Page 20 of Don’t Look Down

The door flings wide and in saunters Beauford, very late and completely unbothered. He slinks into the seat next to his mother without even a hello or apology for his tardiness.

The air in the room grows fraught until finally the King clears his throat pointedly. Beauford flicks his eyes down the table at him. “Where were you?”

“Busy,” he mutters, then takes a sip of water.

“So busy that you forgot your manners, how to tell time”—the King’s voice raises with each word—“forgot all respect for our guests, decided to⁠—”

“Dear,” the Queen cuts in smoothly, her voice soft as butter, “let’s not do this right now. Beauford, apologize for being rude to our guests.”

He sulks in his chair, head down, fist tightly gripping his glass. But finally, under the reproachful stare of his mother, his Queen, he glances up at my parents and mutters, “I’m sorry for being late.”

He barely glances in my direction. A diversion, at the very least, from the overwhelming realization that fell upon me and the matchmaking attention from our parents.

If he notices that I’m not in my usual spot, he doesn’t comment. In fact, he barely comments on anything at all. Everyone at the table ignores him for the rest of the meal. No one directs a question his way, tries to engage him in conversation, nothing. It’s almost as if he never came at all.

I try to catch his eye, curious to see if he remembers me after all these years, but he never looks my way. And when dinner concludes, he’s the first one out of the dining room without barely a glance goodbye. He clearly has forgotten his manners, like the King stated.

The three of them escort us out. Lockwood inclines his head to me. “It was nice chatting with you this evening.”

My mother pauses next to me, and when I steal a look at her, she’s practically beaming. I know I did my unspoken job tonight.

I curtsy to him, feet steady even as a blush rises to my cheeks. “It was my pleasure.” My parents bid their goodbyes to the King and Queen as a member of the staff pulls our car into the circle drive.

When we get in the car, my father immediately launches into a rant about Beauford’s tardiness. “Can you believe that, Louise? I don’t know how they allowed that.”

“Did you see the look on Harold’s face? I thought his head might pop off his body. I don’t think they allowed anything.”

“That boy has been giving them hell the last few years. If he doesn’t watch it, he’s going to end up in the service.”

My mother cocks her head at that. “Are they considering that?”

“He’s not required to do any duty since he’s the spare, but Harold’s considering it. Last week, the headmaster rang them that Beauford got himself locked out of his dormitory, drunk off his ass, and was found sleeping on the stoop with a couple of his friends.” My father shakes his head in disgust. “Everything in the world is at his fingertips, and that’s what he’s choosing to do with it.”

“He is only sixteen,” my mother hedges. “It’s normal that he’s testing the boundaries.”

Is that true? That Beauford is already drinking? I mean, some of the older kids at school have talked about it before, stealing a bottle from their parents’ stash and bragging about it loud enough for everyone to hear, but I wouldn’t have thought Beauford would already be doing that. Especially since he’s a Prince.

“Lockwood has never given them trouble like that. Do you even know how much they’ve had to pay to squash photos and stories about his extracurriculars at school? Half of them still end up in the press anyway.”

Mother doesn’t let me read tabloids, but I’ve seen enough stories on the evening news to corroborate what my father is saying.

“He’s nothing but trouble for them,” he grumbles and looks out at the darkening sky.

Between this and the few memories I have of him creating shenanigans when we were younger, I guess my father is right. I grew out of that, but it seems like maybe he never has.

Eight

Present

It’s been a week since the art fair, and I can’t get my mind off Beau.

Not Lock.

Beau.

I’m a terrible, terrible person. Because this morning when I woke up and turned on the news while I ate breakfast, a story was running about Lock being among one of the first people to tour the latest ship in our navy’s fleet. He met with the men and women that have been working on it to thank them for their service, followed by joining them for dinner in their dining hall at the base, and a makeshift football match in the fields by the docks. Lock stood on the sidelines, clapping for either team when a goal was scored.

And the entire time, I couldn’t help but wonder why Beau didn’t get even half as much coverage from the art fundraiser. The papers ran a story two days after, front page with a full spread inside, but the morning and evening news only had a sixty-second segment on it.