by Iris Morland
Olivier put out his hand. “Olivier Valady. I’m Niamh’s…” He hesitated. “Companion.”
My da grunted and, after shaking Olivier’s hand, disappeared into the kitchen. When he returned with tea, he gave us both steaming mugs before sitting on the futon across from us. He pulled out a cigarette and said, “You mind?”
“It’s fine,” I said. At least the one window I could see was open.
Da smoked and looked at me. I kept bouncing my foot against the floor, feeling my armpits get sweaty again after our staircase climb. I hoped I’d put on enough deodorant today.
“So, you found me,” Da said after blowing out a puff of smoke. “How’d you manage that?”
“Olivier helped me. That’s why we’re here together.”
Silence. Then I forced myself to ask, “How are you? It’s nice to finally meet you.”
He shrugged. “Been better. Sorry about the state of this place. If I’d known I’d have company, I’d at least have taken out the rubbish.” He laughed, the sound turning into a deep cough soon after.
He drank his tea in quick gulps. “Fucking bloody hell,” he muttered. “Oh, don’t worry about me. I’ve had this cough as long as I can remember.”
I couldn’t help but notice that Da looked very thin. His skin was pale, and there were dark circles under his eyes. As he lifted a cigarette, I could see his hands shaking a little. Although he wasn’t much older than sixty, he looked at least ten years older than that.
As I struggled to know what to say, Olivier interjected into the silence. “I’ve actually accompanied your daughter for a specific reason. You see, I’m in search of a particular antique.” He pulled out the documents he’d carried across the Channel and back again. “This clock. We were given information that you possessed it.”
Da took the papers without his expression changing. He pulled on his cigarette before finally putting it out against the coffee table. “Why do you want to know?” he said.
“That clock was—is—my mother’s. You see, I sold it a few years ago for a very selfish reason, and I’ve been searching for it ever since. It would mean everything to my mother if I were to return it to her.”
Da narrowed his eyes at Olivier. “You’re not from around here, are you?” He leaned back into the futon. “Where are you from, anyway?”
“He’s French,” I said. I didn’t look at Olivier, but I really didn’t want Da to know about the whole prince thing. “We were just in Paris, actually, searching for you.”
Da had no response to that. He eventually rose from the futon and went around the corner to the kitchen. A moment later, he returned with the clock we’d been searching for in his hands.
“Oh my God,” I said, because it was hard to believe the thing existed. But when Da placed it on the coffee table in front of us, we all knew it was exactly the antique Olivier had been searching for. The hands of the clock ticked the time, which was two hours off from the current time.
“So you went to all this trouble to find me for a clock,” said Da. “It must be very important to your mother.”
There was an edge to those words that I didn’t understand. Olivier caught them, too, his brow furrowing. “It is, yes. And I’ll pay you any sum if you’ll sell it to me.”
“Any sum? My boy, that’s no way to barter. Now I’ll fleece you silly and you’ll go home with a smile on your face.”
“The sum is inconsequential.”
Da’s gaze turned to me. “So this one has told me why he’s here. Are you here for the clock, too, daughter o’ mine?”
My stupid heart squeezed inside my chest. I’d warned myself not to get my hopes up. But sometimes the heart was a stupid organ, and it could cling to hopes like that poor woman who’d fallen off the Cliffs and gotten called a nag for her trouble.
“I’m here because I wasn’t sure you’d even speak to Olivier without me. Clearly, I was wrong.”
Da let out a gruff laugh. “Who said you were wrong? No, no. I’m glad you came.” His green-eyed gaze took in my face, and for one split instant, I could see his expression soften. “You look just like your mam. A spittin’ image of her.”
But the tender moment ended as soon as it had occurred. All business, Da said to Olivier, “I’ll consider your generous offer, but I’ll make no decision this evening.”
He turned back to me. “Come back tomorrow to see me—alone. Then I’ll make my decision.”
