The Royal We (13 page)

“I would have,” I told them, “but I think it’s treason to break the Crown Jewels.”

Freddie shot me an appraising look. “Funny,” he said. “And pretty. Natural. Like a toothpaste commercial. I don’t know why Father was so sprung on you and old India
Boring
broke, Knickers. Must have been her massive—”

“I’m sorry, Bex,” Nick interrupted. “I’d like to tell you that he’s not usually this crass.”

“It’s true,” Freddie said cheerfully. “I’m much worse.”

I smiled as I tied the drawstring on the sweatpants. I couldn’t help it; that’s Freddie’s charisma at work. Nick sank down next to him on the expansive bed—the future king, dwarfed by his king-size.

“What
are
you doing here?” he asked. “Father’ll have your head if you’ve skived off your job.”

“At least I have a job,” Freddie taunted Nick. “What’ve you been up to? Staring blankly at the
Times
cryptics? More juicy trips to the library?”

Nick’s face darkened. This was a sore subject. To Nick’s endless envy, Freddie had joined the Royal Navy immediately after Eton, and was training to be a helicopter pilot at a Fleet Air Arm base near a town called Yeovil that sounded more like a medicine than a place. But Richard, in a move I suspect was to keep Nick under his thumb, ordered Nick to bypass military service for the moment and instead divide his time between a postgraduate course in global development through Oxford, and reams of outside reading so he could converse fluently with farmers, politicians, dock workers, even bookmakers. Essentially, Richard was guiding Nick toward both an
actual
master’s and an unofficial graduate degree in all things Great Britain and Northern Ireland. This was useful, but because it primarily involved staying indoors, it also had the press calling Nick a layabout when, in fact, I’d never seen him work so hard.

Freddie must have regretted his comment, because he abruptly sprang up from the bed and saluted me. There was a hole in the armpit of his T-shirt.

“Madam, I’m Frederick Wales, pilot in training, at your service.”

“Bex Porter,” I said. “Hired thug.”

“Oh yes, Nick’s told me all about you,” Freddie said, moving to a wingback in the corner of the room and gesturing for me to sit next to Nick. “Although I’m now the second Lyons you’ve met without wearing any trousers. What’s going to happen when you meet our father?”

I glared at Nick as I climbed onto the bed and stretched out my legs. Nick shrugged sheepishly and then crawled over and rested his head on them.

“You cannot blame me for telling my brother about the adorable American running around in a hand towel,” he said, blatantly trying to suck up.

“To be fair, that was the second time we met,” I corrected.

Freddie nodded. “Of course. The first time you went on about sexually transmitted diseases.”

I flicked Nick’s earlobe gently. “If you know all that,” I said to Freddie, “then surely you heard I already met Prince Richard. Sort of.”

Freddie rubbed his hands together. “I can’t believe you left out this part, Knickers.”

“It wasn’t exactly one of our better memories,” Nick said.

“No, that’d be Windsor, wouldn’t it?” Freddie said with a mischievous gleam.

I fully pinched Nick’s ear this time, but I was laughing. “Jealous we beat you to it?” I teased Freddie.

“Who says you did?” Freddie fired back. “Rebecca, I’ve got secrets that would curl your hair and cripple the monarchy. And you know horny old Henry the Eighth sullied every one of those antiques with his great greasy bum.” He smacked his hands on his thighs. “Right, let me guess: Prince Dick was screeching at Nick and you overheard and he got all growly and menacing.”

“Got it in one,” I said.

The words were barely out of my mouth before Freddie jumped up and walked to the window. Freddie is nearly always moving. He’s athletic enough that it doesn’t come across as fidgeting—more like he’s a very handsome perpetual-motion machine. He pulled apart the thick silk curtains covering the floor-to-ceiling windows, revealing a gray, foggy morning, then fished a thin silver cigarette case out of his track pants pocket and pushed open the top half of one of the windows.

“Freddie, don’t smoke in here,” Nick said as a cold draft blew into the room.

“Too bloody freezing anyway,” Freddie said, slamming the window closed and tossing the engraved case onto the floor. “You win this one, Knickers.”

