Chapter 4

“A duchess, actually,” Ellie says, and I swear she looks a little bit embarrassed, using one perfectly manicured finger to push her bangs back to the side.

“Well, still a princess, technically,” Alexander counters, putting his hand over hers on her knee. “But yes, Eleanor’s title will be Duchess of Rothesay. Although, more importantly, she’s going to be my wife.”

El smiles at that, a real smile, the kind we don’t see much anymore. Once she started dating Alex, her smiles got a little frozen, a little fake.

From his spot in the doorway, Dad says, “Does this mean you’ll be able to have us beheaded? Because if so, I’d like to remind you that it was your mother who grounded you for sneaking out when you were fifteen. Granted,” he adds to Alex, “she was sneaking out to get more study time at the library, but it was still quite the scandal.”

“Dad,” El says, but Alex just laughs, and Mom waves her hands at Dad.

“Stop it, Liam,” she says. “No teasing today.”

Mom is wearing an old sundress, and there’s ink on her fingers, which means she was probably writing when Ellie and Alex showed up—Mom is old-school and does her first drafts on yellow legal pads—but she’s practically glowing. “This is all so exciting. Surely the most exciting thing that’s happened in our family.”

“I beg your pardon,” Dad says, folding his thin arms over his chest. “I was once shot out of a cannon filled with glitter at Wembley.”

“Liam,” Mom says again, but Alex just raises his eyebrows and says, “I think that beats a wedding, sir, I have to say.”

Dad holds out one hand, tilting it back and forth. “Equal at least.”

“We wanted to come here and tell you in person first, of course,” Alex says. Even though he’s Scottish, he sounds as English as my parents, if a lot more posh. El has a similar accent but starts sounding more like me when she’s home.

“Of course, there will be a formal announcement at Holyrood next week,” Alex continues, “and I’m sure there will be a fair amount of press attention, so let’s hope my southern cousins get into some kind of scandal, take a bit of the heat off.”

He smiles at that, glancing around at all of us, and I’m impressed how he manages to make all that sound super casual and normal. “Holyrood,” like it’s just a place and not a freaking palace. His “southern cousins” are the royal family of England, and holy crap, those will be El’s cousins, too.

El is going to be royalty.

“Are you sure about this?” I ask, and everyone’s head turns toward me. I look at Ellie, and . . . oh wow, I never understood the “glaring daggers” thing, but those are some sharp eyeballs.

Maybe that wasn’t exactly the best thing to say when your sister tells you she’s engaged, but I can’t help it.

“Oh, Daisy,” Mom murmurs, and Alex clears his throat as Ellie’s leg begins to jiggle. I know that tremor. I used to see it in the back seat of the car right before she’d elbow me or tell Mom I was being a jerk. Before Ellie left for Scotland, she could actually be a real person sometimes, complete with a temper, and every once in a while, bits of that person reappear.

“I’m sorry,” I say, looking around. “And, I mean, I guess we all knew this was coming, but it’s just . . .” I wave my hands around. “You’ve spent all this time keeping us separated from Alex’s family, and Alex’s family separate from us, and now you want to, like”—I move my hands again—“squash everyone together.”

Ellie’s face goes red, but whether it’s from embarrassment or rage, I’m not sure.

“It’s a wedding, not a squashing,” she finally says, but then Dad scratches his scruffy beard and says, “When you think about it, weddings are just very formal and expensive squashings.”

“Liam,” Mom chides, but she’s laughing and then adds, “Can you imagine the invitations? ‘We request the honor of your presence as our daughter squashes herself to this man.’”

Dad guffaws and Alex’s lips twitch a bit while Ellie’s nails dig into her thighs.

I widen my eyes, pointing at Mom and Dad. “See? This is what you’d be inflicting on Scotland. These people as the future king or queen’s grandparents.”

Mom laughs again, wiping her eyes. “Lord, I hadn’t even thought of that,” she says. “My grandbaby, a king!”

“Or a queen, don’t be sexist, Bessie,” Dad says, then wonders, “Do we get titles for that? Royal Grandad?”

It’s hard to know if he’s serious or joking, because such is Dad, and by now Ellie has gone so stiff and still that I think she might actually shatter into a billion shiny pieces in front of us.

