Royals

  By the time he’s done, I feel like I might as well be one of those dress dummies, but then he turns that bright grin on me again. “Excited?” he asks, and I don’t know if he means about the dress or the wedding itself, so I just give him the good old American double thumbs-up. “Super psyched,” I tell him, and he laughs, then leans forward to place a smacking kiss on my cheek.

  “A dream,” he pronounces again. “Just like your sister.”

  I don’t know if anyone has ever called me just like Ellie, and I’m not sure if I think it’s a compliment or not, so I shrug it off and say, “Nah, she’s got better hair.”

  Angus laughs uproariously at that, like it’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard, and his assistant, the lady who brought me tea, also chortles.

  Not sure what to do with any of that, I give another awkward smile, then go out to find Mom and Ellie in the sitting room.

  Mom is chatting with one of the assistants, and Ellie is finishing up her tea, sitting on the couch opposite from the chair where I’d squirreled myself away. She looks pretty sitting there, all in white, her blond hair caught in a low ponytail and draped over one shoulder. Even the way she holds her teacup is perfect.

  The three of us leave the studio amid a flurry of cheek kisses and head down to the car that’s waiting in the alley behind the studio.

  The car is there, just where we left it, but we pull up short as we see who’s standing beside the car. Leaning on it, actually.

  Seb.

  “Sebastian!” Ellie says, moving her purse from one shoulder to the other. “What . . . what are you doing here?”

  Seb gives the grin that launches a thousand knickers into the air, and he pushes off the car. “I was looking for Daisy,” he says, and I inwardly groan. I have no idea what Seb wanted with me the night of the ball, but I’ve managed to stay away from him since then, and now it seems like I’m caught.

  He winks. “Had some secret best man–maid of honor plans to discuss with her.”

  Ellie looks back and forth between me and Seb, and I fiddle with the ends of my hair. “Can’t we just talk at the palace?” I ask, but he shakes his head, gesturing down the alley.

  “We’re close to my favorite pub, and it’ll only take a second. Don’t worry, they know me there. A perfectly photographer-free spot.”

  That grin again, and I see now why he can get away with most anything. Trespassing, drunkenness, kidnapping . . .

  “It’ll only take a minute,” he cajoles, and I sigh, letting my arms drop to my sides.

  “Sure,” I say, then turn to Mom and Ellie. “I’ll see you back at the palace.”

  Ellie tugs her lower lip between her teeth, but after a second, she nods, and then looks over at Sebastian.

  She doesn’t say anything, but he raises his hands, all innocent expression and big blue eyes. “She’s perfectly safe in my care,” he promises, and I wrinkle my nose at that.

  Definitely don’t want to be in Seb’s care.

  But I follow him down the alley and toward a heavy wooden door set into the gray stone of a building. “The Prince’s Arms,” he says, opening the door for me. “Appropriate, no?”

  I roll my eyes as I walk past him and into a shadowy interior that smells like smoke, beer, and carpet that’s probably three hundred years old.

  We make our way to the bar, and the man standing there by the beer taps clearly recognizes Seb, and not just in the princely way. He puts out a hand to shake Seb’s. “Been a while, lad,” he says, and Seb shrugs.

  “Too long. Usual for me, lemonade for my companion, please.”

  I really don’t want lemonade—it doesn’t mean the same thing here as it does back home. No sugary tart goodness, it’s more like watered-down Sprite, and for some reason, it’s the drink everyone seems to be handing me lately. But I don’t say anything, and just take my glass from the bartender when he hands it to me.

  Seb, of course, has a pint of some cloudy beer, and I wrinkle my nose at the smell of hops and yeast.

  He chugs about half of it in one go, and when he sets the pint glass back on the bar, what’s left of the lager sloshes around. Seb’s eyes follow the motion moodily.

  “This is super fun,” I tell him. “Is this our version of family bonding? That I watch you get drunk?”

