by Geneva Lee
“I’d like to be able to look at you all in the morning,” Norris interrupted with a heavy sigh, “without all the imagery.”
“Sorry.” David grinned sheepishly, and I couldn’t keep my own lips from twitching.
There was one more thing that needed clearing up, though. “Sorry, Norris. One last bit to clear up. As far as Clara and I go, our relationship—”
“Is no one’s business but our own,” she broke in. “But to put your minds at ease, Alexander has never harmed me and our relationship is completely consensual.”
“Change the subject.” To my surprise the plea came from Georgia. “Shag and dominate and whatever, but leave us out of it. Now what do you want to do about your sister?”
The room quieted. It was telling that we were all more comfortable owning up to our private secrets than dealing with the Sarah issue.
“She needs to go.” There was no room for discussion in Clara’s voice. “I know I said she could stay here, but…”
“Where will she go?” I asked.
“She does have the emotional capacity of a teaspoon,” Georgia pointed out, “and about as much life experience.”
“Windsmoor?” Edward suggested and we all stared at him. “What? She’d probably feel comfortable there.”
“She was unconscious during most of her time there,” I reminded him. “I doubt it feels like a second home.”
“There are several options in London and nearby. Rose Cottage. Frogmore House. The list continues,” Norris said.
“You’ve given this some thought.” I studied him for a moment, wondering if this was what he needed to speak freely about.
“We all have,” Edward joined in.
“It’s only been a few days.” I felt like a traitor sending her away so soon—even though I didn’t want her here, either. I looked to Georgia for support. “You said it, she’s not capable of living on her own.”
“Yes, but I’m with them,” she said slowly, shrugging her shoulders. “I don’t think she should live here. I told Clara that last night after…”
Clara’s warning glare cut her off and I turned to my wife.
“After?” I prompted.
She sighed, continuing to stare murderously at Georgia. “Sarah was drunk and talking nonsense. It wasn’t a threat.”
“A threat?” Norris repeated. He stood and began to pace the room.
“Not exactly,” Georgia said. “I just think she’s angrier with you then she’s letting on.”
“She’s trying to hide her anger. We do have a problem,” I said dryly.
“It was nothing,” Clara said firmly. “But we can’t have parties and strangers here. We have children.” She patted her stomach as if to remind me that our responsibilities were about to double.
“I know that.” I frowned.
“Then you know what you need to do,” Norris said. “Someone choose a place for her and pack her bags.”
“That won’t help her grow up,” Edward pointed out.
“Maybe she can live with you,” Georgia said sweetly.
“No!”
“Exactly,” Clara said. “She needs help adjusting. Probably some freaking therapy, too, but if we’re fighting with her all the time, we can’t give her that.”
“And what about the Jonathan thing?” Edward dared to ask.
It took restraint to even hear his name. “That’s her mistake to make, but I want to know if she’s on drugs—and I want to know if he’s involved.”
Norris nodded, and I realized that try as he might, he was never really off the clock.
“Okay. We’ll make the arrangements, and we’ll need to assign a new security head to her,” I added.
No one seemed to want to discuss Brex’s departure. He’d walked from the job before, but I didn’t know if I’d ever get him to come back.
“I’ll talk to Brex,” Georgia offered. “I’ll explain. He has the wrong idea.”
“He doesn’t, though,” I corrected her gently. “I should have told him about it. It’s part of his job to know anything compromising.”
“We’re hardly compromising shit anymore,” Georgia said.
“He still should have known,” Clara agreed with me.
“He’ll come around,” I said, but this time I didn’t know if he would. I’d been around both of them long enough to know there was something between them. It wasn’t until tonight that I’d realized Georgia returned his feelings.
“No, he won’t. Not while I’m here.” Georgia might love him, but she would never allow herself to be happy. She wasn’t built that way. Someone had broken her too much for that. I could only hope it wasn’t me.
“There’s one more issue.” Clara took a deep breath, then her eyebrows furrowed. “Ouch! Sorry! The baby is wide awake and elbowing me.”
“The issue?” Georgia prompted. She hated when she had to deal with Clara’s pregnancy. It’s why I still found Clara’s decision to ask her to be her primary bodyguard confusing.
“Anders,” Clara said, her eyes darting to me.
“What about him?” I said calmly.
“Sarah was throwing herself at him earlier,” she explained.
“I assume he didn’t get her phone number,” I said in a flat tone.
“He didn’t know what to do.”
“He’ll steer clear of her,” Edward said. “He doesn’t have much interest in the family.”
“She should know,” Clara insisted.
“What good will that do? She’s volatile. Unpredictable. She’s a fucking teenager.”
“I don’t disagree, X, but she’s your sister and that makes Anders her brother.”
“In case you failed to notice, he doesn’t want to be our brother.” I didn’t have all that much interest in having him around either. Not while he harboured feelings toward my wife. I trusted Clara, but I couldn’t stomach watching Anderson covet what belonged to me. “He has his own life. Our father saw to that.”
“I still think she should know,” Clara said stubbornly.
“I’m glad someone does.”
