The queen brought it home: “There is but one feasible recourse. This rancid crustacean must depart within minutes and never return. And the two of you will cease any and all future contact. In short, this relationship, if it can be dignified with that many syllables, must and shall end immediately.”

I’ll give her this: She’s good at it. She was playing 3D queer chess and winning.

“Nana . . .” Edgar ventured.

“Did I ask you to speak?”

“No. But I have a counterproposal. I agree with you, and much of the world, that Carter’s remarks at the children’s hospital were ill-advised. But he’d been asked to speak spontaneously, and after the event, donations to the hospital increased tenfold. I’m told that while some benefactors wished to uphold the hospital’s honor, others liked Carter, and I’ll quote an email which was accompanied by a gift of fifty thousand pounds, from a woman who said, ‘Carter Ogden is a breath of fresh air.’”

Edgar hadn’t told me about any of this. Had I done some good?

“And while I can’t condone Carter’s words, he’s guiding me in redefining, or at least adjusting, my role in this family. He’s helping me relate to our country more directly and with greater humour and emotion.”

“Excuse me, Edgar. Have you suffered a drunken fall from your horse and undergone subsequent surgery? Has much of your brain been removed?”

“Hear me out, Nana. All I’ve ever wanted is to make you, and my parents, and this country proud. But I’ve been floundering. I haven’t found my voice, so all of my preoccupations, and my dull little speeches, they’ve been disciplined but routine. I can see it in peoples’ eyes—they glaze over, thinking, ‘Ah, more royal prattle, listening is optional.’”

“They don’t need to listen! They’re calmed!”

“Which isn’t nearly enough. If all I am is careful and dutiful, I’m worthless. I’m not making an impact or building on your decades of fine work. I’m a shadow. So what I’m asking is this: Let me explore. Let me learn whatever I can from Carter.”

“Learn from this fetid slug? This clot of American phlegm? This associate event pothole?”

“Bitch,” I whispered, under my breath.

“What did you say?”

I mimed sewing my lips shut.

“Nana, let me prove to you that Carter isn’t just an ignorant, destructive, mewling infant.”

Slandering me was now the royal family’s favorite pastime. I was their Jenga.

“I have an idea, and I’ve made all the necessary arrangements. There’s a way to present Carter in a less pressured, more congenial format. A means of telling the world, ‘Here’s Carter, and he’s not so bad.’”

“Not so bad”? James caught my eye, silently signaling, Hush, Edgar’s on a roll.

“He’s a person, he’s fun, he’s a functioning adult.”