Royal

by Danielle Steel

  Jonathan suspected that Lucy no longer knew where the Hemmingses’ servants were, since the property had been sold, or even if they were still alive since more than twenty years had passed. Also, who knew if the doctor who had delivered Annie was still alive, or the vicar who had married them? Twenty-one years was a long time, and Henry Hemmings and his family were all dead. The entire mess was not going to be easy to unravel, but Jonathan was convinced it had to be, for the Windsors’ sake, and also for Annie’s. She had a right to know who she was, and what had happened, and that Lucy loved her, but was in fact not her mother. Jonathan had no idea how Annie would react to the news, not to mention the Windsors’ reaction. And he wanted to clear Lucy’s name and protect her. What she had done was very wrong, but also naïve, and she had been suffering from the loss of her own family, and clinging to the infant for love and comfort, however misguided.

  It was a most unusual story. Lucy was not delusional, she was trying to repair the mistakes of the past at the eleventh hour. They were not small mistakes. Whether she meant to or not, Lucy had stolen Annie from the Windsors for more than two decades, her entire life so far, and had deprived Annie of the life she had been born to and had a right to, with her royal family, in a palace, not the life of the child of a housemaid and a stable master in Kent. The biggest question of all was how to get the information to the queen now, without causing a scandal, and catching the attention of the press, and then leaving the royal family to handle it as they wished. Jonathan didn’t want Lucy to be punished for an enormous error of judgment she had committed at nineteen. And what would Annie think of Lucy once she knew, and found out that the mother she loved in fact wasn’t? She had lived with a lie all her life, and was someone else entirely than she thought she was.

  One thing was certain in Jonathan’s mind. The Windsors would want to see Annie. And the other thing he felt sure of was that Lucy had made a terrible mistake, and taken it too far. He was grateful she had told him, and he lay awake thinking about it all night. He was sitting next to her on their bed, when she woke up the next morning. In spite of the drops that had made her sleep, she remembered immediately what she had asked him to do, and she searched his eyes as soon as she woke up.

  “Did you read it all?”

  He nodded, with a serious look. “I did. That’s quite a story. You got in over your head through a series of unusual circumstances, and some bad decisions on your part, made from the heart.”

  “I don’t regret it, I love her. But now I wonder if she’ll hate me for keeping her from the life she was born to. We should tell her, but I don’t want to just yet.”

  “We both love her, and she won’t hate you,” he said quietly. “But she has a right to know where she comes from.” He was the only father she had ever known, and Lucy the only mother, but in fact she had an entire family of aunts and uncles and cousins, a grandmother who had loved Annie’s rightful mother. She was a royal princess, and no matter where she had grown up, that could not be denied. He wasn’t sure how Annie would feel about it. She was hard to predict at times, and could be stubborn too. He didn’t know if she’d be angry or only shocked, and it was shocking, even to him. It was hard to believe that his wife could do such a thing, and had gotten away with it, but she had. For almost twenty-one years.

  They were still talking about it when Annie came in with a breakfast tray for both of them, and her stepfather stared at her as though seeing her for the first time. Suddenly her natural grace and elegance made sense, as did her skill as a rider, even her passion for horses, which the royal family was famous for. She was heavily influenced by her bloodline. He was looking at her intently, thinking of what they would all have to face when the truth surfaced, and Annie stared back at him, confused.

  “What? Do I seem weird or something? You’re looking at me as if I have two heads.”

  “Not that I’m aware of.” He smiled. She left the room then and he glanced at his wife. “Do you want to tell her?” But Lucy shook her head. She knew she had to, or thought she should, but she was exhausted and didn’t feel up to it. Jonathan didn’t want to press her, but he didn’t know how much time they had, and he thought Annie should hear it from Lucy first, so she could understand why she had done it. Only Lucy could truly explain what had motivated her to do such a thing.

  “Don’t tell her now. I will,” she said weakly, and he nodded and went to take a shower and dress for work. When he came back, she was asleep. He told Annie he was leaving, so she could check on her mother. And when he returned to see her at noon, she was weaker, and that night she felt too ill and was in too much pain to think or speak. The next morning she was worse. Annie came and sat beside her, while her mother slept. Lucy seemed to be sliding downhill quickly. Jonathan sat with her all the next day and didn’t go to work, and by that afternoon, Lucy was in a coma. The doctor had come several times and left a nurse. And Annie was in her room crying all afternoon. There was nothing she could do and the boys were at their grandmother’s. Jonathan had sent them there.

  He lay next to her holding her hand, as the nurse checked her and Annie came and went. That night, the boys came home, and Annie sat with them, and as Jonathan lay beside his wife, she silently slipped away without ever regaining consciousness. They never got to say goodbye. And she never got to tell Annie the story that was essential now.

