Majesty (American Royals, #2)(56)
Her phone buzzed, distracting her from her thoughts. Guess who sent this one, Teddy had written, with a photo of matching plaid shirts. Beatrice honestly couldn’t tell whether they were outerwear or pajamas.
She and Teddy had divided up the wedding gifts, so their respective secretaries could begin drafting the thousands of thank-you notes they would have to sign. They’d gotten in the habit of sending each other pictures of the most outrageous ones.
She flicked her hair over her shoulder with an impatient gesture and typed a response. The Prince of Wales. Only the British wear plaid that looks like a carpet.
Ouch, Teddy answered. Actually, these are from Lord Shrewsborough.
My old etiquette master!
She could practically see Teddy’s smile as he replied. Etiquette, what a dying art.
Beatrice swiveled in her chair toward where Franklin was curled up in the corner. His eyes were closed, his legs twitching as he dreamed some delightful puppy dream. She took a picture and sent it. We miss you.
Things between her and Teddy had changed since Walthorpe. Now Beatrice caught herself relying on him, in ways she hadn’t foreseen. She would ask Teddy for advice on her problems, and together they’d talk out her various options. They went on walks together, Franklin running impatiently before them on a leash. Occasionally when they were both laughing at the puppy’s antics, Beatrice caught herself wondering if two people could fall in love this way—by loving the same thing so deeply that their excess love spilled over and drew them toward each other.
It was the oddest and sweetest and most unexpected sort of courtship, as if they had wiped away everything that had happened between them and met again as strangers.
Beatrice remembered what her father had told her the night before he died: that he and her mother hadn’t been in love when they were first married. But we fell in love, day by day, he’d said. Real love comes from facing life together, with all its messes and surprises and joys.
She glanced back down and sighed at the next paper in her stack. It was the guest list for her wedding.
Robert had compiled the list based on long-standing protocol. He’d added foreign kings and queens, ambassadors, chancellors of universities, members of Congress. I kept it to fourteen hundred guests, he’d told her; which means that you and Teddy each get a hundred personal friends. Beatrice hadn’t bothered protesting. She didn’t have a ton of friends, anyway. Plenty of people claimed to be her friend, but the only real one she’d ever had was Connor.
She froze. Surely she was seeing things, hallucinating Connor’s name because she’d just been thinking about him.
But no, there it was, right in the middle of the guest list: Mr. Connor Dean Markham, with an address in Houston.
So he’d left town, Beatrice thought dazedly. She tried not to think beyond that, but some part of her couldn’t help wondering what his life was like, whether he was happy. Whether he’d met someone new.
What was he doing on the invite list?
She leaned forward to press her intercom. “Robert? I need to talk to you about the wedding invitations.”
A few moments later, Robert’s new assistant, Jane, opened the door. She was pulling a wheeled cart behind her—which was laden with four enormous boxes.
“Jane,” Beatrice asked slowly, “is that all the wedding invitations?”
“Yes, Your Majesty.” Jane knelt down to pull a box from the lower shelf of the cart. “I wasn’t sure what your concern was, so I brought them all. There are forty blank invitations here; if you’d like to add someone, give me their name and I’ll have the calligrapher complete it.”
“It’s fine,” Beatrice cut in. “I just had a question regarding one invitation in particular.”
Robert peered around the open door. “Can I be of service?”
Beatrice nodded. “There’s a name on the guest list that surprised me. My former Guard, Connor Markham.”
“It’s tradition that we invite former Revere Guards to a royal wedding,” Robert said slowly. “You’ll see that some of your other previous Guards were also included.”
Beatrice blinked down at the list. Sure enough, a few of her other guards—Ari and Ryan—were listed below Connor.
“I see,” she said carefully. “However, I’d like to remove Connor from the list.”
“Is there a problem that I need to be aware of?”
Robert held her gaze for a long, slow moment. Beatrice wondered, suddenly, if he knew. She had no idea how he might have found out—but if anyone could dig up other people’s secrets, it was Robert.
“Not at all.” She marveled at how casual her voice came out, despite the hammering of her heart.
Jane looked up from one of the boxes, which read J–N on the side in thick black marker. She’d been fanning through the invitations filed inside, and was now holding one of them.
Beatrice’s hand darted out to snatch the envelope from Jane’s grip.
“Thank you. I’ll need to think about this,” she declared, with forced calm.
“Of course.” Jane bobbed a curtsy and headed out into the hall, pulling the cart behind her. Robert hesitated, his eyes still fixed curiously on the queen, then followed.
Beatrice sank into her chair. Franklin had woken up at all the noise; he ran over to nudge playfully at her legs. She let him climb up into her lap, not caring that he was getting hair all over her oyster-colored pants, and unfolded the envelope.