“Please pick that up. When did you start smoking again?” Fatigue and strain crept into Nick’s voice, as if a lifetime of being forced to nag his brother was wearing on him all at once.

“It’s just every so often.”

“It’ll kill you, and so will Gran.”

“Thanks, but I already have a mum,” Freddie snapped.

An unsettling current passed between them. Nick looked away. A flicker of something like guilt crossed Freddie’s face, before he turned to me.

“So, you were saying Prince Dick was a complete fuckhead to you,” he said.

I laughed, despite wanting to be irritated on Nick’s behalf. “I did
not
say that.”

“And is old Dickie just thrilled about this romantic development?”

“Is he ever thrilled about anything?” Nick countered. “We don’t discuss it.”

“Which means his army of spies has skulked around and reported back all manner of sins,” Freddie concluded. “Run while you can, Killer, before they tell him you chew with your mouth open and have been seen sniffing around Aunt Agatha’s collection of Fabergé eggs.”

“I can’t run,” I said. “I’m really gunning for those eggs.”

Freddie nodded approvingly, then checked his watch. “Stay for lunch, won’t you? Surely there’s something decent knocking about in the kitchen.”

Something decent
proved to be cheese, salad, a standing rib roast, Scotch eggs, and four different kinds of potatoes. It was the first of many such meals where the three of us would take refuge and stuff our faces. We ate this particular one in the second, smaller dining room, which has a view of the public park that used to be the palace’s front yard. Compared to some of the other state holdings, Kensington Palace looks the most like a regular old manor: The careworn, faded brick main building houses a museum, and fronts a village of well-concealed, sprawling private apartments for a variety of royal relatives. And given that the green space around it is now royal parkland, gawkers get a whole lot closer than you’d expect. Imagine if you could walk right up to the White House lawn and sunbathe topless while the president looked out of his window. It wouldn’t happen, and yet right now there was a girl in Kensington Gardens stretching in the most perfunctory of shorts.

“Your next girlfriend, mate,” Nick teased.

“Or an old one,” Freddie joked back. Then he squinted through the window. “Actually, she does look familiar.”

I had heard about Freddie’s addiction to dating gorgeous women—the more the merrier—who were also either odd or ragingly inappropriate enough to keep him entertained for more than a week. The stories he regaled me with over that day’s lunch more than confirmed the rumors, including one about his comparatively lengthy three-month dalliance with a Scottish actress named Turret who’d had to be paid off by the Palace to stop her turning the relationship into a one-woman musical. She was now a party planner in Ottawa. Little wonder Nick’s own taste in women had been the subject of so much media curiosity.

“So when is the big coming-out?” Freddie asked, passing a Bloody Mary pitcher around and then taking a loud bite out of his celery stalk. “Bex should meet the family.”

“Isn’t that what we’re doing?” Nick replied.

“You know what I mean. I don’t count,” Freddie said. “I’m barely even frightening.”

“
You
know what
I
mean,” Nick said. “I’m just not ready to hand this relationship to the wolves yet. Any of them.”

The brothers exchanged a silent look, again, that seemed to say a lot in a language that I didn’t yet speak. Freddie nodded slowly.

“Quite right, as usual, Knickers,” he said. “Your secret is safe with me. This particular secret anyway.”

Freddie bounded away and returned with some leather-bound photo albums to show me what he called “all fourteen years of Nick’s awkward period.” They were notable in that both boys were as appealing then as they are now—it was a teen girl’s dream scrapbook—and that there wasn’t a photo of Emma anywhere, although to be fair, Richard wasn’t present much, either. It was largely nannies; Clive’s father, Edgeware; and their uncle Awful Julian, who, despite his reputation as a drunk and a bounder, was clearly adept with the boys. (Freddie once told me that this is because Awful Julian likes them better than his own equally awful son.) We dallied until nine, at which point Freddie suggested we hit up a club he’d been wanting to try in Soho, because he was chasing around a part-time model and party planner called Tuppence.

“And I intend to collect.” He winked.

“Appalling,” Nick said, but he was smiling.

“I should actually get home,” I said. “I’m wiped out, and I need clean clothes.”

