“Suppose I ask Katharine if you and I met while she was at Purcell. She’ll say no,” Margaret said.

  “That’s right.”

  Margaret sighed. “Because we didn’t.” The reason conspiring with Tessa made no sense was because it never happened, no matter how much Margaret’s memory tried to tell her otherwise. It was trying to protect her from an even greater horror, and it was willing to implicate herself and her own wife to protect her mother.

  No more.

  “We didn’t,” Tessa agreed. “We met for the first time at Katharine’s wedding reception. Your mother introduced us.”

  “What was I like then?”

  “You were in a wheelchair. You were kind. You asked questions. You were curious.”

  “Did I speak haltingly?”

  “Yes.”

  Another memory, Margaret making the snippet of video for her parents to announce that she had made a remarkable recovery at age eighteen. She’d spoken slowly and said, “Hi, everyone. Thank you for your prayers.” She’d practiced these two simple lines for the entire morning so she could say them without awkward pauses.

  Margaret had to move. If she stayed still one second more and allowed further reign to the frenzied hamsters and disjointed puzzles in her brain, she would suffer a breakdown. “Let’s go out and do something crazy like we did in Newark,” Margaret said. “Right now.”

  “Do you believe me?”

  “I think so,” Margaret said. “It’s unlikely I could have talked like I did in that memory. I would’ve been gasping for breath every few words if I yelled.”

  “That’s right,” Tessa said. “Um…you really want to go somewhere?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Okay,” Tessa said. “Let’s go.”

  **

  Five minutes later, Margaret walked with Tessa down the side corridor where a town car awaited. “I’m driving,” Tessa said to one of the Royal Protection Command officials. “No security tonight.”

  “We don’t recommend—”

  “I figured. You’ll deal.”

  Both Tessa and Margaret had to sign waivers acknowledging that they understood they wouldn’t be guarded.

  Finally, they climbed alone in the town car. Tessa took off, pressing her foot to the gas and maneuvering expertly and swiftly onto the road.

  “Was it hard for you to learn to drive on the opposite side?” Margaret asked.

  “Heh. Yeah, it was tricky but fun. I don’t get enough opportunities to drive, so this will be good.”

  “Did I ever learn to drive?”

  “A little bit,” Tessa said. “Once, you drove us across town.”

  “I bet that was nice,” Margaret said wistfully. She sighed and asked, “Where are we going?”

  “I don’t know. Somewhere away.”

  Some time later, Tessa moved her gaze to the rearview mirror. “I think I lost the car.” The Royal Protection Command had sent a car after them anyway, and Tessa had been using her admittedly rusty police skills to evade it.

  “Ha!” Margaret crowed. “I said you could do it, and you did!”

  Tessa had to smile at Margaret’s enthusiasm. “I’m too rusty. It’s more likely they finally got the message and decided to leave us alone. Either way, they’re gone.”

  Tessa and Margaret were still somewhere around London but getting farther away as buildings and stores stretched apart.

  “The car has GPS tracking,” Tessa added. “They know where we are, but we have breathing room now.”

  “It’s nice to be out and free.”

  “Yes,” Tessa agreed. “It is.”

  “You don’t feel free with me. I shackle you.”

  “Shh,” Tessa said. “I don’t want to get into stuff right now.”

  “I love you,” Margaret said.

  “I love you too, baby.” Tessa pulled into a deserted car park for a motel that had seen better days and that may have been completely shuttered. She got out and rounded the car. Opened Margaret’s door and pulled her out.

  Tessa’s mouth soft, yet demanding on Margaret’s. Their hips came together, and they kept kissing slowly, luxuriously, taking their time.

  Tessa led Margaret to a copse of trees secluded a nice distance from the road.

  “Have we done it outside?” Margaret asked.

  “No,” Tessa said with a smile. She pulled Margaret’s shirt off and then her own.

  “You feel good,” Margaret said as Tessa lowered herself on top of Margaret.

