CHAPTER
SEVEN
As a member of the British monarchy, Amelia was required to make appearances at various charity events. This tradition had been going on ever since the British public got smart and figured out that the royals needed to earn their keep. As Edward had so recently reminded Amelia, the monarchy itself was supported by public funds. Someone had to pay for all the palaces, castles, and crown jewels, and Amelia was all too aware that burden had never fallen upon her own family members. Supporting charities was a way to set things right.
These duties, known as “engagements,” were a way of giving back to the British people and therefore extremely important. It was part of the royal job description, although Amelia wouldn’t go so far as to call being a princess work. Cutting a few ribbons and making hospital visits while wearing a tiara wasn’t the worst gig in the world. She was keenly aware of how good she had it—the whole arranged marriage thing notwithstanding.
Amelia’s first official engagement had been when she was just four years old. She’d attended an Easter-egg hunt in Hyde Park for children of armed-forces personnel. The scene was idyllic, like something out of a storybook. There were toddlers wearing frilly Easter clothes and carrying woven baskets filled with brightly colored eggs. The park’s rose garden was in full bloom. Amelia had a vague recollection of a pony ride along Rotten Row.
And then everything had come to a screeching halt when she’d pulled the hem of her dress up over her head to show off her new eyelet-trimmed bloomers—the ones with the big letter A decorating her bottom in pink monogrammed script. She’d been so enchanted with those bloomers. It had seemed like such a shame to keep them hidden under her petticoat all day long.
The photographers went wild, of course. On Easter Monday, Amelia’s photograph was on the front page of the Daily Mail, the Sun, and the Daily Mirror—the Unholy Trinity, as Edward called them—as well as a fair number of tabloids across the pond. People magazine had dubbed her Princess Naughty.
Much to her mother’s mortification, the nickname stuck.
Now, twenty-two years after that fateful Easter-egg hunt, Princess Naughty had racked up thousands upon thousands of engagements. There had been a few missteps along the way, but she’d managed not to repeat the panty-flashing incident.
Today was a light day, with only one official appearance on her calendar. She’d originally been booked for three, but Amelia had gotten a text from her private secretary the night before notifying her that her schedule was being rearranged. All the chaos surrounding the wedding meant the number of reporters following her every move had multiplied tenfold. Simply getting from one place to another was a major ordeal when a fleet of paparazzi was trailing behind your Range Rover as it crisscrossed London.
Amelia smoothed down the front of her prim A-line dress as the vehicle slowed to a stop in front of its destination. One of her security officers opened the door of the car and Amelia was greeted with the frenzied sound of dozens, if not thousands, of camera shutters clicking away at hyperspeed. She kept her knees pressed as tightly together as possible as she disembarked, ever-vigilant not to repeat the bloomer-flashing misstep.
“Ready, Your Royal Highness?” her security guard asked. Ben, this time. Her team had grown so large, she never knew who to expect.
“Absolutely.” Amelia flashed a smile at the cameras.
She’d been looking forward to today. Spending a few hours visiting homeless teens would definitely get her mind off the drama of her impending nuptials and the fact that Eleanor hadn’t answered a single text message she’d sent in the past twelve hours.
Amelia was sick of checking her phone for a response. She’d gone so far as to bury it in her handbag to stop herself from scrolling through her texts in case she’d missed a notification. But she couldn’t forget the look of disappointment on Eleanor’s face when they’d parted ways at the Ritz.
Her run-in this morning with the cello-playing hottie next door had been a welcome respite, although she never would have admitted as much to him. Nor would anyone ever know she thought of him as the hottie next door. Particularly since she shouldn’t be thinking about him at all. Or kissing him!
What was his problem with dogs, anyway? More the point, why was Willow so fascinated with the man?
An image of a shirtless Asher flitted through Amelia’s consciousness, and her mouth grew dry. Maybe she understood the fascination more than she wanted to admit.
You’re engaged, remember?
But goodness, that had been some kiss.
