“You told the Norwegian cycling team that their national anthem sounded like a funeral march for a depressed elk.”
“It does.”
“They were very upset.”
“They need to hear it from someone, Barns. That anthem’s got no energy. No drop. If I was cycling for Norway and that came on at the medal ceremony, I’d get back on the bike and ride home.”
Barnaby picked up a canapé between his thumb and forefinger, something golden and flaky with a dark filling, and held it up to Lex’s mouth. “Open.”
Lex opened. Barnaby placed the canapé on his tongue like a man administering communion, and Lex closed his mouth around it. The pastry shattered. Something rich and earthy spread across his palate, chased by a sharp tang that cut through the fat.
“Fuck me. What was that?”
“Wild mushroom tartlet with truffle and aged Comté.”
“That’s the best thing I’ve ever eaten, and I once had a kebab in Romford at four in the morning that changed my life.”
Barnaby’s mouth twitched. He picked up the third canapé and held it out. This time Lex leaned forward and took it directly from Barnaby’s fingers, his lips closing over the tips. Barnaby’s hand stilled. Then he pulled back and wiped his fingers on a napkin, looking around furtively.
“Behave,” Barnaby said.
“I’m behaving. I’m eating the tiny food like a good boy.” Lex chewed. The next one was beef, seared, pink in the centre, resting on a disc of crisp potato no bigger than a two-pound coin. “You’re feeding me.”
“I’m preventing a diplomatic incident.”
“You’re feeding me, Barns. At Buckingham Palace. In front of the King and God and everyone.”
“The King is on the other side of the room, and God hasn’t been to one of these since the Reformation. Eat the last one.”
Lex ate the last one. It was some kind of cured fish on a cracker, sharp and clean and salty. He licked his thumb.
Barnaby watched him do it, looked away, and said, “I need to do photographs with the equestrian team. Stay here. Don’t touch any of the art. Don’t arm-wrestle anyone. Don’t tell the Home Secretary her job would be easier if she learned hand to hand combat.”
Barnaby set the empty plate on a passing waiter’s tray, then walked toward a cluster of people near the far windows whom Lex recognised as the British eventing squad. He watched Barnaby cross the room and watched the shift in his carriage as he moved from Lex’s orbit into theirs. His stride lengthened, his chin came up, and by the time he reached them he was the Marquess of Ashworth again, shaking hands and exchanging the kind of smooth pleasantries that these people had been raised to deploy since birth.
Lex turned back to the room. A waiter passed with a fresh tray of canapés, and Lex took three, because nobody had told him there was a limit and he was choosing to interpret this as an invitation to eat all he could. He ate them in quick succession; there was something with goat’s cheese, and something with beetroot.
He was reaching for a fourth canape off a passing tray when he felt it; a prickle at the back of his neck that meant someonewas watching him. He scanned the milling crowd and locked eyes with King James.
The King of the United Kingdom was standing thirty feet away, near the marble fireplace at the north end of the room. He was holding a glass of what looked like sparkling water and listening to an older woman in a dark green dress who was making a point with considerable emphasis by way of hand gestures. James was nodding at her. His posture was attentive, but his eyes were on Lex.
The gaze held for two seconds. Long enough that Lex was certain it was deliberate. James’s hazel eyes were steady and assessing. There was nothing of the polished warmth from the receiving line in them. He extracted himself from the conversation and moved to cross the room.
He stopped first at the canapé table, which happened to be six feet from where Lex was standing, and when he arrived there he selected items from a tray and placed them onto a plate. He sidled up casually to Lex, and held one of the canapés out to him. “The salmon blinis are excellent.”
“Cheers,” Lex said, and took it, because when the King of the United Kingdom handed you a canapé, you ate the canapé. He put it in his mouth. It was identical to the one Barnaby had fed him ten minutes ago.
“I’m relieved you took that from me by hand,” James said. “I wasn’t prepared to have it eaten from my fingers.”
Lex’s chewing slowed. James’s expression gave him nothing. The line had been delivered with the same pleasant warmth as everything else he’d said before it, and yet it landed like a brick wrapped in velvet.
“They’re Bash’s favourites,” James said. He bit into his own, chewed, swallowed, and dabbed the corner of his mouth with a napkin.
Lex’s brain snagged on the name. “Bash?”
“Barnaby.” James picked up a second blini from his plate and examined it. “I’ve known him as Bash since we were thirteen.”
The room continued around them. Waiters circulated. Athletes laughed. A Cabinet minister was holding forth near the grand piano. None of it touched the space James had carved out for just the two of them.
