Perhaps it was odd to admit, but a part of Sam missed those matching outfits, with the coordinated piping, the white knee socks and monograms. There had been a comfort in presenting a united twin front to the world, of being one instead of two. The force of their personalities doubled. The pair of them together, indivisible.
But they weren’t the same anymore. At some point they had set out on different paths, and now they were so far down those paths that Sam didn’t know how to find her way back to her brother anymore.
“I’m sorry I abandoned you like that. It wasn’t fair,” she told him.
“No, I’m the one who needs to apologize. I was too hard on you when you came home.” Jeff met her gaze and ventured an almost-smile. “Though I have to say, I’m a little glad I was such a jerk, only because it prompted you to show everyone how awesome you are.”
She stared at him. “What?”
“Sam, you’re proven yourself in a way that none of us ever have. You went out into the world and lived without titles or palaces, and you landed on your feet. You reminded us all how talented and resilient and smart you are.” He spoke with an emotion that Sam used to hear in her father’s voice all the time. It took a moment for her to recognize it as pride.
“I’m really sorry for how I reacted when you came back,” Jeff went on. “I was just…hurt. I just couldn’t believe that you would run away without talking it through with me. Or at the very least, warning me.” Jeff drummed his fingers on the side of his beer bottle. “We used to tell each other everything.”
“I know,” she said softly.
“What happened to us, Sam?”
“Nothing happened to us, exactly. It’s more that things stopped happening between us. You started spending more and more time with Daphne, and then Dad died….”
“And then you started spending all your time with Beatrice, training as her heir, and I was left behind.”
Sam blinked. For most of their lives, Jeff had been blithely content to be one of the spares, shirking any real responsibility in favor of the easy royal tasks. All the perks and none of the problems, he and Sam used to joke. But then their dad had died and Sam became the heir…and now she was out of the picture entirely, and the burden had fallen entirely on Jeff.
“You’re not left behind anymore,” she reminded him. “You’re the heir now.”
“Sam, I never cared about my place in the order of succession, whether it was the heir or the spare or the second cousin everyone forgets about. I just cared about being a part of whatever you were doing.”
Guilt twisted in Sam’s chest at that, and she swallowed.
Jeff sighed and went on. “I get it now, at least a little. After all this circus with the wedding…I understand why you and Marshall felt like you had to run off to Hawaii to escape it all. It’s not the same for me and Daphne, obviously,” Jeff hurried to add, “but it still sucks.”
“I know what you mean,” Sam assured him.
Things were different for them, because Daphne was a woman, and white, and even if her family had lost their baronetcy, she had spent her entire life following the rules—whereas Marshall, a future duke, had always delighted in breaking them. Jeff and Daphne weren’t facing the same hurtful racial commentary that had plagued Marshall and Sam.
But the wedding had escalated things, turned his relationship into a commodity, an object of mass consumption for the entire world.
“Jeff…is everything okay?” Sam asked tentatively.
There was so much loaded into that question. Are you sure you should be getting married? Can I help?
“I’m okay. I love Daphne, it’s just…” He sighed. “I never told you this, but when we first got engaged, we had our reasons.”
Sam nodded. “Because Beatrice was in a coma, and no one knew if she would ever wake up.”
“And Daphne thought she was pregnant.”
Sam nearly choked on her beer. “Wait, what?”
“She wasn’t pregnant,” Jeff said. “It was just a false alarm. But by the time we figured it out, we had already made the announcement, and…”
Sam flashed back to what Anju had said when she met Sam at the airport, that she couldn’t deal with another pregnancy right now. If only Sam had been perceptive enough to recognize it as a remark about Daphne and Jeff. Except—what could she have done to help, anyway?
Her heart ached for her brother. No wonder he’d lashed out at her when she came back from Hawaii; he was dealing with some very adult issues, at a much younger age than he should.
“Jeff.” She spoke in a stern tone, forcing him to meet her gaze. “Do you not want to get married tomorrow?”
Jeff shook his head. “I love Daphne.”
That wasn’t an answer to her question, though, was it?
“We should be getting back.” Jeff started toward the door, and Sam knew this topic of discussion was closed. She wasn’t sure how worried she should be.
“By the way,” he added, “do you want to be in the wedding tomorrow? We had a bridesmaid dress made for you.”
“You did?”
“Yeah, apparently they had your measurements already?” Jeff posed it like a question. “I don’t really know how that stuff works.”
Sam grinned. “Of course. I’d love to.”
She knew it would never be the same as when they were children, back when she and Jeff used to know each other’s minds without speaking, when it felt like they were two halves of the same person. Back when they had worn matching outfits, had shared the same goals and likes and dislikes and fears. Had dreamed the same things.
Now their differences far outweighed their similarities. Jeff was about to be married and Sam’s relationship was in turmoil; Jeff was royal and Sam had been cast out; Jeff was stable and Sam was…no longer adrift, but still searching for the right landing spot.
But as long as they could still find common ground, they would be fine.
Beatrice hadn’t expected Ambrose Madison to be at the rehearsal dinner, but here he was, casting snide smiles at her from across the room. His wife and children had come, too: Gabriella was in Daphne’s year at school, but Beatrice couldn’t understand why her brother, James, had been included. Beatrice had never liked either of them, especially James, who always stared at her in a way that was both condescending and objectifying at once.
When she’d asked her mother why the Madisons were here, Adelaide had just looked at her oddly and said, “The Duke of Virginia is a member of the Old Guard and your Queen’s Champion. Of course we included his family.”