  “So do you. God, I missed you.”

  “I missed you too.”

  They got so wrapped up in each other, touching, kissing, nibbling, teasing, that they didn’t hear or see another car arriving. Their first warning was the flashlight shining in their faces.

  “Well,” the police officer drawled. “What have we here?” And he was most definitely a police officer and not part of the royal protection command. He wore a black uniform and a U.S.-style black baseball cap spelling out, “Police.” Another officer, a woman, came up behind him.

  “The plates are registered to Kensington Palace,” she said. “Looks like we got a coupla joyriders on our hands.”

  Margaret, who was on top, finally realized it might be a good idea to cover her breasts.

  “Look,” Tessa said, scrambling from below Margaret and hurriedly pulling her shirt on and helping Margaret do the same. “We are the Duchess and Countess of Wessex. We’re having a bit of fun. Let’s forget this happened.”

  The male officer smirked. “And we’re the king and queen.”

  “Sir,” Margaret said. “No…really, we are. Our phones are in the car. Let us make a few calls and prove it.”

  “Ha!”

  “My sister is the queen.”

  He rolled his eyes at his partner. “Your Majesty, is this lady here your sister?”

  “Nope!” she said.

  “How do you not recognize us?” Tessa cried indignantly.

  Margaret knew how. The darkness, they wore T-shirts, their hair must be mussed…who knew what. The public saw them as women who wore impeccable suits and fine makeup. They didn’t have ID with them, and Margaret’s walking stick was in the car.

  Margaret had to try. She flashed the police officers her ring, an emerald that matched Tessa’s ring. She said, “Joyriders don’t wear rings like this. Let us get our phones and save you both a great deal of embarrassment.”

  The female officer frowned. “You know, that is a nice-looking ring.” She squinted at Margaret and then at Tessa. “I’ll bring the phones.”

  A moment later, she returned with the phones.

  “There’s a walking stick in the car,” she told her partner. Her face had taken on a slightly terrified quality. She knew she’d messed up. “It says HRH Princess Margaret.”

  “Hmm,” he said, not buying it yet. “Let’s see the phones.”

  He jabbed at one. “Hmm,” he repeated. “Check out this lock screen.” If it was Margaret’s phone, it was a shot of her and Tessa locking lips outside the chapel for their first kiss as a married couple.

  “Same on this phone,” the female officer said. She glanced between Margaret and Tessa. “I watched the wedding. Lovely wedding. You two make a splendid-looking couple.”

  Margaret had to laugh, and she met Tessa’s eyes. What she saw there caused her insides to melt. She loved this woman deeply, and this woman loved her right back.

  The male officer inhaled a nervous breath. “I do think we’ve blundered. I beg your pardon, ma’ams.”

  “You’re doing your job,” Tessa said kindly. “I used to be a police officer too. I understand what you have to do.”

  “You, ah, do you miss it, ma’am?”

  “Once in a while, but I love being Countess of Wessex. I took to it like a fish takes to water.”

  The officer cleared his throat. “I suppose it gets, ah, stifling up there at the palace, but being out here alone is unsafe.”

  “Understood. We’ll head back,” Tessa said.

  “We appreciate your discretion,” Margaret added.

  “Yes. Of course.”

  The police officers left in their car.

  “You like being Countess of Wessex, huh?” Margaret asked.

  Tessa’s face shone. “I do. I was burned out as a detective. Budgets kept getting slashed, we had short leashes, people kept getting away with everything. I’ve had a much greater sense of purpose these past few years. The way people look at me, at us, I like bringing them hope. When I was a detective, I meant bad news.”

  “I’m glad you like what you do. Are we really going back home?” Margaret asked.

  Tessa grinned. “Nah. Night’s still young. Let’s have another adventure.”

  A thrill brushed Margaret’s spine. The night could shape up to be even better than that night they shared a few years ago in Newark.

  “A hug for the road,” Margaret said. She entwined her fingers with her wife’s. They leaned against the car, and Margaret rested her head against Tessa’s.

