July 7, 2017
She'll blame it on the stress later, later when the day is ending and she's staring at a strange ceiling with nothing but her exhaustion and questions. By then the pictures from the banquet will be online and the stories will be writing themselves, but Jaclyn will be solely focused on her husband with nothing else to worry about.
But right now there's still something she can do, variables that will affect how the trip will go. Kate and her spent weeks planning outfits, pulling out several items from her retired wardrobe that were mostly thrifted in Paris in her twenties. Other parts of her outfits were put together based on local trends in the country, to try and push the narrative that a part of her is still French in some way.
In England she wouldn't dare wear a suit to meet a high ranking politician let alone allow her hair to be so free, but in France it'll be expected.
Still, none of it could matter.
Jaclyn's so busy chewing her lip, and inspecting the seams of her suit jacket she doesn't notice William falling more and more into himself beside her.
Not until Mia speaks up.
"Daddy are you okay?" Mia looks up at him with curious eyes, something William barely registers as he dazes at the pastures and towns that smear across the train's window. Jaclyn snaps at the question immediately on high alert, but finds him to be dancing between this world and the next.
Nothing outside registers as nothing around him does, and after a moment PJ picks up on the silence too, holding up his drawing to make them smile. William doesn't move.
In the distance Paris sits like a slab, and Jaclyn can just squint and make out the barest parts of the city. For a second she thinks that's where he's looking, lost in a vacuum, but his eyes through the watery reflection in the window are focused more upwards.
He's not trying to ignore them, but she can't figure out how to explain that to the kids when the words sting like acid on her tongue.
"Will," she whispers, slowly coasting her hand over his, waiting for him to return the hold. She doesn't rush him, simply watches his reflection blend with trees and houses while he closes his eyes and breathes in. Finally he squeezes her hand.
"That's a lovely picture, PJ." His smile when he faces the kids sitting across from them is excited and eager, but he's distant and reeling, hiding nervous hands under the table. When he turns to Mia he pauses, it's only a millisecond but Jaclyn sees it. The flash of awareness in his eyes.
"And yes, Mia, I'm okay." She nods, but tilts her head, eyes dancing to the corners while she looks him over with innocently fluttering eyelashes. It's a look that chills their bones.
Jaclyn stands, giving each of her kids a pointed look and hoping her abrupt movement isn't startling. "I need to speak to your father, but we're watching you." She pulls William up with sheer strength, but it's not like they have many places to go. The front of the cart is occupied by the staff and the back by the kids, so she settles for somewhere in the middle, and leans against one of the empty chairs.
"Twenty years."
It's all he says, but it's all she needs. Twenty years ago tragedy struck the world late at night in a lone tunnel. William tries to explain himself more, and his words fumble and fall but she picks them up with gentle hands. "I haven't been back… not to Paris at least, and I know you love the city, and you want the kids to love the city, and I don't want to dampen that but…"
A pause that lingers a moment too long circles them, but Jaclyn is willing to let it go on. At least, while she tries to formulate a sentence to calm him.
This is the city that gave her rebirth. They taught her to not care, to stand tall in the face of anything. When she was alone and sick with sadness they taught her she could be cold and resentful when needed to survive. Paris was her peace but it was Diana's destruction.
Where she was given reprieve her mother in law was hunted. This is the city that trapped her, its people were the ones that took her, and with her death in a poor attempt to cleanse their souls they turned an old monument into a memorial.
"It's hard," she finally exhales, "But you never said."
He shrugs one shoulder, "I didn't think it would bother me, but now… we're here."
Her hands rub unchecked through her mussed hair. It's the first time in a long time she's worn in naturally, but she's not used to the loose tangles anymore, and pulls nervously at them.
"Everyone's going to say it too. All the papers and articles, they'll go on and on about how this is my first trip back since her death. They'll expect us to take the kids to The Flame, as if I'm a bad son if I don't. Like I don't remember her everyday, or think about her, or see her…"
He finds the back corner where both of the kids are now giggling and coloring. Occasionally Mia will sit up and stretch to see outside before promptly returning to whatever it is she's working on, and there's finding in that hard stare she has. "See her in Amelia?" She asks without taking her eyes away.
"Both of them." Together they observe the kids, waiting to see the outcome over the last blue crayon when PJ relents and hands it to his older sister to use first. "Mia has her stare. PJ her soul."
He joins her where she's resting, the poor chair sighing under their weight as it reclines, probably past its limit. "Sometimes I don't think I do her memory justice.
"They know about her," she tries to reason, but he shakes his head. His voice strengthens and she knows his mind won't be changed. "But do they love her? Or is she a bedtime story, more fiction than reality?"
Outside reality approaches as they pull into the outskirts of the city where the haunting will surely settle if they don't fix this now. Where.he hunting for a new tale and drama will also begin, and that she has no control over.
Her foot taps sporadically, an old habit she's never been able to break, and without warning she stands. In the process she nearly knocks William over, but he seems more inclined to smile now.
Jaclyn presses closer to him resting confident hands on his shoulders and leveling him with a hard look that he can't move from. "Then we will talk to them about her more. I know I don't know her like you do, and I know we said we'd spare them while they're young, but I want them to know her as more than a name."
Because they do talk about her and cherish her memory. Every mother's day cards are made, and every birthday William tells them a new story. Her pictures clutter the walls, and her name is said enough that they know Diana is their grandmother despite her being gone. They don't know why that is, but it's not something they've asked yet.
