They were living fragments of history. Each time she put one on, Sam felt the ghosts of her ancestors whispering to her across the fabric of centuries. The rings made her feel more confident, even majestic.

Not that she would ever be a Your Majesty.

Teddy cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, but I have to ask … are you just angry with me, or is something else going on?”

“Oh, so you’ve decided that now is a good time to start caring about my feelings?”

“Please, Sam. I’m trying here.”

Sam felt the anger seeping from her, just a little. After everything that had happened between them, she didn’t exactly want to get into this with Teddy. But she had no one else to talk to. And he was a good listener.

“Nina and I got into a fight. On top of everything else … it just feels like a lot.”

“You miss her.” It wasn’t a question.

“We used to talk constantly, and now all of a sudden we’ve gone radio silent. It feels like half my internal monologue has suddenly switched off.”

“Have you apologized?”

“What makes you think I’m the one who did something wrong?” Sam said automatically, then caught her breath at the wry expression on Teddy’s face. “I don’t know. The things we said to each other … I’m not sure we’ll be able to forgive and forget.”

“Who said anything about forgetting? The point of forgiveness is to recognize that someone has hurt you, and to still love them in spite of it.” The way Teddy said it, Sam knew he wasn’t just talking about Nina anymore.

He reached for one of the rings. It looked very small, centered there on his palm. He quickly put it back. “Which would you pick?”

Her eyes darted to a cushion-cut pink diamond surrounded by a halo of smaller diamonds.

Wordlessly, Teddy took the ring in his hand. He looked at her expectantly.

A hushed spell seemed to have fallen over them. Samantha’s breath caught as she placed her hand in his. Slowly, neither of them daring to speak, he slid the ring onto her finger. It fit perfectly.

Their faces were suddenly very close. Sam’s heartbeat echoed in her ears. She knew what Teddy’s old-fashioned gesture meant. He was silently willing her to understand that even though their love could never be, because of reasons much more powerful than either of them, he would always care about her.

She swallowed and forced herself to step back. “You aren’t picking for me, though. And this ring doesn’t feel like Beatrice.”

Teddy let go of her hand with visible reluctance. Sam hated herself for how lonely her palm felt without him touching it.

She had never been any good at disguising her feelings. There was something too immediate about her face, the way all her emotions played themselves out over her features like the shadows of clouds on water. She turned away, because she knew that if she kept looking at him, he would see exactly what she was thinking.

Teddy reached for a very old ring that had once belonged to Queen Thérèse, the only French-born queen America had ever had. It looked like Beatrice, classic and elegant: a simple solitaire diamond on a white-gold band. They both gasped as a ray of light hit the multifaceted stone, throwing up a glitter of dancing pinpoints that chased themselves over the walls of the vault.

“Looks like you know Beatrice pretty well.” Sam managed to sound almost normal, though she could feel her heart breaking all over again.

“Oh! That one is perfect,” cried out the queen, who had just reentered the vault. She hurried to pull Teddy into another hug, beaming, exclaiming her congratulations over and over.

No one noticed as Samantha slid the pink diamond off her finger and set it quietly back against the black velvet of the display case.

BEATRICE

“I can’t believe we’re doing your engagement interview!” Dave Dunleavy exclaimed in his booming television voice. Beatrice managed a tight smile in reply.

Dave had been the media’s senior royal correspondent since Beatrice was a child. He’d conducted all the major interviews in her life, from her very first one at age five—a joint interview with her father, when Dave had flashed silly cartoons on the teleprompter to make sure she smiled—to the very serious one she’d done on her eighteenth birthday. Beatrice had personally requested Dave for today’s live filming. Unsurprisingly, he’d jumped at the chance to introduce the world to America’s future king consort.

A small group of staff bustled around them, preparing this room—one of the smaller salons on the first floor—for the interview. A few doors down was the Media Briefing Hall, where the palace’s press secretary spoke to reporters each morning from behind a podium, addressing questions of policy or budget. But for these intimate, personal conversations, the royal family preferred a sitting room.

“Teddy, how are you feeling?” Dave glanced at Teddy, who was standing utterly still as an assistant pinned a small mic to his shirt.

“Nervous,” Teddy admitted. “America is going to make up their minds about me right now. Whatever they think about me after the next twenty minutes, that’s what they’ll think about me for the rest of their lives. So, you know, no pressure.”

“First impressions are important,” Dave agreed sagely, “but there’s no need to worry. Your relationship will speak for itself.”