“It’s dark already,” Nick said, nudging me affectionately with his knee. “Stay.”

“Won’t that be scandalous?” I asked. “Two nights in a row?”

“Probably,” Nick said. “But Freddie rudely hogged all my time with you today, so I don’t want to say good-bye yet.”

Freddie hopped up and took my hand. “
Enchanté
,” he said, kissing it lightly. “It was a pleasure being abused by your fists. I hope you hit on me again very soon.”

Then he turned to Nick and waved a mock-scolding finger. “Now, Nicholas, you simply mustn’t sleep in the same bed. Gran will be furious.” To me, he added, “Knickers is a stickler for duty, have you noticed? Oh—speaking of…”

He pulled out his wallet and rummaged through it, before pulling out a folded piece of paper and flicking it at Nick. “Finished yesterday’s cryptic,” he said. “Consider it your new duty to study it and learn.”

Nick threw a coaster at Freddie’s back as his brother fled the room, and we spent the ensuing hour chatting on the couch, our legs in a cozy tangle, until our yawning could no longer be denied.

“We probably do have to aim for propriety here,” Nick said. “Gran is very persnickety about sleeping arrangements. You can stay in mine again, or if the flashbacks to Freddie’s appearance this morning are too horrifying, you can take the Howard Bedroom.”

He escorted me to a cozy, wood-paneled chamber with deep-set windows overlooking a private courtyard, and an intimate seating area with fresh flowers and magazines scattered artfully on an end table. Against the opposite wall was an imposing four-poster bed, begging me to flop onto it. I am a world-class flopper. I can heave myself onto a couch so hard it’s still vibrating five minutes later.

“Despite Freddie’s appalling behavior, that went well, right?” Nick asked, collapsing onto a love seat. “You’re the only girlfriend of mine who’s been able to keep up with him. The one time I invited Ceres for a nightcap, Freddie sent her to a pub down the street. He told her we were out of cups.”

Affection washed over me. In all my nerves about meeting Freddie, I never stopped to think that Nick might have been just as worried.

“Freddie’s great,” I said, sitting down and sticking my feet on the table. My socks didn’t match. As usual. “It would’ve been fun to have a brother like that, although I probably would’ve wanted to throttle him for a few years because he’d have been letting his pervy friends go through my underwear drawer.”

“I often still want to throttle him,” Nick said. “Promise me he didn’t stress you out about meeting the family. Honestly, I don’t have much that’s just
mine
. I want to keep you to myself for a bit.” He grabbed my foot and started rubbing it. “Mismatched socks and all.”

“Mmm. It’s a shame I’m going to have to turn you out of my maiden bedroom,” I said.

Nick dropped my foot. “Oh, you sweet naïve commoner,” he said.

He pulled me up and led me to one of the bookcases flanking the bed, where he tugged on a peeling volume called
Historic Houses of England
. The entire bookcase swung inward.

An actual secret passage.

“The hidden perk of the Howard Bedroom is that it connects to mine, which is where the Duke of York slept back in the day. This is where he housed his…”

“His mistress?” I supplied.

“I didn’t realize until the end of that sentence that it was somewhat insulting to you,” Nick said. “Let me try again. Ahem. This room is where the Duke of York housed, ah, the guest he might most wish to visit in the middle of the night, for a variety of respectable reasons, one of which is her advanced taste in hosiery.”

“Of course,” I said. “But that still doesn’t solve the problem of your grandmother not wanting us to defile a royal bedchamber.”

“I thought of that,” Nick said smugly. “Being as this is a guest suite, it isn’t a
royal
bedchamber at all. In fact, it’s a wickedly
unpopular
bedchamber because it’s haunted. We’d be doing it a service.”

“Giving it a reason to live,” I agreed. “Or giving the ghost a reason to pretend to live.”

“Quite selfless, really.”

“Sexual philanthropy.”

“Fancy term. Now you’re just showing off for the ghost,” he murmured, lowering his mouth to mine and sliding my sweatpants to the floor. If the ghost was scandalized by what happened next, he certainly never complained.

B
ut
why
haven’t you met them?” my mother asked, picking up the white and mint-green teacup and jerking her pinky finger impatiently out to the side, as if scolding herself for it not being innate. “It’s suspicious, Rebecca.”

