Page 7 of Thrones We Steal

I look at them myself, but they are empty save my handbag. “Where is what?” The words leave my mouth at the same instant I remember exactly what she is talking about.

The wine.

My breath makes a hissing sound as I inhale through my teeth. “I left it in my car.” I was so distracted by Henry’s appearance that the bottles in the back of my car didn’t cross my mind.

She closes her eyes and presses narrow fingers against her temples. At forty-eight, my mother is still a classic beauty. She passed her slender, white neck on to both of her daughters, but neither Bea nor I was fortunate enough to inherit her burnished copper hair, which she now pats to mask her irritation.

“I’m so sorry, Mum. I’ll go without wine tonight if that helps?”

“No, it doesn’t help. I’m short six bottles.”

“It’ll be okay,” I say and grasp her shoulders. I turn her around and steer her toward the drawing room where the hum of voices is audible. “No one will even notice.”

The cocktail hour is underway and it’s unusual for my mother to leave her guests. She must have been watching for my arrival. I move to open the door, but she claps a hand on my arm.

“What are you doing?” she says.

I gesture toward the door. “Attending your party?”

“Not dressed like that, you’re not.”

I blink at her, then down at my outfit. I’m wearing wide-leg cream trousers and a silk blouse. Not exactly evening wear, but good enough, surely.

“Dinner won’t be for another hour. You have time to freshen up.”

She pulls the door open, and I can see several people in the room, drinks in hand. I recognize one of them as an outspoken ally for those living at or below the poverty line.

“You invited Lord Rosenbaum?” I’ve attempted to secure a meeting with him on multiple occasions but been unsuccessful. “I need to speak to him.”

“Celia, you’re not attending dinner like that,” she says in a hushed tone.

“But if I can get his support for my petition—”

“Go change. You smell like old books.” Without another word, she slips back into the drawing room and pulls the door shut behind her.

I sigh and spin on my heel. With any luck, I can clean up well enough to meet Rosalind’s approval and still have time before dinner to talk to Lord Rosenbaum about my petition.

* * *

I end up taking a shower. Turns out, not only do I smell like old books, but waiting in the sun added the tang of sweat as well. I’m zipping up the back of a long navy blue evening gown when the door of my bedroom bursts open. My younger sister tumbles inside.

“A knock is universally accepted as a prerequisite for entering an occupied room,” I say.

She laughs, a tinkling, bubbly sound, like champagne in a flute, and I realize how much I’ve missed it. She takes the zipper from my fingers and tugs it to the top. “You would’ve just told me to come in. I saved us both time.”

We sit on the padded bench in front of my dressing table. She dumps an appalling amount of makeup onto it, nearly obscuring the surface and sending more than one bottle rolling to the floor. She either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care: both are one hundred percent Beatrice.

She launches into a dramatized account of her semester at Cambridge, the heartbreaks and friendships and finding yourself that make that first year of uni so bittersweet. Bea is a whiz at math so getting into the University of Cambridge wasn’t difficult. How she’s managed to keep up her grades since then is beyond me. Every story she tells me sounds like it comes directly from an episode of Gossip Girl.

“How do you have time to study?” I say and drag a mascara wand through my lashes.

“People don’t go to uni to study, silly.” When she sees the look on my face, she adds, “I’m kidding!” But she doesn’t answer my question.

I study our faces in the mirror. At first glance, we hardly pass for sisters, but on closer inspection the similarities become more distinct. We both have our father’s smallish, upturned nose and our mother’s high cheekbones. Our mouths both curve into the same, slightly-lopsided smile. But where Bea has gorgeous flaxen waves down her back, I’ve got a chocolate brown mane that hangs just past my shoulders.

It’s considered a terrific investment of money for a Wesbournian to study abroad, either at a Russell Group university in the UK or one of the Ivy Leagues in the US. For the rest of your life you can dangle it like a diamond bracelet from your wrist: Yes, darling, I studied at Harvard. It was such a bore.

But I can’t argue that Bea’s time in England seems to be good for her. There’s a rosy bloom on her cheeks, and her eyes—one brown, one blue—dance with the excitement that comes from being nineteen and believing you own the world. She’s the type that will stay friends with her flatmates for the rest of her life, swapping Christmas cards and baby announcements and holidaying together in Greece.

---