Royal(34)

Jonathan had always been ignorant about the royals, and somewhat indifferent to them, until Lucy filled him in on all the details. She seemed to know everything about them and read up on them constantly. Queen Alexandra had a German husband who was prince consort, His Royal Highness Prince Edward, just as her great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria had had in her husband, Prince Albert. Although allegedly very much in love with their husbands, neither queen had ever requested the government to make her husband king, and both men had remained with the more limited status of prince consort. But as both were German-born, it was unlikely that the cabinet would have approved of their being made king. So both queens reigned alone. Queen Alexandra’s coronation in June promised to be a dazzling affair, complete with the legendary historic golden coach in which she would travel to the ceremony, while wearing an ermine robe over her coronation gown, and her heavily jeweled crown was said to weigh forty pounds.



Monarchs from all over Europe and dignitaries from every country would be in Westminster Abbey, by highly coveted invitation, to see her crowned. And now Lucy could see every last detail of the ceremony too, sitting on her couch in her own home.

Jonathan had often teased her about her fascination with the monarchy, and now he had made her dreams come true. Her new television was her proudest possession.

Annie didn’t share her mother’s obsession with the royals, and at eight years of age, she was still much more interested in horses than Royal Highnesses. She would turn nine in a few weeks before the coronation and Lucy correctly suspected that her daughter wouldn’t bother watching it, although she was slightly intrigued by the horses that would be part of the ceremony, and those that would be drawing the golden coach. Other than the horses, Annie had no interest in it.



* * *



—

In June, the coronation, which Lucy watched on TV for several hours, from beginning to end, lived up to all her expectations. It was the high point of her passion for all things royal.



It was not lost on Lucy, although no one else in the world knew it, that Annie was now fifth in line to the throne, though it was unlikely the succession would ever get that far down the list. The young woman who had just been crowned Queen of England was Annie’s aunt, and the late Charlotte’s oldest sister. The young queen’s three sons were Annie’s cousins, and the Queen Mother, Anne, was her grandmother. They were Annie’s family by blood and birth, although she didn’t know it, and they had no knowledge of her existence. But it was a thrill for Lucy to know it, as she watched them on her television screen. The child she considered her daughter, and always would, was part of the royal family because of her mother, the late Royal Highness Princess Charlotte, who had died hours after giving birth to Annie. And the only person who knew was Lucy herself. The proof of it was still locked in the leather box that had belonged to Charlotte, and Lucy had taken from her room before she left Yorkshire with Annie when she was a year old. All the pomp and ceremony in Westminster Abbey, the golden coach, the fabulous horses and gowns and glittering crowns were all part of Annie’s heritage. She was a Royal Highness too, just as her mother had been. Lucy never allowed herself to think that she had deprived her of it. She had given her love instead. The thought that the royal family might have loved her too, although they knew nothing of her existence, never occurred to her. She had never regretted her decision, or doubted her judgment, even once.

Annie headed for the stables to find her father while her mother was still watching the coronation on television.

“What’s your mom up to?” he asked Annie when she climbed under the fence. She was still noticeably small for her age, having just turned nine, and looked more like a six-year-old, but she rode like a man, her father liked to say. Her riding skill was as much part of her birthright as the ceremony in Westminster Abbey, but no one except Lucy knew that either. Lucy had kept her dark secrets for nine years now, ever since she had left Yorkshire and Ainsleigh Hall with Annie as a baby, and had pretended that she was her own, and had erased all trace of Annie’s existence so the royal family would never find her.



“She’s watching that thing on TV,” Annie said with a roll of the eyes. “The coach was pretty cool though. And the horses are gorgeous.”

“I think your mom is more interested in the crowns and gowns.” They both laughed, but Jonathan was happy for Lucy that she was enjoying it, and was sure she would talk about it for days. Televising the coronation had been a stroke of brilliance and had brought it into the common man’s living room. Women like Lucy could have a front row seat, on the couch, with a cup of tea.



* * *



—

By the time Annie was twelve, she had won ribbons at every horse show Jonathan entered her in. She was much more interested in speed than in the precise maneuvers of dressage or jumping competitions.

And at thirteen, she and her father had several serious arguments, and he had banned her from the stables for a week, after she snuck out with John Markham’s wildest new stallion, not even fully broken yet, and rode him hell for leather across the fields. Her father noticed the horse was missing a short time after she’d taken him, and he’d gone looking for her. What he’d seen was heart-stopping. He was sure she’d broken some kind of speed record, but she could easily have broken her neck or lamed a horse who over his lifetime might prove to be worth millions. He had brought her back looking chastened and mollified. She begged every day to be allowed to come back to the stables, and he had stuck to the week restriction to teach her a lesson. To his knowledge, she never did it again, but he wasn’t entirely sure. Annie was smart as a whip, and in love with horses, the faster the better.