  The pain of the loss was shocking, and more brutal than he could have imagined. He went through the motions of making the arrangements while trying to console his children, who had lost their mother. Annie was devastated, and the boys couldn’t stop crying. Jonathan held himself together for their sakes, and two days later, as they left for the funeral in the church where he and Lucy had been married, he thought about the contents of the box Lucy had revealed to him before she died. He was grateful she had told him about it, but now it was up to him to try to reach out to the Queen Mother, and tell her what had happened to her daughter and granddaughter. And after that, he would have to tell Annie. But he wanted to know the royal family’s reaction first. And this was not the right time to tell Annie. She was shattered by her mother’s death. She needed time to catch her breath, before another shock. He had loved Lucy unconditionally, but she had left him the hardest job of all at the end. How was he going to explain it to Annie, and the Windsors? He had no idea where to start.

  He thought about it all through the funeral, and for days afterward. He missed Lucy like the air he breathed. She was his lover, wife, best friend, and companion of twenty years. Now he had to find a way to return a lost princess to the Windsors, without breaking Annie’s heart or dishonoring Lucy’s memory. It was the hardest task he’d ever faced. Without Lucy now, he had to keep his family together, while tearing them apart.

  Chapter 9

  The weeks after Lucy’s funeral were like a fog which enveloped Jonathan and the children. He felt as though he was swimming underwater and everything around him felt surreal. He kept telling himself he had to put one foot after the other, go through the motions of his daily life, and be there for his children. But nothing made sense without Lucy. He felt now as though he was in a free fall through the sky with nothing to stop him, no parachute.

  Annie was no better. She barely spoke, except to talk to her twin brothers. They argued with each other constantly, which was their fifteen-year-old way of coping with the loss of their mother. They took it out on each other. Annie took care of them as best she could. Jonathan’s mother came to cook for all of them. Their nightly meals were deadly silent. No one talked and they hardly ate. Jonathan was inconsolable and Annie looked shattered, although she pulled herself together for the twins.

  All Annie felt able to do was exercise the horses. It was usually the stable hands’ job, but she was grateful to have something to do that she could cope with. Sometimes she walked them slowly through the fields and let them graze when they wanted, and sometimes she rode them at full speed. Jonathan saw
her do it, but for once he didn’t say anything about it to her. He knew she needed the release.

  It was weeks before he was able to focus again on what he had read in the leather box two days before Lucy died. He knew he had to do something about it. If he didn’t, Lucy’s secret, and the secret of Annie’s very existence, would die one day with him. He couldn’t let that happen, for Annie’s sake, and the Windsors’. Not knowing what else to do, he tried the simplest way first. He got the number from information for Buckingham Palace, which was ridiculously easy, like calling the White House in Washington. Getting the number wasn’t difficult. It was what happened after that that mattered.

  He asked for the queen’s private secretary, and got the runaround from start to finish. The names they gave him were for inconsequential underlings who put a smokescreen around the queen’s secretary. His attempt to get through to the Queen Mother was equally fruitless. And after nearly an hour of waiting for half a dozen people, he got nowhere, and finally hung up. He should have known better, but it was worth a try. He realized now that he had to be more ingenious and find another way to gain access to the queen, or her personal secretary. He needed to be put in touch with her, on a deeply personal matter, like the fate of the sister she had lost more than twenty years before, and the niece she was entirely unaware of.

  After thinking about it for several days, he decided to try channels he was more familiar with. He couldn’t just march up to the gates of Buckingham Palace and demand to see the queen, or even send her a letter which might never reach her, and end up in a file of crackpot mail she’d never see. Instead, he asked John Markham if he was acquainted with the queen’s horse trainer, and his employer looked instantly worried.

  “Are you looking for a job?” He was seriously concerned. Jonathan was the one employee he didn’t want to lose. Jonathan shook his head.

  “No, not at all. It sounds crazy, but I’m trying to get access to either the queen or the Queen Mother, about a matter that happened twenty years ago. I spent an hour on the phone yesterday, trying to get through to her secretary. I thought I might have better luck through her horse trainer. At least it’s a world I understand. Do you know him personally?” Jonathan asked, and Markham seemed relieved.

  “I’ve met her royal racing manager a few times. He’s an important man. He’s responsible for all her racehorses. He’s a little grand and my name probably won’t get you far, but you can give it a try.”

  “I thought I’d tell him we’re interested in their stud services, to get my foot in the door. I don’t really want to talk to him, I need the name of the queen’s private secretary. It’s a personal matter.” John Markham gave Jonathan the number, and later that afternoon, Jonathan called, and reached a secretary who wanted to know what it was about. “I run John Markham’s stables. We’re interested in stud services for several of our mares, and John asked me to discuss some possibilities with him.” The secretary sounded more interested, and a moment later, he put him through to Lord Hatton directly. It went a lot more smoothly than his futile call to the palace previously.

