Royal - Danielle Steel Page 0,57
through the fields and let them graze when they wanted, and sometimes she rode them at full speed. Jonathan saw her do it, but for once he didn’t say anything about it to her. He knew she needed the release.
It was weeks before he was able to focus again on what he had read in the leather box two days before Lucy died. He knew he had to do something about it. If he didn’t, Lucy’s secret, and the secret of Annie’s very existence, would die one day with him. He couldn’t let that happen, for Annie’s sake, and the Windsors’. Not knowing what else to do, he tried the simplest way first. He got the number from information for Buckingham Palace, which was ridiculously easy, like calling the White House in Washington. Getting the number wasn’t difficult. It was what happened after that that mattered.
He asked for the queen’s private secretary, and got the runaround from start to finish. The names they gave him were for inconsequential underlings who put a smokescreen around the queen’s secretary. His attempt to get through to the Queen Mother was equally fruitless. And after nearly an hour of waiting for half a dozen people, he got nowhere, and finally hung up. He should have known better, but it was worth a try. He realized now that he had to be more ingenious and find another way to gain access to the queen, or her personal secretary. He needed to be put in touch with her, on a deeply personal matter, like the fate of the sister she had lost more than twenty years before, and the niece she was entirely unaware of.
After thinking about it for several days, he decided to try channels he was more familiar with. He couldn’t just march up to the gates of Buckingham Palace and demand to see the queen, or even send her a letter which might never reach her, and end up in a file of crackpot mail she’d never see. Instead, he asked John Markham if he was acquainted with the queen’s horse trainer, and his employer looked instantly worried.
“Are you looking for a job?” He was seriously concerned. Jonathan was the one employee he didn’t want to lose. Jonathan shook his head.
“No, not at all. It sounds crazy, but I’m trying to get access to either the queen or the Queen Mother, about a matter that happened twenty years ago. I spent an hour on the phone yesterday, trying to get through to her secretary. I thought I might have better luck through her horse trainer. At least it’s a world I understand. Do you know him personally?” Jonathan asked, and Markham seemed relieved.
“I’ve met her royal racing manager a few times. He’s an important man. He’s responsible for all her racehorses. He’s a little grand and my name probably won’t get you far, but you can give it a try.”
“I thought I’d tell him we’re interested in their stud services, to get my foot in the door. I don’t really want to talk to him, I need the name of the queen’s private secretary. It’s a personal matter.” John Markham gave Jonathan the number, and later that afternoon, Jonathan called, and reached a secretary who wanted to know what it was about. “I run John Markham’s stables. We’re interested in stud services for several of our mares, and John asked me to discuss some possibilities with him.” The secretary sounded more interested, and a moment later, he put him through to Lord Hatton directly. It went a lot more smoothly than his futile call to the palace previously.
He spent a few minutes mentioning the mares they allegedly wanted services for, and the stallions that might be available. Lord Hatton was interested, and talked for some time about the virtues of the various stallions they were using for stud at the moment. At the end of the conversation, Jonathan casually mentioned that John Markham had asked him to get the name and direct line of the queen’s private secretary, about an event he wanted to invite her to on his yacht. Hatton took the bait and gave Jonathan the name and number he had been unable to discover before when he called the palace. It had all been so simple in the world he was accustomed to, in the language he spoke well. Jonathan was respected in horse circles, and his employer was well liked. He thanked Lord Hatton for the information,