining a long-ago revelation made in the heat of rage. Richard can’t ever reach for what he wants. I hope I still can.

“But it
wasn’t
de Pluvinel who first used pillars to train his mount,” Agatha says as she walks past me. “There’s clear evidence Eumenes was doing it first.”

“How did I never notice how bloody sexy your horse talk is?” purrs none other than Edgeware Fitzwilliam.

I have never worked harder to keep a neutral expression on my face.

“You’re doing wonderfully,” Marj whispers, suddenly at my shoulder. “Clarence is a good title, too. It was King Albert’s, as a lad. Very historically meaningful.”