“Have you heard?” He looks at me, one eye closed, struggling to focus. “Have you heard what a fucking joke our family is?”
I sigh, taking the whisky from his hand. “I’ve heard.”
“Give me that back.” Eddie reclaims it on a snarl, swiping it from my hand viciously and tipping the bottle back. As he swallows down too much liquor, he looks past me, his snarl taking on a new edge of ominous. It’s a look on my brother that I’m not used to at all, not from the famously happy-go-lucky prince. “Oh, goody. Mother’s here.”
I look over my shoulder, seeing the Queen Consort, breathless, her even olive skin tinged pink. She ran here? Giving my brother the benefit of the doubt, I refrain from scorning him for his disrespect, not because the woman to which he’s referring is the Queen Consort, but our mother, too. He’s angry, and I completely understand. “Eddie, the news is a shock, but how do you think getting yourself mindlessly drunk will help?”
He looks at me, his brow knitted in confusion. Then the line creasing his forehead smooths out, and his head retracts slightly on his neck. “You don’t know? Oh, baby sister, there is far more scandal for you to learn.”
“Eddie,” Mother warns, the volume of her voice telling me she’s closer. “Not here.”
“If you don’t tell her, I will,” he slurs, waving his bottle in the air before slugging down another healthy dose.
I look at my mother in question, knowing I’m missing something. Again. But equally worrying is that my mother seems to be in the know of everything. She turns to Damon and Josh. “Leave us.”
I can’t even wonder what she’s thinking about Josh’s presence and what she thinks that might mean for me. Josh steps forward to object, but is stopped by Damon. “We should give Her Royal Highness some privacy with her children,” Damon says quietly as Josh looks at me for confirmation. I smile when I see his thumb hovering between up and down.
“I’ll be fine,” I assure him. “Wait in the library.”
Eddie starts laughing abruptly, a proper belly laugh. I have no idea what he’s finding so funny, putting it down to his inebriated state. “Say goodbye, Mr. Hollywood,” he chuckles.
“Edward, stop it,” I scorn him, not liking the menacing look ghosting across Josh’s face. I’m sure if it wasn’t for Damon gently coaxing him out of the maze, Josh would now be on Eddie slapping some sense and respect into him. “What is all this about?” I demand.
Mother’s eyes clench shut, and Eddie carries on with his deranged laughter. “Go on, Mother. Tell her.”
“The letters,” she breathes. “The ones you heard your father speaking of.” There was no need for the extra clarification. Just the mention of the letters was all I needed.
“What about them?” I wobble a little on my knees when Eddie gets up, catching my arm to steady himself on the way.
“They were letters between two lovers,” Eddie declares, loud and proud.
I’m on my feet far quicker than he is, confused. “Who?”
“Why, our mother, of course,” Eddie laughs, staggering back a little, forcing me to catch him before he tumbles into the statue behind him.
My confusion only triples. “Mother?”
“Yes!” Eddie sings, as if it’s something to celebrate. “And Major Davenport.”
I drop him and whirl around to find my mother. “What?”
Her head is low, ashamed, her usually perfect posture visibly lax. “It is true.”
“You had an affair with Major Davenport?” That stoic, cold arsehole? My father’s private secretary?
She breathes in, eyes closing. “Yes.”
I feel like all air has been beaten out of me. “Father knew,” I say, sharing what I know, since I heard him speaking of the letters he didn’t want falling into the wrong hands. “He knew, and he kept Davenport here?”
“Punishment.” My mother levels a surprisingly steady look on me. “Your father was a cruel man, Adeline.”
It all becomes so clear in this moment. The distance my mother kept from Davenport. The softness I saw in him recently with her. The looks being exchanged, his face softening only when he regarded the Queen Consort. “He loves you.”
She doesn’t answer me, only looks at me, her mask back in place. “Your father put an end to it many years ago.”
“Oh my God.” I reach for the statue, searching for something to hold me up.
“Oh, you’ve heard nothing yet, sister.” Eddie laughs, wobbling his way over to me. He dips to get his eyes level with mine, swaying terribly. His breath is pure liquor. “This love affair between the major and our mother started in 1981.” One eye closes, as if he’s trying to figure something out. “The King put a stop to it in 1985.” His head cocks a little, waiting for what he has just told me to click.
The possibility hits me like a brick. “You were born in 1986,” I whisper, throwing my eyes onto my mother. “No,” I breathe, struggling to find oxygen.
“Yes!” Eddie cheers, turning haphazardly on the spot. “That stuck-up arsehole is my father.” He laughs hysterically. “So all this time I’ve been forced to endure this ridiculous fucking family, and I didn’t even belong here.”
“Edward, please.” Mother comes forward, eyes begging. “Don’t be like this. You do belong here.”
“All these years I could have done what I fucking well liked.”
My heart bleeds for him, my struck state struggling to fathom who needs my comfort most. Both my mother and brother look broken. “I’m so sorry, Eddie,” I say, at a loss.
He scoffs, slinging his arm around our mother’s shoulders. “Don’t be sorry. I’m fucking delighted. It’s you I feel sorry for.”
“Why?” I ask the question before my battered head can think to straighten itself out.
“Well, you understand what this means, don’t you?” Eddie asks, performing an over-the-top bow, nearly falling to the ground in the process. “Your Majesty.”
I freeze, realization dawning on me through the grief and shock that has been dealt today. The world disappears from under my feet, everything spinning out of control around me. “No.” I step back and collide with the statue of my grandfather, jarring my shoulder. But I don’t feel any pain. I’m numb. This can’t be happening.
My attention is caught when I look up and find Josh. He never left. His face, distorted with pain, tells me he too has grasped what this means.
“I’m Queen,” I murmur, so quietly, like if no one hears me, it can’t possibly be true. It can’t be true. It can’t be, it can’t be. It can’t be true!
Yet it is true. Painful as it is, I know it’s true.
“I am the Queen of England,” I say again, my voice cracking, my eyes welling as I watch Josh backing away, as if he can escape the truth, too.
“No.” He shakes his head violently. “No, Adeline, no!” His hands find his hair, gripping hard as my tears tumble.
It’s a cruel turn of events, probably the cruelest, and it has nothing to do with the crown I hate so much and what comes with it—the pressure, the commitment, the life-long burden.
It’s the one thing that won’t come with it.
The one thing I can’t be without.
My American Boy.