Page 59 of Royals
Glynnis smiles at me, those shiny teeth practically winking in the sunlight. “Your dress for tonight! Just arrived from the city.”
I assume the city means Edinburgh, and when Glynnis unzips the bag, I see that gorgeous tartan gown I’d drooled over in the catalog Glynnis had showed us, back when I was getting my new-and-improved Daisy look.
El remembered.
It feels silly to get choked up over a dress, but this is a really,reallygreat dress, and also, it means that El still listens to me a little. Stillseesme.
“It’s perfect,” I tell Glynnis.
•••
A few hours later, I’m rethinking that statement. Yes, the dress is pretty. Yes, that riot of deep green and purple and black lookspretty with my hair and makes my skin glow. Yes, I feel a little bit like a princess, and okay, maybe, after I’ve first put it on, there is some twirling.
Just alittletwirling.
But after an hour or so in it in a crowded ballroom, the tulle underneath the silk skirt is scratching my legs, and I keep surreptitiously tugging at the bodice, afraid my Facebook-famous boobs are about to steal the spotlight. Plus El let me borrow a tiara, and it iskilling me. Too heavy, tight on my temples, and I’m very, very aware that I not only have several thousand dollars on my head but also several hundred years of history. This tiara had belonged to some ancestor of Alex’s, no one that important—Alex’s mom has a firm hand on all the stuff that actually matters, the famous jewels and all that, but this had been some king’s aunt’s or something like that, and I wonder if her picture is hanging up at Sherbourne Castle.
And if she’d wanted to toss this particular tiara from the tallest tower.
I’m out on the stone patio that overlooks the main patio downstairs, and I’m really considering tossing this heavy piece of silver, diamonds, and amethysts into the pond when I hear Dad say, “Good god, they’ve gotten to you, too.”
I turn around, smiling at my dad. “Actually, I was just thinking about throwing this priceless tiara in the duck pond,” I tell him, and he raises his champagne flute of club soda to me.
“There’s my girl.”
Dad ambles over to my side, and for a little bit, we stand in the soft-purple evening, looking down at the party.
Ellie is also in tartan tonight, although hers is the officialBaird tartan. It’s pretty, and the diamonds in her hair sparkle. Once again, it’s clear to me that El was meant to be a princess.
“They’ll eat her up, these people,” Dad muses, waving his free hand to take in all the people milling around on the patio below us.
“I dunno, Dad,” I say, leaning close enough to him to bump his elbow. “They don’t really look much like cannibals to me.”
He glances down at me, that familiar smile tugging the corners of his lips. There are deep brackets on either side of his mouth, and the breeze blows his admittedly scraggly hair back from his face.
Threading my arm through his, I nod down at all those people in their fancy dresses and weird headgear. “They’ll learn to love her. Everyone loves El. It’s... like, her superpower. Intense likability. That and having really shiny hair.”
“She even had that hair as a baby,” Dad says, frowning. “It was unsettling.”
I laugh, but something in the sound must be off because Dad looks down at me. “And you, poppet? How are you holding up in all this madness?”
Dad has always been good at understanding when things bug me, maybe because I inherited his skill at laughing off stuff or covering with jokes. It works with Mom, usually works with El, too, but Dad... no, Dad is onto me.
“I’m okay,” I tell him, because that’s close to the truth. Sometimes I have fun, sometimes I actuallyloveit here. Weirdly enough, the first thing that flashes through my mind is the other morning, riding through the park with Miles, and I shove itaside, but not quickly enough to stop a blush from climbing up my neck. Dad probably notices—he noticeseverything—but he doesn’t say anything.
“It’s like being on another planet,” I tell him, and Dad chuckles at that.
“It is,” he tells me. “Planet Rich and Famous. The air is rarefied and eventually makes it impossible to breathe.”
Then he smiles at me and says, “But you’ll both be fine. You have something I didn’t.”
I raise my eyebrows, waiting for the punch line.
And sure enough, Dad nudges me, winks, and says, “Good parents.”
I laugh at that, and Dad looks down at his empty glass. “Off for a refill. You need anything?”
When I shake my head, he gives me another wink. “Don’t throw any jewelry into the shrubbery without me, darling.”
