Chapter 22

Heidi

“Liza,” I said reasonably, “please get off the floor.”

With her bare back against the claw-footed bathtub, her arms wrapped around her like a little kid, Liza shook her head furiously, settling her face into the crook of her knees.

“It’s no use!”

“You look fine,” I said offhandedly, craning to the mirror over the sink to fix my own uncooperating lip gloss.

“Have you even seen me?” Liza’s skeptical voice jabbed back.

With a much-maligned sigh, I whirled around, crouching down to give her apparently abysmal eyeshadow a look. After my eyes had assessed the damage, I had to admit she had a point.

“Why didn’t you just ask your makeup artist friend, Bobby, over like you said you would?” I asked.

Liza thrust her face back into her knees.

“I don’t know,” she mumbled.

Placing a supportive hand on her shoulder, I consoled her. “Come now. Maybe I can help.”

Her head tilted up slightly. “Really?”

Offering her my hand, I nodded.

“I can try. Anything has to be better than that black stuff you piled on all around.”

“I was trying for a smoky eye,” she said stiffly, accepting my hand nonetheless.

My hand swept around to pat her back.

“Hate to say it, Liza, but you succeeded in more of a black eye look. That’s okay, though. That’s what makeup remover is for.”

I held up the little Andrea eye makeup remover swabs that had already proven to be my savior at least three times in the past half hour.

“It’s not like we really learn how to do our makeup when at shoots. Everyone’s always doing it for us,” Liza pointed out as I wiped away the smeared-on black.

“You’re right,” I said simply, “which is why I stuck with fairly easy cat eye eyeliner for myself with that eyeshadow Bobby taught us.”

“Bobby taught us eyeshadow?” Liza asked, genuinely perplexed.

Delivering the final swipe away of the black on her left eye, I nodded. Digging around the wilderness of makeup tools that were now piled on both sides of our sink, I reminded her about it. “I’m pretty sure you were lost in eating your Cheetos at the moment.”

Liza scrunched up her nose as if she were going to respond, then sighed wistfully.

“Now that you mention it, could you grab me the half-finished bag from the cupboard?”

“No,” I replied. “We’ve got fifteen minutes to go as it is.”

“Fifteen minutes to go!” Liza screeched, jerking her head upright so that the eyeliner I had positioned on her eyelid shot up in a thick black line to her forehead.

For a few seconds, we glared at each other like bulls about to charge. But then the corners of her lips twitched up, and mind did too.

In the end, it took us another twenty-five minutes, but we got Liza looking presentable, and me too. The limo driver who came to pick us up, courtesy of Charles, was more than understanding, even when we had to do a last-minute dress check.

Side by side in the full-length chrome mirror in my bedroom, Liza and I held hands, breathing deeply.

“This is really happening,” Liza said.

“This is really happening,” I repeated, grinning at our reflections.

Liza looked nothing short of gorgeous. The shimmery, white, long A-line dress she somehow pulled out of the back of her closet was perfect in terms of elegance and style. Although she hadn’t done anything with her hair, her long, straight blond tresses looked as pretty and shiny as they always did. Not to mention that my quick makeup fix and eyeshadow, courtesy of Bobby, suited her baby-blue eyes impeccably.

And then there was me. Charles hadn’t been kidding when he had thought the royal blue ball gown was flawless for me. It had poufy princess sleeves and a long, plunging neckline that showed just the right hint of cleavage. The full skirt and cinched waist made me feel like a princess. I made myself smile, noting that the reflection smiled at the same time, to remind myself that that was me in the outlandish yet gorgeous dress.

Liza squeezed my hand.

“You ready?”

“Not a chance,” I said with a laugh. She giggled.

“Me either.”

Hand in hand, we walked out to the limo.

--

Inside, the air felt stifling. Liza and I had long since dropped hands, and she seemed as distant as if she weren’t even in the same car with me. I could tell by the way she was chewing on the inside of her cheek that she was just as nervous as I was, maybe even more.

My feet were buzzing. Freeing one aching foot quickly revealed the reason: the skin all along my baby toe was beet red already. I swallowed back a groan. Looked like tonight would be uncomfortable not just figuratively but literally too.

Nevertheless, when we pulled up to the palace I’d only seen in movies and on the internet, everything was obliterated by that single striking sight.

