Page 82 of American Royals
Not for nothing had Beatrice lived her entire life in the spotlight. Her smile never wavered.
“As my mom always told me, when you know, you know,” she replied, without missing a beat. “I knew right away that Teddy was someone I could see myself marrying.” In a way, it was the truth. She had met Teddy for the specific purpose of finding a future husband.
Teddy reached for her hand, interlacing their fingers on the couch between them.
Connor took a sharp intake of breath at the gesture and slipped out of the room. Beatrice wished she could look over, but she didn’t dare. She just kept on smiling.
Teddy must have sensed her sudden panic, because he leaned forward and lowered his voice conspiratorially. The cameras obediently swiveled toward him.
“My first impression was slightly different,” he confessed to Dave. “To be honest, I thought Beatrice didn’t like me, because she refused to dance with me. Not that I blamed her,” he added, with that disarming smile that revealed his twin dimples. “She’s so far out of my league, I assumed I didn’t stand a chance.”
“She wouldn’t dance with you!” Dave seized eagerly on this tidbit. “Why not?”
The attention of the room veered back toward Beatrice, but by now she had regained her composure. She let her eyes meet Teddy’s in a single instant of gratitude. He may not have known why she was upset, but he’d done his best to cover for her all the same.
“I know, my mistake,” she said lightly. “Luckily for me, I have a lifetime of dancing with Teddy to make up for it.” She saw from Dave’s beaming expression that she’d said the right thing.
She could do this, Beatrice reminded herself, squeezing Teddy’s hand for reassurance. She could sit before these cameras and spin her life into the fairy-tale romance America craved. She could smile until the bitter end, no matter what it cost, because she was a Washington and she had been trained to smile through anything. Even through her own heartbreak.
After the interview, Robert asked Beatrice and Teddy if they wouldn’t mind doing a walkabout—stepping outside and greeting the waiting crowds. Apparently most of the capital had been watching their broadcast and had already flooded the streets to congratulate them.
Teddy looked to Beatrice for confirmation. “All right,” she said, her throat hoarse. She kept glancing around in search of Connor, but didn’t see him.
People jostled behind the palace’s iron gates, waving miniature American flags, shouting Beatrice’s and Teddy’s names. The moment they appeared on the front steps, the decibel level soared even higher.
“You start on the left, and I’ll take the right?” Teddy offered. Beatrice nodded.
She made her way methodically along the crowd, pausing to shake hands whenever she could, smiling at the phone screens that were thrust in her face. People threw flowers as she passed; Beatrice bent down to accept one of them, a handful of simple garden daisies from a little girl. “She looked at me!” more than one person cried out, elbowing a friend. Everyone seemed desperate to catch her gaze, to brush her coat, to feel in some way that they had claimed a piece of her. To her right, Beatrice saw Teddy graciously accepting congratulations, hugging people over the barrier. He really was a natural at this.
It wasn’t until later, after Teddy had finally headed home and Beatrice started up the stairs to her room, that she looked out a window and caught sight of Connor.
He was out in the Marble Courtyard: a lonely, solitary figure holding a cigarette in one hand.
She had to force herself not to break into a run as she headed through the first-floor reception rooms and outside. Connor tensed, but didn’t otherwise acknowledge her arrival.
There were a million things Beatrice wanted to say: that she was sorry and that she loved him and could he ever forgive her. All she blurted out was “I didn’t realize you smoked.”
“In extreme situations only,” he said tersely, and turned away.
Beatrice instinctively reached for him, to pull him back—then caught herself, lowering her arm slowly to her side. “Please. Will you take a walk with me?”
She needed to talk to him in private, and had no idea where else they could go. The palace would be swarming with people right now: chamberlains and chambermaids, courtiers and tourists and ministers of state. The gardens were only open to group tours during the summer months. It was January, so everything looked drab and dead, but at least they could talk without fear of being overheard.
Connor tossed his cigarette onto the black and white marble slabs, worn down from centuries of foot traffic. He ground it beneath his heel, daring Beatrice to remark upon it, but she was silent. “Okay,” he conceded.
They started down the gravel path through the center of the gardens. Gray skies arced overhead, mirroring the gray waters of the Potomac in the distance. The air had a bite to it.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.” Beatrice’s words fell sharply into the silence. “I wanted to, so many times, but …”
“You proposed to him, Beatrice. How do you think I felt, watching you do an engagement interview, and with someone like him?”
“Teddy is actually a nice person,” she couldn’t help saying, which only made things worse.
“Oh, so now you’re defending him?”
The winter light filtered through the bare branches overhead, falling on the sculptures that lined the paths. The fountains were all empty, to keep them from icing over. They looked bare and lonely without their sparkling jets of water.
“This is because of your dad, isn’t it?” Connor asked. “Because he’s sick?”