Amelia took a deep breath and concentrated on making her way down the path her security team had formed through the throng gathered outside the building. She glanced up, expecting to see the entrance to the drug rehabilitation center she visited once a month or the homeless shelter where she was a patron. Both had been on her schedule for today, but thanks to her diversion with the canine-wary Mr. Reed—correction: Asher—she hadn’t had time to study her revised agenda. So it came as a total surprise when she realized she was at a preschool.
She slowed to a stop and glanced up at Ben. “Battersea Nursery School? Is this is a mistake?”
“No, Your Royal Highness. This is where we were directed to bring you. There was a change in your schedule. Didn’t anyone notify you?”
“Yes.” She nodded, thinking of the printed itinerary on her desk that she hadn’t even given a cursory glance. Damn you, Asher Reed. “I thought my engagements had been reduced, not changed entirely.”
Ben shot a nervous glance at the school’s front door and no doubt wondered if Princess Naughty was going to bolt. “I’m simply following orders, Your Royal Highness.”
Amelia forced her lips into a reassuring smile. “Of course. I’ll check with my secretary later today on the change. Lead on.”
Amelia had never been sent to visit small children before. Ever. Her engagements typically involved at-risk youth or mental-health awareness campaigns. She was also a patron of the English National Ballet, which she adored.
But schoolchildren? No.
She’d never even set foot inside a preschool. Not even when she’d been a toddler herself. Like generations of royal princesses before her, she’d been tutored privately at the palace until she’d been old enough to attend secondary school. She wasn’t even sure what to say to a four-year-old.
This was much more her sister-in-law Jane’s territory. Jane actually had children. Two boys and a girl, all born within five years of her marriage to Edward. Such an aggressive birthing schedule would probably be considered madness for anyone but the future queen of England. Or possibly the star of one of those reality television shows that chronicled the lives of mothers with a dozen offspring.
Jane was firmly in the prior category. She was the perfect match for Edward. Proper in every way. Amelia wholeheartedly doubted anyone but her brother had ever caught a glimpse of Jane’s bloomers.
The school doors opened as she approached and, beyond the delighted faces of the teachers and administrators assembled near the entryway, Amelia spotted Jane.
Amelia knew there’d been some sort of mistake. She was probably supposed to be at a hostel in Camden right then, not at Battersea Nursery School.
“Amelia, you look lovely.” Jane greeted her with a kiss on the cheek. As usual, the scent of Jo Malone’s Orange Blossom cologne clung to Jane’s exquisitely blown-out hair.
“Thank you.” Behind her sister-in-law’s slim frame, Amelia could see tiny children lining the hallway. Some wore plastic tiaras and others held bouquets.
It was all very adorable. Very innocent. Very, very Jane.
“I’m not sure what I’m doing here exactly,” Amelia whispered. “I had a change in schedule, but I’m certain I’m supposed to be someplace else.”
Jane’s expression remained effortlessly serene, as if she’d walked right out of a yoga class. She spoke so quietly that Amelia could barely hear what she said. “No mistake. You’re on mummy duty now.”
“What?” Amelia blurted.
Every head in the foyer swiveled in her direction.
“Be mindful, Amelia,” Jane murmured. Now she practically sounded like a yoga teacher. “People are watching.”
Of course they were. People were always watching. Gregory Beckett was probably lurking behind a bush somewhere right this second. “But I don’t understand. I’m getting married, not having a baby.”
“Not right now, but you will be soon enough.” Jane gave her a knowing a smile.
Amelia had the sudden urge to smack her. She really needed to get a handle on her emotions these days. “Mummy duty? This is insane.”
No one actually expected her to have children with Holden, did they? He already had children. Grown children. Besides, in order to have babies, she’d have to actually sleep with Holden.
Oh God, I’m going to have to sleep with Holden.
“Amelia, everyone is waiting.” Jane’s smile was beginning to look strained around the edges.
“Right. So sorry.” Amelia swallowed.
The principal of the school introduced himself, and she shook his hand. She posed for photographs with a few of the teachers and then pasted a smile on her face and greeted the children. Jane took one side of the hallway while Amelia took the other. She accepted bouquet after bouquet, until her arms were full.
