“We’re back,” Nick said.
His voice echoed in the palace halls. We were not in Wigtown anymore.
Nick’s room was neat but for one corner in which the clothes and effects from my Chelsea flat had been packed and stacked, waiting for me. How sobering to see my entire pre-wedding life boiled down to a couple of crates of picture frames and jeans, and one pathetically small box marked KITCHEN. Everything felt wrong—a tad too immaculate, a tad too organized, a tad too perfect. Any posters or photos Nick had put up over the years had been discreetly tucked away. His quarters showed our abandonment, and now felt like a guest room, cold and strange. I took a running jump and flopped onto the familiar king-size bed, which greeted me with its usual groan of old age. At least one thing remained the same.
Nick must have read my mind. “I guess they had the cleaners in,” he said. “It’s like I was never even here. Where’s my signed Ginger Spice postcard?”
“Maybe the ghost got bored and decided to redecorate.”
Nick lay down next to me and buried his face in my neck. “Maybe the ghost can give me a haircut,” he mumbled.
“Or a club sandwich,” I lamented. “Today is probably my last hurrah before your grandmother puts me back on a diet.”
Nick rubbed my hip. “Feels just right to me,” he said. “But Night Nick and Night Bex cannot win. Our dignified daytime selves have to be at the Conclave in…” He checked his watch and groaned. “Six hours.”
“I’m sorry, Nick,” I said. “We wouldn’t be in this situation if it weren’t for me.”
Nick opened his mouth and I placed my hand over it. “No,” I said. “Admit it. We’d be coming back from the Seychelles all tan and fancy-free and with seven new recipes for cocktails you can drink out of a hollowed pineapple, but I fucked up, and ow!”
He had nipped at my hand, which I yanked away, freeing his mouth. “I will admit nothing,” he said. “Besides, we need sleep. We don’t need to do this now.”
“At least let me say that I love you,” I said. “Even though your grandmother hates my guts, and might disown us both and we’ll end up sleeping in the park.”
He kissed me firmly. “Thank you, and I love you, too.”
“Even if we’re sleeping in the park?”
“Especially then,” he said. “I’ll need your body heat, for starters. You’re a furnace.”
He snuggled up closer, and the edges of the world blurred. But as we slipped toward a contented, united sleep, I knew that we hadn’t even begun to unravel the knot that Freddie kissing me—and the world finding out—had created.
* * *
‘WHERE’S THE HEIR?’ Steady Freddie Steps Up as Nick Is a No-Show, Says XANDRA DEANE
Since the airing of his dirty laundry stained the monarchy, Prince Freddie has been hard at work doing his washing up. But have his wayward brother and erstwhile lover done the same?
Exclusive sources tell me palace insiders are frustrated with the Duke and Duchess of Clarence’s refusal to be seen in public, stemming—they say—from Rebecca’s ego having taken a hit when her tawdry affair was revealed.
“She’s furious,” the source said. “And he does whatever she says, and right now that’s to run away from their jobs. All on the taxpayers’ dime.”
Nick cast a bleary glare at the empty place setting that had been left for Freddie, and then tossed the Mail facedown onto the floor. “Remind me to tell Marj to cancel all our subscriptions,” he said.
The two of us had managed four hours of rock-hard slumber before being awoken by the arrival of a rack of clothing for me, put forth by my stylist Donna so that I could look appropriate for our appearance at the Conclave—and, vitally, the drive over to the palace, which Marj had made sure would be photographed so that our actual faces made the news. We had about ten minutes to wolf down breakfast before getting ready, and the morning papers hadn’t made them especially pleasant. Xandra Deane was the Wizard of Oz of royal reporters: great and powerful, and no one had ever met her. Even before the wedding, she regularly churned out stories that painted me as conniving and unstable, and Nick as my patsy. The twist was in her growing support for Freddie, when most of the country still thought we were shagging in dark corners. There was no mention—from her, or anyone—about the Queen’s heart flutter; The Firm, apparently, still had some things on lockdown.
I muddled through my ablutions as competently as I could, but I was so far out of practice that I burned two fingers and part of my earlobe while flat-ironing my hair. I selected a gray polka-dot belted shirtdress with matching heels and my sartorial nemesis: pantyhose. Nick and I had to look scrupulously appropriate, and even though the paparazzi wouldn’t be able to see my legs, deferring to Eleanor’s nylon preferences was a goodwill gesture with the added benefit of ensuring that my duchess persona—which didn’t fit as neatly after so many weeks on the shelf—wouldn’t slip. I was about to leave when something winked at me from atop the dresser: a pin, in the form of the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes, crossed at the poles. It had been a friendly gift from Nick back when we were pretending we didn’t have feelings for each other, and for years, I’d worn it—often secretly—as a talisman of our love. The last time had been pinned to my underwear on our wedding day. On a whim, I opened the top buttons on my dress and affixed it to the center of my bra. It felt right to have it on again, known only to me, as if to drive