  They needed to plan better in case another spiral happened. They made vows to stay married and to take care of each other, and for Margaret, that meant believing her wife when Tessa said she and Margaret did not kill Henry. For Tessa, it meant accepting a future that could be uncertain, a future dependent on the workings of Margaret’s brain, a scarred, wondrous, unpredictable creature.

  “Tell me the whole truth if I lose my memory again,” Margaret said. “About Dad’s death and who did it. I think that’ll resolve issues quickly and get us right on track again. I can handle the news that he was killed.”

  “I will,” Tessa whispered.

  “Do you really love me?”

  “I do,” Tessa said, stroking Margaret’s hair. “We’re in this crazy world together, Margaret. You, me and Henry.”

  A minute later, they got in the car. Tessa started the engine and pulled out of the car park. Margaret smiled and closed her eyes, leaning her head back. She traveled through time to an evening many years ago when the king and queen went out after dinner to ride their horses. It was a nice evening, cool and crisp in April, maybe gray, but the gray that makes you appreciate the approaching summer even more.

  The king rode up ahead of the queen, and she eventually lost sight of him. He rode alone, enjoying the peace, the quiet, and when a bird shrilled nearby almost as if it shrieked in his ear, his horse reared up. But she landed safely, and so did he. He turned and waited for his wife to catch up. The two of them, they had some mending of their own to do.

  Margaret opened her eyes and squeezed Tessa’s hand.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Alicia

  Do you remember the first time you had sex? Many people don’t. Their first time was so dull, fumbling, painful or alcohol-infused that when they look back, a gaping hole meets them. I remember who, they think. I remember where. I even remember the general time of day. But the act itself? There’s just…nothing.

  It was like that my first time with a man, but I recall everything about my first time with a woman. A teenage girl, rather. Not that I allow myself to wade into the details anymore. I keep my remembrances superficial—hands on breasts that could belong to anyone, hot, wet mouths, pants unbuttoning, the taste of naughty bits. No sense taking these memories any deeper than they need to be.

  Superficial as the memories are, that near-hour with Katharine played repeatedly in my mind in the years that followed our encounter. Guilt and shame burned inside me, but I had a good reason for doing what I did. I truly wanted to help Katharine, and the girl’s future held nothing but repression and unhappiness. If I could provide this one bright spot in Katharine’s life, then it was the least I could do.

  But I hadn’t known that Amalia Van den Berg would turn my life upside down.

  **

  Some people embrace alcohol or suicide as a way out. Not me. Instead, I passed these first few days after her visit being perfectly ordinary. It was as if Amalia never visited and never threatened to ruin my life. Even my insides stayed steady and confident.

  “April thirteenth,” Amalia had said. “That’s when I make the first request. If he refuses to ride with me, then I try again when I can. Keep the men on call.”

  I kept telling myself that Amalia hadn’t been serious. Amalia was testing me and would turn around a few weeks from now to break out in laughter. “Pysch!” she’d say like one of my child patients who liked to hide rubber spiders.

  The nausea came at the beginning of March. Once I started throwing up, I couldn’t stop. On and on I went. I lost seven pounds that week, and clumps of my hair fell out.

  Dierks, my husband, hardly noticed. “You should see the doctor,” he said vaguely one evening.

  Instead, I booked a flight to Portland, Maine, and drove the hour or so to Purcell College. I ignored the calls and texts from Dierks asking where I was. I checked into the Purcell Inn near campus.

  My plan: To find Katharine and tell her everything. She’d talk sense into her mother. Amalia wouldn’t proceed with the scheme if Katharine knew about it.

  I stayed one week, going to O’Henley’s bar every evening. It was where the crown princess was rumoured to hang out frequently. Better to approach her there than to knock on her dorm room door.

  During the daytime, I braved the cold March weather to hike the trails around Purcell. I ambled on the Purcell campus as well, not against a chance meeting with Katharine.

