Page 18 of American Royals

“Don’t mention that.”

“Careful, Daphne,” Ethan said meaningfully. “We wouldn’t want this to look like a lovers’ quarrel.”

He was right. The way their heads were tilted close together, the quick play and ripple of their conversation—it looked suspect. Daphne put some distance between them, her face glazing with a smile, though it came out as hard and brittle as the crystal flutes lined up on the bar.

“You can’t say those things,” she whispered.

“You mean, I can’t talk about us?”

“There is no us!” Daphne shook her head so violently that her earrings whipped around to smack the sides of her face. “What happened that night was an awful, terrible mistake.”

“Was it? Or is going after Jeff the mistake?”

“Don’t mention that night. Please,” Daphne entreated, scared into politeness. Normally she and Ethan didn’t bother with the niceties.

The prince could never, ever find out what she and Ethan had done. If he did, all her plans would crumble to dust.

“You seriously think you’ll get Jeff back, don’t you,” Ethan replied, with evident disbelief.

But Daphne knew that she could make it happen. She could make anything happen for herself.

“I know I will,” she told him.

NINA

“Nina! There you are!” Princess Samantha tugged her friend to one side of the ballroom, moving in the same impatient, long-legged way that she had since she was a child, no matter how hard the etiquette masters had tried to train it out of her.

“More like there you are. You’re the one who went completely MIA.” Nina shook her head in amusement. “Where were you during the knighthood ceremony?”

Sam’s hair was escaping its pins, her face glowing with a telltale flush. Despite her glittering gown and the diamonds flashing at her wrists and throat, she resembled nothing so much as a creature half-tamed, as if she might run wild at any moment.

Sam lowered her voice to a near whisper. “I was in the cloakroom with Teddy Eaton.”

“Who?”

The princess tipped her head toward a guy on the dance floor, blond and aristocratic-looking. Nina would have said that he didn’t seem like Samantha’s type, except that Sam had never really had a type. The only consistent thing about her flings was the shock value they elicited. “He’s cute,” she said noncommittally.

“I know.” Samantha couldn’t hide her smile. “Sorry I disappeared on you. How’s your night going? Are you miserable yet?”

Nina shrugged. “These things just aren’t my scene.”

She had already talked to everyone she actually liked at this party, which wasn’t that many people to begin with, except for her parents. Most of the guests seemed to look straight through Nina as if she were invisible. But that was just the way of things at court: until you were someone, you were no one at all.

“Well, thank you again for coming,” Sam said earnestly. “Next time I promise we can go to one of your college parties instead. I’m dying to meet all your new friends.”

Nina smiled at the thought of Samantha meeting Rachel. Her two closest friends, both with such headstrong personalities, both accustomed to getting their own way. They would either adore each other or despise each other.

Before Nina could answer, a man came to stand behind Samantha. Lord Robert Standish, who had taken over as chamberlain after Nina’s mamá left.

“Your Highness. His Majesty requests that you dance with the Grand Duke Pieter.” Robert kept his eyes on Samantha, ignoring Nina even though he knew perfectly well who she was.

Samantha cast Nina a glance of apology tinged with irritation. “Sorry, but it seems I’ve been summoned,” she said, and headed off in search of the Grand Duke—the Russian tsar’s younger son, who was currently in America as a guest of the court.

Nina stayed to the side of the ballroom, gazing at the dance floor with the dispassionate eye of an outsider. So many people had crowded onto it, all of them wearing their titles or wealth or connections ostentatiously on their sleeves. Seeing them walk around in that stiff Washington Palace sort of way, Nina gave a quiet sigh of resignation.

Nothing had changed. It was the same stale gossip, the same sparkling wine poured into the same crystal flutes, the same people bickering over the same small dramas. It even smelled the same, the scents of greed and government mixed with rose sachets and musty old furniture.

It reminded Nina of the soap operas that Julie used to love, where you could miss weeks at a time and then seamlessly pick the story back up. Because despite the whirl of action that seemed to affect the characters, nothing much had actually happened.