It took me a second to figure out who’d spoken. Everyone in the room studied each other. It wasn’t until a panel next to the fireplace began to open that I realized my mistake.
Sarah had grown up in these rooms. Many things had changed, but the fundamentals had not. She stepped into my office, her mobile still turned to flashlight mode, and slid it shut behind her.
There was no sign of the manic behaviour she’d exhibited earlier, according to Edward and David. She oozed fury in a terrifyingly rational way. That, coupled with her ability to navigate the dark secret passages that connected my grandmother’s suite to the King’s study, told me we’d been played. I couldn’t imagine why. Unless she’d wanted this all along.
“The benefit of losing ten years and having…what did you call it?” She looked at Georgia. “The emotional capacity of a teaspoon? Is that I still remember my childhood games. Hide and seek—don’t you remember, Alex?”
Her words stuck all the more when she called me by my old nickname. “No one’s called me that for years.”
“They wouldn’t, would they?” she seethed. “You grew up, unlike me. You have your secret meetings and make decisions about my life! Your American wife wants me gone and that’s that. You never asked me if I wanted to come back in the first place. But I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. You could have pulled the plug on my life support years ago, but then that’s one less life for you to control, isn’t it?”
“I don’t want to control your life.” I stood and moved to stand before her. “I want to control my own and I can’t do that with you here.”
“Where do you want me to go?” She laughed as if considering the possibilities. “Maybe my new brother will take me in. But wait! He hates you, too. I wonder why?” She tapped her finger thoughtfully on her cheek. Then she tilted her head to Clara. “Thanks for stopping me before I fucked him, by the way.”
“Anderson knows he�
��s our brother,” I said.
She cocked her head, smirking like I was missing a joke. “Are you sure that would stop him? He obviously wants to fuck his other sister. Then again, Clara doesn’t share his blood, so maybe that’s the line he draws.”
“Norris take my sister to a guest room—one without access to the corridors,” I said through clenched teeth, “and fire the guards who were watching her.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.” He held his arm towards the door, but Sarah shook her head.
“Even poor Norris has to bow down to you.” She crossed to the door. “Lock me up again. I’m used to it.”
When she was finally gone, we sat in silence. There was no point to speaking because we were all thinking the same thing: how much bigger could this mess get?
Chapter 21
Clara
“So you two made up?”
“Mostly,” I confirmed. I’d caught Belle up on the major happenings on our way to my appointment. She’d been in Scotland over the weekend and missed most of the drama.
As usual, she latched on to the detail I thought least important. “So, why isn’t Alexander here with you?”
“Don’t start.” I couldn’t handle one more abrasive woman in my life. My mother had been calling all morning, Sarah hadn’t graced us with her presence, but her outrage could be felt through the whole house, and Georgia had barely spoken in the car. She was sitting in the waiting room with a homicidal look on her face. “I need soft, gentle Belle right now.”
“She disappeared when the heartburn showed up,” she informed me. Sighing at the downturn of my mouth, she shifted gears. “Okay, no judgement, but if you two made up, then I think you should tell him.”
“I tried, but I wanted to enjoy some time with him before he…’
“Lost his shit?” she guessed.
I nodded. “And I did tell him about this appointment. He wanted to come, but he has to meet with the Prime Minister.”
“King and Country always coming before those fragile females,” she muttered.
“How are you feeling?” I asked pointedly.
“Fine.” But the answer was short and her smile tight.
I was about to press her on the matter, sure she was keeping something from me, when Doctor Ball came in, followed by another man, the specialist I’d seen a few weeks ago.
“Not much longer to go,” Doctor Ball said with the forced cheerfulness of a man about to ruin someone’s day. “You remember Doctor Rolland.”
I nodded in greeting, wondering if his presence meant they’d found something else.
“About five weeks.” Not that I was counting the days. The last few weeks of this pregnancy had flown by. I was both anxious to meet my child and on edge about what came next.
“In two weeks I’ll begin seeing you weekly,” he reminded me. “I will arrange to come to the palace to make it more discreet. We will need to do a full examination today as a baseline, although I don’t expect we need to worry about dilation. The baby seems to be sitting quite high.”
I appreciated the consideration. Unlike many women in Britain, I’d chosen to have our first child in a hospital, which had turned out to be a wise choice. This time I had to go into hospital, and the press would be camped out as soon as I arrived. I didn’t fancy them following me to all my appointments, but they would note the increased frequency and then the media speculation would become unbearable considering what I was already dealing with.
“That’s why I’d like to do a quick scan,” said Doctor Rolland. “We’ll need to do one more when we get closer to the actual due date, but we should make some decisions now.”
“Now?” I repeated, keenly aware that my husband wasn’t here. We were running out of time and now it was on me to make the call on the baby’s care.
I’d prepared for a scan by wearing a blouse, but a full examination meant getting a little more exposed than I’d planned. The doctors excused themselves to the hall and I began to undress. Belle, who’d kept up a stream of chatter to distract me, fell silent when I slipped off my skirt.
“What?” I asked, turning to her in alarm.
“Nothing.” She averted her eyes, picking up a magazine with feigned interest.
