She kissed me three times, twice on the right cheek. She was resplendent this evening in a royal-blue strapless gown with a beaded bodice and a simple cape; this was not a tiara event, but some truly bananas diamonds hanging from her earlobes had a pretty similar effect. One of them bonked me on the cheekbone when she came in for the second kiss.

“It’s wonderful to see you, Your Majesty,” I said, trying to rub at it subtly. The last thing I needed was to be at Freddie’s wedding with a shiner.

“And Prince Richard looks wonderfully well,” she said, clasping my hands. “I did fret. It seems every time we are to cross paths, illness mars the day. But he is tall and strong. A statue!”

Lax gestured absently toward the carvings over our heads in the Royal Palace’s Citizens’ Hall, a vast, high-ceilinged space bedecked with sculptures looking down upon us—of the Amsterdam Maiden, of the planets and the elements, of Atlas. Daphne’s family was based in The Hague but used the impressive Amsterdam palace for official functions, its two-story sandstone façade somewhat evoking Buckingham Palace, but crowned with a cupola and a ship-shaped weathervane. Richard had kept us guessing about his whereabouts right up until the minute his car arrived outside. I glanced up at Atlas, the world on his back, and thought how apt it was that we were all here circulating underneath the very symbol of how it felt to carry something bigger and heavier than you are.

In my case, it was doubly true. I’d been cleared to travel by private jet for the wedding, though at thirty-three weeks pregnant with twins, this had come on the condition that we bring two doctors and keep Lax’s obstetrician on call—in addition to the fact that Cilla would be lurking on the fringes of the wedding, ostensibly helping Freddie, but also watchdogging me. My swollen feet and ankles were ably concealed by an emerald lace gown that matched my engagement ring; my discomfort, I’d been told, was about on par with a woman nine months pregnant with one fetus, and I sent up a prayer of thanks that the afternoon’s public pre-wedding variety show had always only been planned for Freddie, as a way for his new country to welcome him into its arms. I only had so much stamina, and the stress of wondering whether Richard would show his face had drained me of a fair bit before the rehearsal dinner had even begun.

“Poor thing,” Lady Elizabeth had said to me as we walked into the hall for cocktails. “I remember when I was about that pregnant with my first. I felt like my undercarriage was going to explode. Which of course it did, in a way, but—”

“Father,” Nick had blurted out.