The limo rolled through the great stone and wrought-iron, gold-tinged gates that Liza and I had stood outside of with all the other tourists the second day we had been in London, a week before I met the man who lived here. The vehicle entered easily, driving past two impassive members of the royal guard.

My breath was fluttering around my collarbone, a butterfly of anxiety that couldn’t seem to fight its way free. Liza’s hand found mine and squeezed it.

“This is it,” we said as one.

The next hour or so, or even thirty minutes, was going to determine a lot of things. That was probably why Charles hadn’t brought any practical concerns up in our phone call. The unsaid reality was that how his parents accepted me would determine the future course of our relationship.

We pulled up to the side of the building. There were already people massing about the door, and my phone told us we were only twenty minutes late. Was arriving on time for balls a strict matter of etiquette? I didn’t know.

One foot out of the limo and I wanted to crawl back in again. All around us were people of an unquestionably regal air. Their exquisitely rendered clothes, even the cut and set of their faces indicated they were nobility from the first moment they were born into this world.

“I guess we should go to the doors,” I said uncertainly. “Charles said he’d meet us there.”

Although something told me that, seeing as he was England’s future king and all, he had probably gotten sidetracked on the way. Nonetheless, when we reached the wide-open front doors, we were immediately pulled to the side. A quick kiss was placed behind my ear.

“You’re late,” Charles husked in my ear. Drawing away, he said approvingly, “Wow.”

The glittering in his eyes underlined his words. It seemed as if it took effort to rip his gaze away. Then he offered me his arm.

“I hope you’re ready for this,” he said as easily as if I were to trying a McDonald’s McLobster for the first time. “The state ball only happens once every ten years, so you won’t soon have a chance to try again.”

“Thanks for making this super unstressful,” I said sarcastically, tightening my grip on his arm.

Delivering me a glance out of the corner of his eye, he betrayed a telltale smile. “I’m only kidding of course. You’ll do fine.”

But as he conveyed me into the richly decorated ballroom, I realized there was absolutely no way I was going to be fine. Just the surroundings were enough to have me curling up into myself.

The room boasted six dangling crystal glories of chandeliers, soaring vaulted ceilings, and exquisitely rendered paintings on white-and-gold upholstered walls. Not to mention there were even more richly dressed guests inside the palace than outside. All of them seemed to either be staring curiously at us or were in the process of turning their heads our way.

“Don’t be afraid,” Charles said to me out of the corner of his mouth. “What I feel for you is beyond the judgments of any of these people.”

His words set my chin at a slightly higher tilt, although I knew he wasn’t being totally forthcoming. His mother and father weren’t among the mingling members of nobility.

Charles nodded and waved to some as he passed by, not stopping to chat with any of them.

“I was the one who greeted them here half an hour ago,” he explained, “which is partly why Henry and I were so delighted you two girls were late. It let us get that whole traditional part out of the way first. Anyway, there’s something I want to do right now with the girl I like.”

I grinned, resisting the urge to throw my arms around him and deliver him a big grateful kiss because it was clear enough to me where Charles was leading me. Unhurried step by unhurried step, we were making our way onto the almost completely abandoned part of the room that was next to a symphony orchestra. They were playing a classical tune that sounded vaguely familiar. The only other people on the dance floor were an elderly man and his wife, who were wobbling around perilously with no sense of rhythm or beat.

“May I have this dance?” Charles had his arm out, a devilish grin on.

“Charles,” I scolded him in a hushed tone, “you never told me I needed to know how to dance.”

Taking my hand and navigating me toward him, Charles’s smirk broadened.

“You don’t,” he said effortlessly as his sturdy arm led me around. “You only need to follow what I do.”

As I allowed my feet and hands to be guided into what were hopefully the right steps and moves, it occurred to me: Charles made it sound so easy, but it wasn’t. Not this dance, not anything we were going to do today, or anything we had to do in the bigger picture if we actually wanted things to work out with each other. Whether we could both keep our careers and be together wasn’t just a matter of me learning to trust and follow him. There were gallons of other parties involved too, namely a father and mother who would be expressly against me from the start.

Looking over Charles’s shoulder, I noticed other members of the nobility had taken up the dance too. I nudged him.

“Looks like we started a trend.”

He nodded.

“Being England’s future monarch has a way of doing that.”

His hands squeezed my shoulder affectionately, and I felt a rush of happy heat there. If only he could lead me to some back room that had a nice sturdy lock, and then—

Charles stopped. The music had stopped too. I followed where everyone’s heads were turned, to the doors we had come through.