“Belle,” I said, then slowly I realized what had caught her attention. I’d left that part out of the story. “It’s not what it looks like—”
“It looks like you’ve been a naughty girl.” She bit back a smile.
“Okay, then it is what it looks like.” I strained to try to get a glimpse of my backside. “Is it bad? I don’t want the doctor to think…”
“You’ll be fine,” she assured me. “He’ll be wrist deep in your treasure, he won’t even notice.”
I grimaced at the visual she painted. “Thanks, I think.”
Shimmying onto the paper-lined exam table, I did my best to keep my rear pressed to its surface as I covered my lap with a sheet. The doctors came back in, and Belle held my hand as Doctor Rolland squeezed ultrasound jelly onto my abdomen.
“There’s your baby,” he said, angling the screen so we could both see. “Did you find out the gender?”
I shook my head. “I think it’s a boy.”
“We’ll try to keep that a surprise,” he promised me, “but we’ll stick with he for now. I’m going to take a few measurements and then we’ll discuss what I find. I want you to relax and think about how soon you’re going to meet him.”
I stared at the screen, love flooding through me. He was getting so big, and it wouldn’t be long until I held him. Maybe I would have been able to let my mind wander, imaging that moment, if worst case scenarios didn’t immediately follow. It was difficult to relax when the purpose of the visit was to determine what was wrong with the baby. “Is he okay?”
“He looks very happy, if a bit cramped,” Rolland said gently.
“Have you two picked out names?” Belle was always good at drawing my thoughts away from the worst.
“Only about ten, so we need about twenty more,” I said dryly. Royal naming conventions made it both easier and harder to choose.
“Tell me and I’ll give you suggestions. Smith and I are fighting constantly. He likes the name Charles—can you imagine? Charles,” she repeated, screwing her face up like it tasted sour on her tongue.
“That one is not on our list.” She’d managed to get me laughing and the baby seemed to respond, stretching like he could hear me. “William for a boy and Alice for a girl, I think. Alexander likes Alice more than I do.”
“Alice and Alexander is darling,” Belle noted.
“It is,” I said softly, trying it out myself. “Alice and Alexander. He wants another little girl.”
“And you?”
This was where I gave the standard mother-to-be response, but it held so much more meaning. The words clumped in my throat. “Healthy. I want a healthy baby.”
So much for distraction.
“William is adorable,” Belle said. “We can call him Wills.”
“Wills,” I echoed her. I imagined meeting Wills. How Elizabeth would fawn over the baby—she’d taken a more active interest in her dollies over the last few weeks. As time passed, he’d toddle after, trying to mimic everything she did. I saw a whole, joyful life stretching ahead of me and suddenly, I wasn’t afraid.
I was determined.
Nothing would take it from me. I had access to amazing medical care. I had resources.
Belle and I continued to discuss the numerous other names the baby would have. She rather liked adding Edward in as a middle. “Annabelle would make a lovely middle name.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
When the doctor finished the scan it was time for the more uncomfortable bit. As he’d expected, there was no progress, which was a relief.
“I don’t even have the nursery ready,” I admitted.
“Ohhh, that’s the fun part,” Belle said. “I’ll help.”
“Alexander wanted to do it, but…” I hadn’t brought i
t up to my husband in ages. He’d put together Elizabeth’s room with the help of his brother as a surprise. At the time, when he was still leery of becoming a father, I’d seen it as a sign. I didn’t want to read into the lack of room prep now. He had been busy, but the dread inside me questioned if he knew something was wrong with the baby. If we’d been resisting planning for his arrival because deep down, we knew.
“I will remind him,” Belle said as if to put an end to that line of worry.
After I was dressed, both doctors returned, wearing borrowed smiles, to discuss the scan with me. As soon as Rolland spoke, I understood his mood.
“Doctor Ball informed that he already went over our initial concerns, and the good news is that I’ve discovered no further issues.”
‘No further issues’ meant we still had the one. “But the baby’s heart will need surgery?”
I spoke because I needed to face it. Until now, I’d terrified myself with what could go wrong and then calmed myself by saying it was too early to be certain. It was no longer too early.
“Yes.” Rolland’s voice was soft and kind but there was a heaviness that didn’t match dragging at his eyes. “We’ll need to administer some medicine at his birth that will help keep his ductus arteriosus open to help him breathe. After that, we’ll need to keep him under observation until we determine how soon we can perform the operation.”
I’d read about the condition and I knew that the operation was usually done within days to weeks. “How soon?”
“Ideally, as soon as I can perform it is best. We want the baby to have time to bond with his parents, but then it should be done right away,” Rolland said.
“It’s in the baby’s best interest that we schedule your cesarean in advance. I would prefer you don’t go into labor at all,” Doctor Ball said. “Being able to control the situation will mean more control over the outcome. I’d like to set that date today and adjust only if you’re showing signs of early progress.”
Tears blurred my eyes as I realized he wanted me to pick out the baby’s birthday.
“I understand that you may want to discuss this with your husband.” It was no secret that Alexander was involved with his children. He’d never missed a single appointment when I was pregnant with Elizabeth.