“My dear,” Eleanor said, not unkindly. “I’ve told you before that I learnt at her knee. People can bend. The key is knowing how to trust which ones won’t break.”
“You may have backed the wrong horse there,” Nick said hotly. “Every time you scolded us, or used my birthright and protocol and duty to get your way, you were using something you knew didn’t belong to me. It makes me so angry I could scream it from the rooftops.”
Eleanor made a fist, then flexed it. “But you won’t,” she said. “This news will die with all of us, one by one.”
“Or, we’ll stop lying to the British people, and the throne can pass to Edwin, where it belongs,” Nick said.
“Don’t be fools,” Eleanor said, but she sounded worried.
“He’s right,” Richard said. He had begun pacing in time with Nick. “If you love this country, how can you bake a deception like this into its DNA?”
“Not you, too,” she said. “Right, would you like me to give the throne to King Edwin, then? He doesn’t even take himself seriously. How could he possibly represent the United Kingdom with the kind of dignity that I have for nearly sixty years?”
“Because it’s his birthright. Not ours,” Nick argued. “Perhaps he’d surprise you.”
“Richard,” Eleanor said, turning to appeal to him. “You surely understand. You are of royal blood. You were raised for this. You are passionate about duty and—”
He held up a hand. “Stop it, Mother,” he said. Then his lips curled. “Mother. A word I’m not sure you deserve.”
That hit her in the gut.
“You may not have been my child, but you are my son,” Eleanor all but whispered. “I fed you. I changed you. I gave you a family. I am the one who came when you called. That is all that matters.”
“That’s just it, Your Majesty,” he said, stopping by the doorway. “I’m not sure it is anymore.”
Seconds later, the door slammed behind him.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Richard did not simply leave the room. He left London. He might have left the country. The only person he spoke to before he vanished was Barnes, and if that toupee knew anything, it certainly wasn’t talking. But he must have been given instructions, because the day after Richard’s disappearance, we were delivered a note on a silver tray—not a formality that was customary in our house—that read simply, You had yours. Now it’s my turn.
“His turn to what?” I asked.
“Disappear, I suspect,” Nick said, tapping the note against his left hand and then abruptly ripping it into pieces. “The tit-for-tat would be funny, under other circumstances. What if he doesn’t come back?”
“He will,” I said. “We did.”
“Out of duty,” Nick said. “And concern. I’m not sure he’s too sprung on the former right now, and if Gran has another health incident, he likely won’t bother with that either at this point.”
Freddie’s take was blunter.
“All those times we wished for Prince Dick to piss off,” he said over a full English, “and he’s gone and done it the one time we needed him not to.”
“I’m going to text him again,” Nick said, picking up his phone. “I really thought he might be at Mum’s, but Lesley hasn’t seen him.”
“Maybe he’s with that what’s her name,” Freddie said. “That socialite he was…seeing.”
Nick finished typing and plonked his phone next to his breakfast plate. “Thank you for not saying whatever verb you were actually thinking.”
“It’s too early for that verb,” Freddie said, spearing a sausage link more aggressively than was strictly necessary.
“What did Daphne say?” I asked.
Freddie pointed at his mouth, then chewed exaggeratedly before washing it all down with some orange juice. “She said she’s very excited for me to get home and rescue her from conversations with Lax about her honeymoon trousseau,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
“You’re really not going to tell her?” Nick asked. Next to his coffee cup, his phone buzzed, and we all peered at it. “Gaz,” he said. “He wants to bring over cake. Ugh, I could use some cake right now, but he’ll know the instant he sees our faces that something is going on.”
“And yet you’re still surprised I haven’t told Daphne?” Freddie asked.
“We aren’t engaged to Gaz,” I pointed out.
“Don’t tell Gaz that,” Freddie joked, but he wasn’t smiling. He rubbed at his temples. “I will tell Daphne when or if there is something to tell.”
“You’re saying there isn’t enough to tell her already?” Nick asked.