“Okay, then.” Ethan relaxed into his usual languorous grin. “As always, Daphne, it’s a pleasure doing business with you.”

Daphne watched him head back to the reception hall, wondering at the odd pang of disappointment she felt now that this moment with Ethan—this confrontation, or verbal sparring, whatever it was—had ended.

She took a breath, pasting on her usual dazzling smile before starting back toward the party.

The reception hall of the G&A museum was a crush of people.

The guests smiled and laughed, posing for the photographers, raising their voices over the sound of the string quartet in the corner. Now that June 20 had been officially confirmed as the wedding date, people seemed incapable of talking about anything else. They eagerly gossiped about what they would wear, or who might not get an invite, or what lucky designer would make Beatrice’s gown.

Sam hated them for being so gullible and stupid, for buying into the absurd charade of Beatrice and Teddy’s relationship. Couldn’t they tell that it was all for show, each detail choreographed by the palace’s PR team?

Yet the entire nation seemed to have erupted in wedding fever overnight. Sam had seen it everywhere. Restaurants were naming new dishes and cocktails after the couple; dozens of fitness studios already claimed to offer Beatrice’s pre-wedding workout routine. Even tonight Beatrice and Teddy were the guests of honor, for the museum’s opening of a new exhibit on royal weddings.

If only Nina had agreed to come with her. But when Sam had asked, Nina had begged off, claiming she was busy. Which Sam had silently translated as I don’t want to see Jeff.

She ran her hands over her dress, a whimsical all-lace affair with an asymmetrical hem, and scanned the crowds in search of her brother. Instead Sam saw Beatrice across the reception hall.

As usual, Beatrice was surrounded by a cluster of people. In her hyacinth-blue dress, a smile pasted on her face, she looked like a beautiful porcelain doll. That was Beatrice, perpetually acting. Sam had never been any good at statesmanship, because she wasn’t any good at artifice. She tended to do and say exactly what she meant, the very moment she thought of it.

Beatrice’s eyes darted up to meet Sam’s. For an instant, her picture-perfect mask slipped, revealing the real Beatrice—a young woman who looked uncertain and achingly alone.

Sam took a single step forward.

Then something caught Beatrice’s attention, and she glanced away. Sam followed her sister’s gaze—to Teddy.

Sam watched, utterly oblivious to the rest of the room, as Teddy made his way to her sister. His tie was the same shade of blue as her dress, making them seem like a matched set. He said something charming—at least, Sam assumed it was charming, from the way everyone laughed—and placed his hand lightly over Beatrice’s.

Sam drew in a sharp breath and stumbled back. Her eyes burned, yet she wasn’t crying. She needed to get out of here, far from Beatrice and Teddy and all the rest of them.

She wove blindly through the crowds and pushed open a door marked STAFF ONLY. A server looked up, startled. “Excuse me—I mean, Your Royal Highness—” He was pushing a catering cart, and Sam heard the unmistakable clink of jostling wine bottles.

“Don’t mind me,” she muttered. The startled waiter had barely registered her words before Sam had lifted a bottle of sauvignon blanc from the cart. Then she was sailing past him, through a heavy unmarked door and into the spring night.

A narrow balcony wound around the side of the museum. Still clutching the wine bottle in one hand, Sam draped her elbows onto the railing. The iron felt blessedly cool against her feverish skin.

Below her stretched the capital, a jagged quilt of light and dark. It had rained that morning, and headlights flickered through the haze, making the cars seem to float above the shimmering pavement. The scene blurred disorientingly in her vision.

She hadn’t realized how much it would sting, seeing them together. I don’t care, she thought furiously. I hate them both. Beatrice and—

There was a brief struggle in her chest, pride warring with affection, but at her core Sam was a Washington, and pride won out. It didn’t matter that once upon a time she’d thought she was in love with Teddy.

He wasn’t her Teddy anymore. He was just another face in a room full of strangers.

