11. Kensington Girl
Kensington Girl
MARY
“Mary!”
“Huh?” I groaned as the covers rustled around me.
“Hvor bor du?”
“Huh?” I repeated, slowly opening one eye in my dark room to see the slightly panicked face of my houseguest from the night before.
“Sorry var bor do? I don’t know ‘address’ in Svensk,” Betty corrected herself. “Where do you live?”
“It’s a cognate.” I groaned and sat up.
To my dismay, she was fully clothed. I longed to lay in bed with her, wondering if her nipples would be the type of pink I envisioned in the deep darkness or if she’d let me go down on her as enthusiastically as she had the night before.
Would I make her scream again—this time maybe even my name?
As all things did with my posh romantic interest, we met an end.
“We’re on Eastway - 10,” I mumbled. “By Hackney Wick. You’re so quick to leave?”
I pulled on the neck of her t-shirt and kissed her shoulder. She let out a quiet, low hum that suggested I might convince her to take it off again. Then, the dream died.
“I just need it for the car service,” she said. “Sorry. I don’t know where we are. Thank God you aren’t an axe murderer, right?”
Car service. She confirmed my suspicions with that phrase. Even fairly well-to-do Londoners would have just called a cab. That wasn’t enough for Betty. She had a driver on retainer. I only benefitted from such a thing while we were in New York to sign with our label.
“That you know of. But you haven’t left yet,” I joked.
She dialed, stood, and mouthed “sorry” as she walked into the hallway to speak with dispatch. She was posh enough to have an entire car service on hold. Who was she? I remembered I needed her phone number.
“Yes, could I please have a car? I’m at Eastway Number 10 by the tube station,” she answered.
Curious, I listened for her address, assuming it would be a posh hotel in Mayfair.
Instead, she answered, “Kensington Gardens. Yes. Apartment 1A. Yep. If you drive to the gate, they can buzz me in. Thanks.”
I noted the address. My curiosity would get the better of me when I looked up my mysterious wealthy guest later. The only thing I knew in Kensington Gardens was the garden itself and the palace. I’d heard of exclusive mews houses of hidden private lanes and assumed that must be where she lived.
Betty returned, face visible in the low light, brow pulled sympathetically. “I’m really sorry I gotta leave so early, but I’m already late and my sister-in-law is about to strangle me because I could potentially make her late for our competition. My friends are already on their way and—”
“It’s all good,” I promised. “But can I get your number this time? I learned my lesson.”
She held out her phone.
I obliged, watching her type it in, then handed it back. I noted that she’d sent herself a message as me.
ME
Jag ?lskar Norge.
I snickered. “You really took the time to change my keyboard to that?”
“Ja!” She giggled. “And you do love Norway, don’t you?”
I shook my head. “The more I hear you come, the more amenable I am to it, skatt.”
“Don’t call me pet names,” Betty groaned.
I ran my hand through her ginger curls. “Why?”
“Because I like it and I cannot stay.”
“Is it really this important?”
“Yeah. It really is,” she said. “This is my job. I have to… it’s hard to explain. My cousin was our star player, but then she had to retired and now… well, I gotta be the star even if my talents really pale—”
“I am sure your talents do not.”
“Have you ever ridden a horse before?”
“Yes!”
One eyebrow raised, she judged me.
“Okay, look, it was at a carnival, but—”
“Doesn’t count. I think it’s sweet you want to blow smoke but… it really is stressful. I’m used to being the scrappy supporter and now I gotta carry the whole team.”
Somehow, I related. It didn’t occur to me anyone else had experienced the spotlight after years of happily supporting the brightest stars in their industry.
Moreover, I couldn’t imagine anyone as assertive and bold as Betty being satisfied as a background player.
It suited me, but for someone vivacious like her, I assumed it was stifling.
Her phone buzzed. “Just up the street. Ugh.”
“That fast?” I gasped.
“They’re all over the city. They send whoever is closest. Look, are you around Monday? I’m super busy ’til then but... I want to see you again.”
“I am headed to Stockholm,” I winced. “There’s not a chance you will just be there?”
“Unfortunately, no.”
“Okay, well, when you’re back in the States, text me. I’m going to end up there soon.”
“It’s massive,” she said.
“Then, let me spend some of my signing money to fly you to me,” I said. “I mean it.”
A smile curled around her lips. “Ugh. I hate the way you sweet talk me. But sure, why the fuck not? The only people who fly me anywhere are people I’m related to and because they need something. I’d welcome the change.”
Her mobile buzzed once more. She looked down, then back. Pained, she leaned to kiss me one last time.
“Fuck, that was amazing. I’m sorry to be a bitch and dash off,” Betty said. “But it really was great.”
I kissed her back. “Yeah. It lived up to the hype. Text me. I mean it.”
