Ignoring the curious stares of footmen and security guards, she started restlessly down the hallway. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen the palace thronged with so many people. The throne room was probably full by now; the guests had been told to arrive almost an hour before the ceremony, for security reasons.

The only place free from all the chaos was the winter garden, a small space tucked into the side of the palace. At the center of its brick courtyard stood a potted lemon tree, which only grew in this climate thanks to the assiduous care of the palace groundskeeper.

“Sam?”

A lean, blond figure unfolded himself from one of the benches, and Sam swallowed.

“Teddy. What are you doing out here?” she asked self-consciously.

A hesitant smile curled over his features. He wore the ceremonial navy and white of the Dukes of Boston, his dress coat complete with tails and stitched in golden thread. Even his white gloves were fastened with gold buttons. Sam knew, in a distant and unaffected part of her mind, that he looked impossibly handsome.

“The same thing as you,” Teddy said. “I needed a breath of fresh air before all the handshaking and small talk.”

“But you’re so good at all that stuff,” she observed.

“Maybe.” He shrugged. “That doesn’t mean I like doing it, though.”

The silence that fell between them was less awkward than Sam might have expected. She realized that she hadn’t been alone with Teddy since that day at the Royal Potomac Races all those months ago, when he’d told her he was marrying her sister.

“Sam—”

“Teddy—”

They both broke off with a flustered laugh. “You first,” Sam insisted, and he cleared his throat.

“Sam, Bee and I…I mean…”

When had he started using that nickname? Hearing it tugged at something in Sam’s chest.

“I know,” she said, her eyes burning. “You really love her, don’t you.”

To his credit, Teddy held her gaze. “I don’t know how to begin apologizing to you. I mean, there’s nothing in McCall’s Etiquette about how to handle something like this.”

“I think we’re leagues past anything McCall could’ve anticipated,” Sam replied, but Teddy didn’t smile at her joke the way Marshall would have.

“Exactly,” he said earnestly. “I’m sorry I made such a mess of things. I never should have…”

At his anguished look, Sam took an instinctive step forward, placing a finger over his lips. “Whatever you were going to say, don’t. I’m the one who should be apologizing to you.”

She was the antagonist in Beatrice and Teddy’s love story, and if she hadn’t been in the way, they might have discovered how they felt about each other so much sooner.

“It takes two people to make out in a closet. Don’t carry all the blame for this, okay?” She tried to smile at him. “I’m happy for you and Bee. Really.”

A breeze shot into the garden, rustling the leaves on the lemon tree, lifting the smells of soil and damp and citrus into the air.

Teddy’s eyes gleamed with gratitude and relief. “I’m happy for you, too. You and Davis seem really great together.”

“You—what?”

“Sam, you’re so complicated,” Teddy said gruffly. “You’re impulsive and brilliant and sophisticated and sarcastic. There is so much to you, and I’ve never seen anyone who complemented all of that, who could keep up with you, until Marshall. You two make sense together. More sense than you and I ever did.”

“I—thanks. That means a lot,” Sam said awkwardly. She looked into Teddy’s luminous blue eyes and added, “I’m really glad that Beatrice has you.”

“I’m glad she has you, too.”

They exchanged a complicit smile. In that moment, Sam knew that she and Teddy understood each other, because they shared one very important thing—they both loved Beatrice. Being the queen was a near-impossible job, but between the two of them, they might be able to support her through it.

“I realize this is painfully cliché, but do you think we could stay friends?” Teddy asked.

Friends. Sam didn’t have many of those, at least, not friends she could trust. Certainly not friends who knew her as well as Teddy did. “I would love that.”

She hesitated a moment, but given everything they’d been through, she figured she could hug Teddy. She started to pull him into an embrace. But before she could, he put his hands on her shoulders, and leaned forward to drop a single kiss on her brow.

There was nothing romantic in the gesture; it was decidedly old-fashioned, and sweet. As if Teddy was quietly acknowledging their messy history, and putting it behind him.

