“By the way, why were you out here doing a walkabout alone?” Marshall asked under his breath.
“There were some complications with the wedding. Beatrice sent me out here to distract everyone,” Sam explained.
Marshall barked out a laugh, and had to cover it with a cough.
“Your job was to distract everyone?” he repeated. “I think it’s safe to say you succeeded.”
“I forgot how absurd the protocol is for royal weddings,” Nina muttered as she and Jamie stared around the throne room. “Am I really only allotted eighteen inches of this bench?”
“Here, scoot closer. I don’t mind if you cross into my space,” Jamie teased.
The embossed card that had arrived with their invitations had warned that seating was limited, so women should avoid “full-skirted gowns or long trains.” Daphne and Jeff were apparently trying to fit nearly six thousand people into the throne room—the most it had ever held. But then, the wedding of a ruling monarch was state business, while the wedding of a younger sibling was really just an excuse for a nationwide party.
Nina’s oh-so-helpful protocol card had also instructed her about cell-phone use (phones were allowed but flash photos prohibited), gifts (donations to one of three charities were gently suggested), and, most importantly, her scheduled check-in time (staggering the arrival of the guests in an attempt to control traffic).
As one of the highest-ranking people in attendance, Jamie had been granted a prime arrival time just thirty minutes before the ceremony. Nina, an ordinary nobody, was asked to show up nearly two hours prior. Though of course, she’d been here even longer.
She still couldn’t believe everything that had had happened this morning. When she’d started emailing Daphne and Ethan—she hated to think of it as blackmail—she’d hoped to knock some sense into them both. She’d certainly never imagined that Gabriella might intervene, and make a turbulent situation even uglier. Gabriella had lobbed the secret about Daphne and Ethan into the room like a live grenade.
So far, the ushers and staff were all acting as if the wedding was still taking place, but it felt to Nina like a very big if. She wondered what the Washingtons would say when forced to confront the aftermath of not one but two canceled weddings.
Jamie reached for her hand, which had clenched into a stiff claw. “You okay?”
Nina realized that he thought she was upset to be at her ex-boyfriend’s wedding. Of course he did; it was the logical assumption, because who would ever dream she felt guilty about sending ominous emails to the bride?
She unclenched her fingers to lace them in Jamie’s, trying not to think about what Jeff had said last night: I don’t want to lose you and I keep coming back to you. About the way he’d held her gaze, his eyes so bright and disarming, his voice so serious.
It was unfair to her—and to Daphne. And that, if nothing else, had reinforced Nina’s conviction that she’d been right to interfere. No one who was desperately in love with his bride would talk to another woman that way, the very night before his wedding.
And, as irrational as it was, there was still a stubborn part of her that missed Jeff. A part of her that wished things had gone differently, that they could be friends again.
Maybe Nina was being unfair to Jamie, too.
“So I was thinking. Hamlet is opening on the West End in a couple of weeks,” Jamie said, interrupting her thoughts. “I know it’s not your favorite Shakespeare, but the Duke of Cambridge invited me to the premiere. Want to come? You could take the train down from Oxford, and my family has a house in town—”
“Jamie.”
Something in the tone of her voice made him break off. He shifted, letting go of her hand. It took every ounce of Nina’s willpower not to reach for it again.
“You are so amazing,” she went on, her voice wobbly. “I’ve had the best time with you.”
“But…,” he supplied, watching her.
“But I think I need to take this next step, in Oxford, on my own.”
Jamie drew in a swift breath. “Are you saying you want to break up?”
“No!” It burst out of her, and she winced, ignoring the few startled glances from various royals or aristocrats seated around them. “I’ll understand if you want to break up, if you don’t want to wait for me. But I need to slow down, Jamie. I’m falling for you, and it scares me.”
“Falling for someone should be a good thing. Why does it scare you?” he asked, which was a very reasonable question.
Nina looked up at him, willing back the tears that were tight in her throat. He looked so unbearably handsome in his uniform, his blond hair curling against the gray of his fur-trimmed vest, the traditional attire of the kings of Canada.
“I’m so glad I met you, Jamie. Our time together…it’s changed me. You made me confident enough to go onstage, and to apply to the Oxford program.”
“You would have done those things with or without me.”
“I doubt it.” Nina ventured a smile. “The only reason I went to that first rehearsal, instead of quitting on the spot, was so that I could slap you for that kiss at auditions.”
Something flickered behind his blue eyes. “But you didn’t slap me.”
“I’m holding the slap in reserve,” she joked, then shook her head. “Last night, you called me your girlfriend.”
“And you didn’t want me to,” Jamie said slowly.
“I thought I did, but…”
He ran a hand through his hair, seeming perplexed. “Nina, I’m falling for you, too. And aside from that, I respect you. I don’t like the idea of hooking up with you without making things official.”
“You did try to make things official. I’m the one who asked to slow down. I promise that you’re not a bad guy if you want to keep hooking up with me,” she said, and then her smile faded. “Jamie, I’m not ready for everything that comes with being your official girlfriend. The media attention, the invitations to events, the style bloggers coming after me…”
“We could get you a stylist! And a PR person to reply to event invitations!” Jamie hurried to say, then saw the expression on her face. “Sorry. Not helping, is it?”
Nina shook her head. “Oxford is something I need to do on my own: not as your girlfriend, but simply as myself. I’ve never carved out my own space before. I came to college close to home; I’ve always hovered at the edge of the royal orbit because of Sam…. It’s time I went somewhere just for me, somewhere no one judges me on anything except my own merit.”