Page 65 of American Royals II: Majesty
“If Daphne is coming, I should get going,” Nina said, rising awkwardly to her feet. “I—next time I come over, I’ll call first.”
“Please. You don’t need to call,” Sam scoffed, but Nina didn’t match her smile.
Sam had been wrong, when she said that nothing could come between them.
If anyone could, it would be Daphne Deighton.
Daphne waited for Samantha at the entrance to the Brides’ Room: a small room on the ground floor of the palace, near the ballroom. She glanced down at her phone, her pulse skipping when she saw she had a new text—but it wasn’t from Himari.
We need to talk,Ethan had written.
Tomorrow afternoon, meet me at the alley,Daphne typed back, and let her phone fall into her purse. Of course Ethan was upset about what she’d done—but Daphne knew she could handle him. Himari’s continued silence was a far more ominous problem.
She would just have to worry about Himari later. Right now Daphne was due to meet with Samantha, for…what, a class on likeability? A remedial princess lesson?
They’d been texting since that morning at the Patriot but hadn’t found a time to meet until now. Daphne wondered if Samantha felt oddly self-conscious about her request, if she’d been delaying the inevitable because part of her wanted to back out of the whole thing.
The two of them had never really hung out like this. They’d been around each other for years, thanks to Jefferson, but Samantha hadn’t exactly warmed up to Daphne. Daphne always had a sense that the princess could see right through her.
Well, today was a chance to change all that, and win Samantha to her side. Besides, Daphne never turned down an excuse to get inside the palace.
Samantha appeared at the other end of the hall. “Sorry to keep you waiting. Nina was just here.”
Daphne murmured that it wasn’t a problem, even as her mind raced at the news. Natasha should have called Jefferson this morning—had Nina come to find him and apologize? Or was she really just at the palace to see Samantha?
The princess tried the handle of the Brides’ Room, but the door was locked. She sighed. “Want to go upstairs? My sitting room is more comfortable anyway.”
Daphne shook her head. “You need to practice in front of a mirror.”
“Why?”
“So you cansee yourself,” Daphne replied, in a slightly impatient tone. Samantha should have known how this worked; she’d been born to it.
Unlike Daphne, who’d taught herself everything she knew. She’d read every etiquette manual she could find, had spent years paying close attention to what Beatrice and Queen Adelaide did. Daphne had mastered her curtsy the way ballerinas learned to dance—by practicing with Velcro gym weights strapped around her ankles.
“So that I can see myself doing what, smiling and waving?” Samantha demanded. “Please tell me you’re not going to make me walk around with a stack of books on my head.”
“The stack of books is an advanced move,” Daphne heard herself snap, with a touch of sarcasm. “Let’s get through the basics first.”
“Fair enough.” There was a self-deprecating, amused note in the princess’s voice that, oddly, softened Daphne’s irritation.
Samantha went to find a butler. When he unlocked the door for them, Daphne saw at once why it had been shut.
On a seamstress’s table in the corner sat the Winslow tiara, the one that Beatrice had always worn as Princess Royal, surrounded by several bolts of lace. It looked like someone had been comparing options for the queen’s veil, only to pause halfway through the task.
“Don’t touch anything,” the butler admonished, before pulling the door shut behind him.
Samantha plopped down onto the love seat. It was the only furniture in the room aside from the seamstress’s table, and the massive three-fold mirror against the back wall.
When Daphne was a child, she used to sneak up to her parents’ room when they weren’t home. Their closet doors had full-length mirrors on them, and if she opened both doors at an angle and stood in the middle, it reflected her a million times over.
Daphne had loved it. There was something heady about walking up to the mirror as a single person, only to find that when you stood a certain way, you were multiplied into an army.
She kept her eyes directed toward the mirror so Samantha wouldn’t catch her stealing glances at the Winslow tiara. But the light kept catching on its filigreed knot of diamonds, each of them burning like a small star.
Daphne had never touched a tiara before. Either your family owned one, handed one down through the generations, like the Kerrs or the Astors or the Fitzroys—or they didn’t. The Deightons, of course, were tiara-less.
She headed to the love seat and sat down, smoothing her skirt beneath her as she moved. Next to her, Samantha was subtly copying her movements. Their gazes met in the mirror, and the princess flushed.
