Majesty (American Royals, #2)(90)

“Okay. I’ll do it.”

There was a knock at the door, and Robert Standish peered into the room. “Your Majesty, the hair and makeup artists are here to do final touch-ups. Then Wendy Tsu will help you into your dress.”

The room was about to dissolve into a small hurricane of hairspray and lipstick. Sam cast a pleading glance at her sister, who laughed in understanding. “You can go, Sam,” Bee said. “Just don’t stay away too long.”

“Thank you,” Sam breathed.

Ignoring the curious stares of footmen and security guards, she started restlessly down the hallway. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen the palace thronged with so many people. The throne room was probably full by now; the guests had been told to arrive almost an hour before the ceremony, for security reasons.

The only place free from all the chaos was the winter garden, a small space tucked into the side of the palace. At the center of its brick courtyard stood a potted lemon tree, which only grew in this climate thanks to the assiduous care of the palace groundskeeper.

“Sam?”

A lean, blond figure unfolded himself from one of the benches, and Sam swallowed.

“Teddy. What are you doing out here?” she asked self-consciously.

A hesitant smile curled over his features. He wore the ceremonial navy and white of the Dukes of Boston, his dress coat complete with tails and stitched in golden thread. Even his white gloves were fastened with gold buttons. Sam knew, in a distant and unaffected part of her mind, that he looked impossibly handsome.

“The same thing as you,” Teddy said. “I needed a breath of fresh air before all the handshaking and small talk.”

“But you’re so good at all that stuff,” she observed.

“Maybe.” He shrugged. “That doesn’t mean I like doing it, though.”

The silence that fell between them was less awkward than Sam might have expected. She realized that she hadn’t been alone with Teddy since that day at the Royal Potomac Races all those months ago, when he’d told her he was marrying her sister.

“Sam—”

“Teddy—”

They both broke off with a flustered laugh. “You first,” Sam insisted, and he cleared his throat.

“Sam, Bee and I…I mean…”

When had he started using that nickname? Hearing it tugged at something in Sam’s chest.

“I know,” she said, her eyes burning. “You really love her, don’t you.”

To his credit, Teddy held her gaze. “I don’t know how to begin apologizing to you. I mean, there’s nothing in McCall’s Etiquette about how to handle something like this.”

“I think we’re leagues past anything McCall could’ve anticipated,” Sam replied, but Teddy didn’t smile at her joke the way Marshall would have.

“Exactly,” he said earnestly. “I’m sorry I made such a mess of things. I never should have…”

At his anguished look, Sam took an instinctive step forward, placing a finger over his lips. “Whatever you were going to say, don’t. I’m the one who should be apologizing to you.”

She was the antagonist in Beatrice and Teddy’s love story, and if she hadn’t been in the way, they might have discovered how they felt about each other so much sooner.

“It takes two people to make out in a closet. Don’t carry all the blame for this, okay?” She tried to smile at him. “I’m happy for you and Bee. Really.”

A breeze shot into the garden, rustling the leaves on the lemon tree, lifting the smells of soil and damp and citrus into the air.

Teddy’s eyes gleamed with gratitude and relief. “I’m happy for you, too. You and Davis seem really great together.”

“You—what?”

“Sam, you’re so complicated,” Teddy said gruffly. “You’re impulsive and brilliant and sophisticated and sarcastic. There is so much to you, and I’ve never seen anyone who complemented all of that, who could keep up with you, until Marshall. You two make sense together. More sense than you and I ever did.”

“I—thanks. That means a lot,” Sam said awkwardly. She looked into Teddy’s luminous blue eyes and added, “I’m really glad that Beatrice has you.”

“I’m glad she has you, too.”

They exchanged a complicit smile. In that moment, Sam knew that she and Teddy understood each other, because they shared one very important thing—they both loved Beatrice. Being the queen was a near-impossible job, but between the two of them, they might be able to support her through it.

“I realize this is painfully cliché, but do you think we could stay friends?” Teddy asked.

Friends. Sam didn’t have many of those, at least, not friends she could trust. Certainly not friends who knew her as well as Teddy did. “I would love that.”

She hesitated a moment, but given everything they’d been through, she figured she could hug Teddy. She started to pull him into an embrace. But before she could, he put his hands on her shoulders, and leaned forward to drop a single kiss on her brow.

There was nothing romantic in the gesture; it was decidedly old-fashioned, and sweet. As if Teddy was quietly acknowledging their messy history, and putting it behind him.

Sam felt all her grief and love and loss welling up in her. She blinked rapidly, trying not to cry. She had made so many mistakes, time and again—but at last everything was clicking into place, the way it was meant to all along.