The Royal Secret

by Lucinda Riley

  “Well, Michael came back to London and managed to contact the duchess. They met at my London house. He told her how the establishment had tried to engineer his death. The duchess was understandably hysterical with anger. Having spent a sleepless night trying to think how she could protect him, she returned to see me. When she told me what she was going to do, I told her that it would put both herself and her family in the most compromising position if it was ever discovered. But she’d have none of it. Michael O’Connell had to be kept from harm, and that was an end to it. After all, no one else was there to protect him. He’d been used and discarded. And the duchess was—out of love, or scruples—wishing to do the right thing.”

  “What was it the duchess did?”

  “She wrote him another letter, which I delivered personally to his lodgings, concealed in the usual way.”

  “I see.” Joanna was doing her best to compute the facts as they were spoken. “And Michael O’Connell used whatever was in this letter to buy himself his safety. A new identity, a substantial house, and a brilliant future?”

  “Spot-on, young lady. I doubt if he’d have asked for anything, had they not tried so obviously to get rid of him. He was never a greedy man. But”—Rose sighed—“he thought he’d be safer, the more noticeable he was. Besides, he deserved the success he achieved. He’d pulled off one of the greatest acting roles of the twentieth century.”

  “Yes, he had. And I suppose that it’s much easier to murder a nobody than it is a rich and successful actor. You obviously knew him well, Rose.”

  “I did, and I feel I did my best for him, he was a good man. Anyway, after that, everything seemed to settle down. The duchess accepted he was gone, that she had done her best to protect him, and she and the real duke resumed their relationship.”

  “May I say, Rose, that this is what has puzzled me in the past few days?” queried Joanna. “The duke and duchess’s marriage was always regarded as one of the biggest success stories of the monarchy.”

  “And I truly believe it was. There are different types of love, Miss Haslam,” said Rose. “Michael and the duchess’s relationship was what one might call a brief but passionate affair. Whether it would have endured beyond those few months, we will never know. Certainly, once the duchess knew he was safe, she stood by the duke during all the trials and tribulations that followed. She never mentioned Michael’s name again.”

  “When he later became famous as James Harrison, surely their paths must have crossed?”

  “Yes, but thankfully, by then he’d met Grace. By complete coincidence, I’d known her for years. We were presented at court together. She always was as mad as a hatter, but James fell for her hook, line, and sinker.”

  “It was a real love match then?”

  “Absolutely. They worshipped each other. Grace needed James to protect her against a world she’d never been very comfortable being a part of.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “As I said, Grace White was emotionally unstable. Always had been. If she hadn’t been part of the aristocracy, she’d have been tucked away in a funny farm years before. Her parents were just thankful to get her off their hands. However, with James she seemed to blossom. His love steadied her . . . somewhat erratic personality traits. They had their son, Charles, and all was going well for both of them . . . until the king’s abdication.”

  “Of course. The duke became the king, the duchess the queen. I suppose then that it was even more vital that the secret affair never came out?”

  “Oh yes, my dear, it certainly was. Confidence in the royal family was at an all-time low. The old king had done the unthinkable and given up the throne of England to marry an American.”

  “Which meant his brother—the Duke of York—was left to take over,” mused Joanna.

  “Quite. Even though I was in France at the time, having married François, I felt the shock waves over there. Neither the duke nor the duchess had ever even considered that one day they would be crowned king and queen of England. Nor, and perhaps more importantly, had those who worked behind the scenes, those who knew exactly what had happened ten years earlier.”

  “So what did they do?”

  “You remember the gentleman in the wheelchair who so frightened Grace at the memorial service?”

  “How could I forget?” Joanna remembered the cold eyes that had swept over Grace as they had left the church.

  “He was a very senior member of the British Secret Intelligence Service. His remit at the time was the safeguarding of the royal family. He went to the Harrison homestead and demanded James give up the letter the duchess had written to him, for the sake of the future of the monarchy. James, understandably, refused. He knew that without the letter he was unprotected. Unfortunately, Grace was listening behind closed doors and heard the gist of the conversation.”

