Chapter 5 #2
Julia took charge. She moved from the arm of the sofa to the chair beside the fireplace and her manner shifted from comforter to strategist, the way it always did when decisions needed making.
"We need to address the public. The media is already speculating.
Three news vans at the gate, two helicopters overhead.
Social media is alive with rumours. If we don't get ahead of this in the next hour, the narrative will run away from us. "
Charlotte nodded. "Agreed. A controlled statement from the family is essential. Silence will be read as weakness or panic."
"I can make the statement," Julia said, looking at Alexandra. "On your behalf. The public will understand—"
"No." Alexandra heard the word leave her own mouth before she'd consciously decided.
It rose from somewhere below the grief, below the fear, from the same place that had carried her through years of public life, through assassination attempts and Cecilia's cruelty and the press and the endless, exhausting performance of being Queen. "I should do it."
Julia and Charlotte exchanged a glance. Julia leaned forward. "Alex, are you sure? You don't—"
"She's my daughter. I'll make the statement."
Julia studied her, then nodded. "All right.
It needs to be within the hour. I'll coordinate with the broadcast team.
We can do it from the library. The backdrop is appropriate and the lighting is good.
" She paused, her warm brown eyes holding Alexandra's with that particular steadiness that meant she was about to say something important.
"You need to be strong, Alex. The country needs to see their Queen standing firm.
But they also need to see a mother. Don't hide the fear.
Don't hide the love. Let them see that you're human and that you're fighting. Can you do that?"
The impossible weight of it settled on her shoulders.
The dual requirement that had defined her entire reign: be the Queen, be the mother.
Perform strength while living through terror.
Look into a camera and ask a nation to help find her child while knowing that the child she was asking about was eight years old and had been too afraid to sleep last night because her grandmother had told her that some Queens don't last.
Cecilia's words echoed in her head. She pushed them away.
Not now. Later. Later she would think about what Cecilia had done and what Cecilia might be doing now and the cold, creeping suspicion that had been forming in her gut since Vic burst through the terrace door. Right now she had to be the Queen.
"I can do it," she said. The words tasted like iron. She said them anyway.
"Good." Julia's voice was gentle but her eyes were already calculating: timing, logistics, messaging.
"I'll draft some notes for you. You won't read from a script.
It needs to feel genuine. But I'll give you the structure.
Three beats: acknowledge what happened, appeal for information, address Florence directly.
Keep it under two minutes. Look at the camera, not the desk. "
"I know how to speak to a camera, Julia."
"I know you do. But I also know that you've never done it with your daughter missing. So I'm going to say the things you already know, because right now the things you know might not be the things you remember."
Alexandra nodded. Julia was right. She was always right about this.
Julia stood and was already on her phone. Charlotte remained seated, her grey eyes steady on Alexandra's face, and for a moment neither of them spoke. Then Charlotte said, very quietly: "You're stronger than you think you are."
Alexandra didn't know if that was true. She didn't know anything right now except that Florence was gone and the cameras were waiting and she had to stand up.
She stood up.
Julia returned with a makeup artist, one of the palace team who'd been brought along for the weekend.
The woman was professional and quick, working in silence, covering the worst of the redness around Alexandra's eyes with concealer, smoothing her hair, applying a light coat of lipstick that made her look less like a woman who'd been weeping for two hours.
Alexandra sat still and let it happen. The routine was familiar.
She'd been made up for cameras since she was nineteen.
Her face knew what to do even when her mind couldn't follow.
They moved to the library. The castle's library was smaller than the one at the palace but more beautiful: floor-to-ceiling shelves of leather-bound volumes, a bay window overlooking the south lawn, the evening light painting everything in tones of amber and bronze.
Two cameras had been set up on tripods, flanking a mahogany desk with the royal standard draped behind it.
The room smelled of old books and wood polish and the lighting was warm and soft.
Julia positioned her behind the desk and placed a glass of water within reach and a single sheet of paper with three handwritten bullet points that Alexandra wouldn't need but was grateful to have.
A small monitor showed what the cameras were seeing: a woman in a cornflower-blue silk blouse, her blonde hair neat, her expression composed.
Alexandra barely recognised herself. The woman on the screen looked calm. The woman behind the desk was shaking.
Julia counted her in. The red light on the camera went on.
Alexandra looked into the lens and spoke.
"This afternoon, our daughter Princess Florence was taken from us while at our family's country estate. She is eight years old. She is kind, she is brave, and she is loved beyond measure."
Her voice was steady. She didn't know how. Somewhere beneath the terror, the decades of training were holding her together, the muscle memory of public address, the learned ability to project calm when everything inside her was on fire.
"I am speaking to you not only as your Queen, but as a mother. I am asking for your help. If you have seen anything, if you know anything, please contact the police or the numbers displayed on your screens. Every piece of information matters."
She paused. Let the camera see her face. Let the nation see what was underneath the composure: the fear, the love, the fierce determination of a parent who would not stop until her child was home.
"To our security services, to the police, to everyone working to bring Florence home. Thank you. You have the full support and gratitude of our family and the Crown."
She paused one final time. Steadied herself. Found the lens again.
"Florence, if you can hear this. Your mummies love you very much, and we are coming to bring you home. Be brave, my darling. We are coming."
The red light went off. Alexandra exhaled and the breath shuddered out of her and she gripped the edge of the desk until the wood bit into her fingers.
Julia was beside her immediately, one hand on her back, murmuring that she'd done beautifully, that it was exactly right, that the broadcast would go live within minutes.
Alexandra didn't hear her. She was thinking about Florence watching this somewhere.
Or not watching, because maybe whoever had her wouldn't let her see a television.
Maybe Florence didn't know that the whole country was about to see her mother on their screens.
Maybe Florence was in a room somewhere wondering why Mummy Alex and Mummy Erin hadn't come to find her yet.
Or maybe Florence was watching. Maybe she was sitting in a strange room in front of a strange television with strange people around her, and she would see Alexandra's face and hear her voice and know that she was not forgotten. That her mothers were fighting. That love was louder than distance.
The thought split her open. She pressed her fist against her mouth and breathed through it, one breath at a time, while the cameras were packed away and the library returned to silence and the evening light came through the tall windows and turned the spines of the books to gold.
Charlotte was waiting in the corridor. She'd stayed the entire time.
Stayed through the makeup and the cameras and the broadcast, standing somewhere out of frame, bearing witness.
Their eyes met and Charlotte gave her a single nod.
No platitudes. No promises. Just acknowledgment. One woman to another.
Alexandra returned the nod and walked back to the living room to hold her remaining children and wait for news that might never come.