Richard had tasked Nick and Freddie and me with unveiling a new portrait of Eleanor—well, technically, an old portrait of a young Eleanor—that had been donated to the National Portrait Gallery by the dead artist’s family. Apropos to my warm welcome, the painting in question had once been considered scandalous: Eleanor, my age but already a mother of three, was seated with her back to the viewer, wearing a strapless gown partially unzipped and shooting what could only be called a come-hither gaze over her shoulder. She’d commissioned it for her husband, but it had hung in his dressing room for merely a month before his untimely death—at which point Eleanor shipped it back to the artist with a letter blessing him to do with it what he chose. He’d plonked it over his own dining room table until he died, and then when Eleanor had her stroke, his family decided it had a higher calling. I was thrilled, both to be part of its public debut and to have something to do that didn’t involve wallpaper samples.

“The prince feels your presence will draw a direct line between Eleanor and your position as the future queen,” Marj had said when she called.

“Interesting,” I said. “Considering he’s been openly hostile to the concept of me as queen ever since I’ve known him.”

Marj coughed lightly. “Far be it from me to question the prince’s reasoning,” she said. “But I suppose I did hear him discussing the event with Nicholas, and the duke used, shall we say, strong tones when they talked about whether or not you ought to be present.”

Bless my beautiful husband, who had now given up on his tie in favor of trying to kick off his tightly laced oxfords.

“I can’t believe you turned the tide in one afternoon,” I said. “You work fast.”

His second shoe flew across the foyer and hit a table. “You would know,” he purred. Then he paused. “Wait, I think I just insulted myself.”

“Think of it as sexual efficiency.” I dropped the robe. “It means we can fit in twice as much in the same amount of time.”

“Goodness,” he said, yanking anew at his tie. “If I’d known it meant this much to you, I’d have talked to Father ages ago, and why the bloody hell is this knot refusing to come undone?”

“Leave it on,” I said, slinking over and tearing open his dress shirt. “It’s not in the way.”