The Heir Affair

Clive’s story made a public enemy of Lacey, too, Gemma had immediately offered her an escape: a temporary internship at her father’s game preserve in Kenya, where nobody cared who Lacey was or what she’d done as long as she pulled her load. Lacey had kept me posted via email, the long-distance relationship we should have tried when I decided to stay in the UK after college—the one we might have had if she hadn’t quit medical school to join me here, then lost herself in London, in Freddie, in her resentment of the constraints my relationship put on her freedom, and finally in the attention of a press corps that used to snap her picture at the snap of her fingers.
I feel more myself now than I have in a long time, she’d written two days ago. I’m super unimportant here, obviously, but I like that. They’re just happy if I show up on time and work hard, and that’s something I can do. My favorite part of med school was always the science, not the actual doctoring, anyway. Also, one of the researchers is hot. (That is NOT my priority…but it’s a perk.)
To Cilla, I simply said, “She likes having a real job again.”
Cilla frowned and leaned against the sink. “Speaking of jobs…I need to talk to you.” She swallowed. “The decoy scheme worked so well that the Palace offered me a few other opportunities in the, er, official planning arena. Mainly for the Queen and Richard.”
I clapped my hands. “Cilla! That’s fantastic.”
“It’s a job I’ve really earned, you know? I’d nannied for my sister, and then I worked for you…”
“Also nannying,” I cracked.
She didn’t protest, which was fair. “The point is, those were things I did because they were handed to me, not because I was good at them.”
“You were great for me,” I protested. “But I understand what you mean.”
She scraped at a dried splash of pink paint on the sink’s white enamel, and looked up at me. “I lied to you earlier,” she said. “I have been angry at you for disappearing. We’d all been in it together, and then we were frozen out. It made me feel like you were punishing me for not noticing something was amiss, and I thought it was unfair.”
“I never thought that,” I told her. “It wasn’t your job to root out the secrets I was keeping. Honestly, it didn’t occur to me that you would take us leaving personally.”
“How could we not?” Cilla said. “You stopped speaking to us.”
“We couldn’t see past the shit we were in,” I told her. “It’s selfish, but it’s the truth. That’s all there was to it.”
“That’s all very well and good now, but it took me a lot of time to realize that, and I had to do it on my own,” Cilla said. “I’m not trying to make you feel worse. I’m being honest. It’s what friends are supposed to do.”
This was a jab, but I saw in her face it was not a malicious one. “It is, and I am really sorry, Cilla,” I said. “What can I do?”
Cilla fiddled with the tap. “You can accept my resignation,” she said. “I took the job. Started last week. But, you know. Technicalities.”
“Done,” I said. “And I am so sorry that I hurt you. I convinced myself that you guys needed plausible deniability, but I think that turned into…plausible dumbability.” I punctuated this with the classic rim-shot noise that my dad used to love.
Cilla bit her lip, then burst out laughing. “You’re barmy,” she said. “But I am glad you’re back.” She moved as if to hug me, then pulled back. “Don’t run off like that again, though.”
I grinned at her. “I wouldn’t dare.”
*  *  *
An hour later, I sat cross-legged on the living room floor poring over a yellowing photo album and drinking a flat Orangina someone had left in the fridge, hopefully from this decade. The album consisted of family photos from Osborne House, the Isle of Wight residence where the royals had summered for yonks before it fell out of favor. Most of the pictures were from Georgina’s girlhood, well before her father became king. There were several of Queen Victoria II, Marta, and Eleanor being very solemn, while Georgina pulled a silly face, or flashed a smile that looked sweetly like Nick’s. Even in her more lighthearted snaps, Eleanor was a petite version of her current self: stern and serious and a little intense. But the sisters did seem close. They often clasped hands, and there were some in which Georgina clearly had elicited a rare giggle, or was hugging Eleanor enthusiastically while she tried and failed to hide her pleasure. In the years since I’d met Nick, his great-aunt’s name had come up exactly zero times. But now we’d been instructed to live in her house and, per the memo that came with the key, “preserve the building’s historical importance and value while modernizing the interior to suit a young royal family,” and I felt a responsibility to at least learn who she was before we swept her aside.
The door slammed, and an exhausted Nick padded into the room and flopped facedown onto the couch. Dust flew everywhere.
“Nmmgsllyphas,” he said into the cushions.
“Say what?”
He turned his face. “This couch is not as soft as it looks.” He reached under his head and pulled out my nylons. “And this was an unexpected treat.”
He tossed them in my direction. They traveled about six inches before floating gracefully down onto the table, where they formed a soft brown puddle.
“Sorry. I could not keep them on a minute longer,” I said. “How was the Conclave?”
Nick sat up. “I’m parched. Pass the Orangina?”
“No,” I said. “Not because I don’t love you, but because I do. It tastes twenty-five years old. It is a journey.”
He took a swig, then nearly choked on it. “That is murder in a bottle.”
“Stop changing the subject,” I said. “How did it go?”
“The usual,” he said. “Lots of Agatha and