Page 24 of Reign

Teddy fell to one knee by the bed, like a figure in a medieval court painting, and took her hands in his. “Bee—do you remember our wedding?”

“We gotmarried?” The words burst from her lips with a strangled cry. Teddy flinched at her tone.

“No. I mean, we were supposed to, but…it didn’t happen.”

She stared at him, disbelief and fear warring in her chest.

“Do you remember Walthorpe?” he asked softly. Beatrice shook her head. Something gleamed in Teddy’s eyes; he quickly blinked it away.

This was all too much, too fast. She stared out the window, at the sunlight dancing over the familiar roofs of her city, feeling more alone than she could remember.

“I want Mom and Dad,” she confessed, her voice small.

Teddy sucked in a breath. Sam made a sound in the backof her throat, a sort of low animal cry. Beatrice watched them, a sick, ominous feeling twisting in her gut.

Somehow, she sensed her sister’s next words before Sam spoke them.

“Bee,” her sister breathed, “Dad is…He…”

Teddy took over. “We lost your father. I’m so sorry, Bee.” He squeezed her hands, and Beatrice was too stunned to even register the contact.

This couldn’t be real. She would wake up and find herself in bed with Connor once more, and this whole exchange would turn into the silvery cobwebs of forgotten nightmares.

Except she knew deep down that itwasreal. Dreams were never this cruel and cold and unforgiving. Dreams made sense, while real life, as Beatrice knew too well, could be brutally senseless.

“How long have I been unconscious?” Her voice sounded faraway and distorted to her own ears, as if she’d stuck her head in a fishbowl.

“A month,” Teddy said heavily. “But it would seem that you’ve forgotten much more.”

Beatrice wanted to scream and cry and beat her chest. She wanted to wail like a small child who’d skinned her knee on the playground. She wanted to punch something, or someone.

Yet she did none of those things, because she was Beatrice, and she had always held her emotions on a very tight leash.

“What happened?”

“Dad had cancer,” Sam said, understanding the question. Beatrice nodded and closed her eyes.

“I’ll give you two a moment.” Teddy looked at her with anguish in his eyes, but Beatrice couldn’t bring herself to care. She didn’t even say anything when Sam came forward to wrap her arms around her and pull her close.

“I’m sorry, Bee. I hate that you have to lose him all over again,” she murmured.

Beatrice leaned back, extricating herself from Sam’s grip. She already knew the answer to this question, yet she had to ask it anyway.

“If Dad is gone, that means I’m…”

“You’re the queen now,” Sam finished for her. “And a damn good one, by the way.”

Beatrice focused on breathing, in and out, in and out. The enormity of her grief, and shock, was being held at bay by a flimsy barricade of self-control. She couldn’t let herself consider the unbearable depth of her loss, not until she had the space to grieve properly—or at least to grieve alone.

Her father was gone. Beatrice had always known this day would come, but she’d assumed it was something she would face in the distant future, when she was an adult with decades of experience. She certainly didn’t feel like much of an adult right now. She was as lost and achingly confused as she’d been as a little girl, when she woke up in an unfamiliar bedroom—which happened all the time when her family was on a royal tour—and lay awake, listening for the familiar rumble of her parents’ voices as they returned from whatever event they’d been to that evening.

But there was no one to reassure her now, unless you counted Samantha, and Beatrice knew better than to rely upon her sister. Sam might mean well in the moment, but she never followed through on her promises. She was too erratic, always chasing her latest impulse or infatuation.

“Where’s Connor?” she asked, and Sam shot her that look again.

“He’s not a Revere Guard anymore. You let him go.”

“I wouldn’t have done that,” Beatrice insisted.