Nick took a brief sabbatical from Oxford, which Clive confirmed was to hunker down at Clarence House and strategize how to handle the crisis. (Freddie coped by bravely visiting Monte Carlo. This is typical Freddie. He throws parties where a simple tantrum would’ve been sufficient.) I felt terrible for him. Everybody did. Clive made all the academic arrangements Nick needed to stay on track. Joss made him a tie out of motorbike gears, which Nick still doesn’t know because it sliced into Gaz’s thumb when he tested it out, so she scrapped it. Cilla dusted Nick’s room and put flowers in a vase on the desk, then replaced them every time they died before he came home to tend them. And I stockpiled Devour episodes for when Nick needed them—and me.
One morning at the beginning of November, when Nick had been absent for a little more than a week, Cilla, Joss, and I studied the latest papers from a bench at the Oxford bus station. Lacey was coming to visit for our birthday, and she was due to arrive from Heathrow any minute.
Joss let out a low whistle. “This says Emma and Rupert were together during that Ashmolean party she skipped,” she said.
“Oh, please,” Cilla said, grabbing the paper from Joss and examining a shot of Rupert coming out of a Tesco, looking jolly. “As the saying goes, ‘Any Yorkshirewoman worth her birthright can smell a lie,’ and I can tell you that tosser reeks something awful.”
“That is not a saying. Nobody says that.”
“What is the deal with Emma?” I jumped in.
“Nick never talks about it and we never ask,” Cilla said, flipping to the horoscopes. “She backed away from the public eye not too long after Freddie was born and hasn’t been to an event in ages. The official line is that she decided she preferred a private life of philanthropy and reflection, or something.”
“Bollocks,” said Joss.
“Maybe she’s agoraphobic,” I said. “Like the Japanese crown princess.” It was a theory Lacey had advanced on the phone.
“No, I mean, Bollocks,” Joss said, gesturing toward the entrance.
Sure enough, stomping toward us was Bea, in gorgeous brown leather boots and a wool pencil skirt, her olive peacoat pulled tightly around a thick scarf.
“You lot should be ashamed, reading that trash in public,” she said, snatching our papers.
“Oh, blow it out your arse, Bea,” Cilla said. “What are you doing here, anyway? Stalking us? Are you going to report back to the Crown that we’ve been caught reading?”
“I’m looking at a horse at a stable near Swindon. My dressage mount is getting altogether too horny to focus.” She shook her head. “Don’t change the subject.”
“Aren’t we being respectful to Nick by boning up on what not to talk about?” Joss suggested. “See, this one claims that he’s going ring shopping for India Bolingbroke, another one says Davinia Cathcart-Hanson wants him back, and then The Sun thinks he’s gone to Africa to beg Gemma Sands for another shot.”
“Bollocks,” sniffed Lady Bollocks in a wonderful moment of synergy that almost made me laugh right in her face. “India is so stupid it’s a wonder she can still breathe. He’ll never marry any of them.”
“You sound awfully sure of yourself,” Cilla said.
“I know things,” Bea said loftily. “Besides, who wants to be tied down in university or right after it? Use your brains, ladies.” She poked at the papers. “And be more careful. You know how he feels about gossip.” She narrowed her eyes at me specifically. “Not everyone is so American about letting it all hang out all over the place.”
And with that, she marched right on past us and boarded a waiting bus.
“Do you think she’s really going to Swindon, or she just needed to make an exit?” Joss wondered.
“I think that bus actually goes to Newcastle, so good luck to her either way,” Cilla said.
“She does not like me,” I said.
“Pay her no mind,” Cilla said, waving her hand dismissively. “She’s twitchy when it comes to him. Her mother is Emma’s best friend, so she’s seen a lot of his life firsthand.”
“It probably doesn’t help that you’re juggling Nick and Clive,” Joss added.
“I’m not juggling anyone,” I protested. “Nick and I just hang out sometimes, which I think is specifically because he knows I’m not trying to date him. He’s like…a brother.”
Both girls chortled.
“Anyway, he’s with India!” I protested. “Or whoever. One of these girls.”
“I think he’s mad for Gemma,” Joss said, unwrapping her scarf as if the gossip warmed her up. “Apparently, he proposed to her on her family’s reservation when he was really young, and that’s where he spent his gap year.”
“See? India, Davinia, Gemma, maybe even Bea for all we know,” I counted off the prospects on my gloved hand.
Cilla shot me a knowing look. “I hear you two laughing in your room until the wee hours. You think we don’t notice, but we do.”
“Nick is taken,” I said. “And I don’t want to be.”
Cilla raised a russet brow. “Don’t you?” she said. “You’re with Nick most days, and when you do open your bedroom door, Clive is waiting. Sounds taken to me.”
“Whatever you do, definitely don’t keep seeing Clive.” Joss yawned. “He’s such a slave to the Palace.”