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“Well, that’s pure conjecture, isn’t it? But I will admit, there is some evidence that points to there being more to the story than we know. The police response to the incident was far stronger than one might expect from a simple hunting accident where all factors were known, and the subsequent investigation and search of the estate, as well as the royal family’s hasty return to Windsor Castle, could possibly lead one to believe there may have been an active threat against the family.”
“You’re starting to sound rather like a conspiracy theorist, Henrietta.”
[laughs] “Oh, dear me! That’s hardly my intention, I assure you.”
“It is all rather befuddling, though, isn’t it? Particularly in light of the recent drama that has plagued the royal family.”
“Yes, I rather think it is. And the fact remains—we have no idea who shot Evangeline. Or what the circumstances were that led to such a dangerous—and potentially fatal—mistake.”
—ITV News’s interview with royal expert Henrietta Smythe, 3 January 2024
FOR THE NEXT TWO WEEKS, while most of the family takes off to the Swiss Alps to enjoy a prolonged ski trip, I’m stuck haunting the halls of Windsor.
Kit and my parents stay behind with me, and while no one says anything, I notice that my mother’s wardrobe expands from a week’s worth of nice sweaters and pants to paint-stained T-shirts and jeans with holes in the knees. They’re not clothes she would have brought with her for a temporary holiday stay, and I’m sure Alexander’s already had her things shipped over from Virginia.
Kit and I spend most of those weeks in my suite, watching Netflix, reading books, and listening to my new record collection. He’s attentive to a fault, and even after my shoulder heals enough for me to use my arm again, he’s constantly fetching things for me and acting like I’m incapable of anything more than light conversation. The only plus to the whole situation is that, without either of us really discussing it, he spends the night—every night—in my suite. Sometimes we fall asleep on the sofa, but other times, we’re both awake enough to make it to bed. And while he always falls asleep with his arms around me or his hand in mine, he’s annoyingly proper and respectful about it.
I wake up before him almost every morning—a switch from our usual routine, but I can’t seem to sleep for longer than a few hours anymore. Maybe it’s the lingering pain, or maybe it’s the constant buzz of adrenaline that seems to course through me, always on alert for another crack, another bullet, another near miss that doesn’t this time. Either way, I spend those predawn hours on my laptop, scrolling through everything I can find about Ben. Old articles about his birth and public appearances as a child, gossip posts about his seemingly endless supply of temporary girlfriends, pictures of him spilling out of nightclubs at four in the morning, sometimes with Jasper, sometimes with Maisie, and even sometimes with Kit—anything that might clue me in as to why he’s doing this, or offer a single shred of proof that he’s capable of sending a gunman after me in the middle of a royal estate.
But there’s nothing. He is, as far as the internet knows, an astonishingly polite and intelligent young prince with a harmless taste for partying. There’s no evidence of the malicious side of him that he’s kept hidden from his own family, and the only hint I find of his ruthlessness is a glint in his eyes that I’m sure no one else sees—either because they refuse to acknowledge the monster underneath, or because I’m the only one who knows it’s there in the first place.
Every morning, I close my tabs the instant I hear Kit stirring, and I never tell him about my research on Ben—not because I don’t trust him, but because I’m sure he’ll insist that it isn’t my job to figure out what happened this time. That whoever shot us won’t be bragging about it on social media, and right now, the only thing I need to worry about is healing, while the police do the hard work of tracking down the shooter and figuring out why they did it.
Kit wouldn’t be wrong. But when no one else is willing to admit that Ben could still be a suspect even if he didn’t pull the trigger, it would feel wrong for me to listen.
For now, I feel marginally better knowing exactly where Ben is—at Klosters, with Maisie, Helene, and the rest of the family. My phone remains mercifully silent for the first week of their trip, but a few days after New Year’s, I wake up to sixteen text messages from Maisie, all screeching at me for not telling her about my new pocket-sized minder. She proceeds to send me pictures, videos, and voice notes informing me about every minute of her day in excruciating detail, and the only reason I don’t complain is because of how many times I catch sight of Ben lurking in the background. I don’t like the idea of him being anywhere near my sister, but as long as he’s preoccupied, there’s a chance he isn’t plotting my death.
“Maisie seems happy,” I say to Kit as we both ignore the rom-com playing on my laptop. He’s on his own mobile, texting with his brows knit, and I glance at him. “Everything okay?”
“What? Oh—yes,” he says quickly, switching off his screen and offering me a smile. “Just my parents. What’s this about Maisie?”
“She’s in a good mood, that’s all,” I say. “I think she and Gia made up. Rosie really hasn’t said anything?”
“I haven’t heard from her since the photo she sent on New Year’s Eve,” he says, and I snort.
“I still can’t believe she managed to include that much cleavage in a single selfie. It’s a shame we know she was in Johannesburg for Christmas, otherwise I wouldn’t put it past her to be the one who tried to off me.”
Kit shakes his head. “She’s far too good of a shot. She can fell a deer at a truly remarkable distance.”
“Really?” I say, surprised. “She doesn’t exactly seem like the hunting type.”
“Maisie’s the one who can’t hit the broad side of a barn,” he says. “Gia doesn’t shoot, but Rosie has real talent.”
“Either way, she wouldn’t have risked hitting you,” I say, glancing at his sleeve. The graze on his arm is well on its way to being healed, but every time I catch sight of it, dread fills the pit of my stomach as I imagine what could’ve happened. What almost did. And whenever Kit’s eyes linger on me a little too long, I know he’s thinking the same thing.
“Yes,” he agrees quietly. “I think we can rule her out as a suspect.”
His phone vibrates again, and he reaches for it before stopping himself, his mouth set in a thin line. As stoic as he is, he’s terrible at hiding his emotions, and now it’s my turn to frown.
“Are you sure everything’s okay?”
“Positive,” he says, and he sounds so genuine that I want to believe him. His brows are still furrowed, though, and as he pulls me into his arms so we can both settle in and watch the movie, he holds me a little tighter than usual.
Before I can decide if I want to press or not, my phone chimes, and I grumble as I grab it off the end table. “If this is another picture of Maisie’s dinner…”
But it isn’t. Instead, it’s from an unknown American number, and with a jolt of familiarity, I notice the area code.
202. Washington, D.C.