It was a reasonable question, and not unexpected: Almost a year had passed since I woke up to find Freddie in my bed instead of Nick, and I still hadn’t encountered anyone else in the Lyons family beyond that old, unofficial—and still secret, even to my parents—dustup with Richard. Mom and Dad, in fact, had flown over with the express purpose of meeting the esteemed Prince Nicholas, and yet there were no current plans for me to have a sit-down with the opposite side. Certainly, there were reasons for this; royal life always came with reasons, almost all of them Reasons, some of them even typed up and filed in a manila folder. But as much as I swore I didn’t need family dinners at Balmoral to validate my relationship, I couldn’t help being stung by the math: A thousand days without a handshake was hard to explain, even to myself, and absolutely not something I wanted to psychoanalyze during a ritzy high tea.

“I can text Nick and tell him you aren’t comfortable meeting him without knowing his intentions,” I offered, dropping a cube of brown sugar into my exotic blend. “We can really draw a line in the sand, if that’s what you want.”

Mom patted the neatly curled ends of her silver-streaked bob. “We cannot be so rude,” she said imperiously.

“Not when she packed special steam-powered hair curlers,” Dad said.

Mom swatted him. “Appearances matter,” she said, tugging at her tweedy Chanel suit jacket. “And Nick needs to know we take this seriously. I just don’t want him treating Bex like Ms. Right Now if she thinks he’s Mr. Right.”

“Oh God. Please don’t quote some decades-old
Cosmopolitan
that you found at your hairdresser,” Lacey said.

“I suppose next you’re going to tell me I gave him the milk for free,” I said.

“I am an extremely modern woman,” Mom said defensively. “I use text messages and the Skype and everything. That doesn’t mean I can’t be concerned.”

“Come on now, Nancy. Nick seems like a good guy,” Dad said, patting her arm. “And Bex is no slouch. She has my keen eye for reading people.” He winked at me over the tea sandwich dwarfed in his large hands. “I am sure everyone’s intentions are good.”

Mom blew on her tea, frowning, not having heard a word. “Isn’t his
mother
even the slightest bit curious about you?”

Another eminently fair question, and one that I treated as rhetorical, because I had no answer. Nick and I had talked about almost everything else: how he’d lost his virginity (to Gemma Sands, at fifteen, about ten minutes after feeding the giraffes at her father’s wildlife preserve), how he got the scar on his chin (Freddie clipped him with a polo mallet), that he had a recurring nightmare about one of his grandmother’s porcelain soup tureens. Emma, however, was inhospitable territory. The times she’d come up organically, Nick either changed the subject, or clammed up completely. I wanted to draw him out, to be there for him, but was afraid it would come off like prying. So I let it go.

But I was tired of telling him eccentric bits and bobs about my own family—how Dad helped Lacey build a working model of an intestine for our high school science fair, or the way Mom buys a new summer and winter suit each year for the purposes of being buried in seasonal attire, should the worst happen—that I had to qualify with,
You’ll see when you meet them
. To his credit, Nick was delighted when I suggested an introduction, and immediately had his people book Mom and Dad a suite at The Dorchester—one of London’s poshest old hotels, and the one the Queen most trusted for discretion. So far, my family had enjoyed a great visit. We traipsed around the Tower of London, hopped the train to Hampton Court, even took a boat ride on the Thames—all the lively touristy stuff that I couldn’t do with Nick. Dad made it his mission to eat in as many of the ubiquitous pubs with
Arms
in the title as possible, and sought out an antiques shop on Kensington Church Street that kept all the most fabulous items under the floorboards, hidden from view except to those with a large enough wad of bills. Dad claimed he just wanted to investigate, but left with a walking stick concealing a sword, and an old leather book that was actually a hiding place for a lady’s gold-and-ivory-handled pistol. Never mind what he thought he was going to do with any of them. We ribbed him about it the whole week.