Chapter Nineteen
I was frazzled when I arrived the following day at Da’s. I’d woken late, my phone not going off for some reason. Olivier had gone for a walk, so he hadn’t been there to wake me. I’d hurried through my shower and had almost forgotten my wallet. I had to run back inside the estate, nearly mowing over poor Cara in the process.
Now sitting once again in Da’s apartment, I waited for him to make me a tepid cup of tea for a second day in a row. The clock still sat on the coffee table. I had the urge to wipe down the surface of the table. Surely the clock was too valuable to sit on a bunch of cigarette ash and wrappers.
Da handed me my cup of tea that tasted like dishwater. After lighting a cigarette, he said, “Do you know who your companion is?”
The question startled me so much that the tea sloshed in its mug. Luckily it wasn’t too hot, but I had to dab at my jeans with a stray fast-food napkin as my mind whirled.
I decided that honesty was my best bet here. “Yes, I know who he is. How do you?”
Da’s lips lifted in a wan smile. “You know he’s the Hereditary Prince of Salasia, then? The only son of Prince Étienne?”
“Yes. He told me so himself not soon after we started traveling.”
Da smoked in thoughtful silence. He seemed calmer today. “How’s Liam?” he said suddenly.
“Liam? He’s doing well.” I said the words with an edge, knowing that Da hadn’t even bothered to ask about my brother yesterday—or in the twenty-two years he’d been on his own. “He’s married, you know. He has two girls, and he’s a professional photographer. He lives in Seattle.”
Da let out a puff of smoke. “Good for him,” was all he said.
“Yes, good for him. He’s very dedicated to his family. He’d do anything for them, and he’s sacrificed a lot to raise me.”
Sighing, Da stubbed out his cigarette and regarded me. “You’re mad. Understandable. I’d give you an explanation, but what would it matter? What’s done is done.”
“Most people would give an apology.”
“Is that what you want? You want me to say sorry, give you a hug, and tell you everything’s good? Lass, I know you don’t want that. You’re obviously smarter than that.”
I had half of a mind to storm out of his apartment. Or at the very least to throw one of his ashtrays at his head. But I didn’t want him to see how much his words hurt me.
He might be my father biologically, but beyond that, he was only a stranger. Liam, and then my uncle Henry, had been my fathers in Connor’s stead.
“You said you know about your handsome prince. Did he mention to you that he’d come to see me this morning? Based on your face, I’m going to venture to guess that that is a no.”
“Why would he come to see you without me?”
“Because I asked him to.”
I felt like a broken record. “Why? To discuss the clock?”
Da let out a rough laugh. “The bloody clock. No, it’s not about the clock. Not precisely.” His smile was wry now. “You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”
“No,” I said, irritation lacing my voice.
He reached over, pulling a metal pin from the shelf below the coffee table. He fiddled with something on the back, his tongue touching his teeth. Then a moment later, a little drawer popped open near the bottom of the clock.
He handed it to me. Inside the tiny drawer were papers. I touched the edge of one.
“Read what’s on them,” said Da.
I gently extracted the papers. Unfolding them, I discovered that th
ey were letters. My heart pounded in my chest, and I was glad I was sitting down, because I felt a little dizzy. Licking my dry lips, I began to read the first letter.
It was addressed to someone with the initial A, dated over twenty-five years ago.
My darling, I know we can overcome anything. We’re meant to be together. I love you with all of my heart.
The letter was signed by C.
I looked up at Da, but he just gestured for me to keep reading.
I unfolded another letter, and my eyebrows rose to my forehead. This letter was more explicit. I want to lick your lovely tits, suck on your toes. I want your cunt dripping into my mouth. Meet me in rose tower on the south lawn tonight.
I blushed to the roots of my hair, mostly because Da was watching me read this. Geez, talk about awkward.
The letter also included a line that stood out to me: Do you think you should keep the baby?
