Sometime in the last year, while Beatrice hadn’t been paying attention, her little sister had grown up.

Beatrice had held it together through the dukes and marquesses, but they were still only halfway through the earls, and she felt herself beginning to fray. The line of courtiers seemed to stretch on and on forever.

Teddy—she still couldn’t think of him as her fiancé—rested a hand on her back in a silent gesture of support. Maybe he’d noticed her drooping a bit.

“Robert.” Beatrice turned to the chamberlain. “Could we take five?”

Robert’s eyebrows drew together in a frown. “Your Royal Highness, it is customary for newly engaged members of the royal family to receive congratulation from all the gathered peers at the start of the celebratory ball.” One of Robert’s greatest skills was telling royalty no without actually saying the word.

To Beatrice’s relief, Teddy cut in, his voice firm. “It’s all right, Robert; we can pause. Or if you don’t think it’s inappropriate, I’m happy to accept congratulations on the princess’s behalf.”

“Thank you.” Beatrice shot Teddy a grateful look. Gathering her plentiful skirts with both hands, she slipped out of the ballroom.

The moment she turned in to the hallway, Beatrice began to run. She didn’t care where she was going as long as she kept moving, away from that room where everything was printed with an interlaced B and T. Beatrice didn’t even remember giving her approval for that wedding monogram, but she supposed she must have. Everything related to the wedding had become a blur.

She stumbled past one of the downstairs sitting rooms, where the guests had deposited their gifts at the start of the night, only to halt in her tracks.

“Connor?”

He stood near a wooden table that groaned beneath the weight of presents, most of them wrapped in ivory or silver paper. Although Beatrice and Teddy had insisted that all they wanted were charitable donations, everyone seemed determined to shower them with gifts.

“I know I wasn’t invited,” Connor hurried to say. He was out of uniform, wearing jeans and a sweater that brought out the blue-gray of his eyes. In his hand was a box tied with satin ribbon. “I just wanted to give you this, before …”

“Thank you,” Beatrice said, because she had to say something, and her mind was currently incapable of forming any other words.

The right thing to do was to walk onward, away from Connor. To return to the ballroom, where her fiancé—and all the rest of her predictable royal future—awaited her.

Instead Beatrice stepped inside, pulling the door soundlessly shut.

“There’s no need, Your Royal Highness,” Connor said, a sharpness to those last three words. “I know you have to get back to your party.”

“Please don’t Your Royal Highness me.”

He crossed his arms defensively. “What do you want from me, Beatrice? You made it perfectly clear how things stand between us. We’ve already said goodbye,” he reminded her. “I just hope you’re happy with the choices you’ve made.”

“Maybe I’m not.”

It came out barely a whisper.

Connor didn’t move. “What does that mean?”

Beatrice felt her controlled court persona slipping away as easily as if she were unzipping a dress.

“I mean that we aren’t over. Or at least, I’m not over you.” She took a heavy breath. “No matter what happens, I’ll never be over you.”

Slowly, she stepped forward and lifted a hand to his face: to trace over every freckle, every curve and shadow that had become so utterly familiar to her. More familiar even than her own reflection.

“Bee—” he said gruffly.

She grabbed his sweater with both hands and pulled him in to kiss him.

His mouth on hers was searing hot. Beatrice closed her eyes and clung tight to Connor. It felt like she’d been living in an oxygen-starved world and now could finally breathe—as if raw fire raced through her veins, and if she and Connor weren’t careful, they might burn down the world with it.

When they finally stepped apart, Connor kept his hands wrapped tight around hers, as if he couldn’t bear not to have some part of him that touched her. They both hurried to speak.

“I’m so sorry—”

“I never wanted to—”

“Beatrice,” Connor cut in, and she fell silent. “I’ll come back, if you’ll have me. Be your Guard again.”

The embroidery at the top of her gown stirred with her breath. “Really?”

He nodded solemnly. “These last couple of weeks have been torture. I realized that I can’t bear the thought of a life without you. I’m not saying that I’ll enjoy watching you marry him,” Connor added, stumbling a little over the words. “But I get it, Bee. You’re the heir to the throne and can’t make your own choices.”

He would come back to her. They would be together again. Beatrice tried to be pleased by this … but suddenly all she could see was Connor, kneeling before her in the garden, his heart in his eyes.

“I know better than to try to pick and choose which parts of you to love,” he was saying. “I love you, Beatrice. All of you, even the part of you that is sworn to the Crown. Even if it means we can’t really be together.”