Royal Match by Parker Swift (9)

Are you sure you don’t mind?” I asked Daphne. “They’ll both take a nap in an hour, and I know they’ll be better behaved for you than they ever are for us.”

It was Sunday, just after lunch, and we were standing in the walk-in closet Dylan and I shared, and I was hunting for shoes that would work with the one maternity dress appropriate for an audience with Her Majesty. I was due at the palace in forty-five minutes for tea and to go over some final wedding details. Normally, Dylan would come with me—I always found it comforting for him to be with me for these things. He had an ease around the royal family that I could only fake.

“Lydia! Of course I don’t mind.” Daphne was sitting cross-legged on the long bench that ran down the middle of the room. “I think all of this”—she gestured with her hand around the obscene amount of designer clothes—“has made you forget that when your best friend has tea at the palace it’s a big fucking deal. Definitely something you babysit for.”

I sighed audibly—I’d much rather stay home with her and my children, honestly. “You’re the best. You know that, right?”

“I do.” She stood up and joined me in front of the line of shoes. She picked up a classic pair of nude pumps, higher than I really felt like wearing, and handed them to me. “Stop being so practical and put these on. You’re being driven in a car, followed around by a bodyguard, who, if necessary, could carry you up the stairs, and you’ll be sitting for tea.”

I took the shoes from her and looked at them, undecided.

“Put them on, girl. You’re pregnant, not a hundred years old.”

I laughed out loud and sat down to put the shoes on. “You’re right. Thank god you’re here—such a delightful voice of reason to counter Dylan’s position that I am going to somehow turn into ash and vanish if I’m mildly uncomfortable for more than ten minutes.”

I stood up and looked in the mirror—I was wearing a vibrant kelly-green-and-white tailored dress that framed my curves perfectly. I’d pulled my hair, highlighted from the sun, into an elegant ponytail. And the shoes were the perfect finishing touch.

After all the prep, the queen was apparently under the weather. Frankly, I was relieved.

I was met by Miss Minchin, and the queen’s personal secretary, who looked remarkably like a human version of Paddington Bear wearing a suit.

“Your Grace,” the secretary said when he came to fetch me from a lounge, “Her Majesty desires you to have this.” He handed me a stiff, heavy cream-colored envelope. I pulled the crisp card out and noted the gold crown emblem on top, with the words Buckingham Palace underneath. In delicate perfect script, there was a note:

At the bottom was simply her signature.

A maid brought in a tray with tea, and the secretary then placed a box on the table before me. A square, navy-blue leather box with gold trim, about the size of a postcard. It looked antique, apart from the fact that it was in perfect condition. It looked like jewelry.

I gulped. This felt big. Apart from the decanter set she gave us as a wedding gift and many cups of tea, the queen had never given me anything personally.

I looked up to Paddington, and he nodded. I opened the box, and nestled in a bed of brilliant royal-blue satin sat a beautiful jeweled hair comb. A delicate filigree of diamonds and emeralds were webbed into a stunning antique design. And next to it, a pair of small matching stud earrings—emeralds surrounded by a row of diamonds.

They were so beautiful, I could barely breathe. I couldn’t take my eyes off of them, and I probably never would have had Paddington not spoken up.

“The set was given to Her Majesty as a young woman by family friends, Americans like yourself.”

“I don’t know what to say,” I said, still feeling stunned.

“A thank-you letter would suffice, I’d imagine.” Man, Paddington didn’t fuck around.

“You’ll wear it to the wedding, of course,” the wedding planner cut in.

“Of course,” I repeated.

“Fabulous,” she resumed. “Well, once you’re through with your tea, we can adjourn to the first-floor parlor for rehearsals.”

“Rehearsals?” I asked as Paddington left the room.

“Of course, Your Grace. We have a mock-up of the dress, where you can practice sorting out the train. You’ll need to be able to execute this with little fuss and as much grace as possible on the day.”

Jesus. It was clear now how the royal family could perform their duties with such kindness and seeming relaxation—they had a team of bad cops to do their dirty work and make sure everything went off without a hitch.

An hour later, and with a little intervention from Frank, we’d thankfully determined that a nine-months-pregnant woman who couldn’t even put on her own shoes was probably not the best person to be responsible for “gracefully” sorting out Caroline’s train on worldwide television. And we quickly moved on to the task of my attempting to memorize all of the church officials, their proper titles and greetings, and their roles in the wedding, as well as carefully examining a diagram of the abbey so I could be one hundred percent clear on where I’d be sitting and standing for the entirety of the ceremony, which tiny bridesmaids would be walking by my side, which would be following behind me, and where I was meant to deposit them when we arrived at the altar. And a thousand other details.

I looked at Frank and silently begged him to help me remember all of this.

On the way home from the palace, with my shoes kicked off and my feet up on the seat next to me, I opened up the jewelry box once again. Frank had been guarding it with his life.

I admitted that I had been harboring resentment towards the queen for putting me in this position—it had made me feel, counterintuitively, invisible, that I was being asked to do too much. But she did see. And she did know what she was asking. She was a woman too, one with a host of duties I’d never understand, one who had mastered a balancing act for her family and country. But I no longer felt forgotten. I felt honored—she knew what she was asking of me, but she also knew I was the right woman for the job.