George winked at her. “What do you think?”
Chapter Seven
Edward ran a weary hand through his hair. He needed a massage. Stat. He rubbed the back of his neck where tension had been gathering like a storm in need of breaking as he eyed his head of security from behind his desk.
His mother’s Guardians of the Keys had yet to relinquish their posts as Perry hadn’t implemented staff changes of her own. As a result, the old guard had been trying to urge him to switch offices. To use the study his father, and his grandfather before Philippe, had worked from.
Trouble was, Edward knew he’d go crazy if he had to work in there. Not when his own office was perfect for his needs. Clean, minimalist, the only place in the castle where less was more.
Philippe’s study was like the rest of Masonbrook castle: ornate, gilded, and a relic of the past in which he didn’t wish to live.
Before the assassination attempt on his father’s life, and the ‘successful’ one on his mother’s, he and Perry had been due to move into one of Edward’s smaller estates. But that wasn’t possible now. This was a state of affairs that he knew deeply troubled Perry, who hated the castle, but also perturbed him. He hadn’t realized how much he’d been looking forward to living at Grosvenor House until the opportunity had been wrenched from them.
They should have been away from the watchful gaze of the Guardians of the Keys, free to change the property to his and Perry’s specifications, able to live their restricted lives with a certain, if not, limited amount of freedom... but that opportunity was gone now. It made him feel selfish thinking of such matters when Drake was here with him. With his parents half-gone and his country in tatters, nothing else should be filling his mind.
But he was more than just a king. He was a man, as well as a husband. Those aspects of his nature had to rise to the fore from time to time.
Drake cleared his throat, catching Edward’s attention.
The head of security’s time was almost as precious as Edward’s. The man had a mystery to solve, but unlike George who blamed Drake, Edward had had an about face since he’d reamed Drake a new one yesterday, as Perry so charmingly phrased it, and was now willing to give him time to rectify his mistake.
For a mistake it was.
Drake, who’d been waiting for Edward to speak, flinched when he eventually said, “Please, tell me you have some news. George is going crazy. He’s terrified for Perry.” Edward slouched back in his desk chair, ignoring how his back twinged—he’d barely left the damn seat since he’d been crowned. “We’re all fearful for Perry’s safety.”
And that was no word of a lie.
The UnReals could get to their mother, and as they’d proven yesterday, they could get to Perry. Especially if the security breach wasn’t corrected, and as far as Edward could ascertain, it hadn’t been.
They’d known about the leak in security for a while—since gossip had arisen that his ex-wife had been murdered. Gossip that had since been disproven, as far as Edward was aware, but the release of such information had made it known that something wasn’t right. They had trusted Drake to resolve the situation.
That he hadn’t been able to do so was more than a disappointment; it was a tragedy.
The only reason the man hadn’t lost his job, or his goddamn head, was that Edward knew Drake had adored his mother. Marianne had had a way of inspiring either love or hate in a person, and in Drake, it had been love.
Unlike George and Xavier, who seemed to believe his parents were infallible,, Edward was well-aware of their faults. Not that he liked to contemplate them often, especially not when his mother was in the family crypt and his father was in a hospital bed. Still, maybe because he’d been with them longer, or was simply more cynical than his brother and cousin, Edward was aware of things he truly wished he didn’t know.
Like the fact his father had several mistresses throughout the years. Like the fact his mother, insanely jealous of those mistresses, routinely had affairs in an effort to punish Philippe.
Edward didn’t know if Philippe was aware of his wife’s indiscretions. Wasn’t sure if his father had retained Drake in spite of knowing of an affair Marianne might have had with him…but the man’s adoration made the head of security, in Edward’s eyes, above suspicion.
Drake bridged his hands. “We’ve ascertained the identity of the man Luc de Montfort met with prior to his resignation.”
A few weeks ago, that would have been welcome news about his ex-Prime Minister. Now, it felt like too little too late. He said as much. “How is that useful to us? And how does that help us with what happened yesterday?”
Drake shuffled in his seat. “With a little help from our ‘friends’, we managed to pin down the man’s identity.”
“The CIA?”
“We’re a lot more popular thanks to the Queen’s old nationality. Good old America,” was all Drake said, before he rubbed his chin wearily. The past few weeks had taken a toll on him as well. Something Edward was willing to forgive, but once again, George was far less generous. The guard let out a deep sigh. “I knew he had to be an UnReal, I just didn’t realize how high up the ranks he was.”
Edward frowned. “He was meeting with Veronia’s Prime Minister. Surely that was some indication?”
Drake shook his head. “Not always—I’m still not entirely sure what the meeting was about. De Montfort isn’t talking, didn’t give up the man’s identity. He’s been hung, drawn, and quartered in his party for meeting with one of the extremists, but I’m not finding any evidence that suggests he’s a part of the group himself. But, we digress.
“With such a meeting, in such a place, it would have made more sense for the UnReals to have used somebody disposable. In the end, we had to find the photographer who leaked the photo of De Montfort with the UnReal, and he informed us of the man’s identity. It’s not like UnReals go around wearing swastikas. They’re anonymous.”
“Where are you going with this, Drake?”