And all the while, she imagined what it might be like to have a child with Holden. Because Jane was right. This was no coincidence. Once the wedding was over, everyone would expect her to get pregnant right away. The Becketts would want an heir . . . an heir that would have a place in succession for the throne.
The thought made her sick to her stomach. She couldn’t even picture sleeping in the same bed with Holden, much less having sex with him.
She should’ve seen this coming. Husbands and wives had sex. Obviously. And Holden was going to be her husband. He was in love with her. Of course he’d want to sleep with her.
How stupid had she been? When she’d agreed to this arrangement, she’d somehow thought that her life would remain largely unchanged. In her mind, it had never been a real marriage.
The plan had sounded so simple at first. Marry Holden. Save the family crown.
No one had said anything about sex. Or children. If they had, maybe she wouldn’t be running around kissing strange American cellists.
Or maybe she still would.
When at last the visit to the school was over and Amelia was nestled safely back inside the Range Rover, Ben asked her if she felt okay. She looked unwell, apparently.
Probably because she wasn’t well. She was panicked.
Mummy duty.
The words rang in her head the entire ride back to the palace. She closed her eyes, leaned her head against the seat and tried to think of something else. Anything else.
But her thoughts had spun away from her, and the car was filled with the heavy scent of flowers. Her stomach churned. She couldn’t catch her breath.
She practically bolted from the car when they reached the palace. While Ben and the others gathered the bouquets from the backseat, she hurried toward her suite. It took every ounce of her self-control not to flat-out run.
Running wasn’t allowed in Buckingham Palace. That was another rule.
Amelia was sick of rules. She was sick of everything about her life at the moment. She knew it wasn’t fair to feel that way. After all, she’d agreed to the engagement. She’d been so enraptured by the idea of making her family proud for once that she hadn’t even had to think twice about it.
After a lifetime of begging for attention every way she knew how, all eyes were finally on her. This was her chance to make up for every bad decision she’d ever made. She was going to be the one to ensure that her brother would one day sit on the throne. Her family was depending on her.
For the first time in her life, she mattered.
Of course she’d marry Holden. She’d have his children if she had to.
But as she rounded the corner to her suite, her footsteps slowed to a stop in front of the wrong room.
His room. Asher Reed’s.
REHEARSAL LASTED WELL INTO the evening. When Asher returned to the palace, he turned down James’s offer of a hot meal in the dining room in favor of having the page escort him straight to his bedroom. Jet lag had hit hard around seven o’clock, and that had been several hours ago. He was dead on his feet.
Plus, he’d had another shit day.
Jeremy’s comments from the day before still rattled him. For two days straight now, his playing had been mediocre at best.
“Just ring, sir, in the event you change your mind.” James paused outside the door.
“Thank you, I will. But that’s doubtful. I’m heading straight to bed.” He needed sleep. Maybe if he got some rest, he could pull himself together.
He’d noticed the curious, sideways glances of the other musicians as he’d launched into his solo. He knew his rhythm had been a little off. It had been easy enough to blame his subpar performance on exhaustion—or even his mildly damaged bow—but he couldn’t get away with that for long. This was the royal wedding. Jeremy expected perfection. The entire world did.
Sleep would fix things. It had to.
“Very well. Good night.” James nodded and turned back down the narrow hallway.
Asher watched the page for a beat, wondering if he’d grow accustomed to being waited on hand and foot before he left England. He doubted it. The palace was another world, nothing like he’d expected.
He walked inside his room, and as if to illustrate his point, Willow was waiting for him. She was sitting right on the other side of the door, staring him down the way she tended to do.
Only this time, she wasn’t alone.
“Princess?” Asher blinked.
“Finally. I’ve been waiting for hours.” She threw her hands in the air. “And I told you to call me Amelia. Remember?”
“Sorry. Amelia. Did we have an appointment?” He was sure they didn’t. But for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out what she was doing in his room.
“No, but I need your help with something. Come on, let’s go.”