Alex pats her knee again, then gives us the same game smile he probably has to give to crazy people who run up to him and insist they’re the real prince of Scotland. “We’ll see what we can do about that, sir,” he tells Dad, then looks to me.

“I realize this is going to be quite a change for you, Daisy.” Now I’m getting the Sick Kids in the Hospital Look—chin tilted down, brows drawn together, compassionate blue eyes. He does this a lot, relying on the combination of handsomeness and royal authority to convince us everything is going to be okay. “But possibly not as much as you’re thinking. We all do try to live fairly unremarkable lives, really, and we’re going to do everything we can to mitigate any . . . unpleasantness for you.”

Leaning back in my chair, I fold my arms over my chest. I like Alex—I do. He’s a genuinely nice guy, but he comes with a lot of baggage, and I can never escape the feeling that it’s more than a little unfair that I’m going to have to carry some of the weight, just so that Ellie can be a princess.

Which, I mean, I get the appeal, and lord knows she has looked like a princess since she was about three, but it just seems . . . I don’t know. So pointless. Waving at crowds, cutting ribbons, being this ornament all because of an accident of birth.

Or, in Ellie’s case, of marriage, I guess.

“And I assure you,” Alex goes on, “this will, at the end of the day, be a fairly normal wedding.”

“It’s going to be on TV,” I remind him. “That’s not normal.”

The corners of Ellie’s mouth turn down, and in that second, she once again looks like my regular older sister, the one who once stole all my colored pencils because I’d used her favorite lipstick in one of my drawings (in my defense, that shade of pink made a killer sunset, and that picture is still hanging up in Mom’s office).

It’s Alex who steps in again. “We understand this is going to be a lot for all of you,” he says. “The attention, the travel, all of that. And we’re already putting things in place to ensure this whole process goes as smoothly as possible. Like Ellie said, we want this to feel like the family event it is rather than a . . . spectacle.”

From her spot in the corner, Mom leans forward and says, “And we appreciate that, Alexander, we truly do.”

“I don’t,” Dad says, still leaning in the doorway. “Love a bit of spectacle, me.”

We all ignore him, and Ellie flexes her fingers where they interlock with Alex’s. “The wedding is going to be in the winter,” she tells us. “Christmas.”

Now Mom blinks, her hands coming up to fiddle with her long necklace, the one I bought her on a school trip to Boston two years ago. It’s a pewter tricorn hat, and she’s worn it pretty much every day since I gave it to her. “December?” she repeats. “That’s only seven months from now. Ellie, surely you’ll need more time to plan—”

“There’s already protocol in place for a royal wedding,” Alex interjects. “And our dates are rather limited due to my mother’s calendar as well as the twins’ school schedule.”

Right. The twins.

At the thought of Prince Sebastian and Princess Flora, my stomach drops all over again. Like I said, we’ve gotten used to Alexander, but we’ve had nothing to do with any other part of El’s fancy life, and that includes meeting Alexander’s siblings. They’re my age or just a little bit older, and even though he’s only seventeen, Prince Sebastian is basically one of the most eligible bachelors in the world. And Princess Flora? If Ellie seems glamorous now, that’s nothing compared to Flora, who had a Vogue cover when she was eight.

And they’re going to be part of my family now. What is that even going to mean, really? Will we go on vacations with them? Will we exchange Christmas gifts? What do you even get for a freaking princess?

All of a sudden, I feel dizzy and a little sick, and I find myself lurching to my feet. “You okay, kiddo?” Dad asks, and I nod, pushing my sweaty hair back from my face.

“Yeah, just . . . I think I need some air.”

When I walk out onto the porch, it’s even hotter, but being out of the living room, even for just a little bit, helps. It smells like rain is coming, and I take deep breaths, closing my eyes, listening to the sound of Mom’s wind chimes.

After a while, the door behind me opens, and I expect Mom to be there, her hands fluttering like they do when she’s nervous. But when I turn, it’s Ellie.

“Can you maybe not do this?” she asks, frowning a little.

I raise my eyebrows. “Not do what? Freak out because things are about to get deeply weird for me?”

Her frown deepens, and I suddenly feel like a total garbage person. “El, no,” I say, propping a hip against the porch railing and pushing my hair out of my eyes. Even El is looking a little shiny.