Still, the prospect of this day hung over me the entire time. Our tea was a strategic prelude to make sure Mom felt properly civilized, and my dad properly fed and watered. The Dorchester’s Champagne high tea is as elegant as its marble-floored lobby dining room, which was infused with the gentle tinkling of utensils on fine china. Down the way a piano player tapped out “I Dreamed a Dream,” eyes closed, head bobbing in deepest passion.

“Nothing like a song about a dying hooker to wash down your scones,” I said.

“Bex, be regal,” Mom said. “For once.
Please.
”

Lacey wiggled into perfect posture. “This is the life,” she said. “Sleeping in, wandering through Harrods, gorging on Champers and tea and cakes…I could so get used to this.”

Lacey often chose to forget that I didn’t live like this all the time. My appalling flat didn’t have any water pressure, but it did have mice, and I spent any leftover money on cheap art classes and highballs rather than Harrods and bubbly. I’d never even been inside Harrods until she took me. But Lacey had always been wistful with respect to England. She’d just finished her first year of med school at NYU, but she was never as interested in discussing that as she was in planning her next trip to London. She’d arrive here with a fresh head of highlights and a meticulously curated suitcase, primed to dazzle every guy in her path, reeling in admirers the way she used to friends at summer camp—but unlike when we were kids, she used the phone numbers she brought home. I wanted her to love London, but this felt more like trying to conquer it.

The piano player switched into the theme song from
Phantom of the Opera
, banging it out so violently I was sure his hands would bleed out all over his instrument.

“This guy’s repertoire isn’t very uplifting,” Dad noted.

I checked my watch. “Fortunately that’s our cue. Finish your scones. Nick will be upstairs any minute.”

In addition to getting my parents a lush suite for their stay, Nick had reserved one specifically for our meeting that boasted both private access for him—for maximum discretion—and breathtaking views of Hyde Park, for maximum brownie points.

“Hideous,” my dad said, stepping out onto the terrace.

“The worst,” I said, threading my arm through his.

“Intolerable. How does anyone live like this?”

“With ten thousand pounds a night, according to the website,” Lacey said, coming up next to us. “Can you imagine being able to snap your fingers and get this whenever you want? Your life is insane, Bex.”

“This isn’t my life,” I said, feeling like I was repeating myself. “This is one day in my life. The rest of the time, I have ants and no central air.”

“Ah, but the ants provide such a tremendous distraction from the spiders,” came a voice.

Nick walked out into the most insanely cinematic beam of light. It honestly did look as if the Heavens were kissing him—exactly, I suspect, the way my mother (and
The Bexicon
’s Aurelia Maupassant) had imagined it would be, minus Handel’s Hallelujah chorus. His sandy hair gleamed slightly red in the sun, his jeans were perfect yet perfectly broken in, his Pumas worn but not dirty, his rugby shirt the exact level of sporty my parents always expected from a boyfriend of mine. The only hint of his status was the gold vintage Rolex that had been a gift from his great-grandmother Marta on his eighteenth birthday.

Mom immediately dipped into a curtsy. Lacey buried her face in her hands.

“Nancy’s been practicing for weeks,” Dad said, clapping Nick on the shoulder while shaking his hand. “If she needs bionic knees after this, I’m sending you the bill.”

Nick laughed. “Mrs. Porter, it’s a pleasure,” he said, bowing deeply and kissing her hand. “Your form is miles better than Mum’s, but if you breathe a word of that to anyone I’ll deny it.”

“Well!” My mother blushed, speechless. He was good.

“Hey, Nick,” Lacey said, giving him a quick hug. “Good to see you.”

“And on such a miserable day,” Nick joked, gesturing at the clear blue skies. “Father once booked this suite for some of our European relatives, and it bucketed down rain the entire time. Couldn’t see a thing. They swore never to come back.” He winced. “That may have been a blessing. One of them kept telling us we were all supposed to be German by now.”

My father let out a booming belly laugh, and I could tell Nick was tickled by Dad’s warm reaction. “Dreadfully sorry about the Cubs, though, Mr. Porter,” he added. “I heard the Padres swept them.”

“Call me Earl. You should shoot over for a game!”

“Yes, Bex swears Cracker Jack is much better when it’s fresh,” Nick said.

“It’s better in the
stands
,” I corrected him. “It’s never really fresh. That’s part of its charm.”

