Page 48 of American Royals
With any luck he might phone in a tip to one of the national magazines, that she and the prince were spotted skiing together in Telluride.
She tucked her poles beneath one of her pant legs, resisting the urge to pull the safety bar down. Jefferson always scoffed at anyone who needed it. So she swallowed her fear and leaned back, trying not to think of how far they were above the cold hard ground, rushing on at a thousand feet per minute.
“It’s good to see you, Jefferson.” It felt strange, talking to him in such a stilted way, as if they barely knew each other—worse even than when they’d first started dating, all those years ago. “How’s the trip going?”
“You know how it is,” he said, with a laugh. I do know, Daphne thought furiously. “My mom and Aunt Margaret are constantly at each other’s throats, and Percy and Annabel keep racing up and down the stairs early in the mornings, when we’re all still trying to sleep. We’re pretty much the same as always.”
It stung a little, that it was so apparently easy for Jefferson to be in Telluride without her, when to Daphne this place was indelibly printed with their memories. So much of their relationship had unfolded here. All those long afternoons when Samantha would lead them off piste into the glades, and Jefferson and Daphne would laugh and follow. Stopping at the crêpe stand for a chocolate-almond crêpe, which they would eat right there, standing up, because it was piping hot and they were too impatient to wait. Lingering in the hot tub until their fingertips were pruney, talking about anything and nothing.
The ski house was where Jefferson first told Daphne that he loved her.
The slopes fell away before them as their chair climbed ever higher. To their right, behind a curtain of snow-dusted fir trees, Daphne could see the glittering curves of a run called Allais Alley. Over the steep back side of the mountain lay the Revelation Bowl, its broad white canvas crisscrossed by the lines of various skiers. Nestled between the sleeping forms of the mountains was the village of Telluride itself, the distance making it look like the miniature toy town that the royal family used to put beneath their Christmas tree.
Daphne had realized early on how important Telluride was to the Washingtons. It represented their chance to get away, to close their doors and briefly let down their guard. Two generations of Washingtons had honeymooned at this very house after their weddings. And some of the most famous photos of the royal family had been taken here, like the infamous one of the king skiing with Princess Samantha on his shoulders. He was given a lot of safety lectures after that incident.
Daphne had worried that her skiing ability might be a deal-breaker—that she might lose Jefferson’s interest if she couldn’t keep up with him on the slopes—and therefore had thrown herself into ski lessons with an almost violent aggression. Her decision to ski, rather than snowboard like Jefferson did, had been a no-brainer: Queen Adelaide and Princess Beatrice skied, and therefore so would Daphne.
“How was your Christmas?” Jefferson asked.
“It was great,” Daphne said automatically, though she’d kept so busy that Christmas had come and gone almost without her noticing. It wasn’t as if her family was the type to curl up with cookies and carols, anyway.
Daphne had spent the holiday season at a whirlwind of public events. She’d attended the opening of the National Portrait Gallery’s new exhibit, a welcome reception in honor of Lady Siqi, the new ambassadress from China, and dozens of Christmas carol concerts. She had RSVP’d yes to so many cocktail parties and benefits that she sometimes stopped by five events in a single night. Daphne kept hoping that Jefferson might turn up at one of them, might see her and realize just how much he missed her. By the end, she felt like the bait at the end of a fishing hook, being tossed over and over into the water, waiting powerlessly for the prince to bite.
He didn’t bite. He didn’t even attend any of those events. The only member of the royal family Daphne kept seeing was Princess Beatrice, often accompanied by Theodore Eaton.
If only she’d gone to the opening-night performance of Midnight Queen. She could so easily have been there; she knew plenty of people who rented a box for the season, many of whom owed her a favor in some form or another. But Daphne hadn’t guessed that Jefferson would attend a musical, not when he hadn’t been to a single one in all the years they’d dated. The king and queen must have insisted on it, for Beatrice’s first public outing with Teddy.
They were nearing the end of the lift; Daphne needed to say something now, or lose her chance. “To be honest, it was a weird Christmas,” she told Jefferson. “It didn’t feel the same without you.”
“Daphne …” The prince edged closer on the chair, his dark eyes burning.
They’d reached the unloading point. Whatever he’d been about to tell her, he let it go, placing his back foot between his bindings and slipping down a few meters. By the time Daphne had untucked her poles and come to join him, his grin was as bright and careless as ever.
“The snow looked great over on Giant Steps,” she offered.
Jefferson gave an easy nod. “I’m always game to do Steps.” Behind them, the rest of the group had disembarked from the chairlift. Daphne was relieved to see them ski farther down, toward one of the other, less intense runs that fed off this lift.
Jefferson had already edged down to the entrance to Giant Steps. It was a thin funnel that shot just below the chairlift, and hadn’t been groomed in what looked like weeks. The snow was deep, thick banks piling up on the edges as people turned down the steep middle.
Daphne was about to drop into the chute when Ethan coasted over. He slid to a stop directly in her path.
“What are you doing here, Daphne?”
“I was trying to ski, except that you seem to be in my way.”
“Are you really this desperate?” Ethan stared at her through the curved lens of his blue-tinted goggles. “You don’t seriously expect any of us to think this was a coincidence?”
“I don’t really care what you think.”
As if she was about to share her plans with Ethan Beckett. Daphne played her own game and kept her own counsel, and the last thing she needed was his interference.
Ethan didn’t budge. “Daphne … I’m pretty sure that Jeff is with someone else now.”
She laughed. “Is this because of what Natasha said at the photo call? Because I’m the one who planted that question.” Anything to get Jefferson thinking about her again, to remind him how much America adored the idea of the two of them together.
“No,” Ethan persisted. “There’s something going on between him and Nina.”
“Nina?” Daphne scoured her memory of St. Ursula’s, of all the various daughters and granddaughters of the aristocracy, but couldn’t think of a single one named Nina.
