Даниэла Стил - Royal

“How about an apprenticeship at the queen’s stables here instead? She has some fabulous racehorses and the best stables in the country. You could do worse.” They might be open to that idea, if they believed her story at all.

“I’d rather go to Australia,” she said, trying not to think of the meeting they were going to. She had worn her only appropriate dress to meet the queen, who was supposedly her aunt. It was the black dress she had worn to her mother’s funeral, and Jonathan recognized it immediately. It suited Annie’s somber mood, as they headed for their fateful appointment in London. He was nervous too, but tried not to show it. He wanted to give Annie the courage to face whatever came next. His worst fear was that they would be blamed for Lucy’s youthful but very grave mistake. However innocent her intentions, she had robbed them of a child. It explained to him some of Lucy’s obsession with the royals.

“I can’t afford to send you there,” Jonathan said apologetically about Australia. “I think you should stick around here for now, until you get things settled.”

“What if they think I’m a fraud?”

“They might. But then you’ll be no worse off than you were before.” He had brought the original documents with him, at their request, and all the letters, and kept handwritten copies and photographs of the documents and letters for himself, and a set made for Annie too. He had brought the leather box with him in a bag too, in case it added to their credibility.

“Do they pay you to be a royal princess?” she asked with a mischievous look and he laughed.

“They give you an allowance. The entire royal family gets an allowance. It would be nice for you.” There was an upside to this for her, if Lucy’s story was true and they believed her.

“Is that why you did this?” She was worried when she said it.

“No, I did it because they’re your family, and you deserve to know them, and they have a right to know about you.” It had crossed his mind that if they accepted her, she might not want to live with him anymore. He wasn’t her father and he had never adopted her officially. It hadn’t seemed necessary, but he might lose her in the process. Even if he did, he knew that what he was doing was correct, for her. She had a right to a life he couldn’t give her, and they could. He wanted the best for her. And in her own naïve way, Lucy had too. Jonathan was just grateful that Lucy had told him the truth before she died. Otherwise, they would never have known.

They were both quiet as they got off the train, and he could see that Annie was anxious, and so was he. People probably tried to claim that they were part of the royal family every day. He wasn’t sure who would be there, the queen or the Queen Mother, or only the queen’s secretary.

They took a cab from the station to Buckingham Palace, to the same entrance he had used two days before, when he had dropped off the copies of the letters and documents.

A security guard checked their ID papers at the desk and called Sir Malcolm and told him they were there. “Miss Walsh and Mr. Baker.” She hadn’t been accepted as royal yet, and a moment later Sir Malcolm hurried down a hall, and they followed him into an elevator after Jonathan introduced Annie. He saw the secretary staring at her, as Annie gazed at the floor, and then they walked down a long carpeted hallway with portraits of members of the royal family all the way back through several centuries. They stopped at a tall door, where two uniformed palace guards opened the door and announced them, and Jonathan could feel his heart catch as he realized that at the end of the room Queen Alexandra was sitting at her desk. She stood to greet them as Jonathan bowed and Annie curtsied, and she invited them to sit down. An older woman walked into the room, and they both recognized Queen Anne the Queen Mother, for whom Annie realized now she had been named, since she was her grandmother. She was wearing a simple black suit. Jonathan and Annie stood and bowed and curtsied again. The Queen Mother had a photo album with her, and after a few moments of polite superficial conversation, she handed it to Annie.

“Would you like to take a look?” she asked, and Annie nodded, almost too intimidated to speak. “They’re photographs of your mother as a little girl and before she went to Yorkshire. You’re only a few years older than she was then.” Annie’s eyes grew wide as she carefully turned the pages. The photographs were old, but it was easy to see that Annie was the image of her. They looked like twins. The Queen Mother had seen it too when she walked into the room, and Queen Alexandra spoke to Jonathan and Annie then. She noticed the leather box that Jonathan was still holding, and she asked to see it. He handed it to her, and she opened it carefully, moved some of the contents aside to look for the initials, and stared at Jonathan with amazement when she found them.

“My father gave me this box on my eighteenth birthday. I gave it to Charlotte for her correspondence when she left for Yorkshire,” the Queen Mother said quietly. She looked deeply moved when she said it. “It’s a very unusual story,” the queen admitted. “But wartime can create some very odd situations. Our phone lines weren’t secure then, and Charlotte and our mother communicated entirely by letter during the time she was away. The news of her early marriage, and your impending arrival,” she smiled at Annie as she said it, “is not the sort of thing you want to write about to your mother at seventeen. She was meant to stay in Yorkshire for a year, to get away from the air raids in London, and she suffered from severe asthma. But things apparently got out of hand while she was away. It must have been an awkward situation for the countess too. It was a heavy responsibility shepherding young people that age. I don’t envy her.” She smiled at both of them again. “The tragedy for us was when she died, whatever the cause, whether from pneumonia, or…other causes in the circumstances. We knew nothing about you, Anne, until two days ago,” she said solemnly, and Annie nodded. “It’s been a shock for my mother.” The Queen Mother appeared to be fighting back tears when Annie handed the album back to her. “And for my sister, and for me as well. Charlotte died twenty-one years ago, but it seems like yesterday to us. We’re going to authenticate the documents your stepfather brought to us. Her Majesty, my mother, recognized the letters, and the leather box with the crown. They’re genuine. And once we verify the documents, so there can be no doubt about who you are, and if indeed you are my niece, and Her Majesty’s granddaughter, we’d like to introduce you to the rest of the family. But we need to be sure first. I trust that’s agreeable to you,” she asked, looking at Jonathan, and he immediately agreed.

“I’d like to make one thing clear, Your Majesty,” he said to the young queen. “There is nothing I want from this for myself. If in fact everything checks out, your niece should be restored to you. You all lost a great deal and it was a tragedy when Her Highness Princess Charlotte died, and Anne should know who she is and who her relatives are. There is nothing more we want from any of it.”

“Is that true for you as well?” she asked Annie directly, and she nodded, in awe of the woman who was allegedly her aunt. She looked every inch a queen in a navy velvet suit with a string of pearls around her neck.

“Yes,” Annie confirmed in barely more than a whisper, and then, “My father says you have wonderful horses. I would like to see them one day.”

“That can be arranged.” The monarch smiled at her. “Do you like horses?” Annie beamed and her father laughed and relaxed a little. The meeting had been very formal so far.