should be mixed and matched, reworn or archived, auctioned or donated. It was busywork, but busywork that required my presence and attention, even though nobody there ever paused to acknowledge that I was me and not just a mannequin. As the months stretched on, I used all my energies to look sparkling during those fifteen-second windows when I was publicly visible, and the rest of the time I diligently obeyed my schedule and studied trivia about our potential guests and jogged on the treadmill Marj sent to my flat (along with an industrial-strength juicer that was louder than my dishwasher). I felt like little more than a prop in a very complicated play—as if I could be anyone, and events would still roll on unchanged.
Unfortunately, the longer I went without another major public appearance, the more screeds Xandra Deane fired off painting me as an unemployed drain on the taxpayers, shirking my official duties in favor of staying home and polishing the Lyons Emerald. Like Nick in his first years out of Oxford, I couldn’t defend myself—there is nothing less sympathetic than blubbering that your self-care regimen has made it impossible to hold down an outside job—so the rumors picked up steam. I understood it. I would have believed them, too. Because even I’d lost sight of myself.
So I did something about it.
I’m not sure why I didn’t act sooner. I think that when the daily grind of my duchess training began, it had provided a welcome distraction from the loss of my dad, and then kept me occupied in Nick’s absence. And because failure at it was not an option, I let it consume me without realizing that occupied and satisfied are not the same thing. In the end, oddly, it was Prince Edwin who galvanized me (albeit indirectly). One random Thursday in August, I was sitting in Marj’s office, preparing for our regular confab, when two things happened at once: I heard Barnes spitting nails at Edwin’s new press secretary because Edwin went on Sunrise to announce he was starting his own experimental theater company—against Eleanor’s specific wishes—and I got an email from Maud at the Soane. The two things started to coalesce in my mind, along with the memory of my dad sending me back here long ago to go be Bex. I wondered if he was watching from his Coucherator in the sky, sad that I’d found myself in a situation where me being Bex was considered a hindrance. By the time Marj returned from bullying the old Xerox machine, my spine had returned to me and I had a speech ready. Sort of.
“Right,” Marj said, sweeping in and dropping an iPod in my lap. “In there you’ll find preapproved music for which you are allowed to express a public affinity. Some classical, some pop, some dance, and nobody who’s ever eaten meat in front of Paul McCartney.” She sighed. “That ruled out rather a lot of them.”
I scrolled through it. “Oh, good, I get the Spice Girls?”
“Eleanor enjoys the frightening one,” Marj said. “Now, about your—”
“Excuse me, Marj, if I may,” I said. “I have something for the agenda. I mean, to put on my schedule.” I showed her Maud’s message. “My old boss Maud runs Paint Britain now, and she offered me a spot on the board, and wants to seal it with an event. I’m going to do it.”
“Are you?” Marj fastidiously removed her glasses and placed them, folded, on the desk.
“I am.” I hoped she didn’t catch the waver in my voice. “I think I’ve been a pretty good pupil over the last several months, and I appreciate the time and care everyone is putting into me, but I’m starting to lose my mind a little. I need to produce something other than myself. And I need to show people what I bring to this family other than reformed hair and well-chosen coats. If Edwin can go off-book and mount some weird interpretive Shakespeare in Hay-on-Wye, or whatever Barnes was yelling about, then I think I should be allowed to take on some public philanthropy. Especially for a charity I started, of which Richard is a patron. It would be good for everyone.”
Marj stared at me for a full minute.
“We will finalize the details,” she said simply.
Adrenaline shot though me. “And I’d like our friend Joss to pitch a dress for me to wear,” I blurted. Marj raised an eyebrow. “Please. Donna was just saying we should try to boost some smaller