“I’m happy for you,” I tell her, but she just shakes her head, looking up at the porch ceiling for a second.

“Maybe practice saying that so you don’t sound like you’re dying,” she says, and I shift my weight from one foot to the other, arms crossed. The wind is picking up a little bit now, but strands of hair still stick to my face and neck.

“Maybe if two weeks ago, my boyfriend hadn’t decided to use my connection to you to score a little extra cash, I’d be happier, but he did, so I’m not.”

“How is it my fault that you have terrible taste in boys?”

“Michael was not terrible,” I say, even though half an hour ago, I for sure thought he was pretty terrible.

“I know it’s really hard for you to comprehend that not everything is about you, Daisy,” Ellie goes on, “but—”

“It’s not!” I interrupt, and here we go again. Maybe the seven years between our ages is too much, maybe we’re just too different, but put me and Ellie in a room together for more than ten minutes, and we always end up here somehow. “I get it,” I go on, “but you’re not thinking about us. Like, I know it’s going to be super sweet to be a princess and all, but none of us signed up for that. For tabloids and pictures and”—I wave one hand at the car of bodyguards—“that.”

Huffing out a breath, Ellie shoves her hands into her back pockets. She’s definitely sweaty now, and it’s honestly a relief to see some of her princess coating cracking.

“Well, life isn’t always fair,” she says, “and I’m dreadfully sorry my falling in love with a wonderful man is an inconvenience to you.”

I snort. “Oh, right, because you’d’ve fallen for Alex even if he worked at the Sur-N-Sav, I’m so sure.”

Ellie’s eyebrows nearly shoot up into her hairline. “What is that supposed to mean?”

But before I can answer her, I glance up and catch a glimpse of what’s happening through the front window, and—

“Oh god, Mom,” I say, and Ellie whips around, giving me a face-full of blond hair.

“No!” she gasps, and we both scramble for the front door, united for once.

Mom is sitting on the couch next to the future king of Scotland, one arm wrapped around his shoulders, the other holding her phone out.

She may be old-fashioned about her writing, but when it comes to phones, Mom is very up on her technology, which means in the past year or so, she has become Queen of the Selfies. And then some evil person, probably our neighbor, Mrs. Claire, taught her about silly filters, and our lives have been a hell of dog faces and anime eyes and unicorn horns ever since.

God love him, Alex is smiling gamely as Mom lowers her phone, chuckling. “Oh, this is a new one, this is perfect!” she crows before turning her phone to face us.

There are Alex and my mom, both wearing oversize cartoon crowns and heavy chains around their necks, a bubble coming out of Alex’s mouth that reads, “It’s good to be king.”

“Mom,” Ellie says, like Mom just stabbed Alex in the face as opposed to taking a goofy selfie with him, but she waves Ellie off, still chuckling as she types. “Oh, relax, Eleanor, he’s family now! And it’s not as though I’m going to put it on Facebook or some nonsense. It will just be for me.”

For her and twenty of the ladies she knows around town would be my guess.

“It’s a very good picture of us,” Alex says, and Ellie and I both turn to look at him. Maybe he’s not a prince so much as a saint.

Then Dad sticks his head out of the kitchen, a bottle of champagne in one hand. “Shall I open this, then? Granted, I can’t drink any. Last time I had champagne was 1996, and I ended up snogging Ewan McGregor in the lobby of the Mandarin Hotel.” He shrugs. “Very pretty bloke, must say, didn’t mind a bit. But anyway, since then, off the sauce for me. Well, not just because of the kiss, because of all the other stuff as well, you know.” Dad waves his hand. “Addictions, car accidents, life ruination, and such.”

Peeling the gold foil from the champagne, he gestures toward Alex with the bottle. “Now, there’s a story for you. That last big hurrah, before I gave it all up for good, happened in Scotland, actually, and involved one of those shaggy cows you have up there. I don’t know if you know many of those cows by name, but this one was called Eliza. No, Elspeth.”

Dad wanders back into the kitchen, still expounding on Scotland and cows and a stolen train, and I look over at Alex, sitting on the couch, his hands locked together between his knees as my sister goes to sit next to him, a hand on his shoulder.

“Welcome to the family,” I mutter.