  “Oh dear.”

  “Perhaps it wouldn’t have been so bad if she wasn’t as neurotic and needy a character, but she felt betrayed by the one human being she had placed all her trust in. Here was absolute evidence of her husband’s previous—and obviously powerful—liaison with another woman. A woman whom Grace could never hope to compete with. She accused him of keeping secrets, of still being in love with the duchess. You have to understand, Joanna, we are not talking about a rational woman here. This discovery sent her completely off the rails. She’d always liked a drink and she started making drunken references in public to a secret that had to be kept at any cost. In short, she became a liability.”

  “Oh God. How awful. What did James do?”

  “He told me later that Grace went absolutely mad after the meeting had ended. She confronted him and demanded to see the letter. When he refused, she began to tear the house apart in an attempt to find where he had hidden it. So James did the only thing he could, and tore one of the letters the duchess had sent him from its hiding place. Of course, it was not the letter they wanted back, but a decoy.”

  “But Grace believed it was the letter they wanted?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was it the letter she sent to me?”

  “Yes.” Rose sighed. “Of course, it said nothing of real importance, but she was not to know that. She refused to give it back to James, telling him she would hold it with her forever as proof of his unfaithfulness. That letter stayed with her for the rest of her life. Where she hid it when she was in the sanatorium remains a mystery, but she certainly showed it to me just before she left for England last November.”

  “But this affair was years before James had even met Grace!”

  “I know, my dear, but as I said, she had gone quite mad. He wrote to me in France, confiding his fears, knowing I was a friend of Grace’s and one of the only people who also knew the truth. He knew it wouldn’t be long before our friend in the wheelchair and his cronies got wind of the fact Grace knew, of her indiscreet behavior. She had also tried to take her own life by then, blaming the attempted suicide on James for his affair with the duchess. He was desperately aware of what lengths they would go to, that even the letter in his possession could not save a woman who might give the game away. So he decided to act before they did.”

  “How did he get her out of danger?”

  “He brought Grace to France. They stayed with me for a while, then James made arrangements to install her in a comfortable institution near Berne in Switzerland. I’m sure that these days the poor lamb would have been diagnosed with manic depression or some such, but I assure you, at the time, it was the kindest thing to do. She was known there as ‘Rose White’—James using her middle name. A few months later, he then made it known to those in England that Grace had taken her own life while on holiday with me, her oldest friend. At the time, most of London was aware of her instability. It made a believable story. We held a funeral in Paris with an empty coffin.” Rose gazed into the distance. “Let me tell you, my dear, she might as well have been in there for the difference it made to James. I’ve never seen a man so distraught. For her own sa
fety, he could never see her again, he knew that.”

  “Good God.” Joanna shook her head sadly. “No wonder he never remarried afterward. His wife was still living.”

  “Exactly, but no one else knew that. Then, of course, the war came. The Germans invaded France and my husband and I left for our house in Switzerland. We were close by and I’d see Grace at the sanatorium as often as I could. She ranted and raved, asking where James was, begging me constantly to take her home. My husband and I rather hoped that, for her sake, her health would fail, for it was no life, but she always was a tough old boot, physically anyway.”

  “Did she stay in the Swiss institution for all those years?”

  “Yes. And I admit I stopped going to see her as often as I had before, because it all seemed rather pointless. And dreadfully upsetting. Then, one morning, seven years ago, I received a letter. It was from one of the doctors at the institution, asking me to go and see him. When I arrived, the doctor told me that Grace had improved. My guess would be that with all the advances in medical science, they had found a drug to stabilize her condition. She was better to the point where he suggested she was well enough to take a step into the outside world. I admit to being dubious, but I went to see her and talked to her, and there was absolutely no doubt that she was. She was able to talk rationally about the past and what had happened. And she begged me to help her at least enjoy the final years of her life in some semblance of normality.” Rose raised her arms in an elegant shrug. “What could I do? My beloved husband had died a few months before. I was rattling around in a huge château all by myself. So I decided I’d buy a smaller house and have Grace come and live with me. We agreed with the doctor that if there was any deterioration, Grace would go straight back to the institution.”

