“You don’t look so shabby yourself,” she added, with a nod toward Jeff’s blazer: the one she’d borrowed on the terrace all those months ago. He’d even put on the aiguillettes and shining crossbelt, though the belt was empty of a sword.
“I knew you had a thing for men in fringe.” Jeff gave a mischievous grin. “Though if I’d realized Prince Hans was coming, I would have worn my medallion for the Order of the Knights of Malta. It’s the only decoration I have that he doesn’t.”
“Prince Hans?” Nina followed Jeff’s gaze, to a spindly boy wearing square-framed glasses. “Is he … Danish?”
“Norwegian.”
Nina tried not to roll her eyes. “I’m sorry, how many foreign royalty are there at this party?”
“As many as could get here in time.” Jeff shrugged. “Hans’s dad is one of Beatrice’s godfathers.”
Of course he was. Nina remembered a book she’d shelved in the library one day, Minor Royal Families of Europe, filled with pages and pages of family trees. She’d stared at them goggle-eyed—all those lines and branches, knotting and weaving over each other—before closing the book in exasperation.
Her eyes drifted to where Beatrice stood next to Teddy, surrounded by a crowd of eager guests.
“I still can’t believe Beatrice is engaged. It all happened so quickly.” Nina was thinking of Samantha—of how hard it must be for her, seeing Teddy with Beatrice. It made her feel almost guilty for being so happy when her friend clearly wasn’t.
“I like Teddy,” Jeff said roundly. “He’s a great guy, and seems like a good fit for Beatrice, even if …”
“What?”
Jeff gave an uncomfortable shrug. “Clearly I’m wrong, but for a while there in Telluride, I kind of thought there was a vibe between him and Samantha.”
Nina pursed her lips and said nothing.
“Beatrice has never been indecisive. I’m not surprised that she made up her mind about Teddy so quickly.” Jeff’s voice was soft over the delicate strands of the jazz music. “I guess when you find the right person, nothing else matters.”
Nina nodded, understanding.
She wasn’t sure she would ever get used to it all: the exposure, the unending public scrutiny. It was so much more intense now than it had been when she was just Samantha’s friend. She’d been on the sidelines, sure, had watched plenty of photo calls and walked past plenty of lines of photographers, but they’d never spared her a second glance.
Being Jeff’s girlfriend was entirely different. Nina still did a double take whenever she saw her own face on a tabloid, or heard her own name shouted in a crowd.
Though lately, Nina had noticed some of the coverage shifting its tone. She wasn’t sure why: whether people had grown tired of the social-climbing angle, or the tabloids had simply found another victim to make fun of. Maybe other ordinary, non-aristocratic girls wanted to believe in the fairy tale—that they, too, could find a Prince Charming.
Whatever the reason, there was less venom here tonight than Nina had expected. She’d come to Beatrice’s engagement ball thinking that it would be a nest of vipers: that her only real allies were Sam and Jeff, and everyone else would have firmly declared for Team Daphne. But she’d been pleasantly surprised by the number of familiar faces in the ballroom. Some were friends of her mom, some high school classmates of Sam and Jeff; others were people she’d never met, but who gave her smiling nods of approval.
Jeff’s hands drifted lower on her back. Nina stepped a bit closer, hooking her arm around him, to tuck her head over his shoulder. Her body felt tingling and alert, her blood humming with the words she hadn’t yet dared speak aloud.
Nina had been so afraid that she would lose sight of herself amid all the glamour and protocol, the inherently public nature of their relationship. But instead she’d found something much greater.
She loved Jeff.
And even though she had always known it—even though her love for Jeff went so far back that she could hardly remember a time before she loved him—Nina let herself learn it all over again.
BEATRICE
Beatrice felt like a mechanical wind-up doll, reciting the same few sentences over and over: We are so glad you could make it; Thank you for the warm wishes; We are both thrilled.
She couldn’t afford to think too closely about the import of her words, or she might actually faint. Already she felt sweat sliding down her back beneath the stiff fabric of her dress.
Somehow it managed to evoke bridal without actually looking like a wedding gown—its silk panels a shade of cream so dark that it verged on light gold, adorned with taffeta detail. Her hair was styled in an intricate updo, the Winslow tiara perched on her head. Diamonds blazed like teardrops in her ears.
Countless nobles stood before her in order of precedence, all of them waiting to congratulate her and Teddy on the engagement. They wound around the side of the ballroom in a near-interminable queue. Beatrice kept imagining them breaking into dance, like some kind of aristocratic conga line.
She glanced over at her sister, who’d planted herself resolutely to Beatrice’s left, as if Beatrice might suddenly need to lean on her for support. Ever since their conversation in the kitchens, Beatrice had noticed a new maturity to Samantha. She wasn’t the same princess who’d laughed her way blithely through high school. There was a new edge to her, a new weight to her words.