  Seb glances over at me then, his ruddy eyebrows drawn down over his blue, blue eyes. He really is stupid good-looking, but it’s like I hardly ever notice anymore. I’ve gotten so used to his face that it’s just . . . a face. A good one, sure, but once you know Seb, it’s hard not to see the mess behind all that pretty. That has the effect of killing the handsome, let me tell you.

  “I wanted to be . . . alone with you,” he says, surprising me. I watch him swirl his lager again and shift on the barstool, looking around. There are only two other people in the pub, both of them ancient old men who appear to be having a contest to grow the most outrageous eyebrows. They’re sitting in a corner booth, the gilded lettering on the window casting weird shadows on their faces. It’s clear that they either don’t know who Seb is or don’t care, and suddenly I wonder if he comes here because he knows it’ll be deserted.

  I stab at my “lemonade” with a straw, a creepy-crawly feeling between my shoulder blades. “Why?” I ask Seb, and he bangs his palm down on the bar. The sound startles me, but I realize he’s just signaling for another pint, and I roll my eyes. “If it was to see you get day drunk, I’ve already seen that before—”

  “I’m in love with your sister.”

  Chapter 31

  I don’t know if throwing a drink in a prince’s face can get you sent to the dungeons or not, but I risk it.

  “What the—” Seb splutters, the remnants of my lemonade dripping down his chin. The bartender doesn’t even look up from polishing glasses, but I hear one of the old men at the booth in the corner give a wheezing laugh.

  He calls something to Seb in an accent too thick for me to understand, but I’m pretty sure I hear the word “filly,” which makes me glad I didn’t catch the rest.

  “No,” I say, ducking in close to keep my voice down as he pulls napkins out of a dispenser.

  “What do you mean, ‘no’?” Seb looks up at me, lemonade spiking his eyelashes. God, even covered in my drink, he still looks GQ-worthy.

  “I mean, no, you do not get to put your particular brand of disaster all over Ellie. You’re not in love with her—you probably just want to hook up with her. It’ll clear up.”

  “It’s love, not an STD,” he says, and before I can give in to a full-body shudder of ick, Seb sighs, tipping his head back to stare at the ceiling. “Sorry. I don’t mean to get snippy with you. It’s just . . . you’re the first person I’ve told.”

  I’m still trying to process that when Seb gives one of those elegant shrugs he’s so good at and reaches into his shirt pocket to pull out a pack of cigarettes. “Well, the first person besides Eleanor, of course.”

  My hand shoots out, fingers closing around his wrist. “You told Ellie? This isn’t some unrequited, pining-from-afar thing?”

  Seb shakes off my grip easily enough, lighting his cigarette. “Oh, it’s unrequited, most definitely,” he mutters around the butt, and I feel an almost-giddy wave of relief. Okay, my sister isn’t cheating on her royal fiancé with his teenage brother. That’s something, at least.

  “What did she say?”

  Taking a deep drag on the cigarette, Seb squints at me. “What do you think?”

  I snatch the cigarette out of his mouth, stubbing it out in an amber glass ashtray that has probably sat in this pub since the 1950s. “I hope she told you you’re an idiot.”

  He props his head on his hand, elbow resting on the bar. “In so many words. I think castration was also threatened.”

  I smirk at that. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen Ellie mad, but I remember that when she gets
going, she can get . . . creative. And Seb deserves it, really.

  Watching me, he leans closer. “So she didn’t tell you?” he asks, and I gesture to his lemonade-soaked shirt.

  “Um, obviously?”

  Sighing, Seb presses one finger to the bar, drawing circles in the condensation from his glass. “I thought she might have, is all. It’s why I wanted to talk to you. To see if . . . well, to see if she ever talks about me.”

  I think about how stressed Ellie has seemed lately, how much she didn’t want me around Seb and his friends, and I wonder just how long she’s been dealing with all of this. And why didn’t she tell me?

  Because Ellie stopped sharing her secrets with you around the time Alex came into the picture.

  That makes my stomach twist, so I ignore it, asking Seb, “What about Alex? That’s your brother.”

  “Is it?” he asks, scowling at me. “I had no idea. Look, I know it was stupid, and—”

  “And reckless,” I tick off on my fingers, “and selfish. And dickish.”