  “How on earth did she cope with the outside world after all those years of being locked away?” Joanna muttered, more to herself than Rose.

  “She was absolutely delighted with everything. Simply the treat of making her own decisions about what she should eat for breakfast, and when, thrilled her. She had her freedom, after all those long years, bless her.”

  Joanna smiled. “Yes.”

  “So, we settled down to a life together; two old ladies grateful for each other’s company, sharing a past that bound us tightly. And then, a year ago or so, Grace began to develop a cough that wouldn’t go away. It took me months to convince her to go to the doctor—you can imagine how frightened she was of going anywhere near them. When she finally did, tests revealed she had cancer of the lung. The doctor wanted to hospitalize her, of course, and operate, but you can imagine Grace’s reaction to that idea. She refused point-blank. I think that was the most tragic part of the whole tale. After all those years of incarceration, to finally find some peace, a little happiness, and then be given a year to live.” Rose fumbled for her hanky and wiped her eyes. “Sorry, my dear. It’s all still very fresh in my mind. I miss her dreadfully.”

  “Of course you must.” Joanna watched Rose compose herself before she continued.

  “It was a few months later when Grace saw the article about James dying in the English Times. And took it into her head that she wanted to go back to England. I knew it would kill her if she did. She was seriously ill by then.”

  “Yes, and you should have seen the squalor she was living in. What on earth was in those tea chests?”

  The comment brought a smile to Rose’s face. “Her life, my dear. She was the most dreadful magpie; she’d steal spoons from restaurants, toilet rolls and soap from powder rooms, and even hide food from our kitchen under the bed in her room. Perhaps it was due to material deprivation in the institution, but she hoarded everything. When she left France, she insisted on having the tea chests shipped over with her. When I kissed her goodbye, I . . . knew I would never see her again. But I understood she felt she had nothing to lose.”

  Joanna watched Rose sink lower into the chair, as grief overwhelmed her. From the way her energy was visibly ebbing, Joanna knew it was now or never. “Rose, do you know where this letter is?”

  “I really can’t talk anymore until I have a good meal inside me. We shall send for room service,” Rose decreed. “Be a dear and pass the menu, would you?”

  Joanna did so, knowing there were so many more questions she wanted to ask. She willed herself to garner patience as Rose searched in her handbag for her glasses, and studied the menu intently. Then she stood up wearily and crossed to the telephone by the bed. “Hello there, could you send up two rare sirloin steaks with béarnaise sauce, and a bottle of Côte-Rôtie. Thank you.” She put the receiver down and smiled at Joanna, then clasped her hands together like an excited child. “Oh, I do so love hotel-room food, don’t you?”

  * * *

  If it was possible to mentally pace while sedentary in a wheelchair, then the old man was doing just that. He was not behind his desk; in fact, he wheeled himself toward Simon as he opened the door, comforted by the sight of the only other human being who could share his anxiety.

  “Any news?”

  “No, sir. We’ll try again tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow may be too late, damn it!” he snapped.

  “No sign of Haslam or Alec O’Farrell your end?” Simon asked.

  “There’s been a lead on O’Farrell’s whereabouts, which is being followed up as we speak. My bet is that they’re holed up in a hotel somewhere, probably planning the sale of the century for their sordid little story. They’re certainly still in the country at least. I’ve had all my people scouring passenger lists at airports and ferry terminals. Unless of course they’ve left under forged passports.” He sighed.

  “What about our ‘messenger’? Rose Le Blanc, née Fitzgerald?”

