“We’re back,” Nick said.

His voice echoed in the palace halls. We were not in Wigtown anymore.

Nick’s room was neat but for one corner in which the clothes and effects from my Chelsea flat had been packed and stacked, waiting for me. How sobering to see my entire pre-wedding life boiled down to a couple of crates of picture frames and jeans, and one pathetically small box marked KITCHEN. Everything felt wrong—a tad too immaculate, a tad too organized, a tad too perfect. Any posters or photos Nick had put up over the years had been discreetly tucked away. His quarters showed our abandonment, and now felt like a guest room, cold and strange. I took a running jump and flopped onto the familiar king-size bed, which greeted me with its usual groan of old age. At least one thing remained the same.

Nick must have read my mind. “I guess they had the cleaners in,” he said. “It’s like I was never even here. Where’s my signed Ginger Spice postcard?”

“Maybe the ghost got bored and decided to redecorate.”

Nick lay down next to me and buried his face in my neck. “Maybe the ghost can give me a haircut,” he mumbled.

“Or a club sandwich,” I lamented. “Today is probably my last hurrah before your grandmother puts me back on a diet.”

Nick rubbed my hip. “Feels just right to me,” he said. “But Night Nick and Night Bex cannot win. Our dignified daytime selves have to be at the Conclave in…” He checked his watch and groaned. “Six hours.”

“I’m sorry, Nick,” I said. “We wouldn’t be in this situation if it weren’t for me.”

Nick opened his mouth and I placed my hand over it. “No,” I said. “Admit it. We’d be coming back from the Seychelles all tan and fancy-free and with seven new recipes for cocktails you can drink out of a hollowed pineapple, but I fucked up, and ow!”

He had nipped at my hand, which I yanked away, freeing his mouth. “I will admit nothing,” he said. “Besides, we need sleep. We don’t need to do this now.”

“At least let me say that I love you,” I said. “Even though your grandmother hates my guts, and might disown us both and we’ll end up sleeping in the park.”

He kissed me firmly. “Thank you, and I love you, too.”

“Even if we’re sleeping in the park?”

“Especially then,” he said. “I’ll need your body heat, for starters. You’re a furnace.”

He snuggled up closer, and the edges of the world blurred. But as we slipped toward a contented, united sleep, I knew that we hadn’t even begun to unravel the knot that Freddie kissing me—and the world finding out—had created.

* * *

‘WHERE’S THE HEIR?’

Steady Freddie Steps Up as Nick Is a No-Show, Says XANDRA DEANE

Since the airing of his dirty laundry stained the monarchy, Prince Freddie has been hard at work doing his washing up. But have his wayward brother and erstwhile lover done the same?