Page 102 of The Heir Apparent
She brushed at the tears forming in her eyes. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Of course it does. Are we not friends? Because I’ve heard some things lately that make me wonder. You know Mary and you put her in my path? You have a history with Colin, and you kept pushing him on me to make me forget about Jack.”
She stared at me icily. “I was doing what I was told.”
“Bywho?”
“Who do youthink?” she hissed. A servant carrying a tray of empty champagne flutes glided by and we watched quietly until he disappeared down the hall. “She wanted to keep you here. And I went along with it because this is her family and her institution. And… I wanted you to stay as well. You have no idea what these years have been like for me.”
“Why don’t you tell me then?”
It wasn’t so much that Amira had wanted to marry Louis as it got to a point where turning back would have done more damage than forging on. Before she knew it, she had been Louis’s girlfriend for seven years. Louis and Kris still seemed deeply in love, although they would break up for months at a time when the pressure of their secret lives started to smother them, and Amira would wonder if, finally, she might be free. She loved Louis dearly. He treated her better than most of her secondary school boyfriends, taking her to clubs and dinners and buying her gifts.
But she had started to wonder if that was enough for a life—even one as grand as theirs. She hadn’t had sex in seven years. No one kissed her or touched her. The tabloids had already started to mock her for her unending patience in waiting for a proposal. At twenty-six, they could break up and it would be humiliating for a while, but then she might be able to start her life anew. If she got any older than this, her prospects would be very grim indeed.
It was then that Louis had raided Mum’s safe deposit box for the emerald. He and Vikki had urged her to consider it. Kris refused to be involved. While Amira would be giving up the prospect of romantic love—at least, until they could figure out how to live their lives in private without being discovered—she would get to be the Queen of England. The marriage would not depend on the longevity of Louis’s relationship with Kris. This would be forever. And so, she did it. She did it because her mother insisted that marriage was a ladder into the aristocracy. She did it because she saw that Kris and Louis were unable to stay apart and she wanted them to be happy. She did it because every girl in the world is told from the moment she’s born that there’s nothing finer than being queen.
A few days after his visit to Tasmania, Louis had confided in Amira about the encounter with Finn. There had been othersover the years, but never a stranger, never a regular man whose position did not depend on secrecy. Things were too tense at the time for Louis to call and ask me if they could trust Finn. But when Louis had gone to Frederick, wondering if perhaps they should offer to buy Finn’s silence, Papa had blamed me for all of it. He had always privately hoped I’d return to London when I finished medical school. After learning from Louis that I had chosen to work at a Tasmanian hospital instead, he was furious, hurt and looking for an excuse to punish me. I was somehow behind this scheme, Papa had declared. I must have got Louis drunk and pushed him and Finn together in the hope of breaking up the wedding. There would be no payout. The only person who would be silenced was me. Exhausted, Louis and Amira had walked down the aisle of Westminster Abbey as Kris and I watched on.
Everything had been fine at first. They had moved to Sherbourne House and found that in Norfolk they could finally breathe. Kris bought a house down the road, and this really was Louis’s home. But whether Amira was at a dinner party with Louis’s friends or attending an event as the Duchess of Somerset, she felt like she was walking underwater. Everyone thought she was the luckiest girl in the world. She had a large country estate, a handsome husband who was nice to her, and a dazzling future that felt like a life sentence.
She wasn’t even sure she liked Colin when he’d started stealing glances at her across the dinner table. He had caused constant sexual drama in their circle, and she had watched with disdain as he dated women and then moved on to their sisters or childhood best friends. She knew he was interested in her for the same reason Louis wanted to surf down a volcano. But it had been so very long since she felt desirable. During a drunken game of hide and seek, she and Colin had shared a delirious moment in a butler’s pantry. Then he had repeatedly called her and declared that being away from her was agony. Soon he had started coming over most nights that Louis wasn’t there.
