Chapter Twenty-Six 17 November 2023 #3
That was when she had started spending more time in London.
At least she had friends there. As an Upper Sixth student at Astley, she’d been a peer support leader, and one of her Shells had got in touch, asking if there were any jobs going at the palace.
Amira had always liked Mary, the poor scholarship girl from Brixton with the sick father.
Mary was smarter than her meek little face let on, but she was still starstruck by Amira.
Using her powers as a duchess, Amira got Mary a job as a media girl in Frederick’s office and allowed her to come over to Cumberland now and then to watch her try on gowns for events.
Then the tabloids started to notice that Amira and Louis were going weeks without seeing each other.
It hadn’t mattered that Amira was an exemplary member of the family; it hadn’t mattered that she did twice the charity work of everyone else.
The tabloids had been waiting for this day for eight years.
With divorce rumours rumbling, Louis and Amira sat down and wondered what they should do.
It seemed impossible to go on as they were.
Like so many troubled couples before them, they decided to have a baby.
A child could free them both. Once Amira gave the family an heir, they could discuss the possibility of separation.
She could move on with her life and Louis would be a bachelor king.
They told the IVF specialists they had been trying to conceive without success for more than two years.
The egg retrieval process would begin as soon as they got back from Zermatt.
For the first time in a long time, Amira and Louis were close again.
They went to Switzerland feeling hopeful.
They knew this child would be born into a house of love and would be loved in return. Everything was going to be okay.
Then the mountain swept away everything.
As she was driven to the hospital to find out if her husband and her brother were alive, her phone rang.
It was Stewart, ready to patch her into a conference call with Granny and Annabelle.
Palace aides had finally tracked me down to Maria Island, but my phone was switched off, so the only option was to send someone to fetch me.
“I want her back here as quickly as possible,” the Queen said in a steely voice. “Once she’s here, take her passport and don’t let her leave.”
“She won’t want to stay,” Amira said. “She doesn’t want to be here. She never has.”
“Then we must change her mind.”
The Queen hadn’t reigned for decades without channelling Barbara now and then.
Amira was reluctant. Her future was lying on a gurney with a core body temperature of twenty-two degrees.
If he died, she would finally have her freedom.
But when the golden cage door swung open, she could not make herself step through it.
As mother of a future monarch, she might be brave enough.
As Amira Shankar, she found that she wasn’t ready yet.
She looked at the ruins of her life and she realised there had only been one person who predicted this would happen.
“Stewart, take Mary Williams from Wolseley House when you pick up Lexi,” Amira said. “She will love her. And once she’s here, she can move in with me. I’m sure she misses me as much as I’ve missed her.”
When she was done, we sat for a long time.
People were starting to leave the reception, and if we kept totally still, they didn’t notice us watching them from the stairs.
A couple came giggling from the picture gallery, and he twirled her around on the landing and then kissed her.
They both looked up at the grand house, but they didn’t see us in the shadows. Finally, they left, hand in hand.
“I feel like my life stopped when I went to Patagonia,” Amira said. “I should have listened to you.”
“I feel like I never got off that boat,” I said. “I’ve been drifting out at sea on my own for years. Every time I close my eyes, I’m rocking on the waves in the middle of the night. I should never have left you and Louis on your own.”
She took my hand in hers. “You’re here now.”
I smiled at her—my first true friend, my sister. “Richard knows what I did. He knows about Kris and Louis. He knows everything. He’s been trying to get rid of us for months.”
Her eyes shone in the light from the chandelier, and she lowered her face until her cheek pressed against our intertwined fingers.
“It’s going to be okay,” I whispered. “He’s not going to tell anyone. I’ve made sure of that.” I smoothed her hair from her face. “But Amira, don’t you think it’s time you left all this behind?”
She sat up and I saw that her eyes were wet. “I’m not like you. I won’t be able to do it.”
“Yes, you will,” I said. “You’re going to go out there and make yourself a life.
You’re going to have a career and friends and your own home.
And then one day you’re going to meet a man, and you two are going to live together and you’re going to fight over stupid things and get through rough patches, and you’ll be disgustingly happy. ”
She rolled her eyes, though tears were now sliding down her face. She smiled at me. “Like you and Jack.”
His name opened up the sucking chest wound I had been trying to ignore for four months.
Even though I’d crossed his name off the guest list, even though I’d given him every reason to hate me for the rest of our lives, I still found myself watching the door all night, wishing he would come through it.
My chin began to tremble and I shook my head against the tears.
“No, I ruined that.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” she said softly.
I wiped my eyes, not caring about my makeup. “I’m not who he thinks I am. If he knew what I did, he wouldn’t want me.”
She pulled me into her arms, our tears dampening the shoulders of our gowns as we both cried. We held each other until the last remaining guests drifted down the stairs, until the staff dimmed the lights in the halls, and a hush fell over the palace. Amira sat back and sighed.
“Let’s go home and have a drink,” she said. “We have a lot to discuss. You need to decide what you’re going to do with your life.”
When I looked at her, she smiled and took my hands in hers.
“I want you to forget everything anyone’s ever said to you about destiny and service and changing the world. What do you want?”
“I have a duty.”
She nodded. “Yes. You have a duty to Louis. You have a duty to your parents. You’re alive and they’re not, so you must live for all three of them. Now, what do you want?”
No one had ever really asked me that before—except Jack.
I looked up towards the glass dome in the ceiling and found that the stars over London were finally familiar to me again.
Maybe I would live in this palace for the rest of my life, my hand sliding up this very banister over thousands of nights as I went upstairs to bed.
Maybe I would watch that hand become speckled and frail with age, while the stars over my head would never change.
Maybe I would learn to live with my secrets.
When I looked at Amira, another tear traced down my cheek. “It’s an impossible choice.”