“Clive underst—”
“And beyond that,” Nick said, not hearing me, “I have an event today. Father and I are opening an exhibit of family ancestral writings at the Ashmolean.”
I sat up. “That’s today?”
“Yes, Rebecca, that is today.”
“Why do you keep calling me Rebecca?”
Nick pulled every hair on his head straight into the air. “Because, Rebecca,” he said, “I have gone insane. My father is due in three hours. Why did we stay up so late? I am an idiot.”
He was doomed; I was sure of it. His eyes were bloodshot and his face looked gray. But I decided this was one time honesty was not what Nick needed.
“Everything is going to work out,” I said instead. “Here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to leave my room and you’re going to take a cold shower.”
“This already sounds like the worst plan.”
“It’ll wake you up, dumbass.”
Nick didn’t even flinch at that, which I now know is because Freddie has called him worse at least once a day their entire lives.
“Then,” I continued, “chug a pot of coffee and, like, a gallon of water. The caffeine will wake you up and the water will keep you hydrated. And get some greasy food. But no pastries, Nick. Pure carbs will make you crash.”
“How do you know all this?” Nick asked, rubbing his eyes.
“Nicholas,” I said. “You may have named her, but Night Bex has existed since long before I met you. One day, I’ll tell you about the time I only slept two hours before my aunt Kitty’s wedding, where I had to give an insanely long reading in German, which I don’t speak.”
“How much more could there be to tell?” he said.
“Focus,” I commanded him. “You are not going to blow this. I promise.”
Nick grabbed me in a tight hug. Improbably, he smelled delicious, an indescribable scent that I will always only be able to define as him. And maybe a bit of tikka masala.
“I’d be lost without you,” he said. And as he scampered off to his room, I turned around and passed out on my bed.
* * *
Everything about Prince Richard is narrow, from his body to the oval of his head to the line of his longish nose. But his bearing, the way he carries his position with just enough pomposity that you feel it but not enough that you wholly dislike him for it, gives him an aura of being good-looking even though the sum of the parts is fairly plain. I’d long been familiar with his face, because my parents went to London in the eighties and brought back a commemorative Royal Wedding wastebasket that’s in their downstairs bathroom (“He’s going to be king. He should live in the throne room,” Dad had said). But seeing someone in magazines—or tossing used Kleenex into him—is different than watching him move and speak in person, especially after the passage of more years than my parents or Richard might care to admit.
That night, Richard and Nick were hosting a grand reopening of Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum after a large renovation. The new modern lobby and balconies were packed with donors, rich alleged art lovers, local looky-loos who’d won a ticket lottery, and us, Nick’s motley support crew—stuck upstairs against a glass railing that put us nose-to-nethers with a giant naked statue of Apollo from the fifth century BC. This delighted Gaz, who loudly wondered if he could distinguish one huge dick from the other.
“It gives me great pleasure to have my son with me today, in our first joint venture since he gave up polo,” Richard was saying into a microphone. His speaking voice is not the rich baritone I always expect; it’s higher, thinner, a touch raspy. The Queen Mum once told me she thinks his tantrums as a young boy made it that way forever. I love her.
Nick—just behind his father, who stood at a podium on one of the angular atrium staircase’s landings—remained serene and impassive, despite the hot-button polo issue. I’d become fluent enough in Nick’s facial expressions to recognize this veneer as Advanced Pleasantness. It meant he was annoyed.
“We’re delighted to christen the new Ashmolean with never-before-seen private writings of our Lyons ancestors,” Richard continued. “The Princess of Wales wishes she could have been here. She’d have been immensely proud to see Nicholas contributing to Oxford’s history and culture. Especially as she once practically had to drag him through the Louvre.”
Nick gave a hearty belly laugh, as did the crowd, and Richard preened. I knew he and his staff had swept Nick out of Pembroke for Official Princely Duties at bang on ten o’clock that morning—I woke up at the sound, then passed out again—but he seemed as rested as if he’d gotten ten hours. Lean and handsome in his navy suit, Nick had worked the crowd like a pro, shaking hands, chatting up old ladies, posing for photographs with museum dignitaries, and making merry with his father. It was like he’d been born to do it, and of course that’s exactly what he was; this Nick was utterly in command, with none of the jagged edges and endearing goofiness that I was used to, and it made him a bit alien to me.
Richard finally yielded him the microphone.
“I’ll have you know my mother never dragged me through the Louvre,” Nick said, practically twinkling. “Because I wouldn’t let her get me past the entryway. She had to sit there and play cards with me while Freddie and the others got a private look at the Mona Lisa.” The crowd roared. “It was worth it. I won,” he added, cheekily, as Richard reached out to squeeze his son on the shoulder. It was a warm moment in complete opposition to the frosty one in the paper a few weeks back—the news would later call it an affectionate father-son volley, presenting a united front in the face of rumors of friction—and the elderly, wealthy benefactors loved it.
For different reasons, so did our friends.
“Better laugh than his father got. Take that, Prince Dick,” grumbled Bea from behind me. I turned to look at her, surprised. “May I help you?” she asked haughtily.
“I hope you’ll take the time to enjoy the exhibit tonight before it opens tomorrow,” Nick was saying. “I know I must, because during term—”
“Blah, blah, blah.” Clive whispered into my ear, giving it a nip.
“Shh.”
“No one’s paying attention to us,” Clive said. “They’ll never notice if we sneak off and find a dark corner. Everyone’s too busy gossiping about him and India.”
“Look at her down there,” Bea grumbled. “The cat that got the cream. The cat that got several pints of cream.”
Even from up high, I could see the glowing face of India Bolingbroke, who had not arrived on Nick’s arm but whom the rumor mill—so, Clive—insisted had been placed specially in the front row on the ground floor, along with a clutch of Richard-approved luminaries. The appearance caused reporters to use words like adoring and ladylike and exceedingly well matched in the papers the next day. I couldn’t imagine she and Nick were actually that tight. Nick had shortened or rescheduled several outings with her in favor of hanging out with me, and I never saw her on our floor at all. I assumed she’d been inside his room, but I couldn’t have guessed when, and although I’d seen them holding hands surreptitiously in a dark bar, he’d never so much as given her a peck on the cheek in public. But that night I had witnessed him guiding her gently through the throng, leaning in attentively, drawing her into conversations. If she was besotted, he was at the very least protective.