However, it doesn't change the fact that for the time being she's a bodiless relative in a long list of family members. That on her birthday they're usually at Balmoral, and those are days the kids want to spend running with their cousins not cooped up talking.
Afterall, they have Granny Chelle and Granny C, so it's okay if Granny Diana is gone.
For a moment William is still, oddly stunned as if he can't understand why she's calm about this. They are about to start the most desperate soft politics campaign they've ever been on, and she's willing to sit here and talk about his unresolved childish fear of Paris.
But then Jaclyn is guiding him back to their seats before he can protest, and he's once again facing his children. His son who's already too pure and good for the world and his daughter with a stare too aged and worldly for her few years. Not for the first time he thinks about how much his mum would love them.
"Do you guys know why Paris is so special to us?" Jaclyn asks, and immediately Amelia sits up straighter and her childishness is back. "It's where you danced, mummy."
"Yes, that's true, but…" she stops, running her lip between her teeth and giving him a look that says he needs to take over.
He takes one shallow breath and pushes the words out. "Your granny loved Paris."
"Granny Chelle?" PJ asks with a tilt to his head.
"No," William says, and cuts in when Mia opens her mouth. He can only logically assume that she'll ask about Camilla next, and he's not in the mood to talk about her. "Granny Diana. It was the last city she visited." Somehow it comes easier then, and before he knows what he's doing he's telling them about his last vacation with his mum. Immediately after he told everyone it was awful, the paparazzi were intrusive, his mum's friends were odd, and all of it together was too much.
But he would give anything to go swimming or skiing with her again like he did then.
-----
Her maroon Givenchy gown is heavy, but somehow slinky, the beading clicking as the skirt swishes around her feet. Even the short cape falling from her shoulders is weighted pulling on her back. So much so sometimes she thinks she'll fall back, but people don't see this.
They do not see brittleness under the jewels, or the falsity to her smile. They don't see distance between them and her, something she's placed there for everyone's protection. God forbid, the wrong thing be said when she is near. A simple utterance taken out of context could damn them all. They don't see an unsure woman balancing her life and existence on a string, but the woman who can make kingdoms fall and people weep.
She's a beacon of rubies and diamonds shimmering in the chandeliers, and people watch and stare. Some in awe, some in confusion.
That's it, Jaclyn thinks, keep your eyes on me.
William finishes his speech good naturedly stumbling through the French, which earns him a few hushed laughs, and returns to their round table in the ballroom. Still everyone glances towards her, or more likely towards the crown on her head, the Queen's rubies in her ears, or the one of a kind dress she's draped in.
"Your husband's French needs a bit of work," the woman next to her says. Jaclyn's almost positive she's a new up and coming actress, younger than most of the guests around them, but equally as eager.
"I've tried to practice with him. I'm afraid he's hopeless."
From across the table William leans over to the ambassador and his wife, their hosts for the night, but he's looking solely at her. "Oh no, I'm afraid they're talking about me."
It sparks a smirk from her lips, but she hides it behind a sip of wine. "Never, darling," and then her eyes spark dangerously, so much so their guests all lean in, "But..."
William notes, taking time to look down and cut his salmon, that all of their companions for the night are trapped on her hooks. Even those at the surrounding round tables lean in cautiously at the chance of interacting with her.
"Several years ago we came to France for my friends wedding, and this man spent the entire reception nodding and agreeing with everyone despite not knowing what they were saying." Jaclyn is easily charming, telling stories like a grand narrator, and to add to her whole taunt she slips into her old French easily while purposefully looking at him. It makes everyone laugh harder, and he's not even sure they know they're doing it.
"In the prince's defense he was trying to be agreeable." Someone tries, and futiley at that, to defend his honor, but the French diplomat cannot hide the snickers that are shaking his shoulders.
"Oh absolutely," Jaclyn agrees but the sarcasm is there in her voice, and if they can't hear them they see it in the nearly sweet turn of her lips. "When a woman asked if we were going to split he said yes, but not only did he say yes, he did so with the biggest smile I've ever seen all while holding my hand."
Another round of stifled laughter and gentle gasps of oh my pushes out from their table into the rest of the room, and more curious heads turn. No one is appalled, simply dismayed at being out of the loop.
She doesn't think so, but Buckingham and Downing Street use her as a common charm offensive for a reason. There's something easy in the way she talks, animated but not boisterous, relaxed but not informal, and people gravitate towards her. They want to smile and chuckle without feeling like they're breaking the rules, and she so easily balances between propriety and fun.
"You know," Jean Reno, a legendary French actor both Jac and him were gaping at earlier, starts "I saw you perform many years ago, I think it was Raymonda?" She brightens, twisting in her seat so beads swish and the light patterns reflecting off her tiara sprawl across the table.
"Yes, I was the swing and I had to go on that night!
"Well," he huffs with a touch of humor, and William is envious she gets the side of the table with all the actors while he has the politicians. "Everyone agreed it was you who deserved that role. Made me see the character in a whole new light."
She jumps into another tale, this time of a costume malfunction, and once again they hang on her every word like a siren singing a song.
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Two chapters left before we move on to the next part, which includes Harry and Meghan's wedding, so not a big time skip. I hope you're all ready to be in your feels because it is a trip! Haha 😅
Also in case you have not yet heard it seen, big shout out to gloriassworld who made the excellent new cover for this book. I'm obsessed with it and I think it's perfect, and I still can't believe how many people are still hear reading and loving this story. You guys are all the best ❤️❤️
Please comment your thoughts, I love hearing from you guys!!!