“Your father must be fabulously wealthy,” she’d whispered as we stepped off Pa’s private jet, which had just landed at La Môle airport near Saint-Tropez. The chauffeur was waiting on the tarmac to take us down to the harbor, where we’d board our magnificent ten-berth yacht, the Titan, and sail off for our annual Mediterranean cruise to whatever destination Pa Salt fancied taking us to.
Like any child, rich or poor, given that I had grown up knowing no different, the way we lived had never really struck me as unusual. All of us girls had taken lessons with tutors at home when we were younger, and it was only when I went to boarding school at the age of thirteen that I began to realize how removed our life was from most people’s.
I’d asked Pa once what exactly it was he did to provide our family with every luxury imaginable.
He’d looked at me in that secretive way he had and smiled. “I am a magician of sorts.”
Which, as he’d intended, told me nothing. As I grew older, I began to realize that Pa Salt was indeed the master illusionist and nothing was as it first seemed.
When Marina came back into the drawing room carrying two gin and tonics on a tray, it occurred to me that, after thirty-three years, I had no real idea who my father had been in the world outside Atlantis. I wondered whether I would finally begin to find out now.
“There we go,” Marina said, setting the glass in front of me. “Here’s to your father,” she said as she raised hers. “May God rest his soul.”
“Yes, here’s to Pa Salt. May he rest in peace.”
Marina took a hefty gulp before placing the glass on the table and taking my hands in hers. “Maia, before we discuss anything else, I feel I must tell you one thing.”
“What?” I asked, looking at her weary brow, furrowed with anxiety.
“You asked me earlier if your father was still here in the house. The answer is that he has already been laid to rest. It was his wish that the burial happen immediately and that none of you girls were to be present.”
I stared at her as if she’d taken leave of her senses. “But, Ma, you told me only a few hours ago that he died in the early hours of this morning! How is it possible that a burial could have been arranged so soon? And why?”
“Maia, your father was adamant that as soon as he passed away, his body was to be flown on his jet to his yacht. Once on board, he was to be placed in a lead coffin, which had apparently sat in the hold of the Titan for many years in preparation for such an event. From there he was to be sailed out to sea. Naturally, given his love for the water, he wanted to be laid to rest in the ocean. And he did not wish to cause his daughters the distress of . . . watching the event.”
“Oh God,” I said, Marina’s words sending shudders of horror through me. “But surely he knew that we’d all want to say goodbye properly? How could he do this? What will I tell the others? I—”
“Chérie, you and I have lived in this house the longest and we both know that where your father was concerned, ours was never to question why. I can only believe,” she sighed, “that he wished to be laid to rest as he’d lived: privately.”
“And in control,” I added, anger flaring suddenly inside me. “It’s almost as though he couldn’t even trust the people who loved him to do the right thing for him.”
“Whatever his reasoning,” said Marina, “I only hope that in time you can all remember him as the loving father he was. The one thing I do know is that you girls were his world.”
“But which of us knew him?” I asked, frustration bringing tears to my eyes. “Did a doctor come to confirm his death? You must have a death certificate. Can I see it?”
“The doctor asked me for his personal details, such as his place and year of birth. I said I was only an employee and I wasn’t sure of those kinds of things. I put him in touch with Georg Hoffman, the lawyer who handles all your father’s affairs.”
“But why was he so private, Ma? I was thinking today on the plane that I don’t ever remember him bringing friends here to Atlantis. Occasionally, when we were on the yacht, a business associate would come aboard for a meeting and they’d disappear downstairs into his study, but he never actually socialized.”
“He wanted to keep his family life separate from business, so that when he was home, his full attention could be focused on his daughters.”
“The daughters he adopted and brought here from all over the world. Why, Ma, why?”
Marina looked back at me silently, her wise, calm eyes giving me no clues as to whether or not she knew the answer.
“I mean, when you’re a child,” I continued, “you grow up accepting your life. But we both know it’s terribly unusual, if not downright strange, for a single, middle-aged man to adopt six baby girls and bring them here to Switzerland to grow up under the same roof.”
“Your father was an unusual man,” Marina agreed. “But surely, giving needy orphans the chance of a better life under his protection couldn’t be seen as a bad thing?” she equivocated. “Many wealthy people adopt children if they have none of their own.”
“But usually, they’re married,” I said bluntly. “Ma, do you know if Pa ever had a girlfriend? Someone he loved? I knew him for thirty-three years and never once did I see him with a woman.”
“Chérie, I understand that your father has gone, and suddenly you realize that many questions you’ve wanted to ask him can now never be answered, but I really can’t help you. And besides, this isn’t the moment,” Marina added gently. “For now, we must celebrate what he was to each and every one of us and remember him as the loving and kind human being we all knew within the walls of Atlantis. Try to remember that your father was well over eighty. He’d lived a long and fulfilling life.”
“But he was out sailing the Laser on the lake only three weeks ago, scrambling around the boat like a man half his age,” I sighed. “It’s hard to reconcile that image with someone who was dying.”
“Yes, and thank God he didn’t follow many others of his age and suffer a slow and lingering death. It’s wonderful that you and the other girls will remember him as fit, happy, and healthy,” Marina said encouragingly. “It was certainly what he would have wanted.”
“He didn’t suffer at the end, did he?” I asked her tentatively, knowing in my heart that even if he had, Marina would never tell me.
“No. He knew what was coming, Maia, and I believe that he’d made his peace with God. Really, I think he was happy to pass on.”
