“Of course.” Sam covered the phone with her hand and mouthed Beatrice, and Liam put the car back in park.
“You’re coming for dinner tonight, right? It’s Christmas Eve,” Beatrice reminded her.
“I don’t…” Sam blinked, uncertain what to say.
Reading her confusion as agreement, Beatrice said, “Great. I’ll see you soon,” and hung up.
“Everything okay?” Liam asked, once Sam had lowered the phone.
“Beatrice just invited me to Christmas Eve dinner.”
“And this is…a bad thing?”
“I was kind of excited to meet your family,” Sam said, dodging the question.
Liam didn’t let her get away with it. “You can meet my family anytime. This is exactly what you wanted: the chance to make up with your siblings and fight to get your titles back. Why are you hesitating?”
Because things weren’t clear-cut anymore. Sam loved her family, but she was also building a life outside their orbit—a real life, not a fantasy existence like the one in Hawaii. She was learning to stand on her own right here in Washington, not as Martha but as herself. It had forced her to stretch and grow beyond the person she’d been into a new person that she was still discovering.
“It’ll be awkward” was what she told Liam.
“Isn’t that what family holidays are all about? Enforced quality time and awkwardness?” Liam shrugged. “I haven’t felt at home at my parents’ house in years. My room is like a time capsule from high school and I have to share a bathroom with my brother and his wife and the walls are way too thin. But it’s not about that; it’s about the people.”
Sam knew he was right. “If I go, promise me one thing. You’ll take me to see your high school time capsule another time?”
Liam grinned. “I’ll send you a photo with my angsty teen posters in the background. Deal?”
* * *
When Sam showed up at the palace in the nicest dress she had thought to grab from her old closet—a black velvet one with an asymmetrical bow on the shoulder—a security guard was there to welcome her. The palace operated with a skeleton staff at the holidays, no footmen or maids, but there was always someone at the door, at least.
“It’s good to see you, Miss Samantha,” he said gruffly.
So she was Miss Samantha now. Sam wondered who had decided that.
It was strange how much had changed in the past weeks. The palace looked the same as it always did at Christmas—the enormous tree in the ballroom, sourced from somewhere in the forests of Maryland or Virginia, and then the smaller tree in the family’s private living room that was decorated with personal touches, including papier-mâché or clay ornaments that the siblings had made in elementary school. The same garland wound up the main front staircase, the same mistletoe hung from the crystal chandelier in the entry hall. Yet it felt curiously unfamiliar to Sam, as if she no longer belonged here.
Had she ever really belonged here?
Her family was all gathered in the living room, clutching tumblers of whiskey sour, which dug a bittersweet pang into Sam’s heart because that was her dad’s signature drink. She glanced around the room and saw that Aunt Margaret was here from Orange, along with her husband, Nate, and Sam’s uncle Richard and aunt Evelyn with their two children.
Daphne, who looked as perfect as always in a cranberry-red cocktail dress, was the first to look up and notice Sam. She must have made a small noise, because Jeff followed her gaze and went still.
“Sam?”
It was only one word, but it hurt. He sounded shocked, almost confused, to see her.
“Hi, everyone.” Sam lifted a hand in an awkward wave, then remembered she didn’t have a title, and they did. Slowly, she curtsied—first to Beatrice, then to Jeff and her mother, then to her grandmother.
It was one of the more excruciatingly quiet moments of her entire life.
“I didn’t know you were coming,” Jeff said haltingly.
“I invited her.” Beatrice swept forward. “Congress may have stripped Samantha’s titles, but last I checked, they haven’t stripped her from our family. We aren’t the British, who exile their relatives to Paris and never speak to them again. We need to stick together.”
“Thanks, Bee.” Sam ran a thumb nervously along the strap of her purse, as if it were a life jacket keeping her afloat.
Slowly, everyone’s conversations started back up. Sam felt Aunt Margaret’s eyes boring into her, questioning and sharp. Of course Aunt Margaret was curious; she was the one who’d helped Sam escape to Hawaii in the first place. Sam made a mental note to thank her for not telling everyone where Sam had been.
“I’m so glad you could make it.” Beatrice looped an arm through Sam’s and began tugging her in the direction of Daphne and Jeff.
“Merry Christmas,” Sam said feebly, unnerved by Jeff’s silence.
He must have sensed Sam staring at him, because he finally looked up from his drink, seemingly at a loss. “Um, yeah.”
Um, yeah? That was all she got from her twin brother at the holidays?
The realization of just how much distance yawned between them hit Sam like a physical blow.
“Excuse me,” she muttered, then whirled on one heel and started blindly down the hall. When she saw the double doors to the library on her left, she pushed them open.
She almost never came in here; the library was one of the rooms open to the public, a favorite of tourists with its black lacquered panels and inlaid wood floor. Slowly, Sam began wandering the bookshelves along the wall, trailing her fingers over the spines as she blinked back tears. When she found the nineteenth-century history section, she grabbed a volume and plopped into an armchair.
There was a creak of doors being pushed open, and Sam glanced over. “Beatrice?” Part of her had hoped it was Jeff.
“Hey,” her sister said cautiously, coming to sit in the neighboring armchair.
Sam leaned her head back and closed her eyes. “I’m sorry I ruined Christmas. Do you want me to go?”
“Sam, you didn’t ruin Christmas.”
“No one really wants me here,” Sam started to say, but Beatrice talked over Sam’s protests.
“If Christmas is ruined, it’s because Dad isn’t here. Not because of you.”
Sam nodded, unable to speak.
“Remember how much fun Christmases were before Dad became king? Like that time we went to the mall and rode tricycles around the empty toy store?”