Royal Christmas: Royal Love-Child, Forbidden Marriage

‘Watching something,’ Phoebe murmured. She rose from the sofa, giving her son a quick one-armed hug. ‘Isn’t it time for dinner?’ Smiling, she pulled him along, tousling his hair, into the kitchen of their Greenwich Village apartment. Outside the sunlight slanted across Washington Square, filling the space with golden light.

Yet as she pulled pots and pans from the cupboards, mindlessly listening to Christian talk about his latest craze—some kind of superhero, or were they super-robots? Pheobe could never keep them straight—her mind slipped back to the blurry image of the funeral on television.

Anders, her husband of exactly one month, was dead. She shook her head, unable to summon more than a sense of sorrowful pity for a man who had swept into her life and out again with equal abruptness. It hadn’t taken very long for Anders to realise Phoebe had been nothing more than a passing fancy, and Phoebe had understood with equal speed how shallow and spoiled Anders really was. Yet at least that brief period of folly had given her something wonderful … Christian.

‘I like the green ones best …’ Christian tugged on her sleeve. ‘Mom, are you listening?’

‘Sorry, honey.’ Phoebe smiled down at Christian in apology even as she noticed that she’d let the water for the pasta boil dry. She had to get her mind out of the past. She hadn’t thought about Anders for years, and sometimes it felt as though that short, regrettable episode had never occurred. Yet his death had brought old memories to the surface—namely, that horrible interview at the palace. Even now Pheobe remembered the look in Leo Christensen’s eyes, the way he’d touched her … and the way she’d responded.

With a jolt Phoebe realised she was remembering Leo, not Anders. Anders had receded into her memory as nothing more than a faded, blurry image, like an old photograph, yet Leo … Leo she remembered as sharply and clearly as if he were standing right in front of her.

She glanced around the sunny kitchenette of her modest but comfortable apartment, almost as if she would see Leo standing darkly in the shadows. She gave a little laugh at her own ridiculous behaviour. Leo Christensen—all the Christensens, that entire life—was thousands of miles away. She and Anders had quietly separated just months after Leo had offered her fifty thousand dollars to leave him, and she’d never seen any of them again. She’d moved to New York with Christian, started over with the support of friends and family, and relegated the incident to a dark, unswept corner of her mind … that now felt the bright, glaring light of day.

Abruptly Phoebe turned off the stove. ‘How about pizza?’ she asked Christian brightly, who responded with a delighted smile.

‘Angelo’s?’ he asked hopefully, naming their favourite neighbourhood pizza joint, and Phoebe nodded.

‘Absolutely.’

Phoebe went to get their coats, only to stop in uneasy surprise at the sight of Christian in front of the television once more. He’d turned it back on and was watching the funeral procession, tracking the coffin’s progression down one of Paris’s main thoroughfares, the flag’s twin eagles with their austere, noble profiles visible even in the gloom. ‘Is that man dead?’

Phoebe swallowed, a pang of sorrow for Anders’s wasted life piercing her. ‘Yes, it’s a funeral.’

‘Why is it on television?’ Christian asked with his usual wide-eyed curiosity.

‘Because he was a prince.’

‘A prince?’ Christian sounded moderately impressed. As a New Yorker, he encountered people of all walks of life every day. ‘A real one?’ he asked with a faint note of scepticism.

Phoebe almost smiled. ‘Yes, a real one.’ She wasn’t about to explain to Christian about Anders’s abdication or exile, or the fact that he was his father. She’d always intended for Christian to know the truth of his birth, but not like this, with a grainy image of a funeral on TV. Besides, Christian knew what was important: that Phoebe had wanted him and loved him. Nothing else needed matter.

With decisive determination she turned the TV off, the words of the French commentator fading away into silence.

‘Crown Prince of Amarnes … inebriated … reckless driving … his companion, a French model, died instantly along with him …’

‘Come on, scout,’ she said lightly. ‘Pizza time.’

They’d almost reached the door, almost missed them completely, Phoebe thought later, when she heard the knock.

Christian’s eyes widened and they stared at each other, the only sound the awful, silent reverberation of the knock. Strange, Phoebe thought, how they both knew that knock was different. Three short, hard raps on the door, so unlike the flurry of light taps their neighbour, old Mrs Simpson, would give, along with a cheery hello.

Those short, sharp knocks which felt like a warning, a herald of nothing good, and somehow they both knew it. Phoebe felt that knowledge settle coldly in her bones, even as she wondered who—what—why. Just like Christian, she was filled with questions.

‘Who could that be?’ she murmured, trying to smile. Christian raced towards the door.

‘I’ll get it—’

‘No.’ Phoebe pushed past her son, flinging one arm out to bar Christian’s way. ‘Never answer to strangers, Christian.’

