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32.

I told Elf and Jason that I wanted to propose.

Congratulations, both men said.

But then Elf said he’d need to do some fast digging, find out the protocols. There were strict

rules governing such things.

Rules? Really?

He came back days later and said before doing anything I’d need to ask Granny’s permission.

I asked him if that was a real rule, or the kind we could work around.

Oh, no, it’s very real.

It didn’t make sense. A grown man asking his grandmother for permission to marry? I couldn’t

recall Willy asking before he proposed to Kate. Or my cousin Peter asking before he proposed to

his wife, Autumn. But come to think of it I did remember Pa asking permission when he wanted to

marry Camilla. The absurdity of a fifty-six-year-old man asking his mother’s permission had been

lost on me at the time.

Elf said there was no point in examining the whys and hows, this was the inalterable rule. The

first six in line to the throne had to ask permission. The Royal Marriages Act of 1772, or the

Succession to the Crown Act of 2013—he was going on and on and I could barely believe my

ears. The point was, love took a decided back seat to law. Indeed, law had trumped love on more

than one occasion. A fairly recent relative had been…strongly dissuaded…from marrying the love

of their life.

Who?

Your aunt Margaret.

Really?

Yes. She’d wanted to marry a divorcé and…well.

Divorcé?

Elf nodded.

Oh, shit, I thought. This might not be a slam dunk.

But Pa and Camilla were divorcés, I said, and they’d got permission. Didn’t that mean the rule

no longer applied?

That’s them, Elf said. This is you.

To say nothing about the furor over a certain king who’d wanted to marry an American

divorcée, which Elf reminded me had ended with the King’s abdication and exile. Duke of

Windsor? Ever heard of him?

And so, heart full of fear, mouth full of dust, I turned to the calendar. With Elf’s help I circled

a weekend in late October. A family shooting trip at Sandringham. Shooting trips always put

Granny in a good mood.

Perhaps she’d be more open to thoughts of love?