Page 105 of Rivals
“I know—I saw you two in the great hall. I went in a few minutes before dinner to switch some of the seating arrangements,” Beatrice explained.
“That’s shockingly rebellious.”
“I’ve been throwing protocol to the wind a lot more often these days.”
“Looks like I’m finally rubbing off on you.” Sam hesitated, trailing a finger over the book’s gilded spine. Some of the embossed letters of the title were peeling. “Did you know that when Aunt Margaret was young, she ran away to Hawaii for a while and worked at a boat-rental company?”
“I didn’t know, though I’m not all that surprised.”
“It sounds kind of nice, doesn’t it?” Sam asked.
“Renting out boats?”
“Being normal.”
Beatrice was watching her with the quiet focus their dad used to use when making a decision. Sam swallowed and continued.
“This week at the football game, when Marshall and I were just sitting up in the stands like an ordinary couple…it felt amazing,” Sam explained. “Like we were free for the first time in months.” Free of people’s expectations and snap judgments, free of the paparazzi, free of the demands of their positions.
Beatrice nodded. “I feel that way about me and Teddy sometimes. That if we were different people, everything would be so much easier, less complicated.” She attempted a laugh, but it didn’t come out right. “To be fair, if we were different people, we might never have met.”
“You and Teddy are great together,” Sam said fiercely.
“Sam—you should see this.”
Beatrice headed over to her desk, then shuffled through the papers until she found Teddy’s statement of renunciation in one of the stacks. She handed it to Sam, who pretended to read it for the first time.
“You should be relieved that Marshall hasn’t done anything this drastic,” Beatrice added, her voice breaking.
Sam jumped to her feet. “Bee, it’s okay,” she exclaimed, pulling her sister close.
Beatrice sagged into the hug, resting her head on Sam’s shoulder, messing up both their neatly styled curls. Sam thought she felt tears on the skin of her collarbone.
“He’s so angry with me.” Beatrice’s words came out muffled.
“Teddy?” Sam clarified. “What could he possibly have to be angry with you about?”
Beatrice stepped back, so that Sam’s hands fell to her sides. “I took him for granted. My role as queen…it’s driven something of a wedge between us.”
Which was exactly what Sam’s position as princess had done to her and Marshall.
As usual, when she wasn’t sure what to say, Sam fell back on what she knew best—history and humor. “This is the modern version of the Prince Albert problem.”
“The what?”
“Queen Victoria’s husband, Albert,” she explained. “It was a recurring issue in their marriage that she had all the power and he had none. He’d given up his German estates—to be fair, they were pretty minor estates—to move to England and marry her, and then he had nothing to do.”
Beatrice blinked, her eyes still glassy. “Did they figure out a solution?”
“Albert found other ways to keep busy aside from governing. He was the chairman of Cambridge University, and atotal science nerd; he supported modern medicine and built the Victoria and Albert Museum….” She trailed off at the expression on her sister’s face. They both knew that wasn’t really a solution.
“Marshall and I are dealing with a similar issue,” she went on. “Except in some ways it’s worse.”
Because it was racially charged. Because unlike the Eatons, who adored Beatrice and the Crown, Marshall’s family resented her. And because Sam wasn’t the queen.
If they stayed together, and he married a princess, Marshall would be giving up a dukedom for a role even less impactful than Teddy’s.
“Sometimes I just wish we didn’t have to deal with all of this.” Sam swept an arm to indicate her tiara, her gown, her sash and jewels. “It makes everything so much more complicated. It would just be easier if—if—”