  In the end, she came into the bar with Treadie. I’d been there for an hour already, concealing myself in a dark corner. I watched them, this young blond woman with deep dimples and this strapping dark-haired man as they laughed and sent balls careening everywhere.

  If Katharine missed Veronica Dudley, she did a good job of covering it up.

  Does she think about me, I wondered.

  I kept the drinks coming until my courage outweighed my fear. Even then, I needed a restroom visit to clear my bladder and to splash water on my face.

  I must have nodded off on the toilet, for my next memory is of waking up on the porcelain throne. I emerged from the stall to see a fit red-headed woman kissing another woman.

  “Tessa,” the second woman said. “Tessssa.”

  The woman called Tessa giggled. “Joyce. Joyce. Joyce.” More kissing. They seemed as drunk as I, or maybe they were high on each other, on life.

  “Pardon,” I said. “I want to wash my hands.” The bathroom was small with three stalls and one sink.

  Tessa and Joyce moved to one side and engaged in more kissing. I lathered my hands up and ran water over them. Dried my hands with a paper towel. When I finished, the woman called Tessa was standing, smiling at me.

  “Where did Joyce go?” I asked. Anything to put off the talk with Katharine by a few seconds, a few minutes.

  Tessa jerked her head toward one of the stalls.

  “You two seem happy,” I commented.

  “We are.”

  “Good. That’s important.”

  “You’re not happy?” Tessa asked.

  “No.”

  “Are you British?”

  “Yes.”

  “What brings you here all the way from the other side of the pond?” Tessa wondered.

  “Hiking,” I lied. “Wine.”

  She made some suggestions for other things I could do, and we talked for a while.

  “Tessa!” Joyce shrilled from the stall as we were discussing the peak at Purcell Mountain. “I need a new tampon. I keep messing up trying to get this one in!”

  Tessa grimaced. “Excuse me.”

  It’s now or never, I told myself and left the bathroom. But Katharine was gone. Maybe she’d left a good few minutes ago, or maybe she departed in the precious moments I spent idly chatting with Tessa.

  My heart crashed to my stomach. No, no!

  I ran out of the bar and glanced up and down the street. No sign of Katharine or Treadie, and the world went wavy due to all the alcohol I drank. I crumpled to the sidewalk, my breaths coming in gasps, the sobs starting. Why had I fallen asleep on the toilet? I’d sabotaged myself.

  Tessa and Joyce found me there a minute later. They delivered me to my room at the hotel and volunteered to stay.

  “I’m fine,” I mumbled. They stayed anyway.

  **

  I was a wreck and collapsed into Dierks’s arms when I got home. I’d spent the flight back imagining my next conversation with Amalia and the many ways it could go.

  I told Dierks everything, about having sex with this specific fourteen-year-old girl, about being taped, about what her mother wanted of me.

  My husband maintained the distance that had sprung up between us for the past few years. He’d been sleeping with other women. I knew it and tried not to care.

  “Wow, Alicia,” he said at last. “You decided to stray, and you decided to do it big. Not only a fourteen-year-old girl, but the heir to the throne!”

  I had to check his reaction twice, for he appeared…amused? Chagrined, yes, but a degree of amused.

  He patted my leg and stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Amalia has her reasons. No doubt you’ve heard things about Henry.”

  I had, somewhat. He may or may not have had a tendency to get touchy with young women.

  “I have a friend,” he said. “Used to, rather. Ellie.” Dierks steeled his jaw. “Henry did something to Ellie.”

  “The rumours are true?”

  A dark look came into my husband’s eyes. “Oh yes. Poor Ellie. Poor these other women. Give me the papers from Amalia. The maps and the…everything you’ve got. I’ll take care of it. You tell her everything’s on track.”

  “No! Dierks, oh my God, no.”

  “Now, Alicia,” he said soothingly. “It’s on me now. All on me. Don’t you worry one bit, love. Your Dierks will take care of it. You didn’t tell anyone, did you?”