Page 48 of Duchess Material

“I would, yes,” Jennifer screeched. She stole the ring box out of his hands and planted a kiss before putting the ostentatious diamond on her hand. Oh, the status symbols!

Everyone clapped. Women cried. It was so over-the-top. Maybe for anyone else, Lucy would have been less bitter and genuinely happy. She’d been over-the-moon for Gerry and Sheena. When Sheena had asked her to be in the wedding, she’d been all-too-glad to say yes. Now, as her sister mooned over her mall-bought ring, Lucy could only fake a smile and wait to share her feelings until she and Winston retrieved the pizza.

“It’s gonna be a nightmare,” Lucy said. “His parents are assholes. Mine are a nightmare. And my sister is going to expect us to attend a bunch of stupid, annoying events I won’t be able to make since I have a job and live abroad. And Mom will give me grief about it.”

“It’s okay,” Winston said. “She’ll be too self-absorbed to care too much. Trust me.”

Lucy snickered and squeezed his hand. “I love you, Winston.”

And as soon as the words escaped her mouth, she didn’t even wish she could take them back.

“I love you, too, Lucy.” He beamed.

She loved that he didn’t make it a big deal.

“Partners in crime?” Lucy asked.

“In every way,” Winston agreed.

10

SWEET HOME CHICAGO

Winston was out of his element in Chicago. He was happy to go along with Lucy as she reverted to a past life. Unless you stood on Jane Pokorski’ s block and took it all in, it was impossible to visualise the vast chasm between Lucy’s current and past life. The little houses were modest. The late model cars were affordable. The place wasn’t posh, but it was warm. Everyone but Dwight was kind.

Winston always imagined Lucy’s life had been like Cousin Vanna’s American childhood. He’d assumed her parents had well-regarded occupations. He envisioned they drove nice cars and lived in the expansive houses, as did the Americans on the telly. Or, maybe as Bruno’s family did in Mexico. He never dreamed she had grown up like this. Winston began to realise just how hard Lucy worked to buck tradition. She’d fled to the UK for university and by the time she arrived in their social circle, she’d fully assimilated. She was poised. She knew when to bow, when to speak, how to sip tea, and how to hold a fork. Lucy had picked up her life, from nothing, to travel to a strange country as a teenager. It was all she could do to escape her dreadful father.

Where most Americans couldn’t aspire to this transformation, Lucy had flawlessly integrated into the Royal Family’s sphere. Eventually, she was a commendable partner for George. Winston assumed Lucy hid her humble beginnings as an act of survival and reinvention. Who else could pull it off? Lucy was a cut above—a chameleon—but at what cost? She hid this from her closest friends. Lucy was family. Did she think Natalie and George would have rejected her?

So, in Jane’s little house on Hoover Road, Winston found himself eating a festive, proper American Thanksgiving meal surrounded by curious Catholic iconography. Winston never experienced anything like it. Winston watched Lucy and Francie rib one another, occasionally exploding into fits of laughter as they told stories. Lucy rarely exploded in laughter. It brought a smile to his face.

As the meal progressed, Dwight imbibed too much. His drunkenness directly correlated with Lucy’s level of discomfort. She’d warned Winston it could get ugly, but Winston was unprepared for how the night unfolded. Winston got terrible secondary embarrassment, so Dwight’s progression down the rabbit hole was difficult to watch.

Winston packed away food at an alarming rate, encouraged by the matriarch’s insistence he was “too skinny”. As dinner wrapped, the women cleaned up. The men were due to depart. It was archaic. In Winston’s world, there were often staff. Without staff everyone pitched in. In their social circle, if someone made a meal, everyone else cleaned up. The cook sat at the bloody table and chilled. Winston’s mother and Natalie would have never tolerated it. Lucy insisted this was “The Way” as if she were speaking to Boba Fett himself. Winston assumed Lucy found clean up an excuse to avoid Dwight. They had spoken only briefly this entire time and sat far apart at dinner.

Dwight left for the living room. Lucy’s uncles and Winston followed. The entire Pokorski-Chandler clan was made up of short people. Winston walked like a giant among them. Dwight’s need to point this out every five minutes suggested an insecurity about his height.

“So, you’re the one she refuses to talk about?” Dwight sat, sloshing cheap blended whiskey on his trousers.

“What? Me?” Winston asked.

“Yes, Winston. She told us nothing about you.”

“Lucy is an enigma. I think she didn’t to make a big deal out of it. We’re old friends. It’s nothing—”

Dwight slurred, “Well if she’s calling you her boyfriend, it must be something. We were sure she was into the ladies by this point.”

“No. She’s married to her work a bit. She’s got a top job. She’s on the road a lot.”

“And how does that work for you? Wouldn’t you rather have a woman at home waiting on you?”

Winston chuckled. “I relish being her partner-in-waiting after a long tour. She has an important job. I admire her work ethic and dedication.”

Dwight shook his head. “I am surprised she still has her job. She could have come home and made more. Why stay?”

“Her whole life is there.”

“What, so she can be a servant?”

---