Taking a deep breath, Phoebe opened the door, and her heart sank at the two dark-suited men standing there. They had the bland good looks and ominously neutral expressions of government agents. In fact, it was men just like these who had summoned her to the palace all those years ago, ushered her into the room with Leo and his abominable offer of a pay-off.

‘How about fifty?’

Phoebe pushed the memory away and stared at the two men filling up her doorway, trying to frame a thought. A rebuke.

‘Madame Christensen?’

It was a name Phoebe hadn’t heard in a long while; she’d reverted to her maiden name when she separated from Anders. Yet the presence of these men and the sound of her married name made the years fall away and suddenly she was back in Amarnes, facing Leo …

‘Are you so sure about that?’

Even now she could remember—feel—how Leo had trailed his finger along her cheek, then lower to the V between her breasts, and she’d let him. Even now, across all the years, she remembered the inescapable fascination she’d had with him in those few brief moments, her body betraying her so quickly and easily.

Phoebe lifted her chin and met the blank face of one of the men. ‘Actually my name is Ms Wells.’

The man stuck out his hand, which Phoebe took after a second’s hesitation and then dropped almost immediately; her own hand was clammy and cold. ‘My name is Erik Jensen. We are representatives of His Majesty, King Nicholas of Amarnes. Would you please come with us?’

‘Mommy …’ Christian’s voice sounded strangled, and when Phoebe glanced back she saw her son’s face was bleached white, his eyes huge and shocked. She felt the mirror of that expression on her own face, remembering how men like this had showed up in her grotty hostel, said nearly the exact same words. Six years ago she’d been too young, too bewildered and overwhelmed to do anything but acquiesce. Now she was older, harder, tougher. She knew better.

‘I’m not going anywhere.’

Something flickered in the agent’s face and Phoebe thought for a second it looked like pity. Fear crawled along her spine and up her throat.

‘Madame Christensen—’

‘Who is that?’ Christian’s voice sounded petulant and afraid, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. ‘Why are you calling my mom that name?’

‘I’m sorry.’ Erik Jensen smiled briefly at the boy. ‘Ms Wells.’ He turned back to Phoebe. ‘It would be better,’ he said quietly, ‘if you came. There is a representative waiting at the Amarnesian Consulate, to discuss—’

‘I hardly think there is anything to discuss,’ Phoebe replied coolly. ‘In fact,’ she continued, her voice a little stronger now, ‘I think any necessary discussions were concluded six years ago.’ When she and Anders had left the palace in a shroud of disapproval. He’d signed the papers of abdication, releasing him from the burden of the throne. Not one family member had said a word or seen them out. They’d slipped like shadows from the palace, unseen, forgotten. Except, perhaps, by Leo, with his cold, unwavering stare that still chilled her all these years later.

‘Matters have changed,’ Erik replied in that same neutral yet implacable tone. ‘A discussion is necessary.’

Coldness seeped through her, swirled through her brain. Matters have changed. Such an innocuous yet ominous phrase. She felt Christian inch closer to her, his fingers curling around her leg. She felt his fear like a palpable force, and it angered her that these men could just come in here and in a matter of minutes—seconds—try to change her life. Order it around. ‘Just a minute,’ she told the agents stiffly, and turned back to the kitchen, Christian at her side.

‘Mommy—’ Christian tugged at her leg ‘—who are those men? Why are they so …’ he paused, his voice trembling ‘ … so scary?’

‘They don’t mean to be,’ Phoebe said before she thought I’ll be damned if I apologise for them. ‘Anyway, I’m not scared of them.’ She tried to smile, although like her son she felt the fear, crawling, insidious.

Why were those men here? What did they want?

She took a deep breath, forcing herself to think calmly. Coolly. Undoubtedly they wanted her to sign some paper, relinquishing her rights to Anders’s money. He’d obviously had a lot of it, even though in their few weeks together he’d squandered his stipend with shocking ease. His father, King Nicholas, had insisted on his son’s abdication, yet he’d still kept him well provided for with what mattered—champagne and women.

There was no reason to panic, to be afraid. Yet even as Phoebe told herself this, she felt the fear creep in and wind around her heart. She knew how much power the royal family had. Or, rather, she didn’t know, couldn’t fathom it, and that was what scared her. They were capable of so much. She’d seen it in the way they’d cut Anders out of the royal family as ruthlessly as if wielding scissors. She’d felt it in Leo’s cold stare.

‘Mommy—’

‘I can’t explain it all now, Christian.’ Phoebe smiled down at her son, ‘but I don’t want you to be afraid. These men have a little business with me, and I need to deal with it. You can stay with Mrs Simpson for a little while, can’t you?’