Chapter 43
Chapter Forty-Three
Callum
The harsh smell of disinfectant. The distant noise of a machine beeping. The metal armrest that is a cool strip down my palm as I grip it tightly.
I catalog every aspect of the private waiting room I’ve been ushered into in an attempt to stop myself from losing my mind.
Oliver. Oliver. Oliver.
My heart and head throb with his name.
My security team is with me, two securing each door. I’d stared dazedly at them when they’d first gone to stand like sentries by the exits because there was no room in my head to worry about my own safety. I’m too concerned about Oliver.
Oliver is in surgery. That’s all I know so far.
Surgery to remove the bullet in his chest.
The bullet meant for me.
I press my palms to my eyes, trying to hold myself together.
I’m praying desperately to every deity I can think of. Keep him safe. Please. I’ll do anything.
Just let him live.
Raymond is also here. He doesn’t say anything, just sits next to me, his face white and his mustache drooping lower than I’ve ever seen it.
There’s a knock on one of the doors, and one of my grandmother’s security team edges inside.
I’m on my feet instantly.
“Is Gran here?”
He doesn’t answer me, just inspects the room with laser-focused vision. Which provides my answer. Given what just transpired, I can’t fault our protection team for being over-the-top regarding security for the royal family.
Once he’s slipped out, it’s only a moment later that Gran enters, accompanied by Clive and two more members of her security team.
I give a perfunctory bow, then move forward to hug her. Because it feels like you should definitely qualify for a hug from your grandmother when you’ve just been shot at and seen the man you love get hurt instead.
Gran hugs me back slightly stiffly, but it’s definitely a hug.
“Any news about Oliver?” she asks as she pulls away.
I shake my head. “Just that he’s in surgery. You haven’t heard anything?”
Her forehead creases. “No. I haven’t.”
As I go to sit back down, I suddenly realize I’m still wearing the white cloak Gran fastened around my shoulders at the ceremony. It’s now stained with Oliver’s blood. I should take it off, but I don’t.
Instead, I slip my hands inside the cloak and into my jacket pocket to touch Oliver’s dog tags. The ones he gave me as a symbol of our love. With a shaking hand, I pull them out of my pocket, clutching them.
Nicholas and Amelia are the next to arrive, accompanied by their security teams. I hug them both before collapsing back into a chair.
The security team and courtiers outnumber our family about three to one. What does it say that at this time of family crisis, we’re outnumbered by people who work for us? I scrub my face with one hand, still clasping the dog tags in the other.
When I look up, Amelia catches my eye. She’s on the other side of the waiting room, almost vibrating with pent-up emotion, her knee jiggling.
Her hands are wound tightly together in her lap, but one hand keeps getting loose and rubbing the top of her opposing arm until she wrestles it under control and puts it back in her lap.
“It’s okay, Mellie,” I say. “We’re safe here.”
Her eyes fly to me.
“I just can’t believe it,” she whispers. “The prime minister…”
“I know,” I say heavily because the disbelief threatens to engulf me too. How can this be happening?
“The prime minister takes a vow of allegiance to the Queen and her heirs, but I don’t think anyone ever expected him to take it quite so far,” Nicholas says in a shaky voice.
He raises his gaze to mine, and there’s a question there.
I guess he was too caught up in the pandemonium on the dais to hear what I yelled at Oliver as I was being pulled away from him.
I’m fairly sure the rest of the world heard it though.
“We’re in love,” I whisper the words.
Nicholas’s eyebrows shoot up, then they fold together
“You’re in love with Oliver Hartwell?” he confirms.
“Yes.”
His face morphs into sympathy.
“He’ll be okay,” he says.
“There was so much blood.” My voice is tattered, haunted.
Clive looks up from where he’s engrossed in his tablet.
“We need to prepare a press statement,” he says.
Something close to hysteria wells inside me. I almost laugh.
What was so important to me a few days ago suddenly doesn’t matter.
“What? We’d like to formally announce that the Prince of Wales is in love with the prime minister? Oh, and someone tried to shoot Prince Callum but hit the prime minister instead,” I say. “I’m fairly sure most of the world is up to date with these facts.”
Clive grimaces, but I don’t care.
Can’t he see it doesn’t matter? Nothing matters but Oliver surviving.
