“Load of nonsense,” Lancier sneered, and Rosie turned on him in a sudden burst of anger.
“Oh, shut up, Edward.” Red flags appeared in her cheeks. She lifted her chin, as regal as her mother when she wanted to be. “Of course Johnny isn’t having an affair. He’s got more integrity than most of this family combined.” She looked at Johnny then. “But I still can’t believe you told me nothing about any of this before yesterday. This woman has been sending you, what, twenty messages a day sometimes? Thirty? She’s got hold of your schedule and is ambushing you outside our home. Getting past security. Physically throwing herself at you.”
“You already had Lancier and the rest of your family dripping constant poison in your ear about how temperamentally unsuited I am to this life.” Johnny shot the seething Lancier a forgivably nasty look. His eyes were burning with emotion. “I didn’t want to lay what seemed at first a ridiculous, petty s-situation in your lap.” His expression hardened. “And when it became progressively more serious and . . . concerning, I didn’t want to potentially expose you to any danger.”
“You truly think this woman is dangerous?” Rosie looked torn between anger and concern, equally understandable.
“Even a few weeks ago, I wouldn’t have said so,” Johnny said. His fingers curled tighter about hers. “I felt sorry for her. Frankly, I still feel s-sorry for her. She was always a bit of an odd bird out in her family, like I am in mine. But she seems to have spiraled since we announced our engagement. She honestly believes we have this long-standing passionate history and I’ve betrayed her.” His mouth twisted. “Before she kissed me on Friday, the only time I remember ph-physically touching her was ten years ago, when I helped her into a carriage during the village heritage festival.”
“She didn’t kiss you. She assaulted you. Johnny.” Rosie turned in a sudden surge of frustration. “We’re engaged. We love each other. You need to be able to tell me anything. Lean on me for anything.” She threw up one hand in a gesture almost of despair. “God.”
Lancier made a final, ill-advised attempt. “He’s clearly not suited to the public rigors of this role. Encouraging the delusions of a mentally ill—”
Johnny had finally reached his limit.
“That’s it.” Releasing Rosie, he walked to the door and pulled it open. “Your Highness. Lancier. Get out.”
Sylvie couldn’t repress an instinctive snort at the look on the duchess’s face.
Every affronted, outraged GIF in history had just come to life in this room.
If the Prince of Wales never had a child, it was possible that the Duchess of Albany could one day become Queen Consort.
At the very least, she would hopefully much sooner become Johnny’s mother-in-law.
He did not give one single shit.
“Out,” he said again, his entire demeanor brooking no opposition.
The duchess was the most stereotypical type of bully. When faced with a dose of her own medicine, she retreated.
With a malevolent glare at the offspring who’d foisted this man on her.
Sylvie strongly suspected that if Edward Lancier hadn’t followed suit, Johnny would have happily given him a helping hand, via a fist in his collar. Lancier might be a snobbish, interfering dickhead, but he wasn’t completely without a sense of self-preservation. He scuttled out like a bristling squirrel.
Johnny shut the door firmly. He immediately turned back to Rosie. “You’re deliberately picking a fight,” he said with that unaccustomed coolness, and her lips thinned.
“We’ll give you some space, as well,” Dominic began, belatedly startling Sylvie into realizing that she shouldn’t just stand here gawping at them and openly eavesdropping.
Alas.
“We all have to get out there.” Rosie’s hand fisted in the skirts of her spectacular black gown. Sylvie was in sparkling pink, and the combined effect was a little more Elphaba and Glinda than she’d intended. “We’re going to be late. And there’s nothing I enjoy more than waltzing with a room full of people who’ll be thrilled my fiancé is cheating on me. It enlivens the supper.”
Sylvie winced, but the cold sarcasm made no impact on Johnny. He shook his head. “You don’t give a shit about any of them. All your Christmases came at once when that story broke yesterday.”
A flash went through Rosie’s defiant eyes.
That shot had hit home.
“The perfect reason to end things,” Johnny went on. His hands were shaking, and he stuffed them in the pockets of his crisp tuxedo trousers, but his voice was rock-steady. And all of a sudden, it gentled. His next words were so soft he might have been humming a lullaby. “So determined to save me from myself.”
Rosie blinked hard. There was a wet glitter behind the thickly mascaraed lashes.
“Decent play, my love,” Johnny went on in that low murmur. “But I’m afraid it’s game over. I’m not going anywhere.”
Her breath was expelled in a long sob, and the genuine torment in that sound made Sylvie flinch. She imagined it had ripped the guts out of Johnny.
“I’m not going to ruin your life.” The words wrenched from Rosie. “I can’t. I can’t.”
“I love you,” he said simply. “I don’t care about the opinions of strangers. I don’t give a shit what people like Lancier think. My loyalty is to you. Our duties will be plenty, but my highest priority is to keep both of our hearts safe. I’m walking into this freely, of my own volition, with my head held high and my hand in yours.”
“That’s probably what Jessica thought with Patrick at first, and—”
A sudden surge of exasperation tore from him. “Stop comparing us to your uncle and his girlfriend. We’re not them. I don’t care if she didn’t choose him. I fucking choose you—”
Sylvie cleared her throat. “She did choose him.”
She could now appreciate Dominic’s attempt at a discreet exit. She’d intended to tell Rosie the truth about Jessica at a more appropriate time, and it was very awkward interrupting a declaration of undying love.
Johnny’s mouth snapped shut. Silence followed, so for a moment they all had nothing to do but really feel the anticlimax.
“What?” Rosie was understandably thrown by the abrupt change in atmosphere. She’d been about to be thoroughly snogged. Johnny’s hands were still on her face. He didn’t seem to know what to do with them now.
Dominic came to the rescue with a matter-of-fact explanation. “Sylvie was going to speak to you later. We went to Jessica’s former home and spoke to her sister, Kathleen. Jessica changed her mind. She didn’t even make it through a week without him. She was killed in a car accident on her way back to London. Back to Patrick.”
Johnny’s hands slowly fell away from Rosie’s cheeks.
The princess’s face was very pale as she looked at Sylvie. “Is that—is that true?”
Sylvie nodded. “She loved him, Rosie. According to Kathleen, she’d never been so happy.”
Beyond the door, she could hear the distant murmur of voices and music. It felt as if they were in a bubble, a snow globe, temporarily hovering away from the rest of the world.