“Warriors” - Imagine Dragons
The royal family is eating breakfast in the Chinese Dining Room. Sunlight streams in through the sheer curtains covering the French doors that lead to the terrace, spilling across the red and gold furnishings that decorate the space.
I consider Olivia’s comment about Beatrice, but my sister looks much better than she did at the ball. The color has returned to her cheeks, and she’s immersed in something on her phone while popping a blueberry into her mouth every few seconds.
Rosalind and Olivia are discussing a Parisian designer who made a splash a few days ago. Apparently, mixing more than two floral patterns is frowned upon. I wouldn’t know.
Henry sits at the other end of the table, as distracted by his phone as Bea is hers, although he still manages to shovel bites of omelet into his mouth at an alarming rate.
“Oh my god,” Bea says from my left. “Did you guys read this?”
“Beatrice,” our mother warns. “No tabloids at the table.”
“Mum, this is the Sun. You know I don’t read the tabloids anymore.”
Rosalind’s face reflects my own thoughts: What, since yesterday?
“What is it, dear?” Olivia asks with a smile.
Henry is still glued to his device, oblivious to the scene my sister is trying to create.
“The Sun just released an article a few minutes ago,” Bea says. “It’s about”—her eyes cut to me—“us. Well, some of us.”
That’s when I feel it—a trickle of apprehension running down my spine. If the news was good, she would have just summarized it and we would all be finishing our meal by now. But her pause means it’s anything but.
“I doubt it’s appropriate conversation for the breakfast table, Beatrice,” Mum admonishes again.
But Bea isn’t listening. Her golden head is bowed over her screen as she reads. I’m tempted to pull out my own phone to look for myself, but some of us still have manners.
“Oh my god,” she says again. She looks up at me. “Have you seen this?” Before I can respond, she begins reading straight from the article. “‘She claims the resemblance between her son and the prince consort is not simply a case of doppelg?ngers—’”
I shake my head for Bea to stop, but she isn’t looking at me. I try kicking her leg, but she’s too far away.
“—but that her child is the result of a dalliance she had with the prince herself,” she finishes.
Oh god.
Have you ever worked so hard on something, then made one mistake and watched the entire thing crumble?
I’m reminded of the time Henry and I stacked dominoes on end around the entire palace library.
It took us fifteen sets to fill the whole room.
We were nearly to the end when my foot caught on a chair leg and I tripped, knocking over a single domino and setting off the whole thing before either of us was prepared to enjoy it.
The heads around the table mimic those dominoes as they take turns lifting to look at Bea.
First is Rosalind, whose furrowed brow rarely makes an appearance but has decided this occasion is worth the wrinkles.
Next is Olivia, who wears her confusion well.
She’s always believed in Henry’s goodness, no matter what the tabloids would have her believe.
She is followed by Henry, who has heard enough to drag his eyes up from his screen and join the rest of us in the room.
Their gazes are all locked on Bea, but when she tears her eyes away from her phone, they don’t land on Henry, as one might expect.
Instead, she looks directly at me, and everyone else follows suit.
I don’t know what they can read on my face, but considering it feels frozen in place, I’m assuming it’s not good.
“There’s more,” Bea says around a wince. “She says when she approached the palace several weeks ago with her claims, she was promptly ignored, despite the evidence she provided.”
It’s impossible to slow my heart rate. My mind is already racing to find a way out of this mess.
I should never have let it get to this point.
Elizabeth Gable said she wouldn’t take things further, but apparently that was a lie.
And now we’re going to have a media circus on our hands.
I can almost hear the crowds chanting at the gates already.
The first thing to do is call Preston. He’ll be able to come up with a plan for dealing with this. I pull my phone from my bag and am just about to dial when Henry speaks for the first time.
“Is this true?” he says, looking me dead in the eye.
“Which part?”
“You know damn well which part.”
I set my phone down. “I’m afraid I don’t have a record of all of the women you slept with before we were married.”
Discomfort fingers its way through the room.
I picture even the Chinese figures on the painted panels coloring in secondhand embarrassment.
Olivia dabs at her lips with her white napkin, her cheeks a dainty pink.
My mother is busy rearranging her place setting, as if the end of the meal is the appropriate time to do so.
Bea’s focus alternates between me, Henry, and the article on her phone, awareness of the Pandora’s box she just opened finally setting in.
“That’s not what I’m asking.” Henry’s voice is as hard as the gold plating on my knife.
Olivia pushes back her chair and stands. “I have a car waiting, so I should be on my way.” She whispers something into Henry’s ear and presses a kiss to the top of his head as she walks past him.
Mum clears her throat, a private signal that means I’m supposed to look at her. I do so out of habit, and she subtly shakes her head. “At least wait until the staff are out of the room,” she hisses, then rises from the table as well.
After they’ve both gone, Bea swings her gaze between me and Henry again. “If I leave, are you two going to kill each other?”
I wait several beats until the tension in the air is so thick it would take an ice pick to break through. I toy with my fork. “Not immediately.”
She sighs and pushes back her chair. “I don’t want to get caught in the middle any more than they did.
But listen to me.” She leans over the table so that she has both of our attention.
“I love you both, and if either of you hurt the other, you’ll have me to answer to. ” With that, she leaves the room.
I don’t relish the idea of sticking around to listen to Henry’s thoughts on the subject at hand, so I stand up, calling Preston as I do.
“Sit down,” Henry growls from the other end of the table.
My eyes flash to meet his, and the warning lining his face makes my stomach flip. I glance at the footman standing at the door, his features a perfect mask of indifference.
“I have calls to make,” I say.
“Celia, sit.”
I hang up before Preston can answer, then take a seat, glancing once more at the footman. He nods and closes the door behind him. “What?” I say, returning my attention to Henry.
“Tell me the truth.”
“You know we get weird claims all the time,” I say. “We handled it the same way we always do.”
“Was there evidence?” His tone is calm, but anger bristles beneath the surface.
“Nothing that would hold up in a family court, trust me.”
He fiddles with his fork, turning it back and forth, flicking it between his fingers. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“If I told you about every inane request or claim that comes through the correspondence office, we’d be stuck here all week.”
“How many of them involve me?” he says.
I consider how to respond. If I tell him the truth, he’ll ask why I didn’t give this one more consideration. If I lie, he’ll ask why he’s only now hearing about it. “We have staff members to handle these things,” I say instead. “Neither of us needs to worry about it.”
“So you weren’t about to call the press secretary for an emergency meeting on how to ‘handle’ this latest scandal?” He leans back in his chair, watching me carefully.
I narrow my eyes a fraction. “I acted in the best interest of the royal family.”
“In a real marriage, these are the kinds of decisions a couple makes together.”
“In a real marriage, love children don’t pop out of the wainscot.”
Henry’s jaw flexes, and I curse myself for noticing. “So you think it’s real? This claim?”
“Absolutely not,” I say, even though I’m terrified it is.
“Well, real or not, I intend to be a part of the decision-making process for how to proceed.” He pushes back from the table. “You can tell Preston to expect me in that meeting, too.” With that, he disappears out the door.
I try to identify the emotion seizing my body right now. It’s like I’m standing on top of the highest pinnacle of the castle, looking down.
No matter which direction I turn, my only option is falling.