But the grimness on Clive’s face is nothing compared to the expressions of the next people who arrive in the room.
Two plainclothes detectives along with a woman in a police uniform. Their faces are so somber they wouldn’t look out of place at a funeral.
The female policewoman bends to whisper something in Gran’s ear.
Gran instantly goes pale, her hands trembling.
My grandmother, who I’ve hardly seen flinch, looks like she’s just been sucker punched. Completely and utterly devastated.
My breath rushes out of me.
Oh my god.
Would the Queen be the first person they’d tell if the prime minister died?
My stomach flips, and suddenly, I feel like I’m falling down a dark chasm.
I can’t cope if Oliver’s dead. I won’t be able to live with Oliver giving up his life to save mine.
Tears overwhelm my eyes, but I can’t rip my gaze away from Gran, who is standing slowly, like every movement costs her more energy than she has to give.
“I’m just stepping outside for a moment,” she says.
“What is it? Is Oliver okay?” I don’t recognize my voice. It’s so raw with pain.
“I don’t know about Oliver. I just know I need to step outside.”
Amelia’s on her feet immediately. “I’ll come with you, Gran.”
“No, you stay here, Amelia.” The look she gives Amelia is blazing with fury, so sharp with anger that I recoil.
Amelia shrinks back too.
What the hell is going on?
The door has barely shut behind Gran and her security team before one of the detectives approaches Amelia.
“Princess Amelia, I am a member of the Metropolitan Police. You are formally under arrest for conspiracy to murder. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defense if you fail to mention when questioned something which you rely later on in court.”
The words hit me like a freight train, slamming my breath out of me.
Conspiracy to murder?
They can’t mean…. They can’t mean…
My whole face feels numb.
“Amelia?” Her name slips from my lips before I can stop it, her whole name a question mark. I’m on my feet, vaguely aware that Nicholas has stood too.
“Conspiracy to murder…you tried to hurt Callum?” Nicholas looks at me, then back at Amelia.
Amelia’s eyes are wide. She stands and steps toward us, but immediately one of the police officers puts out an arm to restrain her.
Restraining my sister from coming near me because they think she’s a threat.
My brain can’t cope with this right now.
“Why?” It’s a simple word, and I ask it in an almost plaintive voice because I really need to know this.
I need to understand why my sister would hurt me.
“I couldn’t stand by and watch a man become king.” She says the words almost calmly, like we’re having a normal, everyday conversation.
A chill goes down my spine. “What’s wrong with having a king?”
Even as I say the words, memories slide into my mind.
Amelia’s Boudica brooch. Her Yennenga pin.
Her fascination with Cleopatra. I suddenly remember one of the interesting historical facts about Cleopatra.
She was involved in the death of three of her siblings as part of her attempt to cement her power.
“Have you seen what’s happening in the world?
” Amelia’s eyes meet mine and anger lurks in her features.
“The rights of women are going backward everywhere. Even the basic right a woman has to autonomy over her own body is being eroded. One in three girls in the Commonwealth still doesn’t attend secondary school.
Nineteen Commonwealth countries still allow child marriage!
” Her voice rises, her chest heaving, her face flushed, and I can see how adamantly she believes her own words.
“At this time in history, we do not need a king. We need another strong queen to fight for the rights of girls and women.”
Nicholas’s face is ashen.
“But even if Callum had been killed, you still wouldn’t have been heir,” he says. “Or were you planning to get rid of me too?”
Amelia’s gaze is cool as she appraises her brother.
“I figured you’d last a few months before you’d do something stupid and have to abdicate.
And then the throne would have been mine, and all the girls in this world would have had another strong queen to look up to.
I would have been compassionate and regal but fierce and influential.
I would have made my mark on this world, joined the ranks of the great queens in history. ”
My mouth is dry as I stare at my sister, at this person I thought I knew, who suddenly feels like a stranger.
“You were prepared to kill me.” I try to say the words matter-of-factly, but they still come out shrouded with hurt.
Amelia looks at me, her expression set halfway between regret and defiance.
“History is littered with leaders who had to make sacrifices for the greater good. You would have been collateral damage,” she says. “It wasn’t personal.”
Shit. Somehow it feels even worse to hear her say that. She conspired to take my life. If that’s not personal, what the hell is?
