Page 116 of Reign
A brace of cold air greeted them, but Sam just marched them forward. Several golf carts were parked near the garage, their sides zipped up in insulated plastic against the cold. Plaid blankets were folded neatly on the seats. Clearly they were here to shuttle Washington family members back and forth from the orchards.
One of the valets leapt forward when he saw them. “Miss Samantha—Your Royal Highness—”
“We need a golf cart.” Sam peeled back the plastic cover from the nearest one. Perfect, the keys were already in the ignition.
“Please, I can drive!” The valet looked slightly terrified at the prospect of letting Sam behind the wheel, but no way was she letting a valet overhear whatever Jeff was about to say, staff NDAs or no.
“Sorry,” she mumbled.
Jeff slid into the seat next to her, and Sam tore across the lawn, leaving mud tracks in the grass behind her. She swerved onto the gravel path that led to the orchards and nearly collided with one of the florist’s vans, but cut the wheel at the last minute, forcing the van abruptly to the left.
“We should not have let you drive!” Jeff was grabbing the cushioned seat with both hands.
“Stop being dramatic. I drove all the time in Hawaii.”
“Pull over and switch spots with me,” Jeff said.
Sam let out a breath, lifting a few strands of hair that had fallen out of her bobby pins, and took the speed down a few notches. “Better? Now tell me what’s going on.”
Jeff swallowed, seeming torn. “I’ve been having second thoughts about the wedding for a while now. I agreed to it when we thought Daphne was pregnant, but once we learnedthat she wasn’t…I don’t know,” Jeff said feebly. “Suddenly we were swept along in the wedding planning, focusing on this whole day—on theparty—more than on the fact that we were getting married. There have been plenty of times lately when I wanted to slow down, but everyone kept telling me how amazing we were together: the press, our family. And I kept thinking about this one time that Dad told me Daphne would be a great princess….”
“Oh, Jeff.” Sam knew what he meant by bringing up their dad; anything the king had once said took on a new significance now that he was gone.
“I don’t want to hurt Daphne,” her brother said, clearly tormented. “Do I owe it to her to honor the promise I made?”
“I think, more than anything, you owe it to her to be honest about your feelings,” Sam said gently.
Her brother had always been more sensitive than he let on. He surrounded himself with a constant whirl of people but trusted only a handful of them. And Daphne was one of those people. He would never willingly cause her pain.
Jeff let out a breath. “I know. It was just…overnight, Daphne’s and my relationship became some kind ofsymbol.”
“You’re the Prince of America. You’ll always be a symbol,” Sam murmured. Marshall had told her that once, when they were wrestling with the media spotlight.You’re a symbol because you were born to be. We both were.
A pang shot through her at the thought of Marshall; she did her best to ignore it. “Hey, if you’re sick of being a symbol, you can join me on the dark side. It’s kind of fun out here.”
Her brother shot her a glance, surprised and a little bit amused.
“Jeff…” Maybe she was overstepping, but she had to ask. “Are you calling off the wedding because of Nina?”
At that, suddenly, he looked so lost. Sam thought backto last night, to the charged feeling that had hung in the air between Nina and Jeff.
“Nina wants nothing to do with me, and I can’t blame her,” Jeff said at last.
Sam didn’t point out that it wasn’t an answer to her question.
She slowed the golf cart to a crawl as they pulled up to the Cottage, a quaint structure in the middle of the orchard that normally sold tourists apples by the pound, or homemade jams and pies. All the retail goods had been cleared out so that the Cottage could serve as the home base for Daphne’s bridal portraits. Sam saw the photographer already stationed in the clearing, arranging his camera on its massive tripod while an assistant fiddled with a glaring light.
At the center of it all was Daphne, surrounded by the voluminous lace skirts of her gown. And was thatNinawith her?
Sam looked back at Jeff. “I mean it, I’m here for whatever you need. I can cause a diversion, break the news to Mom, plan your escape route. It wouldn’t be my first time fleeing the country on a private jet,” she added, in a teasing tone that masked just how serious she was. “We could be in Mexico in three hours, drinking margaritas poolside.”
“I may take you up on that.” Jeff sighed and pushed open the insulated plastic to step out into the cold.
Sam pulled the blanket tighter around her. “I’ll wait for you here. What are you going to tell Daphne?”
“The only thing I can tell her. The truth.”
“Good luck.”
