Nick poked his head into our sitting room. “You’ve beaten me for once,” he said.
I waved the diary. “I’ve just met your grandfather.”
“Give him my regards,” Nick said. “Come on, our chariot awaits.”
I set the diary on the end table with a shiver. All this royal family pageantry triggered flashbacks to the last time I’d engaged in it, and been deluged with jeers. At least then I’d had Nick’s hand to hold. This time I was on my own. Nick hadn’t completely shut me out, but time and space had done nothing to make it easier for him to look at me through the fog of everything we’d dredged up, and every time he did, I saw the struggle.
Queen Lucretia, at least, did prove to be a gas. When Nick and I arrived at Horse Guards for the official welcome, she enveloped him and patted him on the back of the head like he was a baby (at over six feet in heels, she was one of the few women who could do that). She then grasped my shoulders and gave me a warm shake.
“It is wonderful to see you,” she said, her accent a mix of twenty years in the Netherlands, a childhood in Argentina, and college in Boston. “We had a glorious time at your wedding, until the actual wedding.” She tilted down and touched our foreheads together. “Fret not, my darling. Things happen. Hendrik’s brother’s wife tried to leave him at the altar, and the police brought her back to the palace. Now they’re having twins.” She winked. “Everything is possible with love!”
She then reached inside a cluster of large, suit-clad, Secret Service–looking men and retrieved a wan strawberry blonde in dreary beige. “This is my daughter Daphne Estrella, my North Star, my joy.”
Daphne glanced at me, tight-lipped, looking like the polar opposite of all those things. She was two inches shorter and a few years older than me, but her fingers tugged at each other in the manner of a twelve-year-old.
“Hello,” she said.
And that was it. Shepherding Princess Daphne to the palace had sounded like an easy, low-pressure gig, but apparently Lax had used up their combined word budget. Daphne didn’t give off an unfriendly vibe, but neither did she speak as we climbed into the carriage, apparently preferring to stare out the window curling and uncurling her fingers in her lap. This had not been on my syllabus. I’d memorized the schedule for the two-day visit, and skimmed tomes about history, art, architecture, geography, and language provided by Richard because (I assume) he was afraid all I knew was that Amsterdam is a place people go to party, and that I would ask Daphne if she’d brought any weed. (I didn’t tell Richard that page fifty-seven of Conversational Dutch: From Vermeer to Eternity featured the phrase “Which way to the red-light district?”) I should have dipped into a few psychology texts instead.
“How was your trip over?” I asked as she fidgeted.
Daphne made a stammering sound, her eyes fixed on something unknowable. We hadn’t even begun the procession to Buckingham Palace.
“It’s a shame it’s such a short ride,” I said, though it was shaping up to feel like a lifetime. “It’s a beautiful day. You’ll get a good view of Trafalgar as we make the turn, at least.”
Daphne nodded, looking as numb as the bench seat had made my butt.
“This is as close as I like to get to Trafalgar,” I chattered on. “There are way too many pigeons there that are way too interested in people. And yet I know no people who are interested in them. You’d think they’d take the hint.”
More nodding. Maybe I needed to throw off propriety and go for cheap humor. Nothing could be worse than prattling about birds.
“I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty nervous about this state dinner,” I tried. “It’s my first one. I’m wearing a tiara tonight that I can barely balance on my head. You know there’s a bookmaker somewhere laying odds that I’ll fall on my face, because they all hate me.”
Aha. A mild twitch of the lip.
“I have such great memories of this carriage route, too,” I pressed on. “The last time I did it, about a hundred thousand people were calling me a slut.” I took a beat. “I’m really going to miss that.”
A giggle escaped, and Daphne covered her mouth with both hands.
“Care to do the honors?” I teased. “It’d make this so nostalgic for me.”
Now she let out a burst of laughter. “I’m sorry, I know it’s not funny,” she said.
“It is. Now,” I said. “Or at least, making a joke out of
