Majesty (American Royals, #2)(74)

“I know.” Marshall sighed. “Why do you think I escaped up here? The moment they see me, my parents will make a point of reminding me what a disappointment I am.”

Sam blinked. “You’re not a disappointment,” she started to say, but Marshall talked over her.

“Trust me, I am. My parents wish that Rory had been born first,” he said, staring out over the city. The streets were turning a brushed gold in the darkness. “Sometimes I do too. If only Rory would put me out of my misery and agree to take the duchy instead. But she doesn’t want it.”

“I know the feeling,” Sam said quietly. “I’m the disappointment in my family.”

She’d been acting the reckless spare for so long, she sometimes forgot that it had all started like that: as an act. A way to be different from her sister. And where had it gotten her, in the end?

Millions of little girls wanted to grow up to be like Beatrice, America’s first queen. But no one ever said they wanted to grow up to be like Samantha.

“When I was younger, my dad was constantly giving me American history books,” she said into the silence. “About the Constitutional Convention, or the First Treaty of Paris, or the race to the moon. Each time I finished a book, he asked me what I’d learned. Even if what I had learned was that my ancestors were far from perfect.” She sighed. “Back then, my dream was to become a lawyer. I thought it meant that I would be like the people I kept reading about, that I could pass laws that fixed things. That I could help make history.”

“You’d be a fantastic lawyer. You’re certainly argumentative enough,” Marshall replied, only a little teasing.

“Except I can never be one!” Sam burst out. “Eventually my dad pulled me aside and told me it would never happen. ‘You’re the sister of the future queen,’ he said. ‘You can’t also be part of the legal system; it would be unconstitutional.’?” She blew out a breath, lifting a few stray pieces of hair. “I think that was the moment I finally understood, that was all I could ever be. The sister of the future queen.”

She ran her hands up and down her arms, suddenly chilly. Marshall started to slip off his jacket, to tuck it over her shoulders, but Sam shook her head sharply. He’d done the same thing for Kelsey when she was cold.

She didn’t want to think about Kelsey—and that eager look in her eye when she’d asked whether Sam and Marshall were serious.

Marshall shrugged and left the jacket draped over the side of the chair. “Sam, my parents would have given anything for me to go to law school.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I was never good at school, unless you count PE,” Marshall said, and she heard the pain beneath the seeming lightness of the words. “Reading was difficult for me; the letters were always changing places or turning into black squiggles. I tried to talk to my parents about it, but they just told me to buckle down and study harder. It wasn’t until third grade that they finally agreed to test me. That’s when we found out about my dyslexia.”

Sam remembered what he’d said when they were ballroom dancing: I know what it feels like to be someone’s punching bag. Her heart ached for nine-year-old Marshall, struggling with a problem he couldn’t understand.

“I didn’t realize,” she murmured.

He shrugged, not meeting her gaze. “I’ve gotten really good at hiding it. My family was so ashamed, they made me try everything: tutors, therapy, even hypnosis. ‘The Duke of Orange cannot have a learning disability.’?” The way he said that last sentence, Sam knew he was quoting someone: his parents, maybe, or his grandfather.

What surprised her most was that Marshall—who was always ready to push her buttons with a new, outrageous nickname, who argued with her for the sheer joy of arguing—had internalized his family’s opinion of him.

Someone must have opened a window downstairs—the party pulsed louder and more vibrant beneath them—but neither of them made a move to leave.

Marshall let out a heavy breath. “My parents always wanted me to follow the traditional path of the Dukes of Orange: to go to Stanford Law, graduate with honors, become a constitutional interpretation lawyer—or something equally highbrow—and eventually go into the family business of governing.” To Sam’s surprise, he didn’t sound bitter, just…hurt, and weary.

“I never wanted to be a lawyer like you did, Sam. But I still tried for years to live up to my parents’ expectations,” he said heavily. “Eventually it seemed easier to stop trying.”

Sam understood, then, why Marshall had embraced his tabloid image as a notorious partier. He acted that way out of self-preservation. Because it hurt less if his family rejected him for something he chose to do, instead of something he couldn’t control.

Unthinking, she reached out to cover his hand with one of her own. Then she realized what she’d done: that she’d touched him here, in private, when it was just the two of them and they weren’t performing for anyone.

Marshall didn’t pull his hand from beneath hers.

“Listen,” Sam said urgently. “I don’t care what your family says: you are going to be a great duke. You’re good at solving other people’s problems. You think outside the box. You are empathetic, and thoughtful, and charming—when you want to be,” she added, which coaxed an unwilling smile.