Amira hadn’t really meant it when she’d told Colin she would leave her marriage for him. By then she thought she loved him—or at least, she’d loved the way he made her feel. The security of the House of Villiers rested entirely on her slim shoulders, and she’d wanted to imagine, just once, what it would be like to run away. But a week later, Colin showed up to dinner at Sherbourne House with a bottle of whisky and the daughter of an earl. Amira sat at the head of her own table and watched as Colin looked into this woman’s eyes and held her hand. Amira had realised there would be many more nights like this, a lifetime of dizzying interludes followed by heartbreak, and then she must carry on as if nothing happened.
That was when she had started spending more time in London. At least she had friends there. As an Upper Sixth student at Astley, she’d been a peer support leader, and one of her Shells had got in touch, asking if there were any jobs going at the palace. Amira had always liked Mary, the poor scholarship girl from Brixton with the sick father. Mary was smarter than her meek little face let on, but she was still starstruck by Amira. Using her powers as a duchess, Amira got Mary a job as a media girl in Frederick’s office and allowed her to come over to Cumberland now and then to watch her try on gowns for events.
Then the tabloids started to notice that Amira and Louis were going weeks without seeing each other. It hadn’t mattered that Amira was an exemplary member of the family; it hadn’t mattered that she did twice the charity work of everyone else. The tabloids had been waiting for this day for eight years. With divorce rumours rumbling, Louis and Amira sat down and wondered what they should do. It seemed impossible to go on as they were.
Like so many troubled couples before them, they decided to have a baby. A child could free them both. Once Amira gave the family an heir, they could discuss the possibility of separation. She could move on with her life and Louis would be a bachelor king. They told the IVF specialists they had beentrying to conceive without success for more than two years. The egg retrieval process would begin as soon as they got back from Zermatt. For the first time in a long time, Amira and Louis were close again. They went to Switzerland feeling hopeful. They knew this child would be born into a house of love and would be loved in return. Everything was going to be okay.
Then the mountain swept away everything.
As she was driven to the hospital to find out if her husband and her brother were alive, her phone rang. It was Stewart, ready to patch her into a conference call with Granny and Annabelle. Palace aides had finally tracked me down to Maria Island, but my phone was switched off, so the only option was to send someone to fetch me.
“I want her back here as quickly as possible,” the Queen said in a steely voice. “Once she’s here, take her passport and don’t let her leave.”
“She won’t want to stay,” Amira said. “She doesn’t want to be here. She never has.”
“Then we must change her mind.”
The Queen hadn’t reigned for decades without channelling Barbara now and then. Amira was reluctant. Her future was lying on a gurney with a core body temperature of twenty-two degrees. If he died, she would finally have her freedom. But when the golden cage door swung open, she could not make herself step through it. As mother of a future monarch, she might be brave enough. As Amira Shankar, she found that she wasn’t ready yet. She looked at the ruins of her life and she realised there had only been one person who predicted this would happen.
“Stewart, take Mary Williams from Wolseley House when you pick up Lexi,” Amira said. “She will love her. And once she’s here, she can move in with me. I’m sure she misses me as much as I’ve missed her.”
When she was done, we sat for a long time. People were starting to leave the reception, and if we kept totally still, they didn’t notice us watching them from the stairs. A couple came giggling from the picture gallery, and he twirled her around on the landing and then kissed her. They both looked up at the grand house, but they didn’t see us in the shadows. Finally, they left, hand in hand.
“I feel like my life stopped when I went to Patagonia,” Amira said. “I should have listened to you.”
“I feel like I never got off that boat,” I said. “I’ve been drifting out at sea on my own for years. Every time I close my eyes, I’m rocking on the waves in the middle of the night. I should never have left you and Louis on your own.”
She took my hand in hers. “You’re here now.”
I smiled at her—my first true friend, my sister. “Richard knows what I did. He knows about Kris and Louis. He knows everything. He’s been trying to get rid of us for months.”
Her eyes shone in the light from the chandelier, and she lowered her face until her cheek pressed against our intertwined fingers.
“It’s going to be okay,” I whispered. “He’s not going to tell anyone. I’ve made sure of that.” I smoothed her hair from her face. “But Amira, don’t you think it’s time you left all this behind?”