  “Is dickish a word?” he asks, raising his eyebrows, and I glare at him.

  “It is where you’re concerned.” And then, a little softer, I ask, “Why are you even telling me this?”

  Outside it’s started to rain, a gentle, soft afternoon shower. It’ll be over in a few minutes, but the men in the corner are already grumbling about it.

  “I had to tell someone,” he says, dropping his eyes from mine to fiddle with the coaster on the bar, pulling up its edges. “Last week, watching them at the house . . . it’s been worse than I thought it would be. Plus having Tamsin there, and knowing that’s what Mummy wants for me . . . She’s fit, don’t get me wrong, but she’s not Ellie.” His shoulders heave up and down. “I was afraid I was going to do something even stupider, like announce it at dinner, or—”

  “Oh god, don’t do that,” I say, gripping his wrist. I didn’t know you could actually feel the blood drain out of your face, but I’m pretty sure I’m going super pale right now, imagining Seb standing up at the palace, announcing his love for Ellie, ruining everything.

  “I’m not going to,” he assures me. “But . . . haven’t you ever had something inside you that feels so big, so . . . ” —he gestures around his chest— “so important that you had to say it to someone?”

  He really does look kind of pitiful, but my loyalty is to Ellie, and I can only imagine how much this particular time bomb is weighing on her. Seb tried to steal a house as a wedding present, after all. There’s no doubt in my mind he’s impulsive enough to stand up during a royal wedding and do the whole “I object!” thing.

  “You don’t love her,” I say now to Seb. “You just think you do because she’s nice and calm and . . . centered.”

  “Yes!” he says, pointing at me, light in his eyes. “That’s what’s so lovely about her, that when I’m with her, things just feel . . . quieter somehow. Peaceful. I could use that in my life.”

  “Okay, but she’s a person, not a yoga class, Seb. It’s not her job to love you back because she makes you feel all Zen.”

  Seb takes that in, blinking at me. “It’s not,” he says, but I think it’s a question, not an agreement.

  I signal to the bartender that I’d like another lemonade, then turn back to Seb.

  “It’s not,” I say firmly. “And you have to promise me that you’re not going to do anything about it. You’re going to take your completely gross and insanely inappropriate feelings, and you’re going to crush them into tiny bits inside you, and then learn from this, okay? And maybe Tamsin isn’t the one for you, but she’s here now, so at least try. I mean, she seems pretty into you, or at least willing to ignore your general disaster-ness.”

  He doesn’t answer that and instead pushes his pint glass in little circles on the bar. Then he looks up at me and, out of nowhere, says, “I was a wanker to your friend, wasn’t I?”

  The whole thing with Isa seems like it happened a thousand years ago, so it’s hard to remember that it was only a few weeks ago. Still, he was indeed a wanker, so I nod. “Totally.”

  Sighing, Seb continues to make a circuit with his glass. “I am working on being less of one, I swear.”

  He sounds so defeated that I almost feel sorry for him, and I reach out tentatively, patting his knee. “You’ll get there,” I promise. “And one way to do that is to never, ever tell anyone how you feel about Ellie, okay?”

  Seb’s hair is falling over his forehead in that attractive way that all the Royal Wreckers seem to have cultivated, and he watches me with those very blue eyes that are just like Alex’s. “I won’t,” he says.

  “Are we going to be friends now?” he asks, and I roll my eyes as I take a sip of my lemonade.

  “We’re about to be family,” I remind him, and he brightens a little at that.

  “Family,” he repeats. “I’d like that.” Then he shrugs, tossing back the rest of his drink. “Never thought I’d have regular people in my family.”

  “Okay, see, saying things like that really tips you back toward that whole ‘wanker’ thing you were trying to avoid.”

  Grinning, Seb reaches out and smacks my knee. “See, that’s what I need you around for. Remind me of wanker-like behavior.”

  He pays for our drinks, which surprises me since I wasn’t even sure he had money on him, and as we make our way to the door, I ask, “Is it really weird paying for things with your mom?”

