“Your Highness?” said James, who was standing a few yards off along with the security team, as if they were five powerfully built bridesmaids in matching dark suits, white shirts and narrow black neckties. They’d found us so quickly, and it occurred to me that Edgar was probably equipped with a chip or wire that enabled a royal tracking device. This was a dismaying possibility but with a definite logic; our kiss had most likely already been noted, logged and reviewed. I hadn’t just been kissing a person but, as Edgar had mentioned earlier, “a symbol and an institution.” This would take some getting used to. I felt like I’d been caught shoplifting at Cartier or Bergdorf’s by store detectives.

“I need to see you again,” said Edgar. “I’ve got an embassy reception tonight—it will most likely be endless and dreary, but would you like to attend? I’m sorry, I don’t think I’ve made that sound especially appealing.”

“I would love to go, but I’ve got a rehearsal dinner for my sister’s wedding.”

“Which will undoubtedly be joyous. I’m leaving the States on Sunday. Will tomorrow be at all possible?”

“Shit shit shit. No, I mean, not shit, it’s going to be really great, but that’s the wedding, in Piscataway.”

“Might I come? As your date?”

CHAPTER 10

Okay. Okay. The crown prince of England had just asked if he could be my plus-one at Temple Beth Israel in Piscataway, New Jersey, for Abby’s wedding. This shit was getting real.

“Okay,” I said, “but before I say yes, I need you to know what you’ll be getting yourself into.”

“I’m certain it will be delightful.”

“Have you ever been to Piscataway?”

“Is that a real place?”

“It’s a suburb, and it’s very nice, it’s fine, but I need to warn you: if my sister sees you, she’s going to explode. And I don’t mean, oh, she’ll be impressed, or she’ll fangirl all over you, or she’ll get pissed that you’re upstaging her big day. I love her and I know her, and I know how she feels about celebrities, let alone royalty. Have you ever seen footage of like, the birth of the cosmos or an avalanche swallowing an entire Swiss village or a van filled with crash test dummies hitting a brick wall at a hundred and fifty miles an hour?”

“And those things are like your sister?”

“Those things are jealous of my sister.”

The next morning we took a huge, shiny, black SUV along the Jersey Turnpike, with Edgar and I in the back seat and James up front beside the driver. “And now we’re passing a metropolis called Secaucus,” said James, noting an exit ramp.