A Royal Embarrassment

by Emma Lea

  I sank onto the bare mattress and dropped my head in my hands. Jed was gone. Archer was gone. I didn’t think for one minute that Jed had taken Archer. I knew he would never do something like that, but he was gone. He had abandoned me just like David did. He abandoned both Archer and me, when we needed him most.

  “He’s not here.”

  I looked up to see Cliff standing in the doorway.

  “He went back to the States for a spell.”

  “He left?”

  Cliff nodded. “Not too long ago. You just missed him.” Cliff paused and looked at me, taking in my frantic appearance. He straightened. “Is there something I can do for you? You look shook up.”

  “Archer,” I said, not caring if the secret got out now. “My son, Archer. He’s missing. I thought he might come here but—”

  “I haven’t seen him,” Cliff replied slowly. “He’s been coming here most days helping with the chores and such, but I haven’t seen him today.”

  “I have to find him,” I said, standing. I didn’t need Jed. Archer was my son and I would find him, or I would find people to help me find him. “I have to go.”

  I didn’t think twice. I knew what I had to do.

  I ran from the stable yard and back into the palace. I headed straight for the offices where the palace security team made their home. I knocked on the door, but didn’t wait for permission to enter. The guy at the desk looked up.

  “Lady Savannah,” he said, his eyebrows pulling down in a frown. “Is everything okay?”

  “No,” I said, my voice trembling. I refused to cry. I shook my hair back and took a deep breath. “I need to see Benjamin, is he here?”

  “Just take a seat and I’ll get him.”

  I couldn’t sit. I paced until the door opened and Benjamin stepped out.

  “Lady Savannah?”

  “Benjamin,” I started and then stopped. I had been lying to not only this man but all of my friends for two years. All of that would come to an end now. This life I had grown to love would crumble to dust, but none of it mattered. None of it mattered if I didn’t have Archer.

  “My son is missing,” I said.

  To his credit, Benjamin didn’t even raise an eyebrow. “Come into my office,” he said.

  I stepped into the room and waited until Benjamin closed the door behind us. I couldn’t sit, I needed to be standing, to keep moving.

  “Tell me what happened,” he said as he went around to the other side of his desk and sat down. He tapped at the keyboard of his computer and then looked up at me expectantly.

  “You’re not even going to ask who he is or why he’s in the country?” I asked, a little stunned by Benjamin’s cool demeanour.

  He sighed and shook his head slightly. “Lady Savannah,” he said patiently. “I have known about your son from the beginning. Do you think I would let anyone near the queen without thoroughly vetting them? I know everything about you. I know about your father’s gambling debts and that you have been hiding him and your son in a cabin in the woods.”

  That made me sit. Actually, it was more that my legs couldn’t support me any longer.

  “You knew?”

  “Of course I knew.”

  “And Alyssa?”

  “She knows too.”

  “Then why? Why did she give me the job? Why did she take me on if she knew what an embarrassment I would be to her if the news ever got out?”

  Benjamin smiled softly at me. “Because she likes you. She liked you from the start and you should know by now that our queen doesn’t put much stock in gossip or what people might think. She admired you. She admired your grit and determination and the way you took care of your son and your father.”

  “Why didn’t anyone say anything?”

  Benjamin was silent for a moment and then spoke softly. “Because she knew how much your pride meant to you. If you thought she knew, you wouldn’t have taken the job. You would’ve thought you got the job out of pity. That wasn’t the reason you were employed, though, let me assure you.”

  “She has known all this time?”

  He nodded.

  I didn’t know what to think.

  “Tell me what’s happened to Archer. You said he was missing?”

  I nodded. “He was at the cabin this morning when I went to see him but then my father just came and told me he can’t find him.” My voice was dull and flat. Too many emotions to process. Too many surprises for me to comprehend all at once. “I went to the stables. He likes the horses and helps out with the chores sometimes. But he wasn’t there. I went to Jed, but Jed’s gone too.”

  I looked up at Benjamin then. “Jed hasn’t taken him,” I said. “He wouldn’t do that, I know he wouldn’t. But Archer might have run away if he thought Jed was leaving,” I said slowly as I realised it was the truth. “Archer has become very attached to Jed and to that damn horse. If he thought Jed was leaving then he might try to follow him?”

  “Sit tight,” Benjamin said, standing. “I’ll get some people out looking for him. I don’t think Jed’s plane has left yet, so if Archer has followed him to the airport then we will find him. In the meantime, you just stay here. Do you need anything? Tea, coffee?”

  I shook my head. There was no way I could keep anything in my stomach right now. Would Archer have followed Jed to the airport? It didn’t make sense, but then I didn’t think Archer would ever try and run away. I was so out of my depth and I honestly didn’t know what way was up.

  “Savannah,” Margaret said, coming into the room and crouching beside me, her arm around my shoulder. “Are you okay? Is Archer okay?”

  “Archer’s missing,” I said. “I don’t know where he is.”

  She pulled me in tighter and I buried my face in her shoulder. Nothing mattered except finding my baby. I didn’t care if I was kicked out of the palace and exiled from the country. Archer was everything to me. I couldn’t lose him and I would do whatever I needed to to find him and keep him safe. Even if it meant giving up everything I had worked for.

