Page 23 of The Forever Match

Victoria was just about to get in her coach, when Gran bustled out, looking fiercely regal and Scottish in a tartan dress and matching jacket, silver fascinator standing tall on her head.

“You’re still here. Thank goodness. Let me look at you.” She walked in front of Victoria and gave her a pursed-lipped nod. “Knock-out dress, tiara, youth and beauty. You look delightful. Ready to be married, I’d say. Don’t you agree, Cassandra?”

Her mother jerked her head towards Gran, then nodded. “Of course. She looks every bit the future Queen.”

“That’s a way off, yet. You’ve got to pop your clogs for that to happen, and I’m not ready for that.”

Victoria wasn’t sure how the conversation had turned to her mother dying, but it was definitely her cue to get going.

“Next time you see me, I’ll nearly be a married woman.”

“About time,” her mother replied, but Victoria saw the faint smile on her lips.

When the main iron gates of the Palace cranked opened, the cheers from the crowds gathered outside were some of the loudest Victoria had ever heard. As soon they flooded into her ears, her many fears about homophobes or the rain spoiling her day melted away.

“We love you, Victoria!” screamed someone nearby, which made both Victoria and her father grin. Right now, the feeling was mutual.

She’d avoided the papers and the news, knowing the negativity would drown out everything else. Better to stay in her own head than let strangers crowd it.

But as the Glass Coach slipped onto The Mall, and the horses settled into a gentle trot, her fears began to loosen their grip. The crowds lining the famous road to the Palace were packed too deep to count. More to the point, every face she could see beamed. They waved flags: the Union Jack, yes, but also the colours of the queer community. Her people. Here for her.

They would never quite know what it meant, what it did to her, to see them. There was nothing to fear. The world was on her side. Even the sky had relented, the rain finally giving way.

Ash and Cam had already driven the route in their Bentley, and were now back at the Palace. “The royal fluffers,” Ash had joked, but it warmed Victoria that she was following in Ash’s footsteps. After today, she wanted to walk side by side, hand in hand.

“My word, you’re a popular woman,” her father said, waving his hand in that peculiar royal fashion that was not quite a wave, more a sign for people to hurry up, but in slow-motion.

Victoria grinned and waved too, trying to make it look normal. She wasn’t sure she succeeded. “My popularity is down to you and Mother. You’ve rallied the monarchy, stabilised it, made it more approachable. It’s up to Michael and I to build on what you’ve done.”

She glanced at her father, who gave her a small smile.

“Thank you, that’s very nice to hear,” the King replied. “But surely I should be buffing you up today, rather than the other way around.”

“You can in a minute.” The coach rolled on, through Admiralty Arch and into Trafalgar Square, where the noise swelled to something almost physical. Nelson’s Column glinted in the sunlight, and at its base a vast screen broadcast her own coach back at her: a strange, dizzying mirror. Across the capital, in parks and squares, more screens had been erected so the city could watch their future queen marry.

Victoria’s heart thudded as she tried to take it in. Up Charing Cross Road, past Covent Garden. Within the hour, she’d be standing at the end of the aisle.

Marrying Ash.

Heat surged through her. She needed to take her mind off it, otherwise she might get overwhelmed. She leaned back and waved at a young girl with a cardboard sign that told Victoria she loved both her and Ash.

Her breath quickened.

“Is this bringing back memories?” She’d get her father to talk, that would do the trick.

He nodded. “Although I wasn’t in this grand a vehicle. Your uncle and I were taken to Westminster Abbey what felt like hours before, which was a bad idea. It meant there was far too much time for me to get antsy. Your Uncle Colin didn’t help, either. Your mother was running late — bride’s prerogative, she told me — but Colin kept saying: ‘Maybe she’s got cold feet and done a runner to Spain’. Really helpful things like that.”

That caused a laugh to fly out of Victoria’s mouth, easing her underlying tension. Uncle Colin was not a shy man, and she could so imagine him saying that. She hoped he made his ride today.

“Were the crowds this big for you?” she asked, spotting a posse of lesbians waving rainbow flags. Emotion lodged in her throat, thick and hard. She hadn’t allowed herself to dwell on the effect this was having on the queer community, but she hoped it was opening up conversations countrywide. Was there a young lesbian who’d been able to come out to her parents because of her and Ash? Victoria knew how difficult that still was.

She swallowed down the lump in her throat.

She refused to ruin her makeup this early on.

Sensing the change in her demeanour, her father leaned over as the horses trotted slowly down Aldwych, then the Strand.

“Can I give you a piece of advice?”