Royal - Danielle Steel Page 0,47
about not wanting more children. Annie remained special to both of them, and the twins were like whirling dervishes going in opposite directions as soon as they could walk, which one of them did at nine months, the other at ten. Annie was the perfect big sister, patient, loving, responsible. She told her parents she would teach her brothers to ride one day, and she admitted to her grandmother that as much as she loved her baby brothers, she still liked horses better.
“She certainly doesn’t take after you,” Jonathan’s mother commented to her daughter-in-law, laughing. Blake, one of the twins, was the image of Lucy and looked just like her, and Rupert was identical to his father. And Annie looked nothing like any of them. She was fine-featured, tiny, and seemed to float when she walked. She had a regal air and grace even at six. And looking at Lucy’s large frame, and plain facial features, at times it was hard to imagine she was Annie’s mother. They looked and acted nothing alike.
“The fairies must have left you on your mom’s doorstep,” her grandmother teased her. Annie loved that idea, and Lucy didn’t comment when she heard her say it.
Chapter 7
When Blake and Rupert were eighteen months old, they were running everywhere, and it took Lucy, Jonathan, Annie, and their grandmother to control them. They knocked things down, pushed over lamps, climbed up on tables. They got into mischief everywhere, and the only time Lucy and Jonathan had peace was when the boys were asleep at night in the crib they shared. They slept in one crib, and cried when they didn’t, so whichever of them woke first invariably woke the other, and then the fun began.
Jonathan and Lucy had no time for long, lazy mornings, or romantic nights. The twins were like a tornado that hit the cottage every day, as soon as they got up. Jonathan thoroughly enjoyed them, and Lucy loved them too, although Jonathan had more patience with them. They wore Lucy out and she told Jonathan that the twins and Annie were enough for her. He would have liked one more, but she said he’d need another wife to pursue that plan, and he graciously conceded, and settled for three children. In his opinion, Annie and the twins were the best things that had ever happened to him. He was a happy man. He loved his wife, his family, and his job. He loved working on the estate where he’d grown up, even with new owners. He had never hungered for distant shores or great adventures. He had exactly the life he wanted and was content.
Three months after the twins turned two, he gave Lucy a Christmas present that she said was the best one she’d ever had. He bought her a television, one of the big fancy floor models with the widest screen they made. It came in a piece of furniture, and was the pride of their living room, even though the images were black and white. They hadn’t invented color TV yet, but he promised to get Lucy one whenever they came out with it.
Lucy had favorite programs she turned on every night when she came home from work. Jonathan watched sports matches on the weekends, and there were even suitable shows for Annie early in the evening. She was eight years old. Whenever there was a horse show on TV, she ran to see it. It really was the best gift he’d given the entire family. The boys were still too young for it, but soon they’d be able to watch it too. The gift was particularly meaningful that year because King Frederick had died in February, and his oldest daughter, Alexandra, had become queen. Her coronation had been postponed for sixteen months, for assorted political reasons the public wasn’t privy to, and her coronation had been set for June of the coming year. For the first time in history, it was going to be televised, so millions of people could watch it in their homes around the world. Lucy was going to be one of them. She had been saying for months that she was going to take the day off from work to watch it, wherever she had to go to find a television, and now, thanks to her generous husband, she had her own.
It had always amused Jonathan that Lucy was obsessed with royalty, and in particular the British monarchy. She subscribed to The Queen magazine,