Лорен Кейт - The Betrayal of Natalie Hargrove

“Isabelle, darling, I was just telling Natalie about the refur bishments you and Phillip are making to the boat,” Diana lied, smoothing her future daughter-in-law’s blonde tresses, which looked remarkably like her own.

She turned to me. “I’d ask you to join us after dinner for a cruise, but,” she hesitated, searching for just the right words, “you seem to prefer a faster ride.”

The daggers were out early tonight; we were barely into aperitifs. How to quip back that I’d sooner send myself down with the anchor before I spent another three hours droning on some sailboat with the Kings?

Mike had promised me a private moonlit ride on the cigarette boat. But when I looked at him, miming his golf stroke across the lawn at his father’s command, I knew our little boat cruise would dissolve instantly if he caught wind of a ride in Phillip Jr.’s boat. Mike hated being left out of family plans. Classic younger-child complex.

“We’d love to join you,” I said. “It’s just, I haven’t been able to bring myself aboard a sailboat in years — not since what happened to Daddy.” I held Diana’s gaze. “I’m sure Mike told you about the accident?”

“Of course,” Diana said evenly. She tilted her head slightly before turning to Isabelle. “Well, I’m sure the rest of us will still have an enchanting ride,” she said, patting her protégé’s acrylic-manicured hand. “Oh, there’s Binky to refresh the drinks, thank God.”

When the rest of the family descended on the silver cocktail platter, I found Mike and tugged on his sleeve.

“She still speaks to me like I’m disposable,” I said through gritted teeth.

Mike looped his arm around my waist and squeezed my side. For one too-short second, the rest of them disappeared.

“It’s not personal, Nat; it’s tradition.” His tone indicated that this was something I already knew. “Mom barely acknowledged Isabelle until Phillip put a ring on her finger. And our families have been friends for generations.”

There it was. Even when Mike was trying to console me, it was impossible not to address the ever-present hierarchy of Charleston breeding. What was it going to take to get the Kings to think I was worth a spot in their court?

“Just so you know,” I said quickly as Binky wheeled out a tray of salads, “I declined your mother’s offer to take a ride on P.J.’s sailboat after dinner.” Before Mike could register a complaint, I added, “You know they make me nervous.”

“I do?” Mike looked confused.

The ringing sound of the bell interrupted us.

“Dinner is served,” Binky announced, and the whole happy family took a seat. I smirked when I noted that my place card had Mike seated directly across from me. I highly doubted Diana would have ordained this arrangement if she had any idea what my foot was reaching for surreptitiously under the table. Who likes a fast ride now, Mrs. King?

“So, Mikie,” Phillip Jr. said, using the nickname I hated as he buttered a sweet potato biscuit. “Justin Balmer’s old lady came in for a consultation today.”

Have I mentioned what an infamous bore Phillip Jr. usually was? But suddenly he had my undivided attention.

“From the way she was talking,” he continued, “the bags under her eyes aren’t the only things sinking around Palmetto. How are your numbers in the projections for Prince? Is Mrs. Balmer full of hot air, or is J.B. actually going to give you a run?”

Diana dropped her fork to her plate in alarm. Her eyes shot up at Mike.

“Phillip’s joking, Mother,” Mike said, shrugging it off.

“Not really,” Phillip quipped. He looked at his parents. “Remind me how many generations of Kings have been crowned at Palmetto? Four, or is it five?”

“It’s every generation since the school has been in operation,” Phillip Sr. said, motioning Binky to clear his plate. He raised his steak knife in Mike’s direction so that it looked like an extension of his body. “This is not some little beauty pageant to be made light of, Michael. You know our family has a perfect record.”

I’d always imagined that Mike was so nonchalant about Prince because it was the kind of thing his family might dismiss. But now I finally understood one of the many silent power struggles I waged with Diana: Every day after school, when I moved Mike’s framed National Merit Scholars certificate to the front of his desk, someone replaced it with his football trophy after I went home.

So success was formulaic to the Kings. If adulthood was for serious, professional accomplishments. . was it possible that high school, in their eyes, meant sports and popularity, to the point where they even trumped academics? So the Kings cared as much about Palmetto Court as I did. Suddenly, this little dinner party went from buzz kill to extremely beneficial.

“Of course, who can forget Phillip Jr.’s flawless coronation speech?” Diana recalled, dotting her mouth with a napkin. “What was it again, dear? ‘As gratitude for this bestowed honor—’”

“ ‘I will earn your absolute trust,’ ” Phillip Jr. finished, smugly nodding his head. I rolled my eyes at Mike to indicate that he would not be bringing that gem back to life at our coronation.

Phillip Jr. lowered his voice and cocked his head away from his mother. “Of course, if you ask Isabelle, it wasn’t my verbal prowess she remembers about that day,” he muttered, giving Mike a nudge. “Don’t come a knockin’ when you see a carriage rockin’—know what I mean?”

He and Mike shared a rare brotherly snicker at the reference to what went on behind closed carriage doors during the Prince and Princess’s famously racy ride to the coronation. It was one of Palmetto’s oldest traditions and also one of its most taboo. A half hour before the coronation ceremony, a horse-drawn carriage made two stops at the Scot’s Glen country club. First to pick up the Prince in the Club Room, then to pick up the Princess outside the Ladies Lounge. The nearly crowned then took a ride around all eighteen holes of the golf course and were delivered for their grand entrance to the ceremony, just in time to make their speeches.

Depending on the relationship between the future royalties, the carriage could either be a vaguely awkward or a totally hot ride. And, of course, it was always choice pickings for the rumor mill at school. If there was any chemistry at all between the Prince and Princess, sending a Princess into the carriage was much like sending a bride off to her marital bed. Hence Phillip Jr.’s bawdy boast, and hence Isabelle’s icy not-in-front-of-your-folks glare.

“What about you, Natalie?” she asked, steering the conversation back toward more appropriate ground. “Are you on the Court for Princess, too?”

Before I could open my mouth, Diana snapped, “Don’t change the subject, Isabelle.”

I used my toe to nudge Mike’s groin. When his head shot up and his eyes met mine, I raised my eyebrows in the most seductively threatening way I could manage at the dinner table. Prime time to step up to the plate, love.

“No one’s changing the subject,” Mike piped in obediently. “If I win anything, it’ll be because of Nat.”

Diana was banging the prongs of her fork on her dinner plate without realizing the entire table was trembling to the beat of her nerves. I popped another bite of filet mignon in my mouth, enjoying every delicious moment.

I had never seen Diana King so unglued. There was something gorgeously transparent about her poker face:

Had she been slacking in her duties as a high society mother?

Was there someone she needed to talk to?

Was it. . gasp. . too late?

“Really, Mr. and Mrs. King,” I said sweetly, laying a hand on Diana’s arm to silence the fork. “Don’t worry about a thing.” I wedged my toe further between Mike’s legs, wondering briefly what accolades I could get for working open his fly using only my toes.