He shook his head. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Especially not with her. He needed rest. And every time the two of them were in the same room together, things seemed to get a little crazy.
“But I want you to help me find the leopard.”
And there it was. They’d gone from zero to crazy in less than a minute this time.
Asher scrubbed a hand over his face. “You’re telling me there’s a leopard somewhere inside this palace?”
She rolled her eyes. “Yes, that’s what I just said. Do you have a hearing problem?”
No, I have a princess problem. He eyed Willow, who’d begun sniffing his cello case. Also, a corgi problem.
Not to mention the myriad of other problems he’d had to face in England, like his newfound stage fright.
And his ex.
And his maestro.
And the odd interaction he’d witnessed between Duke Holden and a woman who was definitely not Amelia.
He had a good number of problems at the moment, but his hearing wasn’t one of them.
“I’m not deaf, just a little baffled.” A lot. He was a lot baffled. But he was also intrigued and admittedly, a little aroused.
He couldn’t take his eyes off her as she paced around the room. She was barefoot, dressed in a plain white T-shirt and faded skinny jeans with a hole in the knee. Yet everything about her still screamed royalty, from her perfect posture to the balletic grace of her movements. There was an elegance about her that fascinated him, so much so that he found himself staring at the tiny patch of exposed flesh through the rip in her jeans.
This is a bad idea.
He couldn’t go sneaking around Buckingham Palace after hours with the very engaged Princess Amelia when he was getting turned on by the mere sight of her kneecap. She’d have to find someone else to take her on an adventure.
Why was she coming to him, anyway? He wasn’t even sure she liked him. Sure, she’d liked kissing him. There was no mistaking her reaction. She’d enjoyed it quite a bit.
But she still had a way of looking at him like she was a princess and he was a commoner. Probably because that was indeed the truth of the matter.
“There’s a leopard in the palace, and I want to see it before it gets carted off somewhere. How is that confusing?” She stopped pacing and planted herself right in front of him. She looked him straight in the eye, and after a beat her gaze dropped to his tie. As per usual.
It seemed she was always either staring at the knot in his tie or at his bare chest. Up close, Asher got the sense that her whimsical bravado was an act. Maybe it was the way she crossed her arms, like she was trying to hold herself together. Or maybe it was the bubblegum-pink polish on her toes—such an unexpected glimpse of innocence. Vulnerability. She seemed almost lost, and Asher wondered if the reason she’d chosen him for her nonsensical leopard hunt was because she didn’t have anyone else to ask.
“When you put it that way, I suppose it makes sense.” It didn’t.
“So you’ll come, then?” Her eyes locked with his again, and her grin was so dazzling that it hit Asher right in the center of his chest.
He cleared his throat. “I will.”
Warning bells were sounding in every corner of his mind, but it was too late. Amelia was already gliding toward the door of his room, moving in that way of hers. The way that reminded Asher what it felt like to play the third movement of Rachmaninov’s Symphony no. 2. It was a piece that vibrated with restrained elegance until the moment it let itself go. Inevitably, it absolutely shattered him in its beautiful intensity. Every time.
Willow trailed at the princess’s feet. Asher loosened his tie—just enough so he could breathe through the sudden tightness in his chest—and fell in step behind them both. He briefly considered suggesting they leave Willow behind. Introducing a dog and a leopard didn’t seem like the safest idea. But as he knew all too well, Willow could hold her own. Besides, he knew better than to tell the corgi where she could and couldn’t go. He’d finally read the packet.
He’d skimmed it, anyway.
The hallway walls of the palace were covered in emerald-green silk. After nine in the evening, unless the palace was hosting an event, the wall sconces were turned down low. Asher had learned that in the packet as well. What he hadn’t anticipated was how still the darkened corridors would feel, as if the building itself were asleep. No wonder he’d been assigned an escort. After the first two turns of direction, Asher was already lost. He had no clue where Amelia was taking him, but she seemed to have a particular destination in mind.
She paused for a beat in front of a set of massive double doors trimmed in gold, glimmering in the shadows.
The leopard’s bedroom?