In choosing Beatrice, or duty, or whatever he wanted to call it, Teddy had proven that he was just like the rest of them. He was part and parcel of this whole stuffy institution, which had never understood or valued her.

Sam’s hand closed around the railing so tight that her palm hurt. She glanced down and saw that the iron was carved with a pattern of tiny faces: woodland sprites laughing in a sea of leaves and flowers. It felt like they were mocking her.

Letting out a ragged cry, she lifted her satin heel and kicked the medallion in the center of the railing. When it didn’t budge, she gave it a few more kicks for good measure.

“I don’t know what that railing ever did to you,” remarked a voice to her left. “But if you need to attack it, at least set down the wine first.”

Slowly, Sam turned to look at the tall, broad-shouldered young man who stood a few yards away.

She had a feeling she’d met him before. He wore an expensive gray suit that set off his deep brown skin, though his tie was askew and his shirt untucked, giving him a decidedly rakish air. When his eyes caught hers, he grinned: a cool, reckless grin that made Sam’s breath catch. He looked a few years older than she was, around Beatrice’s age. Sam felt something in her rise to the challenge of his dark eyes.

“How long have you been lurking out here?” she demanded.

“Lurking?” He crossed his arms, lounging carelessly against the railing. “I was out here first. Which makes you the intruder.”

“You should have said something when I came outside!”

“And miss that epic royal tantrum? I wouldn’t have dreamed of it,” he drawled.

Sam’s grip on the railing tightened. “Do I know you?”

“Lord Marshall Davis, at your service.” He bent forward at the waist, executing a perfect ceremonial bow. The words and the gesture were elegant, the type of thing any nobleman might have done when meeting a princess, yet Sam sensed that he didn’t mean a word of it. There was an irreverence to the gesture, as if Marshall had exaggerated his courtesy in contrast to her own undignified behavior.

He rose from his bow, his mouth twitching with suppressed laughter, just as his name clicked in Sam’s memory. Marshall Davis, heir to the dukedom of Orange.

Orange, which spanned most of the western seaboard, hadn’t joined the United States until the nineteenth century. Marshall’s family wasn’t part of the “Old Guard,” the thirteen ducal families knighted by King George I after the Revolutionary War. In fact, Marshall’s many-times-great-grandfather had been born into slavery.

Daniel Davis was one of the thousands of formerly enslaved people who sought their fortunes out west after abolition had set them free. He fell deeply in love with his new home, and when Orange revolted against Spain, he became a key figure in its war for independence. Daniel was such a popular general that when the fighting was done, the people of Orange clamored for him to lead their new nation. And so—just as a century earlier George Washington had become King George I—Marshall’s ancestor was named King Daniel I of Orange.

Twenty years later, Orange gave up its status as an independent kingdom to join the United States: meaning that the Davises, once kings, were now titled the Dukes of Orange. They weren’t the first Black aristocrats—Edward I had ennobled several prominent families after abolition—but they were former royalty, which made them the most newsworthy.

Sam knew that Marshall was a stereotypical West Coast playboy, who surfed and went to parties in Vegas and was always dating some Hollywood actress or vapid aristocrat. Come to think of it, hadn’t he been invited to last year’s Queen’s Ball as a potential husband for Beatrice? Though given his reputation, Sam doubted her sister had danced with him all that long.

Marshall nodded at the wine bottle, interrupting her thoughts. “Would you mind sharing, Your Royal Highness?” Somehow he made even her title sound like a source of amusement.

“I hate to disappoint you, but I forgot a corkscrew.”

Marshall held out his hand. Bemused, Sam passed him the bottle. Moisture beaded along its sides.

“Watch and learn.” He reached into his pocket for a set of keys before jamming one into the cork. Sam watched as he twisted the key in quick circles, gently teasing the cork from the neck of the bottle, until it emerged with an eager pop.

She was impressed in spite of herself. “Nice party trick.”