Edward’s head of security rolled his lips inward and looked away from the monarch. Why his shoes were of such interest, Edward didn’t know, but he swiftly realized the man was avoiding his gaze.
After a few seconds of silence, silence Edward refused to fill, Drake let out a sigh. “There’s no easy way to talk about this, your Highness. I don’t even know how much you know of the troubles your parents’ relationship suffered over the years.”
Brow puckering, Edward murmured, “I know they weren’t always faithful. Unlike my brother, George seems to think Mother and Father should be in line for sainthood. They were no angels. Of that I’m fully aware.”
Though he knew the truth, Drake’s relief was so sudden and so heartfelt, Edward felt his own heart sink. What had his parents’ adultery resulted in?
“What I’m about to tell you, Edward, may surprise you. But at the moment it’s only theory,” Drake warned, but his reversion to the informal put Edward further on edge.
“For God’s sake, get on with it. You’re making me more nervous than I need to be!”
Drake nodded, his gaze soft with apology. “Your father didn’t have affairs. He had long-term relationships with women I, over the years, vetted.” Resting his elbows on the armrest of his seat, he pressed his fingertips together in a high bridge and rested his chin atop them. “I didn’t particularly like that aspect of my job, not when I respected your mother as much as I did, but for the family’s public image, I dealt with those situations myself.”
Edward nodded. Drake had been with them for hell of a long time. What the man didn’t know about the DeSauvier secrets wasn’t worth knowing. “I understand, Drake. I don’t hold it against you.”
Drake grimaced. “I couldn’t blame you if you did, sire.”
“Carry on with ‘Edward,’ Drake. The formalities aren’t necessary here.”
“Thank you, Edward. There weren’t many mistresses over the years. Less than a handful, but…there was one. She definitely got under your fathe
r’s skin. She lived in Luxembourg, and there was a time when Philippe was barely here. But he spent most of his visits with his mistress, and shuffled off a lot of his engagements to your aunt and uncle as well as other members of the family to leave the country and to be with her.
“Your mother wasn’t at fault. She knew two things. One, that her husband was cheating on her. Two, that there was little I could deny her—especially back then, I had to develop a thick skin when it came to dealing with her. She used my…” he winced, “willingness to please her to ascertain the whole truth, and when she discovered that Philippe was cheating again, she did something very foolish.”
Scowling, Edward asked, “Like what?”
“I’m not saying any of this to sully your mother’s image. My respect for her, regardless of the many mistakes she made over the years, is boundless. But learning that particular truth soured her. She went on a visit to Helstern one day. Just a regular inner-city visit. She went to two sister schools, and opened the gymnasium.” He moved his head from side to side, his chin brushing the tips of his fingers as he fell into the past. “UnReal threats were at a premium back then. It was a year before your kidnapping, and though she had a lot of guards, somehow she managed to connect with somebody on the visit.”
“She began an affair?”
Drake nodded. “With one of the teachers she met that day.”
He fell silent a second and though Edward wanted to hurry the man along, he knew Drake was lost in the DeSauvier’s cupboard of skeletons. As well as his own involvement in their shared past which he obviously regretted, or wished had turned out differently.
“Was it a short affair?” Edward gently prompted when Drake’s silence went on for minutes that felt like hours.
“No, and unusually for her Majesty, this time it was a particularly long relationship.”
“What ended it? I assume it ended at some point?”
“Yes.” Drake swallowed thickly. “It ended with an abortion.”
Edward’s eyes flared wide. “She fell pregnant to the man?”
“She did,” Drake confirmed. “The baby was definitely not your father’s. They’d barely seen each other for months, and when she realized what was happening, she came to me to arrange the procedure. I told her I would, but only if she ended things with the teacher.”
Stunned, the image he’d always had of his mother obliterated for at that moment all her preaching on duty seemed remarkably hypocritical, Edward whispered, “What was the teacher’s name?”
“Laurence,” Drake replied. “By all accounts, he was a very good man. I investigated him enough times to make sure of that. Your mother grew very close to him, and wasn’t happy with my ultimatum, but she complied. I think she realized how deeply she’d fallen, how many mistakes she’d made.”
Trying to get his head around this, Edward held up a hand. His burning need to know had him whispering, “Did you ever arrange something like that for one of my father’s mistresses?”
Drake shook his head. “No. I can’t say if your father was more careful, or just lucky. But Marianne wasn’t so fortunate. She split up with Laurence, and seemed to throw herself back into life at court. Only I, and her closest Guardians of the Keys, were aware of her unhappiness. She hid it well. From you boys, especially.”
She did more than hide it from them. Had hidden more than they’d ever suspected, Edward thought grimly.
A child! His mother had been pregnant with another man’s child, and she’d had the baby aborted.
Those few facts tilted the view he’d always had of his mother as a stickler for the rules. It was her body, her choice, but what troubled him here was her status. All his life, she’d preached at him, and yet, she’d allowed herself to get into that particular situation. Her hypocrisy suffocated him. Especially considering her less than charming response to his news that if he didn’t divorce Arabella, and had to spend another day with the miserable, frigid bitch, he’d go insane.
With her past, she should have had some understanding, surely?