“How on earth do we tell the others that their father has gone?” I entreated her. “And that they don’t even have a body to bury? They’ll feel like I do, that he’s simply disappeared into thin air.”
“Your father thought of that before he died, and Georg Hoffman, his lawyer, contacted me earlier today. I promise you that each and every one of you will get a chance to say goodbye to him.”
“Even in death, Pa has everything under control,” I said with a despairing sigh. “I’ve left messages for all the sisters, by the way, but as yet, no one has called me back.”
“Well, Georg Hoffman is on standby to come here as soon as you’ve all arrived. And please, Maia, don’t ask me what he’ll have to say, for I haven’t a clue. Now, I had Claudia prepare some soup for you. I doubt you’ve eaten anything since this morning. Would you prefer to take it to the Pavilion, or do you want to stay here in the house tonight?”
“I’ll have some soup here, and then I’ll go home if you don’t mind. I think I need to be alone.”
“Of course.” Marina reached toward me and gave me a hug. “I understand what a terrible shock this is for you. And I’m sorry that yet again, you’re bearing the burden of responsibility for the rest of the girls, but it was you he asked me to tell first. I don’t know whether you find any comfort in that. Now, shall I go and ask Claudia to warm the soup? I think we could both do with a little comfort food.”
* * *
After we’d eaten, I told Marina to go to bed and kissed her good night, for I could see that she to
o was exhausted. Before I left the house, I climbed the many stairs to the top floor and peered into each of my sisters’ rooms. All were still as they had been when their occupants had left home to take flight on their chosen paths, and each room still displayed their very different personalities. Whenever they returned, like doves to their waterside nest, none of them seemed to have the vaguest interest in changing them. Including me.
Opening the door to my old room, I went to the shelf where I still kept my most treasured childhood possessions. I took down an old china doll which Pa had given to me when I was very young. As always, he’d weaved a magical story of how the doll had once belonged to a young Russian countess, but she had been lonely in her snowy palace in Moscow when her mistress had grown up and forgotten her. He told me her name was Leonora and that she needed a new pair of arms to love her.
Putting the doll back on the shelf, I reached for the box that contained a gift Pa had given me on my sixteenth birthday, opened it, and drew out the necklace inside.
“It’s a moonstone, Maia,” he’d told me as I’d stared at the unusual opalescent stone, which shone with a bluish hue and was encircled with tiny diamonds. “It’s older than I am and comes with a very interesting story.” I remembered he’d hesitated then, as if he was weighing something up in his mind. “Maybe one day I’ll tell you what it is,” he continued. “The necklace is probably a little grown-up for you now. But one day, I think it will suit you very well.”
Pa had been right in his assessment. At the time, my body was festooned—like all my school friends’—with cheap silver bangles and large crosses hanging from leather strings around my neck. I’d never worn the moonstone and it had sat here, forgotten on the shelf, ever since.
But I would wear it now.
Going to the mirror, I fastened the tiny clasp of the delicate gold chain around my neck and studied it. Perhaps it was my imagination, but the stone seemed to glow luminously against my skin. My fingers went instinctively to touch it as I walked to the window and looked out over the twinkling lights of Lake Geneva.
“Rest in peace, darling Pa Salt,” I whispered.
And, before further memories began to engulf me, I walked swiftly away from my childhood room, out of the house, and along the narrow path that took me to my current adult home, some two hundred meters away.
The front door to the Pavilion was left permanently unlocked; given the high-tech security which operated on the perimeter of our land, there was little chance of someone stealing away with my few possessions.
Walking inside, I saw that Claudia had already been in to switch on the lamps in my sitting room. I sat down heavily on the sofa, despair engulfing me.
I was the sister who had never left.
Continue Reading…
The Seven Sisters
Lucinda Riley
About the Author
LUCINDA RILEY is the New York Times bestselling author of twenty novels, including The Orchid House, The Girl on the Cliff, The Lavender Garden, The Midnight Rose, and the Seven Sisters series. Her books have sold more than fifteen million copies in thirty-five languages globally. She was born in Ireland and divides her time between England and West Cork with her husband and four children. Visit her online at LucindaRiley.com.
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ALSO BY LUCINDA RILEY
The Orchid House
The Girl on the Cliff
The Lavender Garden
The Midnight Rose
The Seven Sisters Series
The Seven Sisters
The Storm Sister
The Shadow Sister
The Pearl Sister
The Moon Sister
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2018 by Lucinda Riley
Originally published in 2000 in Great Britain by Pan Books, an imprint of Pan Macmillan, as Seeing Double
Updated and revised edition published in 2018 in Great Britain by Pan Books, an imprint of Pan Macmillan, as The Love Letter.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Riley, Lucinda, author.
Title: The royal secret : a novel / Lucinda Riley.
Other titles: Seeing double
Description: New York : Atria Paperback, [2018]
Identifiers: LCCN 2018049615 (print) | LCCN 2018052919 (ebook)
Subjects: | BISAC: FICTION / Contemporary Women. | FICTION / Suspense. | FICTION / Espionage. | GSAFD: Suspense fiction.
Classification: LCC PR6055.D63 (ebook) | LCC PR6055.D63 S44 2018 (print) | DDC 823/.914—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018049615
ISBN: 978-1-9821-1506-7
ISBN: 978-1-9821-1507-4 (ebook)
The Royal Secret Page 48