“Not one bloody bit,” he said. “Prince Dick can’t make me be anywhere I don’t want to be.” He bowed and offered Daphne the crook of his arm. “Now let’s go drink too much wine and really give him something to look at.” His gaze came back to me. “Good luck up there, Killer. Chew with your mouth closed.”
My breath caught as we processed into the ballroom. The heavy gold candelabra and vases, the latter exploding with roses, had been buffed to a perfect shine, while the tablecloths were so starched that you could use them to cut butter. The golden cutlery and cut-glass crystal sparkled under the chandeliers, as did the ostentatious harp being plucked in the corner by a woman with aggressively long hair. The room even smelled good, in an untraceable way where you wondered if perhaps royalty came with a pleasant bespoke odor. It was impossible not to feel the weight of the room’s history, to think of the people who had sat in these gilt chairs, the choices they had made and the mistakes and victories they had discussed over these same gold-trimmed porcelain bread plates and crystal saltcellars. One room frozen in time as the world changed around it.
You are part of something much bigger now, I recalled Eleanor saying to me. You married a man and you married a country.
But for all the priceless place settings and tiaras and immaculate linens, the state dinner was like any other formal event: a whole lot of blah blah blah, beginning with some light mingling as everyone drifted toward their eventual places—except for Marta, who bypassed the chitchat and went straight to her seat. She wore her signature scroll tiara as a choker, a mint-green silk dress, and the most exquisitely displeased expression.
“I’m too old for this,” she muttered. “I’ve made it a hundred years on this earth, and if I die of boredom tonight, Dickie, I’m bloody well going to haunt you forever.” Then she’d turned to me. “You look like candy floss.”
Across the room I spied Edwin and Lady Elizabeth, nuzzling while chatting to a balding man I recognized as the famed theater producer behind the gymnastics musical Perfect Ten. Freddie was introducing Daphne to Bea’s mother, Lady Pansy Larchmont-Kent-Smythe, once Emma’s best friend and a person I’d never seen smile (admittedly on-brand for that family). I tried to make contact with Nick, or pass him by so we could at least brush pinkies the way we often did when we wanted to say a silent hello at public events, but he either was flanked by Dutch dignitaries or just never turned my way. I felt profoundly alone.
“And then you swipe right if they’re sexy, and left if they’re a tosser,” I heard a voice say, and turned to see Agatha huddled over her cell phone with a silver-haired dowager type in a gray lacy dress and five strands of pearls, and her trussed-up daughter, everything too snug and too short for no apparent reason.
“This one’s handsome,” Agatha said, peering at her screen. “And an international financier.”
The woman swiped left for her. “No one calls themselves that unless they plan to rob you.”
“What about him? He’s a lord,” Agatha tried. “He likes horses, and to ‘Netflix and chill.’ Sounds fun?”
“It means he wants a fuck,” said her daughter plainly. At her mother’s strangled noise, she jerked her head up, then looked right at me and gasped.
“It’s you,” she trilled. “I’ve been dying to meet you. I’ve so much to ask! How do you like being British? Is it terribly dull compared to America? We get so much rain. Is that thing heavy?” She lowered her voice to what could best be described as a mini-scream, and went on: “Ooh, and did you really get a leg over ’em both? I would.”
Agatha frowned at her phone. “This man is using a photo of Roger Moore,” she said, swiping left with gusto. “I cannot be fooled.”
“And whatever are you wearing?” the girl railroaded on as interested heads started to cotton to our conversation. “That dress is fascinating.”
Something about her profound directness struck me as incredibly funny. I bit my lip to keep from laughing.
“It’s McQueen,” I managed, grateful that the final question had been one I could answer. “You’ll be seeing these everywhere come spring. Lovely to meet you.”
Finally, Richard took his place in the center of the top of the horseshoe-shaped table. I’d read about people preening like peacocks, but had never seen it in person until I watched him relish being the absolute center of ceremonial attention, moving with the body language of someone who had just whipped off his mask. At the opposite end of the head table from me, Nick—under his father’s watchful eye—appeared to be doing a better job negotiating conversation between Lax and Prime Minister Tuesday than I was with my seatmates, Hax and his ambassador, who were speaking over my head in Dutch as if I were invisible.
At the appointed time, we stood for “God Save the Queen,” underscoring once more the purgatory of Eleanor’s absent non-absence. And then Richard silenced the room.
“It is bittersweet to be addressing you tonight,” he said. “My mother has been the rock of the Commonwealth for decades. May we have a moment of silence to pray for her health.”
After a beat, Richard continued. “Filling the Queen’s shoes is an inconceivable task, but it is a responsibility the Duke of Clarence and I take very seriously,” he said. Nick nodded gravely. Freddie stared down at his napkin.
“We are grateful to our friends from the Netherlands for joining us as planned, paying tribute to my mother while affirming that our path ahead here remains steady no matter which of us is called to walk it,” he said. “And there is much to celebrate, from the bonds of friendship and family, to our own blessings, to my mother’s life, and to her
