Chapter 7
The bedroom was dark except for the lamp on the bedside table, its warm glow reaching no further than the edge of the bed.
The curtains were drawn against the night.
The room was quiet in the way that only old houses were quiet, not silent but alive with small sounds, the creak of ancient beams, the tick of the radiator, the distant hum of the security systems that now felt less like protection and more like a reminder of everything they had failed to prevent.
Alexandra sat on the edge of the bed. She was still in the cornflower-blue silk blouse she'd worn for the broadcast, her shoes kicked off on the carpet, her hair down around her shoulders.
She hadn't changed. Changing clothes required a kind of intentionality she didn't have right now.
It required thinking about fabric and buttons and the mechanics of dressing, and all of those things belonged to a world that functioned normally, and Alexandra's world had stopped functioning at eleven-fifteen that morning when a car drove away with her daughter inside it.
Her phone was on the bedside table. Julia had called twenty minutes ago, her voice carrying the particular tone it got when she was delivering information she knew would be unwelcome.
Cecilia has been in contact. She wants to come to the castle to support you.
Alexandra's jaw had gone rigid. The idea of Cecilia here, in this house, where Florence's pyjamas were still folded on her bed and Percy was still in the stable and the remains of their terrace lunch were still on the tray, was obscene.
Cecilia, who had told Florence that some Queens don't last. Cecilia, who had spent forty-four years teaching Alexandra that she was not enough and who now wanted to play the concerned grandmother for whatever audience she imagined was watching.
Don't let her near this house, Alexandra had said, and her voice had been steady and cold and certain. Don't let her near my children. Don't even tell me when she calls again. I don't want to hear her name.
Julia had paused. Then, quietly: Understood. I'll handle it.
The phone was dark now. No new calls. No updates. Nothing from Erin, who had been in the security room since the afternoon, running searches and barking orders and doing all the things that Erin did when the world was falling apart and she needed to put it back together with her hands.
Alexandra lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling.
The plaster was old, cracked in places, a web of fine lines that someone had once told her were signs of a house settling.
Houses settled. People settled. Foundations shifted under the weight of time and pressure and the things you built on top of them, and sometimes the cracks were just cosmetic and sometimes they went all the way through.
She closed her eyes and saw Florence. Not the Florence from this morning, bright and excited about Percy, but the Florence from last night, lying in bed with her blue eyes fixed on a point past Erin's shoulder, her voice small and careful. Grandmama says some Queens don't last.
A sob rose in Alexandra's throat. She pressed her fist against her mouth and held it there until the pressure subsided.
She would not cry again. She had cried for hours and the tears had accomplished nothing and Florence was still gone and crying was a luxury she couldn't afford because somewhere in this country her daughter needed her to be strong.
She wasn't strong. She was hollow. A shell in a blue top, sitting on a bed in a dark room, waiting for someone to tell her that her child was safe. The most powerful woman in the country, and she was waiting. Helpless. Dependent on other people to do the one thing that mattered.
The door opened.
Erin. She stood in the doorway for a moment, silhouetted against the corridor light, and Alexandra could read her body before her face came into focus.
The set of her shoulders. The way she was holding herself, spine rigid, jaw clenched, the posture of a woman who had been running on will alone and was reaching the end of what will could sustain.
Erin closed the door behind her. The room dimmed back to the amber glow of the single lamp.
"We tracked the car," Erin said. She was crossing the room as she spoke, her voice flat with exhaustion, her movements automatic.
She pulled her jacket off and tossed it over the back of a chair.
"ANPR picked it up on the A3 heading east, then the M25 northbound.
It dropped off the network near Guildford.
Switched plates, we think, or switched vehicles entirely.
MI5 is running secondary tracking on the new plates.
Helena's team found a possible match on a B-road in Surrey heading towards a property owned by one of Arthur's associates. "
"Which associate?"
"Lord Latimer. Old family money, estate in the Surrey countryside.
