American Royals

The intercom on Beatrice’s bedside table emitted an angry buzz.

She heaved a sigh and slid off the bed, pressing the intercom’s bright green button. “Yes?”

“Your Royal Highness, your father has requested to see you in his study.” It was Robert.

“Now?” Beatrice glanced over her bare shoulder at Connor, but he was already out of bed, fastening the buttons down the front of his shirt. “Are we going for a run?”

“No,” Robert replied. “Just come as soon as you’re ready.”

“I’ll be there in ten,” Beatrice conceded. She heard the whisper of the front door sliding shut, and realized that Connor had already slipped out.

When she emerged from her sitting room wearing jeans and a deep aubergine sweater, he was standing at attention in the hallway, as if he’d just arrived for the morning. “Oh—Connor,” she made a show of saying. “Walk me to my dad’s office?”

He nodded and fell into step alongside her. “I seem to recognize that uniform,” Beatrice added nonchalantly. “Any chance it’s the one you had on yesterday?”

“I’m going to make you pay for that,” Connor said. His gaze was still fixed straight ahead, but his mouth curled in a smile.

“I look forward to it,” Beatrice replied, and was gratified by the way Connor almost stumbled.

When they reached the entrance to His Majesty’s study, Connor stepped aside to stand opposite her dad’s Guard. Beatrice knocked at the double doors, waiting for her father’s muffled come in before she pushed them open.

This had always been her favorite room in the palace, all warmth and dark wood. A pair of massive bookcases held her dad’s private library, mostly leather-bound volumes of history and law, though tucked away here and there was a paperback thriller. On the wall gleamed a biosecurity-enabled alarm panel.

Before the window sat the king’s desk, made of heavy oak and topped with leather. It was scattered with papers and official requests. A ceremonial gold-plated fountain pen—with which the king signed all official laws, treaties, and correspondence—sat propped on its stand.

Her dad was on the leather couch near the fireplace, an old photo album in his lap. Beatrice sat down next to him, uncharacteristically stilled by something in his manner.

“Sorry for asking you here so early. I couldn’t sleep,” the king confessed. “I need to talk to you about something, and it can’t wait any longer.”

“Okay,” Beatrice said hesitantly.

He passed her the photo album. “This was the happiest day of my life, you know. Except for the day I married your mother.”

He had paused on the photos from St. Stephen’s Hospital, taken the day she was born: close-ups of Beatrice wrapped in a white wool blanket, her tiny fists closed, and then the posed family photos on the steps outside.

“These are great pictures.” It never failed to amaze Beatrice how gorgeous her mom had looked right after giving birth. She’d made a point of wearing her old pre-pregnancy jeans home from the hospital, just because she could.

“Your mother and I were utterly infatuated,” the king went on, his gaze softening. “You were this perfect creature who belonged to us, and yet it was clear that you belonged to everyone else as well. There were such scenes outside the hospital that day, Beatrice. Even then, America adored you.”

Beatrice loved it when he smiled like this. When he stopped being the king, and went back to being her dad.

She continued to flip through the pages, past school pictures and photos from the garden, to a state dinner where Beatrice had fallen asleep in her mother’s lap. “What made you decide to look through these?”

“Just … reminiscing,” her dad said vaguely. “By the way, I have something for you.”

He shuffled over to the desk, returning with a tattered clothbound book. The pages were crinkly and yellow, with that distinct smell of aged paper. She opened it to the first page, curious.

The American Constitution, it read, in bold block letters. Article I: The Crown.

Someone had underlined the opening paragraph: The King is the Head of State, the symbol of its Unity, Glory, and Permanence. Upon ascending the throne of this Realm, the King is charged by God to administer this Nation’s government according to its laws, and to protect the rights of its People. The King assumes the highest representation of the American State in International Relations ….

The King, the King, it said over and over. The Founding Fathers had never imagined that a woman might run their nation.

Beatrice made a mental note to revise the Constitution so that it said the Sovereign instead.

“This was your grandfather’s old copy, and then mine. You’ll find some of our annotations in the margins. I hope you’ll seek guidance from it,” her dad told her in a strange tone. “Being the monarch is a solitary job, Beatrice. When you have a question someday, after I’m gone, promise me that you’ll look in here for the answer.”

He wasn’t usually this morbid. But then, that was always the weirdest part of being heir to the throne: the fact that she spent her entire life training for a job she would only assume once her father died.

“Luckily that won’t be for a long time,” Beatrice said firmly.

The king stared down at the rings on his clasped hands. “I’m not sure that’s the case.”