Majesty

Before Teddy had said, It’s you and me now.

He led her up a narrow staircase, then paused on the landing. “That bedroom in the main house is where I sleep, but this has always felt like my actual room,” he explained, and pushed open the door.

The top floor of the barn had been converted into what could only be described as a rustic media room. Somehow the space felt vast and cozy at once, with the barn’s high vaulted ceilings and exposed wooden beams. Before a massive TV sat an enormous L-shaped couch of brown suede, and on that couch, playing a video game, were Teddy’s two brothers.

“Hey, man.” The younger one, Livingston, glanced up at Teddy’s arrival, his eyes widening when he saw Beatrice. He quickly elbowed his brother and jumped to his feet. “Oh—sorry, we didn’t realize you were coming up. I mean—”

“It’s okay. Please don’t feel like you have to leave.” Beatrice hated that she had this effect on people, that she couldn’t walk into a room without everyone immediately registering, and reacting to, her presence. She wondered how it would feel to be anonymous. To meet someone and actually get to introduce herself for once.

Lewis and Livingston exchanged a glance, then shrugged and resumed their game.

Beatrice wandered over to a black-and-white poster of Half Dome that hung on one wall. “Have you been there?” she asked, turning to Teddy. She’d always wanted to hike all the way up to the peak, but the one time she’d been to Yosemite, her schedule hadn’t allowed it.

“A few summers ago, but that wasn’t why I bought the poster. I wonder…” Teddy lifted the frame, revealing a jagged, fist-sized hole in the wooden planks. Beatrice could see the building’s insulation coiled beneath.

“Yep. It’s still here.” Teddy sounded buoyant, and a little proud. “A dry-ice rocket exploded too soon,” he added, for her benefit.

Lewis chimed in from the couch. “I told you we’d get away with it! That was six years ago and Mom still has no idea!”

“Sounds like you guys had fun up here,” Beatrice teased.

“What about you?” Teddy asked. “Surely you went through a rebellious phase at some point—got caught smoking in the cherry orchard, broke a national artifact or two.”

“I once knocked over a vase that my great-grandmother brought from Hesse,” she offered. It wasn’t especially scandalous, but she couldn’t tell Teddy about her real “rebellious phase”—when she’d been in a secret relationship with her Revere Guard. “I tried to glue the pieces back together, but the housekeeper caught me.”

“How did you break it?”

“Long story.” It had been Sam and Jeff’s fault, actually, as so many things were. “My dad grounded me for two weeks. Not for breaking the vase, he told me, but for trying to hide what I’d done. He said that monarchs need to always own up to their actions. Especially their mistakes.”

Teddy looked over sharply, clearly worried she might cry. But to Beatrice’s surprise, and relief, she was actually smiling at the memory. It was nice to know that she could think of her dad and feel happiness, mixed in with all the sorrow.

“Can I get you something?” Teddy wandered to the corner, where a few wooden cabinets were built into the wall. He paused. “I don’t even know what your drink of choice is.”

“Um…” Champagne at formal receptions, wine at state dinners. “I’m fine with whatever’s around,” she hedged, but Teddy must have heard the truth in her tone.

“It’s okay if you’re not a big drinker.”

He was right. Beatrice always limited herself to one, maybe two drinks per night at events like that. “Not really. I can’t afford to get drunk and publicly make a fool of myself.” Hearing her own words, she realized how ridiculous they sounded. “Although…I don’t see why I can’t have a drink right now.”

“Sure,” Teddy said, smiling. “If you want to privately make a fool of yourself, your secret is safe with me.”

He said it in a lighthearted tone, but Beatrice heard the truth in his words. She did feel safe with Teddy. She knew, with an instinctive certainty, that she could trust him.

“All we’ve got is beer.” Teddy knelt to explore the contents of the liquor cabinet. “And some kind of grapefruit vodka, which has Charlotte written all over it.”

It might be deeply un-American of her, but Beatrice had never really liked beer. “I’ll try the grapefruit thing,” she decided. “It can’t be worse than the cherry brandy they always serve after state dinners.”

