When Daphne got home, her mother was sitting in the living room. There was only one light on, a brass standing lamp that threw strange shadows over her, emphasizing her cruel beauty.

“Where were you?” she asked, without preamble.

Rebecca Deighton was invariably polite to strangers, especially strangers who might prove useful to her at some point in the future. But she never wasted the effort on her own family.

Daphne’s eyes burned. She felt a sudden urge to tell her mother everything that had happened—to let it all spill out and ask for advice, the way other girls did with their parents.

Of course, she couldn’t do anything of the sort.

“I was at Himari’s,” she said weakly.

“Not with Jefferson?” Rebecca gave a little tsk of criticism. “Has he asked you to the wedding?”

Daphne shifted her weight. “Not yet.”

“Why not?” her mother asked, cold as ice.

“I don’t know.”

Rebecca was on her feet in an instant, grabbing her daughter by the shoulders. Her nails dug into Daphne’s flesh so sharply that she bit back a cry of pain.

“?‘I don’t know’ isn’t acceptable anymore! If you don’t have an answer, then go find it!” Rebecca released her hold on Daphne and stepped back. “Come on, Daphne. I raised you better than ‘I don’t know.’?”

Daphne held back her tears, because she didn’t dare show fear before her mother. Fear was a weakness, and if a Deighton knew your weakness they would never stop exploiting it.

“I’ll handle it.” She headed up the stairs to her room, where she fell back onto her bed and closed her eyes. Her stomach churned with a hot, queasy anxiety.

But amid the tangle of her thoughts, one thing was utterly clear. If Daphne wanted Jefferson to invite her to the wedding, she couldn’t keep throwing herself in his path. She needed him to seek her out…and she saw a way to make him do exactly that.

Daphne hesitated a moment, but Himari’s words echoed cruelly in her mind. You always put yourself first. You’re completely and utterly selfish.

Fine, then. If Himari thought she was heartless and self-centered, Daphne would go ahead and prove her right. This plan would hurt people, but so what? Daphne cared about nothing and no one but herself.

She dialed Natasha, one of the editors at the Daily News. The journalist answered on the second ring.

“Daphne. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

When Daphne had explained what she wanted, Natasha let out a low whistle.

“You want me to call Prince Jefferson himself and ask for a quote? Do you realize how angry that will make the palace’s press secretary? They’ll bar me from royal photo calls for months. Not to mention they’ll keep asking how I got his number.”

“I’ll make it up to you,” Daphne said urgently. “Please, you know I’m good for it.”

Natasha laughed, a low, hoarse sound. There was a rustling on the other end as if she was writing this all down, her pencil frantically scratching over the paper.

“You will owe me—and I mean something big. Like engagement-announcement-big,” Natasha warned. “But okay, Daphne. For you, I’ll do it.”

Daphne hung up the phone and smiled, a bitter triumphant smile that was lost to the shadows.

Sometime in the last month, Beatrice had started thinking of this as her office, rather than her father’s.

Redecorating had helped. It was Teddy’s idea, actually; he’d stopped by one day and asked where all her things were, and Beatrice had realized, startled, that nothing in here belonged to her.

She’d traded the gold-braided drapes for wispy curtains, which she kept tied back, so she could look out over the lazy gray curve of the river below. And she’d exchanged the oil portrait of King George I that used to hang above the fireplace for one of her father.

Unsurprisingly, Lord Standish had been horrified by her changes. “Your Majesty, that portrait has hung in this room for centuries!” he’d protested when he saw the footmen removing it. “He’s the father of our nation!”

“I’d rather look at my own father for guidance,” Beatrice had insisted. She found it reassuring, as if her dad were silently watching over her, guiding her steps. Occasionally she caught herself talking to the picture aloud. Asking her dad for advice about her duties, about Teddy—and about her family.

Beatrice was relieved that Sam had moved on and was dating Marshall. Yet she couldn’t help worrying that the way Sam had let the world learn of their relationship, with those steamy pool photos, was a cry for attention. She wished she could talk to her sister…but Beatrice had given up trying.

Besides, if it helped Sam get over Teddy, Beatrice couldn’t really argue with it.

She stretched her arms overhead, giving herself a momentary break from the Royal Dispatch Box, which Robert filled each morning with her daily business. By now Beatrice had realized that he put the inconsequential documents at the top and tucked away the items he’d rather she didn’t get to, like policy briefings or updates from foreign offices, at the bottom.

The first thing she did when she got the Box was remove all its contents and flip over the entire stack so that she could work through them from bottom to top.

She set aside the Federal Reserve’s economic forecast and picked up the next document: an update from the Paymaster General about funding the government during Congress’s summer recess. It was a painful reminder that Congress’s closing session was in two weeks, and she still hadn’t been invited.

Were the members of Congress really going to let the closing session come and go without the monarch’s presence?

Yesterday, Beatrice had swallowed her misgivings and asked Robert what she should do. “Nothing,” he’d said silkily. “In moments such as these, the role of the queen is to do nothing and say nothing. Anything else would obstruct proper governance.”

Her phone buzzed, distracting her from her thoughts. Guess who sent this one, Teddy had written, with a photo of matching plaid shirts. Beatrice honestly couldn’t tell whether they were outerwear or pajamas.

She and Teddy had divided up the wedding gifts, so their respective secretaries could begin drafting the thousands of thank-you notes they would have to sign. They’d gotten in the habit of sending each other pictures of the most outrageous ones.

She flicked her hair over her shoulder with an impatient gesture and typed a response. The Prince of Wales. Only the British wear plaid that looks like a carpet.

Ouch, Teddy answered. Actually, these are from Lord Shrewsborough.

My old etiquette master!

She could practically see Teddy’s smile as he replied. Etiquette, what a dying art.

Beatrice swiveled in her chair toward where Franklin was curled up in the corner. His eyes were closed, his legs twitching as he dreamed some delightful puppy dream. She took a picture and sent it. We miss you.

Things between her and Teddy had changed since Walthorpe. Now Beatrice caught herself relying on him, in ways she hadn’t foreseen. She would ask Teddy for advice on her problems, and together they’d talk out her various options. They went on walks together, Franklin running impatiently before them on a leash. Occasionally when they were both laughing at the puppy’s antics, Beatrice caught herself wondering if two people could fall in love this way—by loving the same thing so deeply that their excess love spilled over and drew them toward each other.

It was the oddest and sweetest and most unexpected sort of courtship, as if they had wiped away everything that had happened between them and met again as strangers.

Beatrice remembered what her father had told her the night before he died: that he and her mother hadn’t been in love when they were first married. But we fell in love, day by day, he’d said. Real love comes from facing life together, with all its messes and surprises and joys.

She glanced back down and sighed at the next paper in her stack. It was the guest list for her wedding.

Robert had compiled the list based on long-standing protocol. He’d added foreign kings and queens, ambassadors, chancellors of universities, members of Congress. I kept it to fourteen hundred guests, he’d told her; which means that you and Teddy each get a hundred personal friends. Beatrice hadn’t bothered protesting. She didn’t have a ton of friends, anyway. Plenty of people claimed to be her friend, but the only real one she’d ever had was Connor.

She froze. Surely she was seeing things, hallucinating Connor’s name because she’d just been thinking about him.

But no, there it was, right in the middle of the guest list: Mr. Connor Dean Markham, with an address in Houston.

So he’d left town, Beatrice thought dazedly. She tried not to think beyond that, but some part of her couldn’t help wondering what his life was like, whether he was happy. Whether he’d met someone new.

What was he doing on the invite list?