Connected to Arthur through the Privy Council and about four layers of gentleman's clubs and shooting parties.
" Erin unbuttoned her shirt and pulled it off.
Beneath it she was wearing a black sports bra that showed the lean definition of her arms, the flat plane of her stomach, the scar on her left ribcage that was a pale crescent in the dim light.
"The financial audits are underway. Helena's flagged three transactions in the last six months that route through trusts connected to Arthur's private office. "
She was still talking. Laying out the intelligence like bricks, building a case, constructing the framework that would lead them to Florence. It was what Erin did. When the world collapsed, she built. Piece by piece, fact by fact, until the chaos had structure and the structure had a way forward.
Alexandra watched her wife strip down to her underwear: sporty black briefs that sat low on her hips, the sports bra, bare feet on the bedroom carpet.
Erin's dark hair was loose around her shoulders and there were shadows under her green eyes and her bandaged hand was stained with blood she hadn't bothered to clean.
She was exhausted and furious and beautiful, and the sight of her made something crack open in Alexandra's chest that had nothing to do with grief and everything to do with the fact that this woman had been hers for a decade and was still, in the worst moment of their lives, here.
"If Arthur is involved," Alexandra said quietly, "then my mother is too."
Erin stopped mid-sentence. She turned and looked at Alexandra properly for the first time since entering the room. “I know.”
"They don't operate alone. They never have.
Arthur provides the network. The connections, the money, the operational infrastructure.
But the ambition, the vision, if you can call it that, has always been Cecilia's.
She's the one who wanted me gone. She's the one who offered you a million pounds to leave.
She's the one who supported Hugo. Arthur wouldn't move against the Crown without Cecilia's blessing. He doesn't have the imagination."
Erin's eyes were dark in the lamplight. “She ordered the kidnapping of her own granddaughter."
"I think my mother is capable of anything that serves her interests. Florence is the heir. If Florence is gone, the succession is in chaos. If the succession is in chaos, the public loses confidence in my ability to protect my own family, let alone a country. And if the public loses confidence—"
"Arthur steps in." Erin's voice was grim. "The quiet, dignified uncle. The stable alternative."
"Yes."
They looked at each other across the dim room. The lamp threw their shadows long across the walls and the bed was between them and the house was quiet and somewhere in the Surrey countryside their daughter was in a stranger's house and neither of them could reach her.
"Hold me," Alexandra said. "Please. Just hold me."
Erin came to her. She crossed the space between the door and the bed in three strides and sat beside Alexandra and gathered her up in both arms. The warmth of Erin's body was immediate and encompassing: the hard muscle of her arms, the smooth skin of her stomach against Alexandra's hands, the familiar scent of her that was clean cotton and sweat and something underneath that was just Erin, the smell that had been Alexandra's home for ten years.
Alexandra buried her face in the curve of Erin's neck and the composure she'd been fighting to maintain all day crumbled.
She sobbed. The sound was ugly and raw and she didn't care, because Erin's arms were around her and Erin's hand was in her hair and Erin's lips were against her temple, murmuring words that were barely audible.
"I've got you. I'm here. I've got you."
"I'm so scared." Alexandra's voice was muffled against Erin's skin. "I'm so scared, Erin. I can't—"
"I know. I know."
"She's eight. She's out there somewhere and she's eight and she doesn't know what's happening and I can't—"
Erin pulled back enough to look at Alexandra's face.
Her green eyes were red-rimmed and her jaw was set and the tenderness in her expression was so fierce it was almost violent.
"Listen to me. If Arthur and Cecilia have her, and I believe they do, they will not hurt her.
Florence is their leverage. She's worth nothing to them harmed.
They'll have her somewhere comfortable, with people who are taking care of her.
They need her healthy and safe so they can use her as a bargaining chip. "
"You can't know that."
"I can know how they think. I spent fifteen years protecting people from exactly this kind of threat. The hostage is valuable. Harming the hostage defeats the purpose."