  Queen Clara’s face is stamped on all the ten-pound notes, and her father, King James, is on the twenties. One day, Alex could end up on money. Or his kids. It’s another reminder that while Ellie may be my sister, everything that comes after this marriage is going to change my family forever.

  Seb just laughs, though. “Barely notice it, to be honest.”

  We step back into the alley, and I take a deep breath. Everything smells like rain and old stone and the exhaust from buses, plus the faintest hint of lemonade still wafting from Seb’s shirt.

  Seb is in love with Ellie, but Ellie is in love with Alex.

  Seb is supposed to fall in love with Tamsin, who is actually fooling around with Flora.

  Flora pretended to date Miles, who is now pretending to date me.

  And it is pretend.

  Totally, totally pretend, no matter what happened in the bothy.

  “This is so messed up,” I mutter to myself, and Seb surprises me by clapping me on the shoulder.

  “Nah, you haven’t seen anything yet.”

  Chapter 32

  I had thought the horse race was the fanciest, most pretentious thing I’d do in Scotland. Maybe the shooting day with all that tweed and the Land Rovers. Or the balls. Balls, super fancy, obvs.

  But polo? Polo puts all of those things to shame.

  The match is held just outside Edinburgh on one of those magical sunny summer days here in Scotland, the kind that will probably turn to rain by the afternoon, but for now, everything is gorgeous. Striped tents, tables groaning with flutes of champagne and all kinds of tiny finger foods, people wandering around in the brightest, prettiest of outfits . . .

  And I hate all of it.

  I’m in one of the dresses Glynnis picked out for me, yellow instead of the green she usually puts me in, and all scalloped skirt and fluttery sleeves. No hat today but a fascinator that, thank god, contains exactly zero feathers and only one little piece of netting.

  My heels are sinking into the grass, and all I want to do is find a place to sit down. I glance back at the stands and see a beautiful woman in a large black hat striding toward one of the striped tents. She looks like all the women I’ve seen here: extremely well put-together but also kind of like a purebred Afghan hound.

  As I watch, she hails a friend, and then, slowly, almost inevitably, tips over, sinking into the wet grass, one hand still raised in greeting.

  The man next t
o her doesn’t even pause, just continues on his way, and I shake my head.

  Up in the stands, I can see the queen, standing beside Ellie, Alex, Seb, and Tamsin. The queen is all decked out in blue today, her auburn hair glossy in the sun, and as she chats with Alex, I see Tamsin glance behind her. Flora is there, talking to Fliss and Poppy, and I watch her meet Tamsin’s eyes, and see the little smile that passes between them.

  Then Tamsin turns back and slips her hand into the crook of Seb’s elbow. Seb smiles down at her briefly but then turns his eyes back to Ellie, who is staring so hard at the queen that I know she’s purposely ignoring Seb’s gaze.

  What a freaking mess.

  “You’re looking a bit bolshy.”

  I turn to see Miles at my side, his hands shoved in his pockets. He’s wearing a white button-down shirt, the sleeves rolled up, his dark tie loose at his throat, and suddenly all the anger goes out of me.

  “Bolshy?” I thought I’d absorbed most of the Brit slang there was to learn in the past month or so, but clearly there are still a few things I need to learn.

  “Like a Bolshevik,” Miles clarifies. “Someone about to start a revolution. I can see it in your face,” he tells me now, grinning. “Just like you colonists, coming over here and wanting to cut everyone’s head off.”

  “I could go for a decapitation or two,” I confess, and he laughs, his teeth very white against his tan face. I think back to that night at the bothy and my face goes hot.

  Maybe he’s thinking the same thing because he stops laughing, his eyes darkening a little bit.

  Then he steps back a bit, straightening his shoulders. He’s tamed his hair with some kind of gel, but it still shines like an old coin, and the green stripes on his tie bring out his eyes.

  “Do you know anyone playing today?” I ask, desperate for a safe topic of conversation, and the corners of Miles’s mouth turn up. He apparently likes the distraction, too.