There, standing in the doorway, illuminated by light from all sides, looking like apparitions from heaven or something, were the king and queen.

All the flecks of fear I had gradually forgotten about ascended in a hurricane around my chest. Before, Liza and I hadn’t been exactly right. Getting out of the limo, that hadn’t been it. This, here and now, was it.

I was about to take Charles’s hand when he stopped me. It was soon clear why. Instead of us going to the king and queen, as I assumed we would have, they glided toward us. On their way, they stopped in front of Henry and Liza. Liza did the curtsy I presumed Henry had taught her about five seconds ago while the king and queen tilted their heads in appreciative nods. They exchanged just a few words. Then, apparently satisfied, turned to us.

My heart was ricocheting at one hundred miles a minute. Their meeting with Liza had been virtually painless, so would it be wrong to hope the same for myself?

As Queen Mary’s eyes met mine and her face transformed from the pleasant mask it had been before, I knew. Yes, it would be wrong to hope the same for myself.

“Mother, Father,” Charles said with a strained smile. “I’d like you to meet Heidi.”

His hand swept out to me, and I did my best trembling curtsy.

“Charles, we need to talk.”

Queen Mary’s cool tone was curt and hushed. I could feel everyone’s eyes burning into us. Charles scowled.

“Is now really the time?”

His mother wouldn’t even look at me. She kept her eyes on him with a drilling consistency.

“Now.”

The word was quiet but no less demanding for its low volume. Charles started to tug me along, but she stopped him.

“Alone.”

That word was even more insistent and demanding. Charles turned to me, indecision on his features.

“I mean it.” Her words were an icy knife against his neck. This wasn’t open for discussion. This was an ultimatum: either go with her and talk it out like civilized people or stay here and risk a scene.

Charles chose the former. Squeezing my hand, he let it go, then followed her out into the hallway.

“My apologies for my wife,” King George said. “She can be quite the…”

His tired brown eyes flicked through the room, as if in some abject hope that the word would be residing there. The almond shape and wide set of his eyes reminded me of Charles with a wrenching in my gut. “Well…quite severe.”

There was a furrow between his brows, as if he knew as well as I did that wasn’t the word he’d actually say if he were telling the truth. But he looked in no state to be receiving criticism of any kind.

His face was so red, it looked like raw meat. I almost felt worse for him that I did for myself. That was, until I heard her voice. She was so loud that her shrill reached us as if she were conversing casually right next to me,.

“SHE’S PREGNANT AND YOU’RE IN LOVE!?”

Maybe they just seemed louder because the buzz of the room had died down to an absolute tomb-like silence. I kept my gaze riveted on the ballroom corner. I had to, because I felt thousands of eyes like little beetles settle on my back. If I turned to face them, they would eat me alive.

“You can’t be my son. I never would’ve raised my son to be such a bloody fool! This whole thing reeks of Henry, and yet you’re the one involved? I knew that filthy model was no good the minute I laid eyes on her. Models have no class and Americans even less.”

Her shriek lowered to a reasonable pitch, although I was sure whatever she was saying was still not all rainbows and roses.

This time, it was Charles who raised his voice. “I will not just abandon her and my child, Mother. I don’t care what you threaten me with. Do your worst.”

Those words were as good as a stake in my heart. I staggered back a few paces. My gaze flicked to his father, who couldn’t even look at me. Over his shoulder, even Henry and Liza were eyeing me with stricken faces. Liza took one tentative step forward, but I shook my head.

I staggered back, then away. No way was I going to let anyone else be brought down because of me, whether it was Charles or Liza.

I ran back the way I had so hopefully been conveyed. My heels smacked against the marble floor like gunshots from the firing range of public opinion that had already erupted against me. I ran, and I ran, and I ran.

All the while, those beetles of stares were there, settling, waiting for just the slightest accidental glance so they could suck my blood and empty me.

I stumbled. Then I fell. I left behind one of my high-heeled shoes, the Louboutins I had practiced walking in for hours since they were so high.

Next thing I knew, I was through the doorway and outside.

The sky was an impassive navy blue and had no idea what had happened, though my whole body was riddled with it, with mountains of goose bumps and choking ivy of shivers.

I still didn’t stop running. I was barefoot now, one shoe on the pavement in front of the palace, the other shoe somewhere inside. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. All I knew was that I had to leave.