Page 40 of The Heir Apparent
“So for Richard, the only thing standing between the crown and £1 billion… is me,” I said.
She narrowed her eyes and looked at me for a long time.
“Your grandmother loves her son and seems to have a certain blind spot when it comes to him. But I do not,” she said. “And I hope you don’t either.”
A Range Rover waited in the quadrangle to take me to London. The sky was an optimistic blue, and a house sparrow took a dust bath on the drive, burrowing in the sandy gravel to distribute it all through his tortoiseshell plumage. From the shadow of an archway, I moved into the blinding sunlight and stepped into a cloud of cigarette smoke.
“I hear congratulations are in order,” Annabelle said.
She was leaning against the wall in a tartan coat and black sunglasses.
“I think congrats are reserved for the winner of the antique gramophones, don’t you?”
She smirked at me. “Freddy always said you were funny.”
I smarted at the mention of his name. His heart was never with us, perhaps not even for one moment, but I still felt a claim to this man who had always been hers. When I was four, Mum went to Jamaica on an official trip with Louis. I was struck down with conjunctivitis and stayed at Elton Park with Papa. One morning, I padded along the hallway, my eyes streaming and burning, and found Annabelle in his dressing gown, curled up on his bed. She looked stunned to see me, but then smiled and pressed a finger to her lips as we heard the squeak of taps turning in the bathroom. Fearing trouble if Papa emerged to find me there, I retreated on my sock feet, nearly stumbling down the staircase as I ran.
That was the year my nightmares began, when I woke up the estate with my screams, claiming that I was being terrorised by “The Scary Lady.”
“Well, my car’s waiting,” I said.
“You probably shouldn’t have let her delay everything by a year,” she said. “That gives Richard his window.”
“Okay. Goodbye, Annabelle.”
“I’m quite interested in how you intend to navigate all this. People out there look at this castle and wish they could live here.” She took a long puff of her cigarette. “Little do they know it’s the world’s nicest prison.”
“Well, your time is served and now you’re free,” I said. “You made my mother’s life hell, you broke up a family, you leaked against me and Louis. Goodbye.”
Briefly, she looked chastened, the same way she had when I’d discovered her in Papa’s bed, then she set her face back into its familiar smirk. My father’s widow dropped her cigarette and crushed it, sizzling, under her toe.
“You know,” she began, “I’m not proud of it all, far from it. But I think you’ll soon find yourself bound by the same constraintsthat your father and I did. The truth is, Frederick never really thought himself worthy of the crown. That’s why he was always so fussy and spoilt. He thought if his surroundings were regal, he could be kingly as well. And yes, he would occasionally leak against you, and I suspect that was his way of trying to bring you back to him. But he never gave up your biggest secret, did he?”
My heart fell through the elevator shaft of my chest all the way to my stomach. I stepped forward, unsure of what I wanted to do, only knowing that my fists were clenched tighter than my jaw. I thought of this woman lying against my father’s chest, learning all the confidences we had made because we were supposed to be family.
“Fuck you,” I said, and turned and walked to my Range Rover.
“Alexandrina,” she called, but I did not stop. “One last piece of advice: watch out for that little twit Mary. She’s not what you think.”
I slid into the back of the car and slammed the door so hard it shuddered. With a shaking hand, I pressed the button to roll down the window.
“The fact that you don’t like her is the only reference I need,” I said. “She’s hired.”
When I reached the door of Cumberland 1, I knocked and waited. If Amira refused to let me in, I didn’t really have anywhere else to go. My apartment-to-be was still a construction site. I’d have to crash with Stewart in the staff quarters over the garage. Barely a week back in London and I’d already made a mess of things.
A servant answered the door, bowed and let me in. From the drawing room came the thundering of feet and a bark like a sonic boom. A German shorthaired pointer slid across the hardwood floors on his nails, running in place to correct himselfand then bounded towards me. For one moment, I thought it was Ragu. But this dog had white spots speckled through his coat, where Ragu was dark and sleek. He jumped and placed his big paws on my shoulders, looked deeply into my eyes and unleashed another barrage of ear-piercing woofs.
Amira came running down the stairs, already dressed in pyjamas, even though it was 5 p.m.
“Chino, down,” she scolded.
The dog, all long limbs he could barely control, galloped back to the drawing room. Amira and I smiled tentatively at each other.
“That’s Louis’s dog, Chino,” she said. “It’s funny you both had pointers at the same time. We had him up at Norfolk, but I asked that they bring him down. I figured you might be missing your dog.”
Chino returned with a tennis ball in his mouth, which he dropped at my feet. I threw the ball up the stairs, and he barrelled after it, rattling priceless artworks on the wall as he went. I smiled at Amira.
“Thank you,” I said. “And, about last night, I’m so sorry.”
