American Royals (43 page)

“Daphne. Please tell me you’re joking.”

So Ethan wasn’t going to help her. Fine, then. Daphne would do this on her own. The same way she did everything else.

“Never mind. You’re right,” she agreed, too quickly to be fully convincing. “I’ll find another way.”

But of course, there was only ever one way for Daphne. Onward and upward, just like always.

That night at the palace, she slipped a few ground-up sleeping pills into Himari’s drink.

It was easy, really; no one knew that Himari and Daphne were feuding. All Daphne had to do was ask another girl to please hand this glass of wine to her friend.

Himari grew instantly, visibly drunker, her words louder and more pointed, and then a few minutes later she retreated to a sitting room. Daphne stood near the doorway with Jefferson, watching as Himari tilted her head back onto the expensive pillows of the couch, her eyes fluttering shut.

The party ebbed and flowed around Himari for several hours. Daphne saw Jefferson’s protection officer frowning at Himari’s sleeping form, but he never made a move to do anything, which Daphne found reassuring. He was medically trained—if Himari was in danger, wouldn’t he say something?

As the night wore on and people grew drunker, the passed-out girl became something of a meme. People posed for selfies with her, making a thumbs-up in front of Himari, whose mouth was open, a stream of drool falling onto the couch. Daphne wasn’t surprised. Himari had always been snobbish and inscrutable, and humiliation of the proud was one of mankind’s favorite sources of entertainment.

She knew from Ethan’s angry looks that he’d figured out what she’d done. But she did her best to keep him at a distance. She had enough to worry about right now without his self-righteous accusations.

Finally, later in the night, he found her alone.

“I can’t believe you,” Ethan whispered, jerking his head toward Himari.

Daphne shrugged. She knew this was an absurd plan, but what other choice did she have? Her reputation, her
relationship,
was on the line.

“She’s going to be fine. Her pride will be a little bruised, but she’ll survive that. I really am watching her,” Daphne added, in a plaintive voice. No matter what Himari had said, no matter that she’d thrown away their years of friendship like a pile of trash, Daphne would never truly hurt her.

Ethan cast Daphne a curious, inscrutable look.

“What are you going to do, tell on me?” she demanded, her chin tipped up in challenge.

“You know I wouldn’t.” He paused. “You’re terrifying, though.” The way he said it, it sounded oddly like a compliment.

“Terrifyingly brilliant,” Daphne amended.

A laugh rumbled deep in Ethan’s chest. For an instant, Daphne felt herself wondering what it would be like to feel that laughter—
really
feel it, her body tucked up against Ethan’s, skin to skin. “Remind me never to get on your bad side,” he told her.

“I think you know better than to ever try.”

They had drifted wordlessly into the other room, toward the table of drinks, only to stall partway there. Daphne forced herself to ignore the flickering sensation that Ethan’s gaze kindled in her chest.

Neither of them saw Himari rise drowsily from the couch and head toward the back stairs, the ones off the downstairs hallway. Even in her drugged-out state, she was determined to go up to Jefferson’s bedroom, to tell him the truth about Daphne. And probably for other reasons.

It wasn’t until she heard the unearthly sound of Himari’s screams that Daphne realized the other girl had made it halfway up the stairs—and tumbled right back down.

Daphne shifted on the hospital chair, her grip still closed over her friend’s hand. She wished more than anything that things had gone differently. That she’d listened when Ethan had tried to talk her out of this ridiculous plan, that she’d forced Himari to negotiate—hell, that she had done what Ethan wanted in the first place, and told Jefferson the truth herself.

Losing her virginity to Ethan was bad enough, but drugging Himari was far, far worse. It didn’t matter that Daphne had only meant for her to pass out and sleep it off. It was
her
fault that Himari had fallen and hit her head—
her
fault that her friend had been in a coma for the last eight months.

No one could ever find out the truth of that night. Especially not Jefferson.

“I’m sorry,” Daphne whispered again, and let out a sigh.