Sam felt all her grief and love and loss welling up in her. She blinked rapidly, trying not to cry. She had made so many mistakes, time and again—but at last everything was clicking into place, the way it was meant to all along.

“What the hell?”

Marshall stood in the doorway, looking at them in outraged horror.

Sam and Teddy sprang apart as if scalded. Which, she realized, probably made them look even guiltier.

“Marshall—let me explain,” she pleaded, taking a step toward him. He recoiled, and Sam fell back, wounded.

Teddy held out his hands in a placating gesture. “Look, it’s not what you think—”

“So this is who you’ve been using me to make jealous,” Marshall cut in, his eyes on Sam. “When you told me that your mystery guy was taken, I never thought you meant he was marrying your sister.”

Teddy was still talking in a low, urgent tone, explaining that this was all a misunderstanding, that he and Sam were just friends. But Sam’s eyes must have betrayed her, because Marshall retreated another step.

“I assume this is why you wanted me as your date? It was all a last-ditch attempt to make Eaton here jealous?” He barked out a sharp, defensive laugh. “What did you think he would do, call off the royal wedding?”

“No, I—I never wanted—” Sam stammered, but Marshall was already gone.

She stumbled into the hallway and saw that he’d taken off in the direction of the throne room.

“Marshall!” she cried out. He heard her, and started walking even faster.

It was so stupid, so completely immature of them to be racing through the palace like a pair of shrieking children. Sam kept shouting for Marshall to please just talk to her, but he broke into a jog, refusing to turn around.

She yanked the skirts of her gown as high as she could, now hurtling down the hallway in a full-out sprint, fighting to stay steady in her satin pumps. Stunned footmen and staff flung themselves out of her path. Sam ground to a halt at the back stairs—had Marshall headed up to the second floor?

As she hesitated, a tall stranger turned the corner.

He walked with bold, tense strides, his shoulders stiff. Sam looked at him for a moment in puzzled confusion, only to remember who he was.

Connor Markham, Beatrice’s former Guard.

She stiffened in a hot flush of panic. Oh god. Connor was here because she had found his wedding invitation in Beatrice’s desk—and sent it.

Sam watched, her lips parting in horror, as Connor lifted a fist to knock at the entrance to the Brides’ Room. The door swung open, and Robert Standish frowned up at him with disdain. “I’m sorry,” he snapped, “but who are you?”

And then Beatrice, in a faint voice: “Connor?”

Sam edged closer, looking past Connor to her sister’s face.

It was a naked storm of emotions. Agony, confusion, and, most tellingly, a bleak sort of uncertainty.

In the silence that followed, Sam realized what she had to do.

She took off running in the opposite direction.

Connor was here.

Shock splintered through Beatrice with an almost physical impact, reverberating in her very bones. She tried to move, to breathe, but all she could do was stand there in the Brides’ Room and look at him.

She was fully dressed for the wedding, a human mannequin at the center of yards of white fabric. The train of her gown curled around her like a great slumbering animal. A beautiful combination of veils cascaded over it all: the tulle one that her mother had worn and, beneath, a Chantilly lace that had been in the family since Queen Helga. The light caught in the tulle, glittering on the diamonds of her tiara.

“I’m Connor Markham,” she was dimly aware of him saying. “I’m here to see Beatr—I mean, the queen.”

Understanding sparked in Robert’s eyes, and he shook his head. “Well, Connor Markham, Her Majesty can’t see you right now. As you might be aware, she’s about to walk down the aisle in twenty minutes.”

“It’s all right,” Beatrice heard herself say.

She’d spoken numbly, as if in a trance. What else could she do? Now that Connor was here, she had to speak to him alone.

Connor and Robert both turned to look at her. “Robert,” she clarified, “we need the room, please.”

“Right now?” the chamberlain demanded.

Connor let out a low growl. And even though he was out of uniform—wearing a tux, and, unlike all his years as a Guard, not carrying a single weapon—he still looked broad and imposing, every line of his body radiating a fierce, coiled strength. Beatrice saw Robert wilt a little beneath that glare.