Page 27 of Thrones We Steal

“When you put it like that, it sounds pretty stupid,” I mutter.

“What I can’t reconcile is the fact that you weren’t going to tell me about this. We’re getting married. I imagine this is the kind of thing couples share with each other.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry. I should have told you.” I grab both of his hands in mine. “I was hoping if I stuffed it away, I could pretend I never knew anything.”

He pulls me into his arms. His embrace is a solid wall of security. “I only wish you’d allowed me to help you through it.”

“You’re here now, right?”

“Absolutely. And I’m not going anywhere, okay? We’re in this together.”

I squeeze him tightly and pray he’s right, even as part of me wonders how quickly he’ll regret those words.

* * *

By evening, my WhatsApp is blowing up. My uni flatmates have watched the news and are struggling to reconcile the girl they had to dig out of the history stacks in the campus library with the one whose face is currently splashed across all major news outlets and branded as the diva who’s trying to steal the crown.

Despite Rosalind’s attempts, I attended the University of Wesbourne, rather than going abroad to Yale or Oxford like she so desperately wanted. My argument was that she raised me according to her standards for the first eighteen years. The rest were mine to do with as I pleased.

My memories of uni consist of a sprawling modern campus, the giant vat of peanut M&Ms that was always on the buffet, and a group of girlfriends who were the perfect antidote to my slight obsession with my studies. They dragged me to soccer matches (which are played year-round in Wesbourne) where we’d sit on the bleachers in our hoodies and sip spiked hot cocoa and flirt with cute boys. Those nights were the most carefree of my adulthood, but they weren’t really me.

Friendships have never come easily for me. When you show people your vulnerable side, you give them the opportunity to hurt you. It’s much easier to keep your distance, even if it means not having close friends you can turn to when your world blows up in your face because you might be the rightful monarch of your country and now that same country hates you.

I know they get together without me. I can’t blame them. I’m a bore because I never have more than one drink, and I criticize everything around us. In the year following graduation they always invited me, but the club scene has never appealed to me, and between the various charities I joined, my relationship with Beck, and eventually my position as the director of the Historical Society, I more often than not had an excuse for not going. Eventually the invitations stopped coming, and the chat thread that includes me only lights up when someone has a birthday or starts dating someone new.

Or when someone makes breaking news nationwide.

Oh my GAWD, Celia. Is it true? That depends on what you’ve heard.

Of course it’s not true. You can’t believe anything on the news these days. Jasmine, ever the conspiracy theorist.

What are you planning to do, Cece? I hate that bloody nickname.

How could you not tell us? We’re your best friends! This is debatable. Do best friends go for months without speaking?

Let’s do a girls’ night! It’s been AGES since we’ve hung. I heard Fire on 79 is FANTASTIC. The new club downtown, sure to be crawling with reporters more than happy to capture all of us on camera?

Imagine if it is true! Can we be your ladies-in-waiting when you become queen? Oh, god.

* * *

The news story has turned into a political nightmare in the space of one day. Citizens across Wesbourne are taking sides. Some, mostly those who have always supported the monarchy, completely dismiss the diary and will do anything to keep King William on the throne. Others are outraged at the thought of an illegitimate king reigning over the country.

With rioters camped outside the Historical Society, we opt to remain closed until things die down, hopefully within a few days. I can’t risk jeopardizing our employees or volunteers. The truth I don’t confess to anyone is I’m not sure I have enough courage to face that angry mob again. Henry glimpsed the chink in my armor, but we haven’t spoken since that day. He’s likely been advised to keep his distance from me. You won’t catch me complaining about that arrangement. Distance from me means distance from Bea.

But it turns out even my own home isn’t the safe haven I thought it to be. A letter is delivered on Wednesday that makes my blood run cold.

STOP THIS MADNESS OR WE’LL STOP YOU. WE KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE.

It’s not like the estate of the Duchess of Whitmere is a secret. But somehow even that knowledge does nothing to downplay the obvious malice behind the missive.

“What is it?” my mother asks as she walks into the library. She must read something on my face. The letter was in the stack of mail with the bills and junk mail like an innocuous invitation.

I hand it to her.

Her face blanches as she reads it. “This is nonsense,” she says, but I can see she’s as shaken by it as I am. “No one would actually try to hurt us.”

“They threw a rock into my office window. I don’t think anyone knows what they will or will not do.”

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