  “Benjamin will find him,” Margaret said. “You know he will.”

  I had to believe that. I had to believe that Archer had simply run off in a snit because Jed was leaving. I couldn’t think of the alternatives. I refused to believe that anything bad had happened to him.

  Benjamin strode back into the room. “I’ve got men out looking for him,” he said, sitting on the edge of his desk. “I’ve sent them to the airport and to the cabin in case he came back while you’ve been looking for him. I’ve got men at the stables and we’re combing the grounds. We’ll find him.”

  I nodded numbly.

  “Why don’t you take her to her suite,” he said to Margaret. “She’ll be more comfortable there and when we know anything I’ll come to you.”

  Margaret helped me to stand and I looked at Benjamin, the tears threatening now. “You have to find him,” I said.

  He reached out and laid a warm, comforting hand on my shoulder. “We will.”

  Jed

  I stood in the airport, thoughts of home and the firestorm I would be walking into causing my insides to twist and tighten. Going back meant facing everything. It meant acknowledging what I had so far managed to deny.

  It also meant leaving Savannah. I hated the way we left things, but I couldn’t see how I could have done anything differently. Seeing her with Chase had been like a shock of cold water waking me from a dream, but it hadn’t changed the way I felt about her. Not like it had with Caroline. Admittedly, Chase and Savannah had just been talking—not the case with Chase and Caroline—but still I knew what it meant and it should’ve severed my feelings for her with a clean, cauterised cut. It hadn’t. The wound still bled and, in my dreams, she still wanted me.

  I hadn’t told my parents I was coming. I’d barely spoken to them beyond letting them know I was alive and uninjured. The night I left was burned into my brain. The ugly words spoken and the look on my father’s face were memories I had tried to bury under the oth
er things that had happened that night. Chase bore the brunt of my anger and all of the blame, but I knew there was more to the story. My father had admitted as much. It had been too much for me to deal with all at once so I had attached all the emotion to the one incident—walking in on Caroline and Chase—effectively blocking out the real reason I ran away from home.

  If it had just been the one betrayal of my fiancée and my best friend, I could have stayed and dealt with it—probably—but coupled with the other revelations of the night, it was too much and I’d had to leave. I could no longer live under the same roof with the man who had manipulated my life so completely and then accused me of being weak because I wouldn’t sit by and let him orchestrate my life. Weakness would have been staying. Weakness would have been buckling, once again, under his tyranny. That night opened my eyes in more ways than one.

  And now I was going back there because Cliff was right. I needed to face it. I needed to deal with it and finally put it behind me. Living in denial would not help me move on and I finally realised that was what I wanted. I wanted to move on. I no longer wanted that part of my mind closed off like an unused attic full of ghosts. It was time to get out the broom and sweep it clean, evict the ghosts and let in the light. My family would never be the same—not to me, not now, not ever—but I would finally be able to take a full breath and look to the future.

  My phone buzzed in my pocket and with a sigh I slid it out. Seeing Cliff’s name on the screen was unusual enough to have me hitting the answer button and lifting it to my ear.

  “Cliff?”

  “Jed? You haven’t left yet then?”

  “No, not yet. Is there a problem?”

  He sighed. “Look. The boy, Savannah’s boy—”

  “Archer?” My gut tightened more. “Is he okay?”

  “He’s missing.”

  “Missing?”

  “And so is Penny.”

  “Right. I’m on my way.”

  I disconnected the call and picked up the duffel at my feet. I’d packed light because I had no intention of staying under my father’s roof any longer than I needed to. I headed out of the airport as some of the security from the palace were heading in.

  “Jed Fairchild?”

  “That’s me,” I replied. “Is this about Archer?”

  “Is he with you?”

  I shook my head. “Cliff just called me and I was on my way back to help look for him.”

  “Can we give you a ride?”

  I nodded and followed them out.

  The trip was a short one and I was back in the stable and hauling a saddle from the backroom before my plane was even scheduled to depart.

  “What are you doing?” Cliff asked as I readied Mistborn.

  “You said Penny was missing.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Savannah told Archer he wasn’t allowed to come to the stable anymore and that he wouldn’t be having riding lessons anymore. I’m thinking he decided to take Penny and hide her somewhere that he could go and see her and ride her without his mother finding out.”

  “You don’t think he ran away?”

  I shook my head. Archer had been upset but he hadn’t looked like a kid ready to run.

  “Look at the facts. He’s been living in a cabin in the woods for two years because he knew his mother needed to hide him. He probably just figured he could do the same with Penny.”

  I checked the girth on Mistborn’s saddle and then swung up onto his back. “I’m going to look in the forest. He might be more responsive if he sees me coming rather than all the security guys. He sees them, he’s going to hide. That’s what he’s been taught to do for the last couple of years.”

  Cliff stood back and nodded. “Storm’s coming,” he said, looking up into the rolling, heavy clouds. “They’re predicting a big dump of snow. You make sure you find him before then.”

