Page 15 of The Heir Apparent
“Perhaps, ma’am, we should get started?” said Stewart.
“Is Annabelle not here?” I asked.
The others exchanged glances. The aides busied themselves with papers or stared at their shoes. No one had said a word about my stepmother since I’d landed in London.
“The Dowager Duchess has elected to stay at Elton Park until the funeral. Her children are with her,” Stewart said.
“May as well enjoy it while she can,” Richard muttered.
In excruciating detail, Stewart began outlining the plans for the funeral. My father’s and brother’s coffins were to be placed side by side in Westminster Hall for four days so the public could say goodbye. After lying in state, they would be taken to the Abbey on two royal gun carriages, each drawn by a contingent of 140 sailors. In the interest of keeping calm and carrying on, it was decided that one funeral instead of two was more appropriate.
“As is tradition, we would expect His Royal Highness Prince Richard and Her Royal Highness Princess Alexandrina to lead the procession from the hall to the Abbey,” Stewart said.
“I’d like my girls with me,” Richard interjected, his mouth half-full of one of the muffins he’d piled onto his plate.
The room was silent for a moment. I glanced at Granny, but she was staring blankly out the window and barely seemed to be listening.
“Birdie and Demi have just lost their beloved uncle and cousin,” Richard continued. “They’re the Princesses of Clarence—and blood princesses at that.”
Amira, the target of this little shot across the bows, shrank in her seat. Stewart looked to Granny and then me for some kind of direction.
“Sir, traditionally only male members of the family join the procession,” he began.
“Lexi’s walking, though.”
“Yes, sir. We thought given the circumstances—”
“She’s not a working royal anymore. So if we’re dispensing with old traditions—sexist traditions at that—then it’s only fair that my girls walk too.”
A sunrise pink rose in Stewart’s cheeks, and he glanced again towards the Queen for guidance. The tea in her hands had long gone cold and she put the cup on the table before her.
“Well, I have my view,” she said and suddenly looked at me with her brown eyes, so much like Papa’s. “But I’d like to hear what Lexi thinks first.”
Everyone turned and I felt my face grow hot. No one in this family had ever asked me for my opinion before.
“Richard is right,” I said. “Demelza and Birdie should walk. If they want.”
Amira stared at me. She was wearing a full face of makeup, and her hair was pulled into a sleek bun at the nape of her neck. And yet she still looked like a woman close to her edge.
Richard wanted Demelza and Birdie in the procession for his own schemes, no doubt. But I had watched this family spiral into blood feuds over nonsensical, mediaeval traditions far too many times. After Mum died, Papa and Uncle James ended upin a screaming match over a spray of lilies placed atop her coffin. To the palace, it was the traditional symbol of mourning. For Isla’s grief-struck twin brother, it was one too many insults to bury her under a mound of flowers she once declared “smelled like cat piss.”
Stewart snapped his folder shut, relieved the worst was over.
“I think we’ve made great progress, and I thank you all for your patience,” he said, stacking papers and hustling aides from the room.
Granny eased herself from the couch. “I think I’ll go to my room for a rest.”
“Oh, yes, Mummy, you should. Amira, will you go with her?” Richard said.
The room emptied of everyone but the two of us and Richard fixed me with a smile that verged on a sneer. He was of the generation of British royals who never received braces or cared much for dental aesthetics. In recent years, he had his top teeth whittled down to fine points and then enveloped in blinding white veneers. But he left the bottom row untouched. His mouth reminded me of a freshly painted McMansion rimmed by a rickety picket fence.
“It was so good of you to come all this way,” he said. “Your father was truly agonised by your estrangement. It was difficult to watch at times.”
My heart sank. Most of the time, I believed Papa barely noticed that I was no longer around.
“But Lexi, I have a favour to ask you,” he said. “Mummy is not faring well, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, and I think it’s best if I move in here for a while.”
What a sacrifice for a man who already lived in a thirty-room mansion for free, staffed with aides and maids for whom Granny paid.
