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“How is he?” she says waspishly, walking through the shards in her high heels with several loud crunches. I skirt the edges of the room as I head for her antique white telephone, which is set on an end table near her sofa.
“He’s not getting worse,” I say. “Which is about all anyone can ask for right now. My mom said the swelling takes time to go down, and when it does—”
“Daddy has to be okay,” she says, cutting me off. “He has tobe.”
“I…No one really knows yet,” I admit. “But my mom said—”
“I don’t care what your bloody mother said,” bursts Maisie, and I’m not sure which startles me more—her words or the fact that she’s suddenly a teary mess. “I can’t do this, Evan. I can’t—Ican’t be queen, not yet. It’s too bloody soon, and I’m supposed to have years—decades before I have to make these kinds of decisions, but suddenly everyone’s looking to me like I have the answers, as if genetics alone is enough—”
“It’s not all on you, not yet,” I say, easing around the remains of what I think might’ve been a snow globe. “You have your mother and Constance and Nicholas—”
“The papers are calling for a regency,” she says with such venom and heartbreak all at once that the words come out guttural. “If Daddy—if Daddy never wakes up, they want Nicholas to reign until I’m twenty-one.”
I study her. “Is that a good thing, or…?”
“Of course it’s not a good thing!” she explodes, grabbing the nearest item—a lamp—and hurling it at the floor. As it shatters, a streak of red appears on her leg, though she doesn’t seem to notice. “The people don’t trust me. They don’t think I’m up for the job, but of course Nicholas, perfect bloody Nicholas, is exactly what this country needs right now. Never mind that Victoria became queen when she was eighteen, or that Mary, Queen of Scots, was six days old. Six days! And obviously it’s disputed, but Lady Jane Grey was fifteen when Edward VI, who was nine when he became king, died and named her his heir, and King Henry VIII was seventeen—”
“It’s alarming that you know all this off the top of your head,” I say.
“It’s my bloody job to know this,” she snaps, marching past her sofa toward her bookcase, where there’s a hand-painted music box sitting beside a leather-bound set of Shakespeare plays. “My entire education has been to prepare me for becoming queen. I’ve studied history, politics, economics, constitutional law—all to be the best monarch I can be when the time comes. It didn’t matter that I like maths and science. I learned some, of course, because I can’t count on my bloody fingers in front of the world, can I? But who I am and who, in another life, I might’ve wanted to be—none of it matters, because I’m going to be queen. It’s destiny. And now these people—these bloody people—are trying to take it from me like I’m not singularly qualified. Like I’m some—some teenager who can’t control herself and who’ll throw a tantrum if I don’t get my—”
Maisie stops abruptly as her fingers close around the music box, and without any prompting from me, she looks around at the utter destruction that is her sitting room. Picture frames torn off the walls. Trinkets and teacups and paperweights that are little more than dust now, and several antique books with freshly torn pages. Her hand falls to her side, and without warning, her face crumples as she dissolves into sobs.
Inwardly cursing the thin soles of my flats, I tiptoe as fast as I can through the wreckage until I reach her. She tries to push me away, but her attempts are half-hearted, and I capture her in a hug.
“From where I’m standing, you’re doing an incredible job,” I say. “Every single meeting, you take charge, and even when you don’t know what the answer is, you listen, and you process, and you decide. Nicholas might have more experience, but you’re a born leader, Maisie.”
“I don’t want to be,” she whimpers, her arms snaking around me until she’s the one holding me to her. “I want him back. I want more time. I shouldn’t—I shouldn’t have to do this yet.”
“No, you shouldn’t,” I say quietly. “I’m sorry.”
Maybe no one has actually said this to her, or maybe all she wants is for someone to understand, because this seems to trigger another flood of tears, and she clings to me like I’m a life raft. We stand there for a minute or two as she cries so hard that her entire body is wracked with sobs, until at last, with several wet sniffles, she lets me go.
“Sit down,” I say, nodding toward a nearby love seat. “You’re dripping all over the carpet.”
“What?” she says, dazed, and only then does she notice the blood still trickling down her leg. With a curse, she limps over to the sofa, and I grab a cushion to keep her injury from ruining the white velvet.
As she’s inspecting the cut, I pick up the corded handset of her telephone, and I’m instantly connected to an operator. “Yes, Your Royal Highness?” says a low female voice on the other end.
“This is Evangeline,” I say. “I’m with Princess Mary. Everything’s okay, but we need a maid and a doctor, please.”
“Yes, Miss Bright,” says the operator smoothly, as if this is hardly an unusual request. “I’ll send for both right away.”
“Thank you,” I say, and I hang up the phone with a click. Almost as soon as I do, there’s a knock on the door, and without waiting for a response, a protection officer steps inside.
“Your Royal Highness,” he says, and I notice his hand is resting on his holster. “Is everything all right?”
As soon as he says it, he seems to notice the debris, and his gaze snaps straight to me. “Maisie had a rough afternoon,” I say dryly, not at all appreciating the implication of his stare.
“I’m fine,” she mumbles without glancing up from her leg. “I just need a bandage, that’s all. And for you to go.”
The protection officer heads for us anyway, the glass under his shoes crackling with each step he takes. He pulls a small first aid kit seemingly out of nowhere, and I watch as he snaps on a pair of latex gloves and removes several alcohol swabs, gauze, and medical tape from the pack.
“Thank you,” says Maisie testily as he starts to mop up the blood for her. “That will be all.”
“Ma’am—” he begins, but she cuts him off.
“I said go. I’m hardly going to bleed to death from a scratch.”
