She stared at him uncertainly.
“I know we haven’t talked about this…about us,” he went on, seeming nervous. “But I don’t want to stop seeing you once you leave for England. I really like you, Nina. You’re brilliant and you’re snarky and you’re thoughtful and you’re real.”
At first she didn’t process his words. “We’ll be on opposite sides of the Atlantic.”
“I have a private plane. It’s a six-hour flight. Worth it,” he added softly, “to see my girlfriend.”
Girlfriend. In all the time they had dated, Jeff had never used that word. The tabloids had, when they called her a tacky nobody, but Jeff had never put a label on things.
Hope fluttered in Nina’s chest, but it warred with anxiety and self-doubt.
“Jamie…I’m not the type of person you’re supposed to date.”
“And what type of person am I supposed to date? I would think, for starters, someone who makes me happy.”
“If you’re going to date a commoner, it should at least be a commoner from your own country!”
Jamie waved his hand at her objections. “What are all these rules you seem so worried about? Who wrote them, and why should we follow them?”
“I—” Nina broke off, dumbfounded, because he was right. When had she started letting her fears dictate her actions?
That was the thing about listening to the media. If they kept telling you, over and over, that you weren’t good enough, classy enough, perfect enough, then eventually you started to believe it.
“You want to hear the great thing about dating a future king? We can make our own rules. We can rewrite the entire rule book together.” Jamie’s playful tone faded as he added, “Unless you don’t want to.”
Unless you still have feelings for Jeff lay unspoken between them.
But she didn’t still have feelings for Jeff. She couldn’t. He was walking down the aisle tomorrow, and Nina needed to carve out her own life, far away from him.
She had worried that dating Jamie would be just as constricting as dating Jeff had been, but maybe it didn’t trap her at all. Maybe it was liberating.
“No, I do,” she decided. “I mean, I want to keep seeing you.”
She thought of the things she looked forward to about Oxford: curling up to read in the Bodleian Library, taking weekend trips to Vienna and Prague and to Jane Austen’s cottage in Hampshire. It would be nice, going on those adventures with Jamie.
“Is that a yes? We’re doing this?” he asked, and she nodded.
“Yes. We’re doing this.”
As Nina and Jamie disappeared into the hallway, Sam cast an uncertain glance at her brother. She felt like things between them had taken a step in the right direction at Christmas, but it was hard to know for sure. There was still so much they needed to talk about.
“Is everything okay with you and Jamie?” she asked hesitantly.
“Yes, but it’s a long story. I’ll tell you another time.”
Sam shifted her weight, wondering if they should re-join the party, but Jeff surprised her by heading to the refrigerated drawer in the Louis XIV dresser and grabbing another beer. He started to hand it to Sam, but she took a second beer from the fridge and flipped it over, using the bottle cap of the upside-down one to loosen the other’s cap.
“You know there’s a bottle opener right here,” Jeff pointed out, amused.
“I like doing it this way. Marshall taught me.” Her voice caught a little on Marshall’s name. Jeff clearly heard, because he sank back onto the sofa, eyes softening.
“I’m sorry. Are you…did you break up?”
“No, or at least, not yet.” She sighed and sank into the cushion next to Jeff. “We haven’t been talking much lately, though.”
She hesitated for a beat, but if she couldn’t trust her twin brother with this, then who could she trust?
“He’s in Hawaii,” she admitted.
Surprise flashed in Jeff’s eyes, and she knew he saw the confession as the olive branch it was. “So that tip we got, that you were on Molokai…”
“I worked on a fishing boat until I heard that Beatrice was hurt. Marshall offered to come back with me, but he’s really finding himself. I told him to wait for me until I came back,” Sam added softly.
“What do you mean, he’s finding himself?” Jeff wasn’t sarcastic, just curious.
Two months ago, Sam wouldn’t have been able to answer this question. But she’d found herself lately too, and understood now what it meant—what Marshall would be forced to give up, if he came back to America.
“He’s testing the boundaries of what he wants, letting go of his insecurities, finding new strengths. And Jeff,” she added, “you know how much pressure Marshall’s family puts him under.”
Jeff nodded slowly. “Look, I’m hardly a relationship expert…”
“Says the first one of us to get married,” Sam teased.
He didn’t laugh at that, the way he should have. Instead a cloud darted over his expression and he replied, “No one saw it coming, did they?”
Before Sam could ask about that in more detail, he went on: “I’ve always thought that you and Marshall seemed like the real deal. You have some issues to resolve, but I have a feeling you will. You’re obviously crazy about each other.”
Sam hoped he was right. She missed Marshall, with a dull ache that seeped into every waking moment. She kept pushing it to the back of her mind, because once she let herself wallow in it, she wouldn’t ever get out of bed. But if she and Marshall were happy in different places—if they were building very different lives—then what future could they possibly have together?
She stood and wandered to the heavy wooden sideboard, where pictures in silver frames were arranged at neat angles. The twins’ baptism, the pair of them in matching white gowns covered in ribbons and lace. A family portrait of all five Washingtons at Christmas, Sam and Jeff matching in red plaid—hers a dress, his a pants-and-shirt combination. Finally, a portrait of the twins celebrating their joint eighteenth birthday, both of them in jeans and white Oxford shirts. Lord Colin Marchworth, the photographer, had cried out in protest when Jeff tried to roll up the sleeves of his shirt and reveal his forearms: “You cannot show skin in a royal portrait!” As if their bare wrists were the scandal that would break the monarchy.
“Remember when we used to dress in matching outfits?” she mused aloud.
Jeff came to join her by the photos. “It would look a little weird if we tried to do that now. Though I have to say, I could probably still rock a shortall.”