“The man I love is in surgery, fighting for his life. And I would be laid out on a slab in the morgue right now if he hadn’t jumped in front of me. So forgive me if it feels incredibly fucking personal to me right now.” My voice vibrates with anger.
Amelia meets my furious gaze with a cool one of her own.
“I believe I would have made a better sovereign than you,” she says.
Nicholas moves closer to me, his shoulder resting against mine.
“No, you wouldn’t have,” he says. “You can cloak it in as many justifications as you want, but really, you just wanted the power and glory. Callum doesn’t want it, which is why he’ll make a great king.”
Amelia looks like she’s about to argue, but then the detective steps forward.
“You need to come with us now, Princess Amelia.”
Amelia turns to look at the police officers. She hangs her head, the fight going out of her. I can’t rip my gaze away from my little sister.
I see Amelia’s security team trade uncertain glances. I guess there’s nothing in their protocol on what to do when the person they are protecting is arrested.
But based on the number of arrests my family has managed in the past few months, perhaps they need to add this into the training for the royal protection squad.
As Amelia is escorted out, one of the obscure rules of royalty slips back into my head. No one is allowed to be arrested in the presence of the monarch.
It explains why they asked Gran to leave. I feel a sudden ache for my grandmother, who has already had to deal with so much, and now has to deal with the betrayal of her granddaughter too.
“Your Royal Highness, we’re going to have to ask you questions at some point,” the detective who has stayed behind says to me.
“I’m sure it can wait,” Nicholas says protectively.
But I have questions of my own.
“Was Amelia the one who pulled the trigger?” My throat is dry, but I force the question out.
“The gunwoman was a member of the Welsh resistance league. We believe Princess Amelia smuggled the gun into the castle.”
I blink. “How did you discover that?”
“The prime minister regained enough consciousness in the ambulance to warn a paramedic that Amelia was involved in the conspiracy against you.”
The knowledge gnashes at me.
Oliver, who just wouldn’t stop trying to save me.
I stagger back, sinking onto a chair, my head in my hands as my brain tries to process it all.
Disbelief runs rampant through me.
Somehow, I’m living in a world where my sister will conspire to have me killed.
It’s a world where someone can shoot at me, and it’s also a world where the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom will literally take a bullet for me.
I feel someone sit in the chair next to me, and suddenly the weight of Nicholas’s shoulder is against mine again.
I raise my head, turning to him, words slipping out unfiltered.
“I thought you were the one who wanted me gone. I thought you were trying to get me to step down from the line of succession.”
His face twists. “Amelia was the one who urged me to ask you to make sure you were certain you wanted to be Prince of Wales.” He runs a hand through his hair. “I didn’t think to question her motives.”
“I was so tempted to stand aside,” I say quietly.
“Because of Oliver Hartwell?”
“Yes.” I rub my forehead. “It turns out being in love with the prime minister isn’t all that compatible with being heir to the throne.”
“He risked his life to save you.”
“I know.”
I don’t think I will ever forget that fact.
It’s a knowledge that feels seeped in my bones. It will always be part of me.
“If he survives, what are you going to do?” Nicholas asks.
If he survives? I simply cannot contemplate the idea that he won’t.
Oliver’s dog tags are still in my hand. I trace my finger around the extra holes that were cut out by his great-grandfather.
“I don’t know,” I say.
We stay like that, sitting side by side, until a surgeon slips into the room.
“Your Royal Highnesses,” he says.
“How is he?” I ask urgently. I want to stand, but I don’t trust my legs to hold me.
“The bullet embedded itself in the prime minister’s upper chest cavity, narrowly missing the lung itself. We have successfully removed it.”
“He’s going to be okay?”
“He lost a lot of blood, which will leave him weak and fatigued, and we’ll monitor him for anemia. But with rest and proper wound care to prevent infection, he should make a full recovery within a few weeks.”
Sobs rise inside me, deep and unfiltered, like they’re coming from someplace inside me that only Oliver has ever touched.
My tears of relief flow freely as my brother tries to comfort me in his stiff, upper-class way. I grasp Oliver’s dog tags so tightly that the metal digs into my palms.
My question about what to do about Oliver and me?
Surely the emotions pulsing through me right now provide an answer.