Page 2 of Falling for the Widowed Prince

Metaphorically biting her tongue to prevent her frustration from spilling over, she hit the speaker button. “Royal Historian’s Office, Madeleine Woodward speaking.”

“Ms. Woodward, do you have the daily codes?”

The voice sounded familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it. “Uh…” Where were they? She’d never used them before. “I do. One moment.” The safe! She opened the wall safe and removed the correct folder. What was today? She scanned the sheet. “Periwinkle.”

“Histrionic.”

Madeleine didn’t like that a word so close tohistoryhad such a different connotation. She ran her finger down the column until she found the right word and the code name that went with it.

The Prime Minister?!

Her eyes about popped out of her head. “How can I help you, sir?”

“You know who I am?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then you know that if what I’m about to tell you ever goes outside of the circle, you could be charged with treason.”

Her eyes widened further. “Yes, sir.”

“I need to know what laws, codicils, statutes, treaties, legal precedent or anything else says about regents for a monarch who hasn’t reached the age of majority…”

Madeleine gasped. “The queen…”

The Prime Minister ignored her exclamation. “…particularly when the previous monarch was a queen rather than a king.”

“The queen…” she whispered again.

A heavy sigh could be heard on the other end of the line. “Likely soon. I’ve heard stories about how well you know our history. Is there anything you can tell me now?”

Madeleine struggled to put the queen’s impending passing from her mind and focus on what she was being asked. “Um… the surviving parent is the regent automatically for up to sixty days. Parliament and the Council must appoint a permanent regent before the deadline. There are certain conditions that have to be met for anyone to be regent. I believe any prince consort would meet most, or even all, of them without any difficulty, except that as the widowed consort, it’s very strongly discouraged.”

Something else began to nibble at the edge of her consciousness.

“Is that all?”

Closing her eyes and trying to concentrate didn’t help. “There’s something else, something obscure, but I can’t seem to bring it to mind. I’ll keep trying and start digging through records here to see what I can find.”

“Thank you, Ms. Woodward.” The Prime Minister ended the call without a goodbye.

For the next several hours, Madeleine struggled to keep the tears at bay as she looked through the archives for the information the Prime Minister requested.

The basic requirements were easy enough to find and quickly emailed, along with annotations.

But the other piece…

It wasn’t coming to her.

She wanted to keep going, but the growl in her stomach reminded her of the piece of fruit she’d had for breakfast, intending to take an early lunch. The clock told her it was well into the afternoon.

Swiping at her cheeks and knowing it wouldn’t matter as fresh tears flowed down them, she left her office and locked it behind her.

A portrait of the queen wearing her favorite amethyst pendant stared down at Madeleine as she started for the executive dining hall. Hot tears filled her eyes again and quickly spilled down her cheeks.

Blinking to clear them only worked so much, and when she rounded the next corner, Madeleine found herself running into someone much taller than herself.

She looked up and gasped.

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