Majesty (American Royals, #2)(67)
He leaned forward, the lines of his body languid and weary.
Nina turned toward him. “It doesn’t matter who your father is. You know that, right? His choices don’t determine who you are. Only your choices do that.”
“I don’t always make the best choices,” she thought she heard Ethan mutter, so softly she couldn’t be certain.
“Look at me.” She grabbed his head with both hands, forcing him to meet her gaze. “You are not defined by your father. Neither of us is, okay? You are you, and you are a complete person, and you are good.”
“But I wonder sometimes…if I found him, if I knew who he was…would I feel like I belong?”
Nina was silent. She’d lived around the royal family long enough to know how it felt, standing on the outside of something, peering in with lonely eyes.
“But you do belong,” she said adamantly. “You belong with me.”
Ethan’s weight shifted. For an instant Nina thought he might kiss her—but instead his arms wrapped around her and he pulled her close.
Nina turned her head to the side, resting it on Ethan’s shoulder, and breathed him in. She thought about childhood dreams and grown-up dreams and wondered how and where those two things might collide. She thought about the feel of Ethan’s heart, beating steadily against her own.
She wasn’t sure how long they stood there, hugging on the top of the Statue of Liberty, but it was long enough for her to realize one very important thing.
This was the same Ethan who, for years, had convinced Nina that he was snarky and arrogant. Maybe he still was those things. But now she appreciated the wicked edge to his humor, knew the arrogance was just a defense mechanism. She knew the real Ethan, the one behind all the emotional armor.
Ethan stepped away, looking a little sheepish. His eyes flicked curiously around. “I wonder…”
“What?” Nina demanded, as he marched over to the back of the viewing platform, where the spikes of the statue’s crown rose sharply overhead.
“I can’t believe it’s still here,” he said with a grin. “I must have done this when I was ten.”
“What’s still here?”
He pointed, and suddenly Nina saw it: EB, scratched out in blocky letters on the metal’s surface.
“You delinquent! You defaced a national monument?”
“Your surprise is rather insulting.” Ethan reached into his pocket for a key, holding it on an outstretched palm.
Nina hesitated, then smiled.
“Give me a boost,” she requested. Ethan obediently picked her up, holding her around the waist so she could scratch out NG on the furled sheet of copper, right below his EB.
When he put her down, the two of them stood there staring up at their initials—binding them together, here on this landmark, for all eternity.
Normally Beatrice dreaded invitations. She received thousands per year, and while she hated letting people down, she simply couldn’t say yes to them all.
But for the past few months, she’d been waiting desperately for an invitation that never arrived.
She knew precisely what it should have looked like, because she’d seen them before, back when they used to arrive for her father: a scroll of heavy parchment tied with a red ribbon. Most Gracious Sovereign, it would begin, your dutiful and loyal subjects in Congress assembled do entreat you to attend our gathering….
Beatrice knew it would be unprecedented, for a monarch to show up at Congress without an invitation. But no Congress had ever failed to invite the monarch to its closing session, either.
How could Beatrice fulfill her duties as queen if her own legislative branch didn’t treat her like one?
And so, this morning, she’d invented an errand that sent Robert far from the palace. To her relief, he’d left without protest.
Now she was in a town car, headed toward Columbia House, the meeting place of both bodies of Congress.
Outside her window, the city rushed past in a blur of gray stone and brightly colored billboards. People in suits streamed up and down the stairs to the metro. Towering over two city blocks was the bulk of the Federal Treasury Building, topped by an enormous copper eagle. Several minutes later, the car turned in to Columbia House’s back entrance.
Beatrice’s muscles tightened in fear. She wanted to throw open the car door, yet she forced herself to wait until her driver came around to open it for her. She reached up to touch the gold chain of state that hung around her neck. It was so heavy, its weight pressing into the top of her spine—but her father had never bowed his head beneath it, and neither would Beatrice.
She was decked out in the full regalia of her position. The ivory sash of the Edwardian Order, the highest of America’s chivalric honors. The heavy, ermine-trimmed robe of state. And, finally, the massive Imperial State Crown. It was all too big for her—especially the crown, which kept falling off the back of her head, or slipping down to catch on her nose.
The trappings of state were heavy and clunky on Beatrice’s slender frame because they had all been designed for men.
A young man in a suit, most likely some kind of congressional assistant, sprinted forward. When Beatrice stepped out of the car in full ceremonial attire, he went pale. “Your Majesty,” he exclaimed—then seemed to recall himself, and swept her an abbreviated bow.