I snort before I can stop myself.
Ivy sweeps past us then, completely unfazed by the marble and the money and the fact that the carpet probably has a waiting list.
“Oh good,” she says cheerfully. “This place feels wildly inappropriate for me. I’m thrilled.”
Miranda follows with SJ in tow, one hand resting protectively on his shoulder, the other clutching a handbag that looks like it contains snacks, wipes, and possibly a small legal team.
She scans the room.
“SJ, we have to behave here,” she says mildly, then looks down at her son. “No running. No touching anything gold. And, if you lick a surface, I will leave you here.”
SJ sighs dramatically. “I’m bored.”
“We’ve been here twelve seconds,” Miranda replies.
“I was bored before we arrived.”
Lucy chooses that exact moment to make her entrance.
She is wearing a princess dress. Not a subtle one. Full skirts. Glitter. Tulle. A tiara that could double as a weapon.
She charges straight into the centre of the lobby and declares, at full volume, “I AM A PRINCESS.”
The Ritz freezes.
A man mid-sentence simply stops talking.
Theo shuts his eyes like a man asking the universe for strength.
Geoff’s mum steps forward.
She does not hush. She does not apologise. She does not try to make Lucy smaller to fit the room.
She crouches. On the Ritz carpet. In a coat that probably cost more than my first car.
“Well,” she says calmly, “I was rather hoping a princess would arrive.”
Lucy lights up like she’s just been knighted.
“You were?”
“Of course,” Elizabeth says. “Afternoon tea would be terribly dull without one.”
Lucy nods gravely. “That makes sense.”
She spins, skirts flaring. “Daddy, they were waiting for me.”
Theo opens his eyes. “Naturally.”
And, just like that, the Ritz loses its grip on me.
Elizabeth rises, smiles at all of us with the ease of a woman who has never measured her worth against a postcode, and gestures ahead.
“They’ve set us up in the Palm Court,” she says. “Shall we?”
We move together as a loose, slightly chaotic unit. Children wandering. Adults murmuring. Lucy waving regally at strangers like she’s mid-coronation.
Geoff keeps hold of my hand. No fuss. Just there. I notice more than one glance flicker our way and I don’t shrink from it. I don’t brace. I don’t explain.
