Royal - Danielle Steel Page 0,52

some kind of delusion she was having. “Her name was Charlotte. She was staying at Ainsleigh Hall at the same time I was. I didn’t find out who she was until after she died,” she said, and he recognized the name from what she’d said the night the twins were born, and for an instant he wondered if it was true. “She was royal,” Lucy said with eyes like daggers staring into his. She seemed very intense and anxious to tell him. “Annie is royal too. Charlotte was the youngest sister of the new queen.” He vaguely remembered that one of the young princesses had died during the war, but he was convinced now that Lucy was hallucinating and confusing it with one of her TV shows. “Charlotte’s parents sent her to the Hemmingses, to get away from the air raids, the way mine did, and she fell in love with their son. She got pregnant, and they never told the king and queen. I read the queen’s letters to her after she died. The queen didn’t know about the baby, she never mentioned her existence. I think the countess was probably going to tell them later face-to-face, but with the war still on, she never got to it. I think they didn’t want to tell the queen in a letter. The Hemmings boy was Annie’s father, they were both seventeen. He turned eighteen and left for the army, and was killed before Annie was born. I thought they’d never married and she was illegitimate, so they hid the whole story. But after Charlotte and the countess died, I read all the letters from her mother and from Henry. I found their marriage certificate. So they were married in secret. But by then, everyone had died, Annie’s parents and the earl and countess, an old cousin had inherited the estate and was selling it. And the Windsors, Charlotte’s family, didn’t know about her, I thought they wouldn’t have wanted her, because she was born of a disgrace. And I loved her. I thought the Windsors would have sent her away. I was nineteen, and I took all the letters and documents, so they wouldn’t find out about her when they came for Charlotte’s things. I said the baby was mine and I was a war widow. She was only a year old when we left Yorkshire, and I came here. She’s mine now, Jon, as if I gave birth to her. But sometimes I wonder if I should have told her. She’s a Royal Highness, a princess, the queen’s niece. I’m not sorry I took her. She’s had a good life with us, and you’re a wonderful father. But she’s not really ours, she never was. Her mother was as horse mad as she is.” Lucy smiled and closed her eyes to catch her breath. “The Windsors never knew that she existed, that Charlotte had a baby, or that she married the Hemmings boy in secret once she was pregnant. So I took Annie and raised her as my own. They still don’t know that she exists. The Queen Mother is her grandmother, and was Charlotte’s mother. The death certificate says she died of complications from pneumonia, but she didn’t. She died after childbirth. Jonathan, Annie is a royal princess, and they know nothing about her. I think now that maybe what I did was wrong. I loved her, and I didn’t want to lose her. When they all died, I just took her. I talked to the housekeeper and the maids about it. They didn’t know she was royal or legitimate, but I did when I left. It’s all in the leather box with the crown on it. I want you to read it, and tell me what I should do. You have a right to know too. I don’t want to lose her, but she has the right to a life we can never give her. Read it. Read it all. The key to the box is in an envelope in my underwear drawer.” She was clearly out of her mind, and Jonathan spoke to her firmly, as he would have to a child.

“You need to rest. I want you to take a pill.”

“The leather box,” she said again, her voice fading. “You have to read the letters. I should have told you years ago. The box is in my closet, on the shelf.”

“It doesn’t matter now,” he insisted. “Annie is your daughter. Our daughter. I love