  “No flights into England have confirmed a passenger by that name, but of course that means nothing. She could have easily traveled in by car or train. We will find her if she’s here, but—Christ!—if Haslam gets to her first . . . I’m positive Madame Le Blanc knows where that damned letter is.”

  “Sir, until they’ve actually got it in their hands, they don’t have proof.”

  He did not seem to be listening. “I always knew we were headed for disaster, that the fool would never give it up. The devil even got a knighthood on the strength of his promise!”

  “Sir, I think you’re going to have to widen the net, let others know what it is they’re looking for.”

  “No! They have to work blind. We just cannot risk further leaks. I’m depending on you, Warburton. I want you to stay exactly where you are. My gut has always told me, if that letter is anywhere, it’s in one of Harrison’s houses. If Haslam finds out where it is, she’ll come to get it. Both houses are under heavy surveillance. If she does, she must be dealt with. Do not under any circumstances let emotion cloud your judgment. Tell me now if you feel you are unable to finish the job.”

  There was a pause before Simon said, “No, sir, I can handle it.”

  “If you don’t, then someone else will. I hope you realize that.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Make sure you carry on as normal. I don’t want either Haslam or O’Farrell getting wind of the fact we’re onto them. Let them lead us to it, understand?”

  “I do, sir.”

  He angled his wheelchair to face the river. After a long silence, he sighed heavily. “You do realize that if this gets out, it will be the end of the British monarchy. Good night, Warburton.”

  * * *

  Joanna watched in an agony of suspense as Rose chewed her way through everything on her plate so slowly it was painful. She’d wolfed her own food down, not even registering the taste, but knowing she needed to eat.

  Eventually, Rose patted her lips with her napkin. “Now I feel more like it. A cup of coffee while we chat, I think, my dear.”

  Trying to control her frustration, Joanna rang down for room service once more.

  Finally, once the coffee had arrived, Rose began to talk again. “Now, it’s well-known that royals have had mist
resses and lovers since the monarchy came into being. The fact the Duchess of York fell in love with her husband’s double was not what the palace would have cared for, of course, but it could be dealt with. Even the fact that she insisted on writing him dangerous love letters, one of which you yourself saw, could be contained. At the time, it was unlikely she would ever be queen, or her husband king.” Rose paused and gave a small smile. “Ironically, history was changed overnight by the most simple, yet potent force in the world.”

  “Love.”

  “Yes, my dear. Love.”

  “And she did become queen.”

  Rose nodded and took a sip of coffee. “So ask yourself, Joanna, what could it be, what could have happened between Michael O’Connell and the Duchess of York that could in turn become the most closely guarded secret of the twentieth century? And what would happen if proof of this secret was in a simple letter? Written by design, by a woman who, in the midst of an infatuation, wished to save him. Then hidden somewhere and used as his only method of protection against the vast armory of those who wanted and needed him dead?”

  Joanna searched the air, then looked around the room for an answer. Then, the sound of the traffic on the street outside disappeared as realization hit her.

  “Oh my God! Surely not?”

  “Yes.” It was Rose’s turn to pour whiskey for a shocked and shaking Joanna.

  “Never let it be said I told you. You guessed.” Rose shook her head. “I’ve only seen that kind of shock on one other face, and that was when I confirmed to Grace what she had heard through the study door at Welbeck Street.”

  “Surely it would’ve been best to lie to Grace? To make her believe she’d misheard? My God.” Joanna swallowed the whiskey. “I class myself as perfectly sane, but having finally discovered the truth . . . I’m a gibbering wreck.”

  “I’m sure. And yes, I did consider trying to convince Grace she’d misheard, but of course I knew she wouldn’t leave it there. There was a chance she’d go to the horse’s mouth, to the man whom she’d heard James talking to that day in the study. A man who later became Sir Henry Scott-Thomas, head of MI5. A man capable of destroying both her and James if he found out she knew. A man who was later paralyzed from the waist down in a riding accident.”