  Mistborn and I left the stable yard and entered the open paddock. I urged him into a canter and then a gallop toward the tree line. I didn’t have any idea where to look, but my gut assured me I was on the right track. Archer wasn’t the type to run away in a sulk. He was more proactive than that. He would have noodled over the problem to find a workable solution. Taking Penny into the forest, to him, would seem like the perfect, workable answer to his problem. He wasn’t allowed to go to the stable, but no one said the stable couldn’t come to him.

  Chapter 17

  Savannah

  I paced the sitting room of my suite, wringing my hands like some regency heroine. I hated the waiting. Waiting and not knowing were not my strong points.

  Margaret kept trying to ply me with tea and food, she’d even suggested a stiff drink to help calm my nerves, but I couldn’t stomach anything. I didn’t think I would ever be able to eat again until Archer was safe in my arms.

  The door to the suite opened and I turned, hope springing in my chest that they had found him. But it was not Benjamin who walked through the door. It was Alyssa and she wasn’t alone. The other ladies in waiting followed her through the door. Their faces were pale with worry, but no one spoke. Even Alex was there and I swallowed thickly.

  I had hoped Alyssa would wait until Archer was found, but it seemed she wasn’t one for waiting either. I knew what was coming. This was the bit where she told me I was a disgrace and an embarrassment to the crown and to pack my stuff and leave. It was a blow, but it paled in insignificance to my son being missing.

  Alyssa crossed the room, walking purposefully toward me and I shrank back as she reached for me. She hesitated only a second, her eyes searching mine, before she grabbed me and pulled me into a tight hug. I was stiff, confused, unable to comprehend what was happening.

  “Savannah,” she whispered, her voice thick with tears. “My god, you must be frantic with worry.” She pulled back to look at me and I saw only compassion. There was no anger or censure.

  “You’re not here to fire me?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “I thought…” I looked over her shoulder to the others, my friends, who had gathered around. Did they all know?

  “You thought I was going to fire you?”

  “Um, well, yeah,” I said, looking back at her. “I’ve been keeping a pretty big secret and it’s not exactly the type of secret that the monarchy would approve of.”

  “Savannah Rousseau do you not know me at all?” Alyssa asked, looking offended.

  “I--um—”

  “Sit,” Margaret said, guiding me over to the couch and sitting down beside me.

  “What’s going on?” Priscilla asked, looking between me and Alyssa. “Why are we here? Why is Savannah so upset and why on earth did she think you were going to fire her?”

  “Yes. I think we would all like some answers and an explanation,” Alex said, sitting in a wing chair opposite me.

  Alyssa sighed and took a seat as well. “You may as well start at the beginning. Benjamin will come to us as soon as he has news.”

  “News about what?” Jeanette asked.

  “About Archer,” I said, softly.

  “Who’s Archer?” Priscilla asked, sitting on the arm of Alex’s chair.

  “My son,” I said. “Archer is my son. He’s five, nearly six, and amazing and smart and brilliant.”

  “You have a son?” Jeanette asked, slowly sitting down on the ottoman.

  I nodded.

  “Where has he been all this time?” Alex asked, shooting a glance at Alyssa before her eyes came back to mine.

  “He and my father have been staying in one of the hunting cabins in the woods,” I said, relieved to finally be able to tell the story.

  “All this time?”

  I nodded again and then looked at Alyssa. “You knew. Benjamin said you’ve known all along.”

  “I did. I have.”

  “You never said anything.”

  Alyssa sighed. “I was hoping that one day you would trust me enough to tell me,” she said.

  “It wasn’t that I didn’t trust you,” I
said. Margaret rubbed my back rhythmically and her quiet strength helped me keep going when I wanted to break down. “I was afraid I would embarrass you. I was afraid that when the press found out about him and about how he was conceived that it would reflect badly on the palace. You were already fighting too many battles on too many fronts, and the last thing you needed was the embarrassment of a single mother as one of your ladies in waiting.”

  “Being a single mother is nothing to be embarrassed about,” Alyssa said, the familiar steel woven through her words. “There is nothing in the rule books that says I can’t have a single mother as part of my entourage—” she shot a quick look at Priscilla who nodded almost imperceptibly “—and if there was I would rewrite it.”

  I rubbed at my temples. It was all too overwhelming. “But it’s not like I was married and widowed. Archer was born out of wedlock. He wasn’t planned—don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t give him up for the world—but he wasn’t planned and his father wanted nothing to do with him or me when he found out.”

  Alyssa’s lips thinned and her eyes narrowed. “Who is he? Archer’s father. What’s his name?”

  “David. David Germaine.” There was a round of gasps. David Germaine was the most eligible bachelor of Europe. His family were one of the prominent families of France and he was the darling of the society pages. I smiled ruefully. “You could imagine his reaction when I told him I was pregnant.”

  “He and his family are supposed to visit Merveille in the new year,” Priscilla said.

  “And they still will,” Alyssa said.

  “I won’t be here then anyway,” I said, sadly.

  “Are you going somewhere?” Alyssa asked.

  “Surely you can’t keep me on. Not now. Not after this.”