Chapter 31

I don’t know if throwing a drink in a prince’s face can get you sent to the dungeons or not, but I risk it.

“What the—” Seb splutters, the remnants of my lemonade dripping down his chin. The bartender doesn’t even look up from polishing glasses, but I hear one of the old men at the booth in the corner give a wheezing laugh.

He calls something to Seb in an accent too thick for me to understand, but I’m pretty sure I hear the word “filly,” which makes me glad I didn’t catch the rest.

“No,” I say, ducking in close to keep my voice down as he pulls napkins out of a dispenser.

“What do you mean, ‘no’?” Seb looks up at me, lemonade spiking his eyelashes. God, even covered in my drink, he still looks GQ-worthy.

“I mean, no, you do not get to put your particular brand of disaster all over Ellie. You’re not in love with her—you probably just want to hook up with her. It’ll clear up.”

“It’s love, not an STD,” he says, and before I can give in to a full-body shudder of ick, Seb sighs, tipping his head back to stare at the ceiling. “Sorry. I don’t mean to get snippy with you. It’s just . . . you’re the first person I’ve told.”

I’m still trying to process that when Seb gives one of those elegant shrugs he’s so good at and reaches into his shirt pocket to pull out a pack of cigarettes. “Well, the first person besides Eleanor, of course.”

My hand shoots out, fingers closing around his wrist. “You told Ellie? This isn’t some unrequited, pining-from-afar thing?”

Seb shakes off my grip easily enough, lighting his cigarette. “Oh, it’s unrequited, most definitely,” he mutters around the butt, and I feel an almost-giddy wave of relief. Okay, my sister isn’t cheating on her royal fiancé with his teenage brother. That’s something, at least.

“What did she say?”

Taking a deep drag on the cigarette, Seb squints at me. “What do you think?”

I snatch the cigarette out of his mouth, stubbing it out in an amber glass ashtray that has probably sat in this pub since the 1950s. “I hope she told you you’re an idiot.”

He props his head on his hand, elbow resting on the bar. “In so many words. I think castration was also threatened.”

I smirk at that. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen Ellie mad, but I remember that when she gets going, she can get . . . creative. And Seb deserves it, really.

Watching me, he leans closer. “So she didn’t tell you?” he asks, and I gesture to his lemonade-soaked shirt.

“Um, obviously?”

Sighing, Seb presses one finger to the bar, drawing circles in the condensation from his glass. “I thought she might have, is all. It’s why I wanted to talk to you. To see if . . . well, to see if she ever talks about me.”

I think about how stressed Ellie has seemed lately, how much she didn’t want me around Seb and his friends, and I wonder just how long she’s been dealing with all of this. And why didn’t she tell me?

Because Ellie stopped sharing her secrets with you around the time Alex came into the picture.

That makes my stomach twist, so I ignore it, asking Seb, “What about Alex? That’s your brother.”

“Is it?” he asks, scowling at me. “I had no idea. Look, I know it was stupid, and—”

“And reckless,” I tick off on my fingers, “and selfish. And dickish.”

“Is dickish a word?” he asks, raising his eyebrows, and I glare at him.

“It is where you’re concerned.” And then, a little softer, I ask, “Why are you even telling me this?”

Outside it’s started to rain, a gentle, soft afternoon shower. It’ll be over in a few minutes, but the men in the corner are already grumbling about it.

“I had to tell someone,” he says, dropping his eyes from mine to fiddle with the coaster on the bar, pulling up its edges. “Last week, watching them at the house . . . it’s been worse than I thought it would be. Plus having Tamsin there, and knowing that’s what Mummy wants for me . . . She’s fit, don’t get me wrong, but she’s not Ellie.” His shoulders heave up and down. “I was afraid I was going to do something even stupider, like announce it at dinner, or—”

“Oh god, don’t do that,” I say, gripping his wrist. I didn’t know you could actually feel the blood drain out of your face, but I’m pretty sure I’m going super pale right now, imagining Seb standing up at the palace, announcing his love for Ellie, ruining everything.