Nick grinned at me before gesturing for my mother to head back into the hotel room, where what looked like yet another tea service—and two cold lagers in pint glasses—had been set out on the glossy coffee table. We’d all turn
into
scones before long.

“So, Nick, I could use your advice on a small weapons issue I might’ve gotten myself into,” Dad said. “There’s this antiques shop, see…”

Their voices trailed off and the door clicked shut. Lacey and I stayed on the balcony, enjoying the sun.

“So what now?” Lacey asked.

“I figured we’d hang for a bit, then send Mom and Dad to the theater.”

“I mean with Nick.”

“We’re going to usurp the throne, and invade Switzerland just to be cute,” I said.

“Be serious, Bex.”

“Okay,” I said. “
Seriously
, why does anything have to happen now? We’re young. We’re happy. Why does everyone want to rush this?”

Lacey threw out an aggrieved hand. “If that’s how you want to play it,” she said. “As long as you’re not going all Bex about it and avoiding reality. Isn’t that how you ended up stringing Clive along?”

“That’s a low blow.”

“Well, it’s tough love time,” Lacey said. “And those two are basically falling in love with him right now, too, so get ready. The longer you go without meeting his family, the more questions they’re going to ask.”

I knew she was right. Nick swore he loved me, and he emphatically acted like it—including his willingness to hang out with my dad and discuss, by the sound of it, the nuances of televised darts. But I was beginning to feel unsettled. Like Nick had a hidden reason, or Reason, for keeping me on the down-low.

“I’m good. It’s handled,” I lied. “And speaking of Nick’s family, I have a surprise for you. He’ll be here in about three hours.”

Lacey’s face lit up. “Freddie,” she breathed, throwing her arms around me in glee.

“Freddie.” I grinned, squeezing her back.

The Bexicon
glosses over Lacey and Freddie. In fact, it whitewashes almost all the supporting players, as if Nick and I got where we did in some kind of vacuum, untouched by anyone except the fairies of true love who’d drawn us together. That unforgivable turn of phrase is a direct quote—pure Aurelia Maupassant. As is this:

Glorious bullshit.

Nick left the massive Dorchester penthouse with plans to return, Freddie in tow, after their slate of meetings at Clarence House. With Mom and Dad off seeing something deliriously British on the West End, Lacey and I had plenty of time to primp for a night out with the princes. Meaning, I watched the worst TV I could find while Lacey took a bubble bath, and then she shoved a dress and a pair of heels into my hand and told me if I so much as tried to put on flats, wedges, or jeans, she’d throw them off the balcony.

“I mean, those aren’t even skinnies,” she said. “They’re
straight leg
.”

The dress was undeniably flattering: sleeveless and short with a lightly flared skirt, the plunging V-neck counterbalancing the relatively innocent silhouette, especially after Lacey accessorized it with a delicate lavaliere that rested right between my breasts. She tucked in my bra strap, then stood back to admire her work, rolling her eyes when I futilely tugged the fabric over whatever cleavage I had.

“For someone who has streaked as many places as you have,” she said, undoing what I’d just done, “you are so uptight.”

“I have to be careful,” I said. “It would be just my luck if Nick and I got caught on a night when my boob was hanging out. It’s Murphy’s Law.”

“Well, Murphy is a killjoy,” she grumbled, smoothing her stunning, snug leather mini.

The guys were twenty minutes late. Lacey spent that time wiping off her lipstick and trying different shades, then chucking her entire outfit and going through four other options. She was mid-change when I heard the suite door open and the sound of two male voices.

“Stall!” she whispered.

Freddie let out a low whistle when I walked into the living room.

“Nice legs, Killer!” he said, taking my hand and ogling me exaggeratedly. “I never figured you for a miniskirt kind of girl.”

I blushed. “Lacey is a bad influence.”

“I certainly hope so,” Freddie said.

“You look amazing,” Nick said, then pulled me in to whisper, “I’m dying to know where the pin is. Maybe we should stay in so I can conduct a thorough search.”

Nick made it difficult for me to behave sometimes.

“Where are we going, anyway?” I asked, tearing myself away.