“No, no, he has too much on his plate,” I said hastily. “I’m good. Tiara me.”
My hair had been swept into a complicated chignon, with a small foam circle pinned to the back of my head to prevent the tiara from pressing into my skull and giving me a headache. Having thusly primed me, Kira placed the Lover’s Knot tiara on my head. It had sat there only once before, briefly, the day Eleanor let me choose my wedding headpiece, and I was reminded why Nick’s mother hadn’t liked it: The damn thing weighed a ton, and was almost too impressive for me to bear. For all Richard’s talk of symbolism, I knew he also was keenly aware that the Dutch possessed the best jewels of all the European royals, and—short of raiding the vault at the Tower—this was the fanciest in his coffers. He wanted to show off.
I shook my head back and forth gently. The pearls hanging from the twenty-five diamond arches clanked in their settings.
“Yikes,” I said. “I’m not going to be able to sneak up on anyone wearing this thing.”
Kira took a step back and appraised me. “Maybe not, but you look great. I am extremely good at my job.”
“You are,” I said, nodding.
“Try not to do that,” she said. “You’ll dislodge the doughnut.”
I winced. “And sprain my neck.”
As Kira fiddled with a few pins near my left ear, I stared at myself with an almost anthropological remove. For my new family, sticking on an iconic crown for a couple of hours was as usual as trying to wear in a new pair of shoes. But in that split second when the Lover’s Knot settled onto my head, for real this time and not simply as a wedding-day audition, I’d turned into someone foreign to myself. They were my eyes looking out from my own face, but what they saw was a person from a tabloid, too distant to touch. With a husband who’d been nearby the whole time but chose to stay across the hall, out of sight.
Kira’s hand hovered over my head. “Are we good here? The cops will not think it’s cute if I’m late bringing this back.”
“We’re good,” I said. “I just…don’t look like me, do I?”
Kira put her hands on my shoulders.
“I hate to break it to you,” she said. “But I think this is what you look like now.”
* * *
To distract myself from the tense build-up to Dutch Day, I’d picked up Georgina’s journals again, relishing the peek into the life of a person I’d never known—and a side of Eleanor I’d never seen. At first, I’d simply read and reread the first one, turning its old pages slowly, savoring a diverting look inside the mind of a little girl with a lot of opinions. But then I found two more slim volumes buried in a different cupboard in Sex Den (I had given up correcting Nick on the name). The morning of our royal guests’ arrival, after a night of anxiety dreams that had festered and flourished every hour, the Bex Brigade got me spit-shined and ready fifteen minutes early, and I gratefully spent that time perched carefully on an ottoman devouring the next pages.
Happy birthday to me! We spent it in Durham again. Daddy pretends we come here for the fresh air, but I know it’s because London still frightens him and he thinks the countryside is safer. Once, years ago, we stayed here for ages, and lots of London was ruined when we got home and Ellie and I cried so much that Daddy sent us right back for another month. Henry said that was the Blitz. He’s very clever, so I believe him. He tells us things the grown-ups don’t want us to know.
Mummy thinks the Vanes are a bit common. Henry’s great-great-grandfather was nearly prime minister and his grandfather very nearly was an MP and his father was very very nearly Head Boy at Eton when Daddy went there and now works near Parliament. After a bit too much wine I heard Mummy say into her napkin, “Such a lot of nothing.” But Daddy is happy here. He and the Duke puff out their chests and tell boring stories about the old days, like Daddy is just a normal person. But they tease Henry something awful about not going to Eton or playing sport. He plays croquet with us, but I suppose that isn’t as noble to old men. He doesn’t play with us as much now that he’s nearly a grown-up, too, but we had a bit of fun tonight after dinner. There was a cracking rainstorm and Ellie couldn’t sleep, and I never want to go to bed, so we crept into the library to watch through the window, and Henry was there like he always is with his nose in a big book and looking serious.
I told him to cheer up and he said, “You know why you’re here, don’t you? It means your parents are afraid London is about to get hit again.” He said he feels useless not being able to help, because he’s too young and his eyesight is terrible. Then he fretted about if Hitler took over the world. (Mummy says that won’t happen. I’m a bit scared, but I don’t want to look like a baby so I pretend I’m not.) Then Ellie sat down next to Henry and hugged his arm and said, “Granny told me I will be Queen someday, and I need to learn to stand tall in a storm. But I don’t know how to do that.”
I don’t like being sad, so I said, “Stop moping, ninnies. There’s nothing we can do from here.” I decided the best way to cheer everyone up was to have a mud fight. Ellie said it was too dark and we’d get in trouble
