reminded her. “There’s only a live feed of the procession into dinner. The internet might not even get a screen grab of the whole gown.”
I now regretted my can-do attitude. The skintight middle section exploded in a cumbersome poufball that began at my knee and smothered the only thing I actually liked—my gold sparkly shoes. I could barely walk.
“That’s…wow,” Nick managed, when I came downstairs.
“Don’t ask,” I said, sidestepping down until I landed in the foyer. “Mostly because I don’t have any answers. I am going to need anti-chafing salve for my thighs.”
“Ooh, la la,” he said. “Are you ready for this?”
“As much as I’ll ever be,” I said. “Circumstances are not ideal.”
I imbued that with as much double meaning as I could. Nick simply futzed with his cuffs and stared straight ahead.
“If I’ve learnt anything this year, it’s that they rarely are,” he said.
Our car pulled up outside, and PPO Popeye tapped on the horn. Stand tall, I told myself.
That was challenging with the Lover’s Knot on my head. But my headache was nothing compared to what Queen Lucretia had to be feeling in her skyscraper of a piece. Composed of what looked like a thousand diamonds and nearly that many sapphires, her tiara was so shiny that I could barely look directly at it—and she confided in me during the cocktail hour in Buckingham Palace’s rectangular pink-walled picture gallery that she had another one that she felt was too flamboyant to be worn while Eleanor was not well. That someone could consider the tiara on her head a restrained option would have been a hilarious fiction from anyone but Lax, who clearly had spent hours debating how to show her esteem to Richard while also paying her respects to Eleanor.
“My heart is breaking,” she had said, dabbing at her eyes with the black tulle cape she’d worn over her evening gown. “I would trade all my jewels for her health.”
Hax rubbed her back and cooed something in Dutch, and Lax blushed and planted such a kiss on his cheek that you could almost see the mark from her lipstick in the official photos.
“What did he say?” I asked Daphne.
“You probably can imagine.” She sighed. “They’re very devoted. Another way they’re hard to live up to.”
In my periphery, I saw Nick begin to walk our way, and I waved him over as Freddie materialized at Daphne’s side. Nick quickly switched course and headed straight for Richard instead, and I was left pretending I’d simply needed to adjust the Lover’s Knot, which now sat on my head like a ten-ton lie.
“Hello, Daphne. You’re looking radiant.” Freddie beamed. “I didn’t get to speak to you properly earlier. I reckon I was, what, sixteen the last time we saw each other?”
“At Grandfather’s funeral, yes,” she said, her usual nervous smile sliding onto her face. “I’m glad we’re here under at least mildly better circumstances.”
“All grown up now, though,” Freddie said.
“We were just admiring Hax and Lax,” I said.
“Yes, I rather think they should get a room,” he teased. “Fortunately, we have a few extra.”
“They embody gezellig,” Daphne said. At our puzzlement, she added, “That’s Dutch for…well, there is no direct translation. It’s a feeling, kind of? They set a very high bar.”
Freddie glanced over at Richard and Nick while Daphne fiddled with her diamond tennis bracelet. Richard met his eyes, and then placed his hand on Nick’s shoulder and appeared to compliment him to one of the six old, rich men circling them. Freddie straightened and turned to Daphne.
“A high bar is not such a bad thing,” he said. “I recently discovered that holding myself to a better standard can be rewarding.”
“Ah, does that mean love is in the air?” Daphne asked.
“Well, I’m still working on the payoff,” he admitted. “What about you?”
“Not even a whiff,” Daphne said. “I have one or two friends who’ve tried to set me up, but they don’t seem to understand that being single isn’t a personality trait. People need something in common beyond an open space beside them in bed.” She gave him a knowing look. “And, of course, as you understand, it’s also challenging because I cannot date just any old person.”
“Why not?” Freddie swiped a glass of Champagne from the tray of a passing waiter and handed it to Daphne. “Nick did.”
“Cheers,” I said, grabbing my own.
“It’s a compliment,” Freddie said. “Nick marrying any old person should have kicked open the door for the rest of us to do what we like. You two