1
The words were almost there. Princess Florence stood in the centre of the drawing room with her hands clasped behind her back, chin tilted exactly the way Alexandra had shown her, and spoke with the careful precision of a child who had been practising in the mirror.
"It is my great honour to welcome you all here today, on behalf of my family and the—" Florence paused, her brow creasing. "The Royal Foundation for Children's Literacy." She exhaled through her nose. "That's the hard bit."
Alexandra smiled from the settee where she sat with her ankles crossed, a cup of tea growing cold on the side table beside a stack of briefing papers she'd been ignoring for the better part of an hour. The afternoon light slanted through the tall sash windows and caught the gilt frames on the wall, the worn velvet of the cushions, the dust suspended in the air above the Persian rug. Their private quarters were the only rooms in the palace that still looked lived in. Erin's trainers kicked off by the door. Frank's half-finished Lego creation on the windowsill. A dog-eared copy ofThe Secret Gardenthat Florence had been reading before bed, its bookmark a scrap of ribbon from Matilda's hair.
"It was perfect, darling. But let's try it once more. Slow down on 'foundation.' You're rushing through it."
"I'm not rushing."
"You are a tiny bit." Alexandra rose and crossed the room, her stockinged feet silent on the rug, and crouched so she was level with her daughter. Florence's bright blue eyes, so like her own, held that particular expression of stubborn determination that flooded Alexandra with love and something close to fear. At eight years old, Florence already carried herself with an awareness that the other two didn't. She listened at doorways. She watched faces during state dinners. She understood, in some wordless way, that the world was paying attention to her in a manner it was not paying attention to Frank and Matilda.
Alexandra smoothed a strand of blonde hair that had escaped Florence's braid. The hair was fine and pale, the same shade Alexandra's had been at that age, before the years had deepened it to something closer to ash. "Shoulders back just a touch. Not stiff. You're not standing for a portrait. Just... present. And when you say 'my family,' look up from the paper. Find someone's eyes and speak to them."
"Whose eyes?"
"Anyone's. Pick someone kind. There will be kind faces, I promise."
Florence considered this with the seriousness of a High Court judge. "What if I can't find one?"
"Then look for Mummy Erin. She'll be the one trying not to cry."
A smile broke through Florence's composure, quick and bright and gone again in an instant. She nodded solemnly and returned to her starting position. She cleared her throat with an exaggerated formality that made Alexandra press her lips together to keep from laughing, because Florence would bemortified to know she was being funny and she hadn't meant to be.
"It is my great honour to welcome you all here today?—"
The door burst open and Frank careened into the room at full speed, his school shirt untucked on one side, his hair sticking up where he'd been lying on the floor. Matilda was two steps behind him, moving with the quiet focus of a child who'd learned that letting Frank go first meant she could observe the reaction and adjust accordingly.
Erin followed. She leaned against the doorframe with her arms folded and a grin pulling at the corner of her mouth, her long dark hair twisted up in a clip, her green eyes warm. She was wearing a soft grey jumper and jeans, her weekend uniform, even though it was only Thursday. The trouser suits would come out tomorrow for the garden party. Right now, in the drawing room with the late sun catching the silver at her temples, she was just Erin. Just her wife.
"We heard the speech!" Frank announced, skidding to a halt on the rug. "Do it again, Flo! Do the whole thing!"
Florence blinked at the sudden audience. She glanced at Alexandra with a look that was half exasperated, half pleased, an eight-year-old's attempt at being put-upon, undermined entirely by the flush of excitement on her cheeks. Matilda settled cross-legged on the rug with her chin in her hands, her light brown hair pulled back in a neat ponytail, watching her sister with wide blue eyes and the patient attention of someone twice her age.
"Go on then," Erin said, and the warmth in her voice made Alexandra's stomach dip the way it had done for years. Ridiculous. Married for nearly a decade and Erin Kennedy's voice could still do that to her. Could still make her skin prickle with awareness, make her want to close the distance between them and press her face into the curve of Erin's neck where she smelled of clean cotton and the Jo Malone that Alexandrabought her every Christmas because Erin would never buy herself anything that expensive.
Florence delivered the speech again. This time she stood a little taller and remembered to lift her gaze from the imaginary paper. Her voice was clear, steady, with only the faintest wobble on "literacy." When she reached the end, Frank leapt to his feet and clapped so loudly that Matilda winced. Erin gave a low whistle, the one she usually reserved for the horses.
"Brilliant," Erin said. She pushed off the doorframe and crossed to Alexandra, slipping a hand to the small of her back. The touch was casual, proprietary, and it grounded Alexandra the way it always did. Like a hand reaching down through water to find her. "Though I think you might be tougher on her than Mr Henderson."
"Mr Henderson lets them get away with murder."
"Mr Henderson lets them be children, Lex."
Alexandra turned to look at her wife properly. Erin's eyes were bright with amusement, and there was something else in them too, something quieter, a tenderness that Erin only let through when she thought no one was watching. The look she was giving Alexandra said,I love you, but you're being a bit much.
Alexandra nudged her with her shoulder. "Someone has to maintain standards."
"God forbid you let the heir to the throne say 'foundation' at a normal speed."
Florence giggled, and the sound broke whatever remained of Alexandra's composure. She laughed, properly laughed, and Erin's hand pressed firmer against her back, and for a moment the room held nothing but warmth. Frank was trying to climb onto the settee armrest while Matilda informed him that he would break it. Florence was glowing from the applause. And Erin was warm and solid beside her, the muscles of her forearmtaut against Alexandra's hip, her fingers pressing warm against Alexandra's lower back where nobody else could see.
These were the moments Alexandra held onto. The private ones. The ones the cameras never saw and the papers never printed. The five of them in this room with the light going golden and the kettle cold and Frank's Lego on the windowsill.
"Right," Erin said, clapping her hands once with the authority she'd never quite lost from her years in the Royal Protection Command. "Garden party tomorrow. Which means baths tonight, bedtime on schedule, and Frank—" She pointed at him. "—you are not bringing the catapult you made in craft club."
"It's a trebuchet," Frank said with great dignity.
