I managed a polite smile in return, though the inside of my head was a swirl of nerves, calculation, and the sudden, acute awareness of every eye in the room.A photographer snapped a single photo, the flash making me blink, and for a moment, I felt suspended between history and personal reality.
The ceremony ended as swiftly as it had begun.I was escorted back through the same echoing corridors, my shoes clicking in time with the rapid beating of my heart.The grandeur, the formality, the weight of centuries pressing down—it was intoxicating and terrifying all at once.
Who the hell am I in a place like this?
Jet-lagged and exhausted, I felt simultaneously exposed and invisible.The grandeur of the palace pressed down on me, and for the first time since boarding the plane, I allowed myself a flicker of doubt.
Could I really be the ambassador they expected me to be?
ChapterTwo
Arthur
Icouldn’t sit still.My office chair—cream leather, Italian, frightfully expensive—might as well have been upholstered with nettles.I’d perched on it for less than thirty seconds before I was up again, pacing across the rug.Chris’s rug, technically.He had insisted on it when we’d moved into the Bond Street headquarters two years ago.Persian, hand-knotted, something about knots per square inch—I’d stopped listening after he launched into a dissertation about warp and weft.
“Darling,” Chris drawled from the sofa, long legs crossed and one arm draped lazily over the back as if he hadn’t a care in the world, “you’re going to wear a trench in the carpet, and then we’ll have to send it out for repairs.Do you know how ghastly the waiting lists are?”
I ignored him and kept pacing, from the window that overlooked the busy hum of Bond Street to the opposite wall, where framed fashion sketches from our earliest collection hung like family portraits.Four years.That was all.Clarence Atelier was barely out of nappies, and yet here we were, waiting to meet with buyers from Thorne & Whitmore.The Americans.
“I can’t help it,” I said, running my fingers along the edge of my desk as I passed it.The surface was spotless except for a vase of white roses—Chris again, he’d decided my office needed “softening.”“This could be the moment, Chris.If they stock us, we’ve cracked America.If they don’t…”
“Then we shall carry on being fabulous elsewhere,” he interrupted breezily.He reached into the tin on the coffee table and fished out a sugared almond, popped it into his mouth, and spoke around it.“And really, darling, don’t say ‘cracked America’ as though it’s a walnut.It’s terribly unglamorous.”
I shot him a look, though the corners of my mouth twitched.He always did that—deflated my nerves with absurdity.“Easy for you to say.You don’t have to live with the weight of a royal title hanging over your head if this goes pear-shaped.”
“Correction: you don’t live with it either, you merely parade it when it’s advantageous.And, incidentally, you do it beautifully.Which is why, in a few minutes, I shall begin dazzling them with my talk of evening wear, and then you will stride in like you’ve just come from having whisky with the King.Works every time.”
I stopped pacing, hands on hips.“You still think evening wear is the way to go?Honestly, Chris, they’ll never commit to our formalwear before they’ve proven we can sell to their everyday shoppers.The suiting line is more accessible, more—”
“Boring,” he cut in with a grin.His hair, artfully tousled in that way only a professional blow-dry could manage, gleamed under the recessed lighting.“The Americans want drama, Arthur.They want dinner jackets that make their Park Avenue men weep.If they wanted off-the-rack suits, they could buy Ralph Lauren.”
“Don’t be rude about Ralph.He’s practically their national treasure.”
Chris waved a hand as if to shoo away the notion.“National treasures are overdone.We are Clarence Atelier.The clue is in the name.We are here to remind them Britain does it better.Imagine their black-tie galas—our midnight silk shawl-collar jackets, the draped backs on the women’s gowns.They’ll be begging for us.”
I sighed and resumed pacing.He wasn’t wrong about the evening wear—it was breathtaking, no one denied that—but I couldn’t shake the practicality.If we wanted a long-term relationship with Thorne & Whitmore, we needed to start with pieces that would actually move volume.
The knock on the door startled both of us.
“Enter,” I called, more briskly than I meant.
In came Laurence, our secretary.A tall, angular man with spectacles perpetually sliding down his nose, he’d once confessed he’d only taken the job at Clarence Atelier because he preferred answering telephones for a fashion house to managing spreadsheets at a bank.His ties were always impeccable, though.Today’s was a deep burgundy silk.
“Your Royal Highness, Mr.Tennant,” he said, his voice carrying that dry politeness I adored.“A message from the lobby.Ms.Carlisle from Thorne & Whitmore is running a few minutes behind.Traffic, apparently.”
I exhaled sharply in relief.“Thank God for London congestion.”
Chris chuckled.“See, darling?The city conspires in our favour.More time to perfect our pitch.”
Laurence inclined his head and slipped back out, leaving us alone again.
I spun back toward Chris.“So.Evening wear or suiting?We can’t go in muddled.”
“We go in with the formal collection.”
“The suits.”
He arched his brow.“I designed the formalwear myself.”
