Page 71 of The English Queen

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“Where is Her Majesty?” Louis asked.

Keir posted up at the side of the dance floor by Beth’s Uncle Malcolm some time ago. The party had gone the way of the younger set. Beth, her cousin Izzy, and her friends were in full revelry.

“She left for bed a bit ago,” Keir said. “I decided to stay. I feel bad leaving her, but I feel worse about stepping back on this night. I can’t desert our Bethy so soon. She’s a happy lass.”

“She is, yes. But you’re not obligated. The Queen takes precedence. I promise we will understand.”

“It will look like a snub. Margaux gets a pass. I do not,” Keir said. “And I love a party.”

“Fair enough. She’s in her element now,” Louis insisted.

“She’s having the best time. I can remember her begging to attend parties when she was a teenager. Her brothers were all going, and she was dying to tag along. Poor, dear girl. We only wanted her to have a childhood. She was so quick to grow up. And… I suppose she grew up a lot faster than her brothers did. She had to play catch-up to stay in the loop. She wanted to be like them… to be part of the herd. She looked up to Vanna, too. And she had to be grown because she fought so hard at the start. She always had to be her own advocate.”

“I gathered that, yes. She is good at standing up for herself. And for all of us. She is protective.”

Keir sighed. “She gets it from me. That sense of justice. It gets me in trouble sometimes. And she’s as stubborn as Margaux. That has always served her well in life. When you’re born so tiny… you must fight like hell to stay alive. And she’s still a sprite of a thing, she’s our little fighter.”

Louis grinned. “A big personality in a small body, yes. You forget she’s small. She does not struggle to throw her weight around. I admire her courage.”

“She is brave, yes. That’s the Scot in her, I think. We could all do to be brave as she is.”

Louis nodded.

“The day she was born was a terrifying day. Oh, her Mam and I were downright skeered. She wasn’t supposed to be born so soon. Magpie, she… she had this sudden increase in blood pressure, and they needed the baby to come to save her life. It was a no brainer. She was so tiny. I can still remember her birth and running with her across the hospital to an incubator and feeling how hard it was to leave my wife to attend to Bethy. Hell, she didn’t even have a name yet, mind you.”

“It’s hard to believe an absolute lightning bolt like Beth began so tiny and fragile,” Louis admitted.

“She always outperformed. They told us to expect this or that. But I didn’t believe ‘em. I can’t explain it, but the first time I held her on my chest, I knew this lass would be a fireball. She gave me this look, like ‘who the feck are you?’ and I chuckled. They said she’d have a feeding tube and not feed for weeks. She was on the breast two weeks later. Babies twice her size would struggle to eat. Beth showed ‘em.”

“I can see it somehow.”

“She came home weeks before she was supposed to. She had seizures, yes. She had a heart in need of surgery. She had asthma. None of these things slowed her down. She was walking before she was a year old. She was only about eight-months-old adjusted age. She was born so early but she met all of her milestones like a term baby. I always hated people saying, ‘she can’t’. She’s never known can’t, Louis. She never will.”

Louis chuckled. “I’ll give up. I’ll throw in the towel. I’ll rage quit something. Beth won’t. She will dig in. She’s everything I am not.”

“She’s persistent.”

“It can be infuriating and exhausting, but she’s everything I need to keep going sometimes.”

“She will exhaust ya, yes,” her father laughed.

“She has energy for days.”

“She’s like her mam. She is nonstop. It’s a good skill when you’re running a country. Of course, that only helps you.”

“She’s an asset not a liability. I worry about her too much. I worry about her health,” Louis said.

“It is good to worry a little. Being cautious isn’t the same as pearl-clutching. That’s what her mother gets wrong. She always hovered and worried too much. Her brothers can be as bad. Robbie is protective. I think if Robbie has a favourite, it’s Beth. If Beth had a favourite, it’s gotta be Robbie.”

Louis nodded in agreement.

“She was our good luck token. She got her mother through cancer. We all pitched in, but it was Beth who would always play her mother a song or lift her spirts with nothing but a phone call. I appreciate how much you’ve let her come back. It’s not always easy, but it means the world to all of us.”

“Of course,” Louis said. “It’s her mother. Beth has a lot of complicated emotions about this but… Margaux is her mother and, God willing, an adoring grandmother to our children.”

Keir sounded choked up. “It would make Margaux’s life to see one of your children come to be. She’s a complicated woman. She’s proud and stubborn and overbearing with the kids. It’s not easy to love her sometimes. It is… hard. If I am being honest, it’s been hard since the breast cancer. She never believed she was cured. I did. It’s been hard admitting she’s right. She knew. She can be a ball of contradictions, but she loves her grandbabies more than anything. She is living to see them grow up. It is what she wants more than anything.”

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