What was done was done, and now that it had happened, Daphne felt more permanently fixed on her path than ever before. She had lost too much—hurt her friend, traded away the last tattered scraps of her conscience—to give up now. She needed to see this through. Too many sacrifices had been made along the way for her to go anywhere but ruthlessly forward.

Daphne glanced up sharply. There was a slight pressure on her hand.

A shiver trailed down her spine. Her eyes cut sharply to Himari’s face, but it was as blank and drawn as ever. Still, her fingers tightened around Daphne’s in a barely perceptible squeeze. Almost as if she wanted to reassure her friend that she was still in there.

Or to let her know that she’d been listening to every word that Daphne said.

It’s all my fault. It’s all my fault.

The words echoed over and over in Beatrice’s head, an awful, hideous mantra, and there was nothing she could do to dispel them, because she knew that they were true.

She had told her father that she didn’t want to be queen, that she wanted to renounce her rights and titles so that she could marry her
Guard,
and the shock of it had given him a heart attack. Literally.

Our Father, who art in heaven …
All the prayers that Beatrice had memorized as a child came rushing back, their words filling her throat. She kept reciting them, because it gave her something to occupy her brain, a weapon to wield against her overwhelming guilt.
Love believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.

But what kind of love was that verse talking about? The kind of love she felt for Connor, or for her father, or the protective love she felt for her sister? What about the love Beatrice felt toward her country?

If her father died—

She couldn’t bear to finish that sentence. She wanted to scream, to beat her fists against the walls and howl her anguish, but there was a blade of strength within her that refused to let her break down.

Connor was here, in uniform. He stood unobtrusively to one side of the waiting room, trying to catch Beatrice’s eye, which she steadfastly refused to do. She couldn’t bring herself to send him away—but she didn’t dare talk to him alone, either.

“Your Royal Highness, Your Majesty.” One of the doctors hovered in the doorway, addressing Beatrice and her mom. “Could I have a moment with you both?”

Beatrice felt her heartbeat skip and skid all over the place. She nodded, not trusting herself to speak, and followed her mom into the hallway.

The doctor shut the door behind them. “The king’s condition is not very promising.”

“What do you mean?” The queen’s voice was as level and calm as always, though her hands visibly trembled.

“As you know, the king’s cancer is spreading from his lungs. What he suffered last night was a coronary thrombosis, meaning that one of the blockages caused by his cancer made its way into an artery, cutting off blood flow to his heart. That caused the heart attack.”

Thrombosis.
Even the word itself seemed evil, those sibilant
S
s coiled together like a nest of snakes, about to sink their fangs into you.

Beatrice’s mom leaned against the wall to steady herself. She hadn’t even been aware that her husband
had
cancer until they reached the hospital last night and the king’s chief surgeon informed her. “Shouldn’t he have recovered from the heart attack by now?”

“It did some damage,” the doctor said delicately. “The greater problem is that the cancer is still there. And now we’re having trouble stabilizing His Majesty’s breathing.”

Tears shone in the queen’s eyes. Her earrings from the party last night were still twisted in her ears: a pair of enormous canary diamonds, so big they almost looked like miniature lemons. “Thank you,” she managed, and returned to the waiting room. But Beatrice didn’t follow.

She glanced up at the doctor, swallowing her fear. Even though she already suspected the answer, she had to ask. “Could the coronary thrombosis have been caused by a shock?”

The doctor blinked, politely puzzled. “A shock? What do you mean?”

“If something happened last night that really surprised my father—something he hadn’t expected,” she said clumsily. “Could that have caused the blood clot?”

“A shock cannot create a clot in itself. It can only accelerate the process by which the clot enters the bloodstream. Whatever …
startled
your father last night,” he said tactfully, “may have contributed to the timing. But the king was already sick.”

Beatrice nodded. She tried to stave off the fear that crept through the cracks in her armor, to keep the placid Washington mask on her features. It was getting harder by the minute. “Could I … could I see my dad?”