Why would she want her son to endure as miserable a marriage as the one she’d had to live through?
Raising his hands, he rubbed at his temples. “Why are you telling me this?”
Drake pulled a face. “As I said, Laurence seemed to be a good man. After your mother broke things off, I have reason to believe he discovered she’d gone for an abortion. I truly have no idea how he learned of this unless she told him herself, but… it sent him off the rails. A few months after Marianne called things off, I received word from one of my informants of a new member of the UnReals. He’d come to my informant’s attention because he rose through the ranks at a surprising speed.”
Edward closed his eyes. “Laurence.” It wasn’t a question.
“Laurence,” Drake confirmed.
A thought occurred to him: Laurence could be a first name or a second name. “That’s the man’s surname, correct?”
Edward’s head of security shook his head, slowly, somberly. “No. The man’s full name was Laurence Prichard.”
And like that, Edward’s carefully constructed world began to unravel. Because one of the men sentenced to death for treason, after having abducted him and his brother when they were children, had been a Laurence Prichard.
His mouth worked for a second, words forming then failing to fall from his lips as the ramifications began to hit home.
But his head was empty.
His mind shot and fired, but each round was a blank.
Then, he heard a white noise, and realized Drake had been speaking once more.
“Your mother never forgave herself,” the other man was saying, as if his words could apologize for actions and deeds that were the catalyst for an experience Edward wouldn’t wish on his worst enemy.
Not even the bastard who had killed his mother deserved what he and George had endured as small boys in the care of Prichard and his cronies.
Edward stared blindly ahead for a second, then whispered, “The man who met with De Montfort… he’s related to Prichard, isn’t it?”
“I’m sorry to say, Edward, but yes. He’s his brother.”
His and his family’s past suddenly took on labyrinth-like qualities. The untruths his parents had told, to one another, to their children, and to their nation, had had inconceivable effects.
He couldn’t blame Marianne for the abduction, for what happened to him. Marianne, at the time, had been young. Philippe would have been five years younger than Edward was now.
If anyone was to blame, it was his father.
He’d been the adulterer.
Because for all her faults, Edward had no doubt that Marianne would have stayed true to his father had her female pride not been pricked. She’d been that sort. Loyal to the end.
“So, what? Laurence’s brother wants revenge?” Edward asked, hating how thick his voice sounded.
Drake shrugged. “It would seem that way. There’s been a reshuffling in the ranks of the UnReals. Prichard seems to be their new leader, which would indicate that he was behind the hit on your parents.
“We have all our available manpower on the hunt for them but, understandably, he’s hiding out somewhere. We have reason to believe that he’s left the country.”
“Are there more attacks planned?” Edward asked hoarsely, feeling the ground beneath his feet start to slip away.
He needed Perry. He needed his wife, now.
“There are always whispers, Edward, you know that.” Sadness creased Drake’s features. His chestnut eyes were limpid with sorrow.
“Were there whispers about the assassination attempt?”
Drake’s nod was slow. “Yes, Edward. Chatter indicated something may have been planned during the wedding weekend.”
Edward blinked. “Did you inform my father?”
“Of course.”
Tension filled him. “When?”
“I had the information passed along to him at your wedding rehearsal dinner. That was wh
en I got wind of the chatter.”
“Was there any indication who the intended target was?”
“Chatter is just that, Edward. It’s never concrete, not until the deed is done.”
He slammed his fist against his desk, rattling the glass surface, shaking the papers on his laptop. “Answer the goddamn question, Drake.”
His head of security let out a deep sigh. “It seemed likely that there would be an attempt on yours and Perry’s life after the ceremony, during the carriage ride back to Masonbrook.”
His voice was hoarse as he whispered, “My father knew that, and he didn’t tell me?”
“He knew I’d do everything in my power to keep you and Perry safe.”
“Like you did my mother?” Edward hissed, hatred spilling through him with a force more venomous than any snake’s bite could be. Before Drake could reply, he held up a hand. “Get. Out.”
Drake’s eyes flared. “Edward,” he started, but Edward didn’t let him finish.
“Out,” he snarled, his gaze rigid and unyielding as he stared Drake down.
He’d never felt more a king than he did now, when a man with Drake’s power conceded to Edward’s position.
But as Drake slinked away, as did Edward’s power for at that moment, he became a small boy back in Prichard’s hands.
Abused, physically, emotionally tortured, starved and drugged, and all because Edward’s mother had broken the man’s heart and killed his child.
For Marianne, there would have been no other option than to have an abortion. Even had they loved one another, there was no such thing as a queen divorcing her king. And that queen carrying another man’s child?
Marianne should have never put herself in that position in the first damn place. Double standards or not, she should have taken the necessary precautions.
And as confusion filled him, as the lies that had made up his childhood unraveled, Edward was lost.
Truly, utterly lost, and he knew, the only person who’d ever find him again, who’d help him find himself, was his wife.
With a shaking hand, he reached for his cell phone. Finding her number, he connected the call and took his first full breath when, with a smile in her voice, she murmured, “Hey love.”
Long Live Queen Perry: Contemporary Reverse Harem (Kingdom of Veronia Book 3) Page 14
