“I swear to you, I didn’t think about anything when I bought those tickets except that it would make us both happy,” he said. “But Xandra may have nailed the reason it did not give Bea an aneurysm.”
“I just thought she was too busy back here to fight you,” I said.
“Bea,” said Nick, “is never too busy to fight anything.”
But Bea’s hands had been full in our absence. Several crews had swarmed Apartment 1A and done large-scale renovations—putting in new floors, pulling down wallpaper, putting up wallpaper, and doing wiring and plumbing upgrades, most of which had been her suggestion in the first place. Marj, as her last act, shuffled the decks at a few of the royal households and cherry-picked some experienced staff for us, including—to Bea’s massive relief—a fiftyish butler named Greevey whose presence meant I would no longer open my own front door, at least during the week.
I had insisted we keep a few major relics from Georgina’s life. My new office used her heavy oak desk as its centerpiece. We’d snagged a beautiful dark wood bedframe for our master, and of course we’d made it clear that no one was to touch the wardrobe that was the access point to our Narnia sex den, on pain of death. I’d also put my foot down and insisted we keep the G monogram in the entryway, as a tribute. But everything else was spruced up and reorganized and minimized to a few key pieces that stood out instead of getting buried underneath seventy-five weird trinkets. I missed 1A’s flea-market uniqueness, but it was undeniably better this way. A fresh start, for our fresh start.
But we had a Conclave in an hour, and I was nervous to face Richard. He had been incommunicado since we returned to London, and in the absence of compliments on our performance, I was concerned he was waiting to lay out a scolding in person. Which would complicate Nick’s and my own plan for the meeting, for which we arrived early and immaculately pressed, carrying a repurposed tour binder—Saskatchewan: Just In Case—full of press clippings and printouts and notes.
“Duchess of Clarence: Conclave, July 2016,” Nick read as I dropped it onto Richard’s conference table. “Bea is going to have notes on that title.”
“Welcome back, darlings! A gondola. Who knew you two had the nerve!” Lady Elizabeth trilled, sailing into the room gaily, smelling like jasmine. If Bea’s every movement was like a dire weather forecast—thunderous, storming—then Lady Elizabeth’s felt more like a yacht gliding off the Saint-Tropez shore.
Nick and I exchanged glances. “That bit was perhaps not our finest hour,” he said.
“It could’ve happened to any of us,” Elizabeth said, dumping her Chanel bag onto the ground and heading straight for the gleaming chrome coffeepot on a carved side table. “Do you know how many times Eddybear and I might have been caught out? One of our children was conceived at the Windsor Horse Show. I feel pregnant again even thinking about that day.”
“Heaven save us all,” Agatha grumbled from behind her copy of Horse and Rider. Nick’s old friend Annabelle Farthing was on the cover of this magazine, too, in jodhpurs and hanging on to the reins of a beautiful chestnut Thoroughbred. “The ones you already have are terrors. One of your lot took a wee in the drapes at Clarence House.”
“Reminds me a bit of your ex-husband,” Nick said lightly. “How is Julian? Still awful?”
“I assume so, the pig,” Agatha said.
Richard entered, and we all scraped back our chairs and stood. “Be seated,” he said. “First, an update on Her Majesty’s health…”
He droned on in a manner devoted to rationalizing his continued role as regent. Then we worked through his upcoming month of engagements, then Nick’s, Agatha’s, and Edwin’s, and lastly mine. (It was clear that, to Richard, putting me at the end constituted a sick burn.) I stifled a yawn and glanced at Freddie’s usual chair, which sat eerily empty.
“…and then after that, we’re attending a gala premiere of a new play based on the quiz show Countdown,” Elizabeth finished. “It’s going to be marvelous. Ken Branagh is doing all the roles, even the maths lady.”
“Stirring,” Richard said drily. “Finally, Rebecca’s diary. Given some of the hullabaloo from the tour, I’m sure everyone will agree that we’ve seen enough of her for the time being.”
“Much of the press was positive, Dickie,” Agatha pointed out, although it looked like it pained her to say it. “Mummy was pleased. She is still the boss, you know.”
“The Times said they were refreshingly relatable,” Elizabeth piped up.
“And The Sun said they seemed dreadfully common,” Richard retorted.
“The Sun is a rag, and you know it,” Agatha snapped. She glared over at me. “They did a perfectly reasonable job.”
This was officially the nicest thing Agatha had ever said about me, and it gave me a boost.
“Actually, I’ve been working on something about that,” I piped up, and hoped no one could hear my voice shaking. I flicked open my binder.
“Oh no, not another binder person,” Elizabeth murmured.
“I want to keep supporting Nick and Freddie in their work as much as possible,” I said. “But I also don’t want to be seen as a tagalong. I think I should show the public that I can stand on my own, and that I’m taking this job very seriously, and to that end I’ve taken the liberty of compiling some potential patronages I’d like to investigate.”
I pushed the binder across the table to Richard.
“We also think we need to bring some of this under a proper new Clarence Foundation umbrella,” Nick said. “We ought to be more involved in shaping our own ventures, hand-selecting organizations and projects that have a specific meaning to us. Obviously this doesn’t preclude you sending us on other outings,” he added
