“No way,” Naomi says in a hushed voice.
“Where are we?”
Graves clears his throat. “Welcome to Clarence House. This is where you’ll be staying.”
Clarence House is a property owned by the Crown Estate that sits empty eleven months of the year and is only used for guided tours in the month of August. It is beautiful, full of history, and, as far as I can tell, a massive waste of resources.
It’s also my temporary home, so I can’t complain too much.
I hold my breath as the four of us walk through the columned entrance of the house and into the ground floor and its maze of formal rooms. Knickknacks on every surface have been swept to the side to make room for gift baskets and bouquets. I open the first few Get Well Soon cards I see and don’t recognize any of the names, so I stop reading the messages and instead pick out nuts and chocolate as I pass through rooms full of fancy antique furniture. There are golden candelabras on the walls, a dizzying number of clocks, heavy busts on side tables, lampseverywhere,moody paintings of trees and geese, and shelves filled with books whose pages have probably never seen the light of day.
“I bet Theo wants you to move in permanently,” Naomi whispers as we climb the steps to the second floor.
I feel a brief shock to my system. “I doubt he even knows I’m here.”
“Don’t pretend like you haven’t thought about what it’d be like,” she continues after my mom claims a small room on the second floor and closes the door behind her, announcing that she needs a nap.
Ignoring my best friend, I poke my head into another small room, at the end of the hall. I’m about to call dibs on it when Brooke hollers down to us from the third floor. “Wren, your room is up here!”
Naomi and I race up the stairs, and I stop short at a closed door with a piece of paper taped to it. Written on the paper is my name in familiar script:Wren Wheeler.
After months of staring at my marriage certificate, this handwriting is seared into my brain.
At the very least, Theo knows where to find me.
CHAPTER33
DAYS UNTIL THE CORONATION:TWO
It’s been twenty-four hours since Graves dropped us unceremoniously on the doorstep. My mom, Brooke, and Naomi are leaving for the airport any minute, and I still haven’t heard from Theo, but I can’t bring myself to leave London.
Not until I know why he taped that paper to my door.
Naomi and I are watching TV in my bed when Brooke pushes the door open and plucks a bottle of wine and a wheel of cheese out of the nearest basket. “I’m taking these.”
“Knock yourself out.” I pick up the TV remote and turn the volume down. Theo would be mortified by how much royal press coverage I’ve been consuming, but I can’t stop thinking that there’s something off about all of it.
Brooke picks up a corkscrew and opens the bottle of wine. “Wait. They’re talking about you!”
“What?”
“They showed a picture of you! Turn it up!”
I turn the volume back up as my picture is replaced with one of Henry.
“… life-saving blood transfusion…” an anchor is saying as the screen zooms in on a small, colorful bandage on Henry’s left arm.
“Quite a heroic thing to do, innit?” the other anchor chimes in.
“We’ve always known he’s a cracking lad…”
“Theo saved me from a freaking volcano! Why aren’t they talking about that?” I’m indignant on his behalf.
“Henry’s going to be so smug about this. He’ll never let Theo hear the end of it,” Naomi says.
Brooke props her hip against the wall and takes a swig from the bottle. “If Theo wanted to be a hero,hecould have donated.”
“He volunteered, but his blood type didn’t match mine. Henry and I are both AB negative.”