Maybe it was what she had just confessed, or maybe he simply felt sorry for her, but the doctor stepped aside. “Five minutes,” he warned her. “There can’t be any more stressors to His Majesty’s system.”

It’s okay. I already told him that I’m in love with my Guard and that I want to renounce my claim to the throne. There’s nothing left I can say that will shock him any more than I already have.

“Thank you,” she murmured, as graciously as she could.

The hospital room was thick with silence, broken only by the methodical beeping of clustered machines. Beatrice hated them. She hated all those illuminated lines and ridges, plotting her father’s pulse as it struggled to right itself.

When she saw him, panic seized her with ice-cold fingers. Her legs suddenly felt unsteady.

Her dad was in a hospital gown, tucked beneath the blankets on the narrow bed. His face had a blue-gray tinge. Something about the angle of his arms and legs seemed awkward, as if they were superfluous limbs that he no longer knew how to employ.

He’ll be fine,
Beatrice told herself, but she could taste her own lies. This didn’t look like fine.

“Dad, please,” she begged. “Please hang on. We need you.
I
need you.”

Some deep emotion in her voice must have reached through the fog of his pain, because the king stirred. His eyes forced themselves open.

“Beatrice,” he rasped.

“Dad!” She gave a cry of joy that was part grateful laugh, and turned to shout for her mom. After all these hours, he was conscious again. Surely that was a good sign. “Mom! Dad’s up, you need to—”

“Wait a second. There are some things I want to tell you.”

Her father’s voice was quiet, but there was an urgent gravity to it that silenced her. He reached one hand, feebly, to take Beatrice’s. She clasped both her hands around his, so fiercely that the signet ring of America pressed uncomfortably into her palm, but she refused to let go.

She couldn’t help thinking of the last time she’d been at a hospital bedside, when her grandfather had used his dying breath to remind her that the Crown must always come first.

No,
she thought fiercely. Her dad couldn’t die. It seemed so impossible, so cosmically unfair, that he could die when they all needed him so desperately. He was only fifty years old.

“I need you to know how much I love you,” he told her, before a fresh wave of coughing racked his chest.

Beatrice forced back the tears that threatened to spill over. “Stop it, Dad. You can’t talk like this. I won’t let you.”

There was the faintest hint of a smile on his lips. “Of course not. I have every intention of getting better. Just … wanted to say these things, since they’re on my mind.”

She knew that an apology might upset him. It would only remind him of what she’d said in his office, which had
caused
his heart attack in the first place. Beatrice forged ahead anyway. “Dad, about last night—”

“I’m so proud of you, Beatrice. You are incredibly smart, and wise beyond your years.” He didn’t seem to have heard her. “Trust your judgment: it’s sound. If someone tries to push you into something you have a bad feeling about, take another look at it. Don’t be afraid to ask for help, from your advisors or from your family. There is so much glamour, so much pomp and circumstance. Don’t forget …” His voice began to trail off, but he forced the last few words out as a whisper. “Don’t forget that it’s your
position
being honored, and not yourself.”

Beatrice held tighter to him, as if she could keep him here through sheer force of will. “Dad, I’m sorry. About Teddy—”

“Don’t be afraid to push back against your opposition. It won’t be easy for you, a young woman, stepping into a job that most men will think they can do better. Harness some of that energy of yours, that stubbornness, and stick to your beliefs.” He spoke carefully and slowly, each word underscored by a wheeze or a bit of a cough, but the words were certain. Beatrice had a sense that he’d memorized them. That he had been lying here in his hospital bed, composing them in bits and snatches, in the moments he hovered near consciousness.

“Dad …,” she said, in a faint voice.

“It’s been the greatest honor of my life, helping prepare you to take on this role. You are going to be a magnificent queen.”

Beatrice bit her lip to keep from crying. “I love you, Dad.”

“I love you, too, Beatrice,” he said heavily. “About Connor … and Teddy …”

His head tipped back against the sheets, his eyes fluttering shut, as if the effort to stay awake had been too much.