“Okay,” she blushed. “I will.”
I watched her leave. Outside, I visualized her slipping on her shoes and pulling on her jacket. I thought about how she might tuck her wild hair behind her ear as she pulled back, making herself presentable. I heard the door close. She was gone. My heart sank as I worried she might never return.
I waited a few beats to lick my wounds and soak up the smell of her perfume on my pillow before googling the address. My curiosity still won out.
Apartment 1A. Kensington Gardens.
The only results for the address were announcements about the Duke and Duchess of Inverness moving into a flat in Kensington Palace just before they wed years before. I couldn’t understand it.
Did she work for them?
Princess Ingrid was a horse girl. She’d ridden for Britain in the last Olympics—a great big scandal since she’d prior ridden for her home country of Neandia, a small tax haven where she herself was born a princess.
Then, I realized they also had kids. Maybe she was their nanny?
Was that how she knew Leah, too? Had she been her nanny?
I remembered her saying riding was her job.
She had to carry the team. Could she nanny and be a full-time horse girl?
Maybe she was a riding instructor for the kids, and they paid in expensive purses?
I didn’t pretend to understand royals. I assumed they absolutely did have riding instructors in their houses.
Why not when you had more money than God and no one to remind you people couldn’t pay to heat their houses?
As I scrolled and glimpsed the Duke—a person I could have cared less about—I realized they shared a nose.
Maybe she was a cousin? Again, there was the Leah connection.
Maybe she was Lady Betty Something or Other?
After all, I still had no idea what her name was.
But did Norway have ladies? And why was she half-American and half-Norwegian?
I looked up the family tree, desperately hoping to find a random ginger cousin, but there was a problem.
The only cousins to The Duke in the family belonged to his uncle, Prince George—the man who left to marry Leah’s father.
I knew Leah was Leah and that Leah’s only sister was older and blonde.
There were no other girls in the Lyons family tree.
Just the Prince of Wales, Duncan, Keir and his brothers.
I clicked on Prince Keir’s bio and scrolled his Wiki to find anything about Norway.
I realized after his father passed away in his childhood, his mother remarried another prince, Prince Peder of Norway.
My fingers tingled and panic set in as I scrolled down his long list of siblings and stepsiblings Then, there on the page was a name which shook me—HRH Princess Elisabeth of Norway.
Betty could be a nickname, but I still refused to believe this was more than a coincidence. It couldn’t be her, right?
I read on, slipping into the article on Keir’s mother, Princess Sanne of Norway, for more on the big brood of royals.
“Following the death of the Prince Paul of the United Kingdom, the Duchess of Inverness remarried a close family friend, Prince Peder of Norway, returning to the country where her mother continued to live until her death. The two raised their five boys together and soon welcomed a daughter, Princess Elisabeth “Betty” Hannah Natalie of Norway. This means that the Duchess remains stepmother to the second in line to the Norwegian throne and mother to the second in line to the British throne.”
That sealed it. Betty was Princess Elisabeth. Fuck!
I laughed so I didn’t cry. “Her family tree is a stick.”
Betty’s family was bizarrely big. Her identity loomed there in plain sight this entire time. Had I simply ignored the flashing red signs? And why didn’t she just come out and say it? Shaken, I needed to know more.
I navigated to Betty’s Wiki, staring at a photo of her in a ballgown and tiara presenting a Nobel prize.
She was altogether different from the girl who had come on my face the night before—so desperate she’d plunged my fingers deep within her as she lost herself.
Scrolling through her article, I didn’t see anything about her sexuality.
There was no note about anything in her personal life beyond that she’d been linked to a Danish male actor, a male American eventer, and a Dutch male dressage rider.
All men. I looked up and down the lengthy Wiki to see pictures of a christening, horse photos, and information about her patronages for any sign that she was a queer person.
I thought for sure she was involved with an LGBTQ charity or had shown up at a parade.
Instead, crickets. There was no sign Betty had ever dated a woman, been open about her status as a queer partner, or had ever even engaged in the community.
Rubbing my temples, I began to fade. The night took a toll, but the truth hit harder.
The girl I thirsted after—the one who appeared to cure every ill the night before—was untouchable.
She’d never end up doing anything but toying with me.
I wasn’t even sure she knew she wasn’t straight for fuck’s sake!
I’d been down this road before. I’d waited for a partner to come out to their family.
I made myself small and called myself a friend, but I was done doing that.
I was too old and my world too big. If Betty wasn’t out now, she’d never be.
Her status would never afford her acceptance.
I may have been a fun experiment, but I was done thinking running around was hot—I had been for at least a decade and a half.
No, I deserved someone willing to love me a full measure—out and proud.
She didn’t fit into my plans of a serious relationship and family. She would never be mine.
And yet, she persisted in my memory. I only hoped she didn’t torture me another five years.