She shook her head again, this time more slowly as the tabloid headlines flashed through her memory in rapid succession. “And every time it hurt a little more. Not the infidelities so much as the betrayal of everything we’d worked for. We were supposed to be a picture-perfect couple, the standard-bearers of modern nobility, the perfect legal precedent people would trust and want to follow into a new era: self-sacrificing, service oriented, steady. Instead, my best friend became the worst of every generation before us.”

“That’s some Prince Charles and Camilla what’s-her-name level scandal there.”

She snorted. “Not quite, but close enough for people to whisper that we’re all the same. Enough for the local rumours to attract greater scrutiny. Enough for a major reporter to take Robert to a private room in a gentleman’s club one night.”

“Oh shit.” Sophia grimaced. “He wasn’t even classy about it. What did he say when he got caught?”

Vic didn’t even try to hide the tremor in her hand as she lifted the glass to her lips and drained it. Then meeting Sophia’s eyes once more, she said, “He told the whole world it wasn’t his fault because his wife was a lesbian.”

••••

“Fuck,” Sophia didn’t know what else to say. She’d done what she considered to be an admirable job of staying emotionally distant and sarcastic during much of the Poor-Little-Rich-Girl might lose castle portion of the story. As much as she was starting to appreciate Vic’s complexities, it was still hard to relate to her life circumstances, but the idea of a woman giving up a vast part of herself for some perceived greater good only to have a pecker-headed asshole rob her of everything she’d worked for and her right to self-determination just to save his own stripper-screwing self . . .  She hopped up and began to pace. “This is not okay.”

Vic watched her stalk around the room. “I didn’t condone his actions.”

“I’m not talking about him,” Sophia said quickly. “He’s irredeemable.”

“He had many good qualities. He was—”

“He was a worthless, spineless coward who rode your coattails and was prepared to become a duke on your back while betraying you and all your sacrifices. No amount of being good with kids or helping out around the house is enough to redeem someone like that.”

Vic tilted her head to the side as she seemed to ponder that for the first time.

“What I’m upset about now is this.” She gestured back and forth between the two of them. “You’re making me feel all outraged on your behalf, because cheating on people is wrong, sexist double standards are wrong, and outing people is so fucking wrong. I don’t want to feel sorry for someone like you who had every opportunity to make good on every advantage that people like me have never been afforded, but damn.”