Sam frowned, confused. “You are worried about Daphne?” She knew they’d seen each other more often lately, because of Jeff, but when had they become friends?
“Her phone rang, and she got this weird look on her face and then disappeared. I have a bad feeling about it.”
“I’m sure she’s fine.” Sam wondered if Jeff and Daphne were fighting again. Jeff had mentioned Daphne’s strange behavior at the End of Session party.
For a moment, Sam hoped that Jeff would break up with Daphne, if only to divert some of the relentless speculation and attention from her and Marshall. Then she felt instantly ashamed of the thought. As much as she wanted freedom from the scrutiny, she certainly didn’t want it at her brother’s and Daphne’s expense.
Besides, it shouldn’t work that way. She and Marshall should be able to breathe without offering up her brother and his girlfriend as bait.
“I didn’t know your aunt Margaret was coming,” Marshall remarked, and Sam looked up. There was Aunt Margaret, walking into the ballroom in a one-shouldered gown of tie-dyed silk, still a West Coast hippie, even in formal attire.
Marshall took a step back. “Nina, want to take a lap with me? We can find Daphne.”
Sam shot him a grateful look. She had a feeling that Aunt Margaret had come for her, because she knew her niece could use some guidance right now.
When Aunt Margaret reached her, she pulled Sam into a hug. “How are you holding up?”
“Um, I don’t…I’m not…” Suddenly Sam felt close to tears.
Aunt Margaret took her by the elbow. “Why don’t we go get some dinner.”
“Dinner isn’t being served yet.”
“That’s why we should go now, before everyone else shows up,” Margaret said crisply.
When they headed into the great hall, its long banquet tables arranged with goblets and gold plates polished to a shine, a few servers in uniform startled. Margaret ignored their reaction, waving her fingers at the closest young man.
“Excuse me! Can we get a grilled cheese?”
The footman shot Sam a panicked look. “Dinner will begin in thirty minutes. The main course is a choice between salmon and filet mignon—”
“A grilled cheese would be lovely.” Aunt Margaret smiled charmingly. “Please? I know you have bread and cheese here.”
He flushed a beet red and sprinted off. Margaret headed to a table and pulled out a chair, blatantly ignoring the folded ecru seating card, which read philip, king of greece. Sam hesitated, then took the neighboring chair, where lavinia, queen of italy was apparently supposed to sit.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Aunt Margaret asked, shifting toward her niece.
Sam leaned her elbows on the table and braced her forehead in her hands. The words burst out of her, as if she’d been holding them back with a makeshift solution of Scotch tape and shoelaces that had broken at last.
“I don’t know what to do! I want to just date Marshall without worrying about the rest, except that clearly isn’t possible. Our relationship has ballooned into this—this thing that’s far bigger than either of us. People are treating us like some kind of symbol for our generation, as if the future of race relations in America hinges on our success as a couple. Not to mention this unresolved issue about the duchy, and Marshall having to renounce his title if we ever got married…” Sam faltered, let out a breath. “However hard this has been on me, it’s infinitely worse for him.”
Aunt Margaret nodded. “It’s not easy for people who date us, is it? And Marshall faces all kinds of pressures. Because of the color of his skin, because people are ignorant and prejudiced, and because you’re the spare.”
“What do you mean?”
The footman reappeared with a grilled cheese on a gold-rimmed plate. “Thank you so much,” Margaret said brightly. She took the butter knife from King Philip’s place setting and cut the sandwich into quarters.
“It’s different for someone who marries the heir—like your mother, or Teddy,” she explained. “Don’t get me wrong, being king or queen consort is still a thankless and taxing job. But being married to the other royal sibling…you’re a secondary character in the history of this family, yet you’re still required to give up your own role and titles in order to join it. No wonder it’s so hard, finding someone who’s willing to take that on.”
Sam had always assumed that Aunt Margaret had dated so many men in her youth because she kept losing interest or meeting someone else. She’d never realized that Margaret’s position, not her personality, might have been the problem.
“Were you—did someone break up with you because they didn’t want to marry the spare princess?”
Margaret took a bite of grilled cheese, then set it back on the plate. “As I grew older, my royal responsibilities became increasingly second-tier. I had to open the out-of-the-way rural hospitals, deal with local Rotary clubs and Girl Scout chapters instead of members of Congress or boards of directors. I wasn’t doing anything that actually mattered.” She sighed. “Enjoy the royal tours and League of Kings conferences while they last, because soon enough you’ll be out of the spotlight. Why do you think I moved to Orange and started making all these movies? At least my life belongs to me.”
My life belongs to me, too, Sam wanted to say, but the words stuck in her throat. Aunt Margaret was right. No one in this family had a real purpose except for Beatrice—the only Washington who truly mattered.
Someday Beatrice would get married and have babies, and those children would become her heirs, not Sam. Sam’s career would have peaked at the ripe old age of nineteen.
She smoothed her hair over one shoulder and ventured a question. “Did you ever consider doing what Prince Franz did, just leaving it all behind?”
Margaret blinked. “Prince Franz. There’s a name I haven’t heard in a while.”
“You knew him?”
“I met him years ago, when I followed in his footsteps and ran away to Hawaii. He was in his seventies by then.”
“You…what?”
Margaret handed her one of the grilled-cheese squares, and Sam popped it into her mouth whole. It had been made with truffle oil.
“It didn’t last long, obviously,” her aunt went on. “I ran off for a few months, lived on the beach. Worked a rather boring job at a boat-rental company.”
“You had a job?”
“No need to look so shocked! I just worked the front office, mostly answering the phone. It’s funny,” Margaret reminisced. “In Hawaii, no one really cared who I was. They didn’t treat me like a princess, or like a celebrity, or like a villain. They didn’t treat me like anything at all, really, except an ordinary person.”