“I’m not going to,” he assures me. “But . . . haven’t you ever had something inside you that feels so big, so . . . ” —he gestures around his chest— “so important that you had to say it to someone?”

He really does look kind of pitiful, but my loyalty is to Ellie, and I can only imagine how much this particular time bomb is weighing on her. Seb tried to steal a house as a wedding present, after all. There’s no doubt in my mind he’s impulsive enough to stand up during a royal wedding and do the whole “I object!” thing.

“You don’t love her,” I say now to Seb. “You just think you do because she’s nice and calm and . . . centered.”

“Yes!” he says, pointing at me, light in his eyes. “That’s what’s so lovely about her, that when I’m with her, things just feel . . . quieter somehow. Peaceful. I could use that in my life.”

“Okay, but she’s a person, not a yoga class, Seb. It’s not her job to love you back because she makes you feel all Zen.”

Seb takes that in, blinking at me. “It’s not,” he says, but I think it’s a question, not an agreement.

I signal to the bartender that I’d like another lemonade, then turn back to Seb.

“It’s not,” I say firmly. “And you have to promise me that you’re not going to do anything about it. You’re going to take your completely gross and insanely inappropriate feelings, and you’re going to crush them into tiny bits inside you, and then learn from this, okay? And maybe Tamsin isn’t the one for you, but she’s here now, so at least try. I mean, she seems pretty into you, or at least willing to ignore your general disaster-ness.”

He doesn’t answer that and instead pushes his pint glass in little circles on the bar. Then he looks up at me and, out of nowhere, says, “I was a wanker to your friend, wasn’t I?”

The whole thing with Isa seems like it happened a thousand years ago, so it’s hard to remember that it was only a few weeks ago. Still, he was indeed a wanker, so I nod. “Totally.”

Sighing, Seb continues to make a circuit with his glass. “I am working on being less of one, I swear.”

He sounds so defeated that I almost feel sorry for him, and I reach out tentatively, patting his knee. “You’ll get there,” I promise. “And one way to do that is to never, ever tell anyone how you feel about Ellie, okay?”

Seb’s hair is falling over his forehead in that attractive way that all the Royal Wreckers seem to have cultivated, and he watches me with those very blue eyes that are just like Alex’s. “I won’t,” he says.

“Are we going to be friends now?” he asks, and I roll my eyes as I take a sip of my lemonade.

“We’re about to be family,” I remind him, and he brightens a little at that.

“Family,” he repeats. “I’d like that.” Then he shrugs, tossing back the rest of his drink. “Never thought I’d have regular people in my family.”

“Okay, see, saying things like that really tips you back toward that whole ‘wanker’ thing you were trying to avoid.”

Grinning, Seb reaches out and smacks my knee. “See, that’s what I need you around for. Remind me of wanker-like behavior.”

He pays for our drinks, which surprises me since I wasn’t even sure he had money on him, and as we make our way to the door, I ask, “Is it really weird paying for things with your mom?”

Queen Clara’s face is stamped on all the ten-pound notes, and her father, King James, is on the twenties. One day, Alex could end up on money. Or his kids. It’s another reminder that while Ellie may be my sister, everything that comes after this marriage is going to change my family forever.

Seb just laughs, though. “Barely notice it, to be honest.”

We step back into the alley, and I take a deep breath. Everything smells like rain and old stone and the exhaust from buses, plus the faintest hint of lemonade still wafting from Seb’s shirt.

Seb is in love with Ellie, but Ellie is in love with Alex.

Seb is supposed to fall in love with Tamsin, who is actually fooling around with Flora.

Flora pretended to date Miles, who is now pretending to date me.

And it is pretend.

Totally, totally pretend, no matter what happened in the bothy.

“This is so messed up,” I mutter to myself, and Seb surprises me by clapping me on the shoulder.

“Nah, you haven’t seen anything yet.”