Teddy lifted an eyebrow but didn’t argue, just turned back toward his brothers. “Does anyone remember if we have plastic cups in here?”

She came over to help him look, opening and closing various cabinets in rapid succession. “Here we go,” she exclaimed, finding a shelf with a few stray coffee mugs. She reached for one and held it out toward Teddy, realizing as she did that it was a custom-made mug, the kind you could order from an internet photo site. It was emblazoned with a picture of Teddy and a long-limbed blond girl.

“Who’s this?” she asked, angling the mug so that her fiancé could see.

He reddened all the way to the tips of his ears. “That’s my high school girlfriend, Penelope van der Walle,” he mumbled. “She made that for me—it’s so embarrassing. I didn’t even realize it was still here. Sorry,” he added, shooting a murderous glance toward his brothers. Neither of them spoke, but their shoulders shook with silent laughter.

“I see,” Beatrice said evenly. For some reason, the thought of Teddy with that doe-eyed girl made her feel hot all over. In a surprisingly territorial way.

Teddy hurried to put the cup back on the shelf. He grabbed a navy mug that said NANTUCKET and reached for the vodka, but Beatrice, her actions fueled by some emotion she couldn’t understand, had already grabbed it. She filled the coffee mug nearly to the brim.

“Drink that slowly, okay?” Teddy eyed her heavy pour with a flicker of trepidation. “It’s meant to be mixed with soda water and lime.”

Beatrice took a sip—and kept drinking. “You’re wrong,” she insisted, when she’d drained at least a quarter of the cup. “This is delicious.”

They wandered over to the couch. Lewis and Livingston were still engrossed in the game, their animated football players racing around a cartoon field. “We used to play this all the time in high school,” Teddy reminisced.

“But weren’t you on a real football team back then?” Beatrice asked. “Didn’t you want to play something else?”

“It’s different when it’s a video game. Totally unrelated skill set,” Livingston explained, and held out the controller. He looked like a younger, stockier version of Teddy, with the Eatons’ trademark blond hair and blue eyes. “Want to play? We could do two on two, me and you versus Lewis and Teddy.”

Beatrice hesitated. “I’ve never played.”

“That’s why you’re on my team. I’m the best player here; I can cover your mistakes,” Livingston declared. His brothers each made a low “ohhhh” sound at the challenge. But when Beatrice still hesitated, he backtracked. “Or you can play with Teddy, of course.”

She took another sip, then set her mug on the coffee table. A new lightness had stolen into her head, casting everything in a delightful golden glow.

“No, you’re right. I want to play with you, against Teddy,” she decided. “I want to see the look on his face when we completely destroy him.”

There was some hollering and heckling at her declaration, a few good-natured jokes at her fiancé’s expense. Teddy shot her a taunting grin. “What do you say, Bee, should we bet on it?”

“Absolutely,” she said, feeling reckless. “What are the terms?”

Teddy’s eyes met hers, and heat coursed through her; not the tickling warmth of the vodka but something wilder and more dangerous. Beatrice wondered if he was going to bet her a kiss.

She wondered what she would say, if he did.

“We could do a round of truth-or-dare,” Teddy suggested. Another high school game that Beatrice had never played.

“You’re on,” she said, more bravely than she felt.

It took a few minutes for Beatrice to get the hang of the game. But her competitive nature quickly took over; and soon she was perched on the edge of the couch, shouting just as loud as the boys as she stabbed frantically at her controller. Time seemed to stretch out indeterminately, all her energies focused on that massive screen.

With only a few minutes to go, she and Livingston were about to win—until Teddy’s receiver caught Lewis’s pass and sprinted into a touchdown, just as the clock ticked down to zero.

It took a moment for Beatrice to realize that the room had erupted in shouts of excitement and outrage, and that hers were loudest of all. She put down her controller, feeling self-conscious.

“Hey, you played great.” Livingston knocked his fist against hers in congratulations.

“Thanks.” No one had ever fist-bumped her before. No one had ever given her a night like this before, either—a night of pretending she was any ordinary person.