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royal couple emerged from the church and that ray of sunshine hit them and they looked up, Geoffrey’s wife
     thought that Isabella looked blessed and radiant. But Geoffrey, he thought she looked kind of tired.
    “Look at her eyes,” he said. “It doesn’t look like she slept.”
    He thought about writing to her, sending a gift, maybe. But he never did. He never could think of the right thing to say,
     and he couldn’t imagine the right gift for a future queen. So he lapsed into an odd feeling of conspiracy. He watched the
     princess on television and read about her in newspapers and asked his wife endless questions about the machinations of royal
     life.
    “Why is she the Princess of Gallagher if she’s going to be the Queen of Bisbania?” he asked Mae over and over again. But no
     matter how clearly Mae tried to explain it, he never seemed to grasp why it would be customary in the tiny city-state of Bisbania
     to give the next in line to the throne (and, by extension, his wife) the title of the city’s northernmost neighborhood, a
     chic conglomeration of overpriced boutiques, antique bookstores, and gift shops that specialized in herbal soaps and jewelry.
    “It’s the same in Great Britain,” Mae would explain impatiently. “You know. The Prince of Wales becomes the King of England.”
    But Geoffrey would just shake his head and ask, “Then who’s the King of Wales?”
    Mae would sigh in an exasperated way and wander out of the room.
    But whatever Isabella’s title, and whatever the customs of Bisbanian royals, Geoffrey knew enough to see that she had become
     an important and sought-after celebrity, the sort of person who understands privacy only as a memory. One of his wife’s food
     magazines published an argument that the princess was eating too much refined sugar, complete with photos of every plate she
     had been served at a public banquet in the last six months. And all the newspapers reported the arrest of a computer hacker
     who had traced the princess’s keystrokes and found what was officially described as “personal correspondence” but which was
     widely rumored to involve Isabella’s e-mailed exchange with the royal doctor about yeast infections.
    So when Geoffrey saw what Isabella’s life had become, he felt somehow like her secret champion, her valiant savior, the one
     guy in the whole world who wouldn’t make a buck off her. He was faithfully keeping silent. Although when things got bad for
     her—with all the “dizzy” headlines and the nose-spray photo—he began to wonder if the news that she had often shared cider
     with a mechanic would make much of a worldwide impression.
    And then he got her first letter. He stood in the driveway, running his finger over the ink, not quite believing that it could
     really be. Inside was elegant stationery; at the top was a curvy abstract rendering that he would later learn represented
     Bisbania’s national bird.
So,
he thought,
I didn’t dream this or make it up. I meant something to the princess.
    He did not know exactly what he feared. Did he fear she would cheapen his restraint by thanking him for his silence? Worse,
     by offering to pay him for it? Did he fear that she would appear to remember him only faintly or too well?
    No, I think what he feared was that in some way, his life would be different after he opened that letter. Not obviously and
     not immediately. But slowly, over time, he might get swept up into a story that he wasn’t ready for, had not requested.
    The letter was simple enough.
     
    Dear Jeff,
    Remember me? I’m terribly sorry for falling out of touch. My life has been rather a blur as of late, but that’s no excuse.
     I often think fondly of our weekly chats and I hope things are going well for you.
    If you’d like to stay in touch, I’ve enclosed a card with my address. If you don’t mind, use the return address “Lord Baron
     Dudley.” I’ve instructed my staff that letters bearing that return address