The last letter was essentially a farewell. C wrote that he was moving to Belgium and that he wanted to end things. Although he’d enjoyed his time with A, these things couldn’t last forever. She understood, yes? This time, though, the writer had addressed the receiver not as A, but as Alex.
“Okay, what are these all about?” I said after I’d folded them up and had returned them to the drawer. “You wanted me to come over here to read some dirty letters from some randoms?”
Da smiled. “Not from some randoms. Those letters were written to Prince Olivier’s mother, Princess Alexandra. And not from her husband.”
“What?”
“Don’t you understand already? Your golden prince is a bastard. Look at the dates. A year before Alexandra married Prince Olivier’s father.”
If it started out as a fairy tale, it didn’t last long. My parents stopped sharing a bed by the time I was five years old.
“You don’t know that for sure.”
“I didn’t, until I spoke with Olivier this morning. He doesn’t have much of a poker face, you know. It didn’t take much for him to confirm those letters were addressed to his mother and that the dates would line up with his own conception.” Da waved a hand. “Oh, he didn’t say as much. But he said enough for it all to line up.”
I couldn’t breathe. Olivier was a bastard? But these letters, if they were written to his mother, were damning. Had she been pregnant when she’d met Prince Étienne? Had he known?
“What do you want?” I said to Da. “Money? Because Olivier already told you he’d pay any price for the clock.”
Da sighed, like I was too stupid to understand everything. “Why do you think I wanted this clock in the first place?”
“How about you tell me, since you’re the one with all of the answers,” I shot back.
“I knew you’d be a handful.”
“You weren’t even there when I was born. You ran off, remember? Did you even know that Mam had had a girl?”
“I got her letters, if that’s what you’re asking.”
The admission hurt. I could almost, almost, forgive him if he’d somehow fallen out of contact with my mom and had had no idea I’d existed. Well, except he’d known about the pregnancy. No matter how I tried to justify his actions, there was nothing that could make them acceptable.
I suddenly wished I’d never come here to find him. The only silver lining in all of this was that I’d met Olivier.
“I wanted the clock,” said Da, interrupting my silence, “because it was my mother’s, years ago. Your grandmother Mary, who died when I was…” Da screwed up his mouth, thinking. “Ten years old. Just a stupid kid. She died in a car accident, and your grandda never really got over it.”
I thought of the letters I’d found in the book in the estate’s library, the one my grandda had written to my grandmother Mary.
“My mother held the entire family together. When she died, it was like the entire family died with her. The day after her wake, Da sent me to a boarding school and never wrote me a single letter.”
“Like father, like son?” I couldn’t help but point out.
Da guffawed. “Touché. But your grandda was a real piece of shite. Never cared for anybody except my mother—not even his only son. But theirs was a grand romance, you know. She was from a well-to-do, upper-crust family who disowned her when she ran off with Da. Just like I did with your mam, actually. Like father, like son, once again.”
Da began to skim his finger along the edge of the clock. “Da bought this for Mam when they married. It reminded her of home.” He pointed to the flowers that were delicately painted on the clock face. “Do you recognize these?”
“No.”
“They’re red carnations. They’re the flower of the Salasian royal family.” Da’s eyes locked with mine. “Your grandmother, my mother, was a princess of Salasia.”
You know the feeling when you’re at the top of a rollercoaster, the moment right before it plunges down to the ground? That was what my stomach felt like in that moment. Like everything I’d ever believed had been turned upside down, topsy turvy, a merry-go-round that I’d never wanted to ride in the first place.
“Princess Mary was the daughter of Prince Jean, younger sister of Prince Louis.” Da got up and went to a rickety bookshelf in the corner of his apartment, pulling out a large book. He flipped through the pages and opened it to a family tree. “Your grandmother, Princess Mary. Here. And Prince Louis’ son is the current Sovereign Prince of Salasia, Étienne…”
I followed his finger. Below Prince Étienne was a name I knew well: Prince Olivier. To the right was my father’s name and then Liam’s and my name.
“I don’t understand,” I said in a rush. “Are Olivier and I…?”