  He spent a few minutes mentioning the mares they allegedly wanted services for, and the stallions that might be available. Lord Hatton was interested, and talked for some time about the virtues of the various stallions they were using for stud at the moment. At the end of the conversation, Jonathan casually mentioned that John Markham had asked him to get the name and direct line of the queen’s private secretary, about an event he wanted to invite her to on his yacht. Hatton took the bait and gave Jonathan the name and number he had been unable to discover before when he called the palace. It had all been so simple in the world he was accustomed to, in the language he spoke well. Jonathan was respected in horse circles, and his employer was well liked. He thanked Lord Hatton for the information, and said he would get back to him about the studs they preferred, after he discussed it with John Markham.

  He took a deep breath when he hung up, and dialed the palace after that. He got straight through to the queen’s personal secretary this time, Sir Malcolm Harding, who answered the phone himself on his direct line. Lord Hatton had given him the secretary’s private line, and for an instant Jonathan was a little shocked. He tried to stay calm, and not get flustered or he’d sound like a freak.

  “I’d like to request a private audience with the queen, at her convenience. My wife died recently, and entrusted me with some documents which I believe belong to Her Majesty, or the Queen Mother, and date back to the war. They’re of a personal nature, and I would like to return them personally. They relate to the queen’s late sister, Charlotte. She and my wife were personal friends, and my wife held on to the documents out of sentiment for a very long time.” There was a pause at the other end of the line, while the queen’s secretary digested what Jonathan had said to him. He didn’t want to turn him away, nor did he want to give him instant access to the queen.

  “Would it be possible to entrust the documents to me and allow me to have a look at them? If the queen feels an audience is warranted, I’ll be happy to arrange it. We don’t want to waste your time.” More to the point, they didn’t want him to waste theirs. “You could send them to me by post if you like.”

  “I’d rather not. I’d rather put them in your hands. Lord Hatton gave me your name and number, and I’d be happy to give them to you to have a look at. There’s a personal side of the story as well, I’m afraid. I won’t take up much of her time, but I believe it’s a matter that would be of great interest to Her Majesty.” Jonathan wondered how many people said that to him every day. Dozens probably, but in this case it involved a long lost relative who had been stolen from them. He couldn’t say that to him, but he intended to write up a brief summary of what had happened, what had remained hidden for such a long time and what remained. He had no idea what their reaction would be after so long, or if they would suspect him of trying to blackmail or extort the royal family. They might refuse any further contact with him entirely, but at least he had to try, for Annie’s sake and theirs.

  “Could you bring the documents to me tomorrow, sir? Say at two o’clock? I promise to put them in the right hands.” The mention of the queen’s horse trainer’s name had greased things along, as Jonathan hoped it would.

  “I’d be delighted to.” The secretary told him which entrance to come to, who to ask for, and the inside line for his office, and they agreed to meet at two the next day. As soon as Jonathan hung up, he sat down to write a brief summary of the facts, to simplify things. It was almost painful to write the details.

  He mentioned the romance between Princess Charlotte and Henry Hemmings, before he left for the army, and the unexpected result that the princess had gotten pregnant, but didn’t have the opportunity from Yorkshire to share the information with her mother. He then gave the date of their marriage by special license, and the subsequent date of the young man’s death. He said that she had given birth to a baby girl, and had died three hours after delivering her. He listed the dates of both the earl’s and the countess’s death, which left no one to care for the infant, once orphaned, and no one knowing what to do with a child who was in fact legitimate but whose existence was entirely unknown to Their Majesties, Charlotte’s parents. And for better or worse, a young girl who had been staying with the Hemmingses to escape the bombing raids in London had cared for the child herself, and had then taken the infant to live with her as her own. Jonathan did not deny that poor decisions had been made by the young person involved, whom he had subsequently married. He had said that the information had only fallen into his hands two days before his wife’s death, several weeks before. And the most important piece of information of all of it was that Princess Charlotte’s child was alive and well, living with his family in Kent. She currently had no knowledge of the circumstances of her birth, or her connection to the royal family, of which she was in fact a member, as the niece of the current queen, and the granddaughter
of the Queen Mother.

  Jonathan said his only interest was to reunite Anne Louise with her family. He would be happy to bring her to meet them, if they were so inclined. It was confusing at best, but the story was familiar to him now, and he tried to make it as simple as he could. He made copies of everything that was in the box, made a package of all of it, put it in a large envelope, and sealed it, with the information on how to reach him, should they wish to. He respectfully thanked Their Majesties for reading the material he sent, hoping that they would. It occurred to him that he could get arrested for interference or blackmail, or if they thought he was trying to extort money from them, or had sequestered the girl against her will for over twenty years, or worse, was trying to pawn off an imposter on them. There was risk involved in trying to be the go-between, and set things right, after Lucy had let it lie in the shadows for so long. He made no attempt to excuse his wife’s behavior, and said she had died with deep remorse for keeping Her Highness Princess Anne Louise away from them for so long.