Beatrice let out a single anguished sob. He didn’t need to finish that sentence for her to know what he meant. He was telling her that she needed to let go of Connor—to marry Teddy, and start the rest of her life.

She felt the grinding and turning of some axis deep within herself as the human part of her fell silent and the part of her that answered to the Crown took over.

“Your Royal Highness.” The doctor creaked open the door. “I think it’s time you let the king rest.”

“I don’t …” Beatrice didn’t want to leave when her father was like this, when he’d just expended so much energy on that speech. It felt somehow that she was tempting fate.

“It’s all right, Beatrice. I’m going to sit with him awhile.” The queen appeared in the doorway. She’d washed her face and redone her makeup, clearly trying to hide the evidence of her tears. “Why don’t you step outside? You could take Sam and Jeff. I’m sure the crowds would love to see you. Many of them have traveled a long way to be here right now.”

The last thing Beatrice wanted to do right now was a walkabout, but she lacked the emotional strength to say no. “Okay. We’ll be back soon.”

She gave her father’s hand one last squeeze, then headed out to give her siblings, and Connor, the heads-up.

Sam and Jeff immediately agreed with her plan. “That’s a nice idea,” Sam said softly, running a hand through her ponytail.

“Teddy. You’ll come with me, right?” Beatrice’s voice nearly broke, but she held out a hand toward him. “It would be good for the country, to see us together right now.”

There was a moment of strained silence. Beatrice felt Teddy’s questioning gaze, felt Samantha’s radiating resentment as they both realized the import of her words.

She couldn’t end her engagement with Teddy, not right now. Not after the threat of leaving him had literally sent her father to his
deathbed.

None of them spoke as they headed down the elevator and out to greet the waiting crowds.

It was a sunny afternoon, the sky overhead a byzantine blue that felt distinctly at odds with what was happening in the hospital room upstairs. The golden light streamed down on them, making Beatrice wish she could shade her eyes, or wear sunglasses. She forced herself to blink until her vision adjusted.

The air felt cold and sharp. She drew in a great lungful of it, as if by breathing double she might somehow breathe on her father’s behalf. Then she turned toward the expectant crowds.

Beatrice couldn’t remember the last time she’d been part of a walkabout this subdued. Usually they were festive, because usually they were part of parades or parties: children cheering and waving flags, asking her to pose for selfies or sign her autograph.

Today she simply shook hands, accepted a few hugs. Many people handed her flowers, with notes or cards for her dad. She murmured her thanks and passed them all to Connor. As she handed things to him, she occasionally let her fingers brush his, in a silent, selfish touch. Even after she stepped away, she felt the weight of his grave gray eyes resting on her.

She had no idea how she would find the strength to give him up. Not after everything they had already been through.

Beatrice forced herself not to think about that. She focused on nodding and shaking hands, on making her lips recite a string of sentences over and over:
Thank you for being here. We appreciate your prayers. Your presence means so much to my father.
For once she was relieved to do this—to fall back on her training and become the marionette version of herself, let ritual take over.

She was vaguely aware of Teddy doing the same thing a few paces away from her. Sam, on the other hand, had retreated as far from Beatrice as possible. Beatrice could still feel her sister’s gaze, boring like daggers into her back. She knew Sam was angry with her for appearing with Teddy in public, when she’d said that she was calling off the engagement.

A few times Beatrice reached for a water bottle and took a sip, hoping it would settle her stomach, which suddenly felt so empty. Or maybe she was empty. Maybe she was as cold as her sister had always thought, driven only by duty. She felt as hollow and heartless as this plastic bottle, utterly empty of everything.

It wasn’t until her father’s surgeon came running down onto the main steps of St. Stephen’s that she knew.

The doctor stumbled forward like a white-robed ghost, Queen Adelaide behind him. Lord Robert Standish froze, his arms full of dozens of bouquets. He let them all fall to the ground in his shock, roses and tulips and soft white freesias blanketing the steps like a carpet of tears.

Connor turned to Beatrice, sorrow—and his love for her—etched on his features, right there for all the world to see.