She pushed the doors open and flipped a switch just inside, flooding the room with light. Asher blinked against the sudden brightness, and some small part of his brain registered a distinct absence of jungle animals.
Still, the scene before him was staggering. The room was enormous, carpeted in rich crimson from one end to the other. Even the walls were red, draped with colossal swags of ruby-toned velvet. Portraits of queens and kings hung in lavish gold frames as far as the eye could see. The massive table that stretched down the center of the space told him he was standing in Buckingham Palace’s legendary banquet room.
“That’s the longest table I’ve ever seen,” he said.
Beside him, the princess shrugged. “One hundred seventy-five feet, give or take.”
Nearly half the size of a football field.
Asher stared at gleaming silver trays, gold flatware, and more teapots than he’d ever seen in one room before. Every square inch of the table was covered with random paraphernalia. Not just dishes, but all sorts of things—paintings, statues, swords, and, oddly enough, a totem pole.
If Asher hadn’t known better, he would’ve thought someone was busy preparing for the world’s most opulent yard sale.
He glanced at Amelia. She’d gone quiet since she’d turned on the light. And if he wasn’t mistake, a bit pale.
“What is all of this?” he asked.
“Wedding gifts,” she said flatly.
“Holy shit,” he said before he could stop himself, then clamped his mouth shut and shot her a sideways glance, certain he’d just broken some sort of royal protocol yet again.
But when she met his gaze, laughter danced in her eyes. “Thank you.”
He lifted a brow and tried very hard to ignore the fact that he was enjoying himself. Quite a bit, actually. “For what? Not one of these gifts is from me.”
“Are you sure? Not even the totem pole?” Her lower lip slid forward into a pout.
God, she was gorgeous.
If she’d been anyone else, he’d have been tempted to kiss her again. Right then and there. Not that he’d kissed many women since Serena. None, in fact. Just the princess.
He cleared his throat. “Not even the totem pole. Although as far as wedding gifts go, it’s a solid choice.”
She shook her head, and the humor in her eyes dimmed. Asher could see her sadness coming back with each passing second. Even Willow seemed to notice it. She let out an uncharacteristically subdued whine and plopped on top of Asher’s right foot.
“Why are you really thanking me, Amelia?” he murmured. The walls in his bedroom might not have ears, but surely the ones here did.
She sighed. “Because you’re the only one who seems to appreciate the absurdity of this situation. I mean, look at all this stuff.”
“It’s definitely absurd.” He chuckled, but something in her eyes made him suddenly unsure exactly what they were talking about.
The gifts? The leopard?
The wedding itself?
“Your groom was at rehearsal yesterday.” He hadn’t meant to bring up her fiancé. In fact, he’d been planning on avoiding the topic at all costs.
But it just slipped out. At least that’s what he told himself, because he sure as hell didn’t want to believe he was meddling in her relationship. The kiss notwithstanding, obviously.
Meddling is exactly what you’re doing, and you know it.
“Oh.” Either Asher was imagining things, or her face fell for the briefest of seconds before she nodded and smiled. “Duke Holden. Right. He’s lovely.”
“So you’ve said.” Shut the hell up. Her smile was fading fast. If he kept talking, he was sure to push her away again.
He didn’t want that. He was enjoying her company, probably more than he should be.
Yet on some level, he was tempted to mention what he’d seen the day before—the way the duke had held onto the other woman’s hand and the implied intimacy of the gesture.
He wouldn’t, obviously. What could he possibly say, anyway?
He hadn’t actually witnessed anything inappropriate. He just had a sick feeling in his gut at the way the two of them had looked at one another. It was the same way he’d noticed Serena and Jeremy looking at each other before he knew the truth.
Amelia narrowed her gaze. “What are you trying to say, Asher?”
That I think your duke is in love with another woman.
He swallowed the words down, intent on saying something else. But before he could utter a word, a familiar voice rang out behind him.
“Amelia? Mr. Reed? Whatever are the two of you doing in here?”
Willow flew to her feet, and trotted past him. Asher knew who’d walked into the room without even turning around.
The queen.