Da started laughing, so hard that he began to cough. It took a few moments for his voice to return, which made the anticipation all the worse. “You’d be second cousins, but considering he’s most likely a bastard, it seems as though you two are not, in fact, related.” Da’s eyebrows rose to his hairline. “Are you going to faint? Should I find some smelling salts?”
His amused tone just made my brain fog dissipate more quickly. As I took in this information, I realized that it could change everything.
If Prince Olivier wasn’t the true heir to the Salasian throne, then who was?
“Are you a prince, then?” I said.
“Not in name, not since the royal family stripped my mam of her title. But now they’re in a bit of a bind, hmm?” Da leaned back in the couch cushions. “If it were to become public knowledge that Olivier is a bastard, then I would be next in line. Unless Olivier’s father is able to produce a legitimate child, although Princess Alexandra is now too old. And divorce isn’t an option, either. Of course, he could always act like Henry VIII and have her beheaded.”
I didn’t laugh at the joke.
“What do you want? The crown?” I said.
“God, no. Besides, my lass, I’m dying.” At my stare, he shrugged. “Lung cancer. I guess that’s what happens when you smoke cigarettes most of your life. No, I don’t have much time left. But I would like my time to be comfortable, if that’s what you’re asking.”
If Da were the next legitimate heir, that would mean when he died, Liam, my brother, would be next in line as the eldest. Then me. Me, Niamh Gallagher, a girl who’d just wanted to find her father and who’d stumbled upon secrets she’d never thought possible.
And then I thought about Olivier. He was alone. He’d be devastated at reading those letters. His entire life would be ruined; he’d lose everything he’d been brought up to believe was his birthright. All because of something his mother—and perhaps his adopted father—had done.
“The thing is, I’ll go to the press with this information if the Royal Family doesn’t meet my demands.” Da said the words casually. “And if I do that, that means your brother would eventually become the Hereditary Prince of Salasia.”
I stood up. “I need to go. I need to find Olivier.”
“Yes, yes, find your lover boy. Go comfort him. I’m sure he�
�s quite distraught.”
I stared at him, incredulous. “Do you know why I wanted to find you?” My voice was hoarse. “I wanted to find you because I wanted to believe there was some reason, something I couldn’t possibly know, as to why you left Mam and Liam and me. I hoped you would’ve become someone better, that you’d regret what you’d done. But I don’t think you regret anything, do you?”
I squared my shoulders, refusing to let him see me cry. “I expected better of you than you ever expected of yourself. And after I leave here, I never want to speak to you again. You were dead to me when I was a child, and now as an adult, you’re still dead and gone. Goodbye, Connor Gallagher. May God have mercy on your soul.”
Da’s expression didn’t change. He didn’t say goodbye. He merely lit another cigarette and said as I opened the door, “Be sure to lock it behind you. That’s a good girl.”
Chapter Twenty
Cara met me in at the entrance to the estate before I’d even toed off my shoes. “Ma’am, Mr. Valady wants to speak with you immediately in the library.”
I grimaced. “Thanks, Cara. I was going to go search for him anyway. When did he arrive back here? Do you know?”
“He arrived before you left for your appointment, I believe.”
So he’d made a point to avoid me. Great. “Oh, well. We must’ve missed each other.” I turned to go upstairs, but I looked over my shoulder to add, “Can you bring up coffee and snacks in, say, an hour? We’ll probably need it.”
“Of course.” She bobbed a curtsy and hurried off. Despite my best efforts to tell all the employees here that they absolutely did not need to bow and curtsy, habits died hard. Olivier had seemed to instantly feel comfortable with the show of deference. He’d make a better owner of this grand estate than I would, that was for sure.
I walked up the stairs slowly. My body felt heavy, like all of the revelations had physically weighed it down. My heart thumped loudly in my ears.
Da might’ve been wrong about Olivier. The letters could be someone else’s.
I told myself that, but my gut wasn’t convinced.