“You’ve got him, then?” she whispers, and I nod. “Good. Lady Lucy wanted to take him, but he gave her a sneezing fit, so I volunteered to come along and watch him. But I really don’t like dogs.”
“We’ve got him,” confirms Kit in a low rumble as the priest—preacher?—bishop?—climbs to the pulpit at the front.
The funeral is long but beautiful, with her mother giving a tear-filled eulogy and several of Rosie’s relatives and friends coming up to speak. Gia goes to the pulpit as well, regaling the audience with a few sweet stories from when the three of them were children, and later, as teens, that show how close they were. But it’s when Maisie stands, her hands shaking and her face so pale I think she might faint, that a heavy hush falls over the crowd.
“Rosie…” Maisie clears her throat, but it does little to dislodge the sorrow from her voice. “Rosie was my best friend. Will always be my best friend. Her presence was a shining star, the kind that brought light to all who knew her, and we were incredibly lucky to have her for as long as we did. We just didn’t know to cherish it at the time.”
From my lap, Snickers barks, and Maisie’s gaze snaps to me, her eyes welling with tears. “She deserved better,” she says, seemingly barely able to get enough air into her lungs to speak. “From me, from the world—from…from everything life threw at us. She brought so much happiness to everyone who knew her, and yet all she wanted was to be loved in return. How hard is that?” Her voice cracks, and she hastily wipes her cheek. “How hard is it to love someone who’s nothing but sunshine? It shouldn’t be. Yet so many of you took her for granted.Itook her for granted. I thought she would always be here, like the sunshine she was. But now it’s midnight, and it feels like the sun might never rise again.”
Snickers wiggles in my lap, and before I can stop him, he hopsonto the ground and scurries up the steps to the dais. Maisie bends down and scoops him up, and she buries her damp face in his fur, seemingly unaware—or not caring—that she’s crying in front of hundreds now.
“But—even on the darkest of days,” she continues, her words trembling, “we remember the sun’s warmth, and how it made us feel. We remember those happiest of times, and we look forward to the moment we meet again. And we will,” she adds brokenly. “Rosie is as much a part of me as everyone I’ve ever loved and ever will love, and I will carry her with me—we will all carry her with us as a little bit of sunshine to remind us that night will not always be so dark, and that the morning will come again, in this life or the next. That’s the gift Rosie gave us—to never fear what comes next. To live like the sun is shining on us, because she is, and she always will be.”
When she steps down, Gia envelops her in her arms once more, with Snickers sandwiched between them. Their embrace lingers until the priest—preacher—officiate returns, and only then does Gia take Maisie’s free hand and lead her back to thepew.
I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t help but glance at Thaddeus, who seems completely unperturbed by this public display of something more than friendship. After a split second, his gaze meets mine, and he offers me a lazy half smile.
“It’s cool,” he whispers, leaning in so only I can hear him. “I know she was never really into me. But we both got what we wanted, so no complaints.”
I frown. “What did you…?” I say so quietly that I practically mouth it.
Thaddeus’s smile grows. “No matter what happens, I’ll always get to say I dated the future Queen of England.”
Despite the grief that weighs heavily over the room, I almost—almostlaugh. I bite my cheek instead, and though Kit’s fingers are already laced in mine, he shifts closer and presses a kiss to my hair, letting me know he also heard.
A Spice Girls song plays as the coffin is carried out by the pallbearers, two of whom are Kit and Nicholas, and it seems like an absurdly fitting way for Rosie to say her final goodbyes. But all I focus on is the way Maisie and Gia are locked together, seemingly caring for Snickers, but the touches between them, the way they look at each other, the words they whisper—it gives me hope that maybe, despite everything they’ve both been through, they really will have each other now. And maybe my sister will finally find some peace.
—
Later that afternoon,once we’ve all returned to Windsor, a subdued Jenkins leads us to the conference room on one of the upper floors, where Alexander and Singh are waiting. Half a dozen files are placed neatly around the table, and Kit, Maisie, Gia, and I all take our seats, each in front of a red folder. No one touches theirs.
“The Director General of MI5 has granted me permission to share these with you today,” says Singh as I fiddle with Guy’s puzzle. “Withthe understanding that the contents of these files are classified, and nothing here leaves this room. Is that clear?”
Maisie, who is still holding Snickers in her lap, bristles at being spoken to like she wasn’t born with a silver spoon up herarse, but the rest of us—even my father, who sits at the head of the table—nod.
“I’ll be sure to ring Belinda and thank her,” he says as he picks up the first file and flicks through it. I tuck the puzzle into my pocket and do the same, laying the contents out on the table. They’re documents pertaining to Rosie’s death, including pictures of her townhouse, with police tape and evidence numbers everywhere. I quickly cover up the ones of her bloodstained bedroom carpet.
“What’s the point of these?” says Gia, also flinching away from the first file and digging into the next. I discard it as well, picking another from the bottom of the pile instead. This one includes an incident report from the shooting at Sandringham, as well as stills from security footage and, most intriguingly, a roundup of Ben’s whereabouts that day—and the twenty-four hours beforehand.
“Evangeline?” prompts Singh, and I clear my throat, setting the second file aside and opening a third. The Windsor fire.
“These are the incidents we think are connected to Ben, aren’t they?” I say, and Singh nods.
“Heavily redacted in some cases, and I’ve spared you details you don’t need to bother with. But yes,” he adds. “These are all separate incidents that we believe Prince Benedict may have had a hand in.”
Gia’s eyes widen. “Including—wait, including Rosie’s death?”
Maisie slips her hand into Gia’s as I explain what happened that night, and why Kit and I are both convinced Ben had something to do with it. “But we don’t have proof,” I say, gesturing tothe files. “That’s the problem with all of this. We have enough theories to put Ben away for about a hundred lifetimes, and enough tenuous connections to not look completely delusional,but—”
“But there is no solid evidence connecting him to any of these crimes,” says Singh. “And though Evangeline has been targeted several times by His Royal Highness, she does not know him well enough to guess the hows and whys of these crimes, including the connections he may have had to pull them off without dirtying his own hands.”
“And that’s why we’re here?” says Maisie, still scratching Snickers. “To pool our knowledge?”
“Yes,” I say, glancing sidelong at Kit. I expect him to look stricken, but while there’s a furrow in his brow, he looks every bit as determined as I feel. “We can’t trust anyone else. We know Ben is working with Dylan Baxter, and he was working with John Phillip Michaels—”
“The terrorist?” says Gia, her voice rising as she looks again to Maisie, who grimaces. “Wait, really?”
“Really,” she mutters. “And we know Ben’s responsible for setting the fire at Windsor, too. Or that he at least blackmailed Rosie and someone else into doing it for him.”
