Playing Dirty(121)

And with that thought came an unexpected glimmer of happiness. As unbelievably messy as this whole debacle was, and as hard as it could be if I really was pregnant, part of me actually liked the idea. I’d always wanted to be a mother—it had always been part of my life plan—and perhaps I hadn’t planned on it happening now, or in this way, but nothing about my relationship with Andrew had been how I’d imagined relationships were supposed to be. Given how many steps we’d jumped already in our burgeoning relationship, jumping a few more seemed like it might actually work out. I recognized that this wasn’t how either of us would’ve wanted our relationship to progress, but that didn’t mean that it couldn’t be wonderful. The modern world was a different place than it’d been a hundred years ago, and it wasn’t unheard of these days for a royal family member to be with someone who, in the past, would’ve been considered a ‘commoner’.

Maybe I was just being naïve as hell, but the idea of having a family with Andrew made my heart swell…the royal thing would be an adjustment, but as long as I had him by my side, I was sure I could take any of the punches the tabloids might throw at me.

My mind made up to my next course of action, I headed for Richmond Palace. After I arrived, I wound a quick path through the maze of servants’ stairs and corridors and bumped into Margo, one of my fellow maids.

“Hey, Margo, have you seen Prince Andrew?” I asked, keeping my expression neutral.

“Try the yellow drawing room,” she replied.

I smiled, said ‘thank you’ and hurried off. Why the family had stuck to the old color-coded names for some rooms in the house, I was never altogether sure, since the yellow drawing room had been redecorated in blue during the 1950’s. It was tradition, I supposed, which was the answer to so many questions in this house.

I arrived at the door to the drawing room and was about to knock when I noticed the door was ajar and voices could be heard from within—Andrew and his mother. After our last encounter, there was no way that I could have any conversation with Andrew while the Queen was in the room, and certainly not this particular conversation, seeing as the Queen would certainly have something to say about a possible pregnancy...and I had a feeling that anything she had to say on the matter wouldn’t be positive, given my supposedly lowly status as a maid.

I turned to leave, but something made me hover a moment longer. It was something in the Queen’s tone that did it. By the nature of her job, the Queen was expected to say nothing, to have opinions on nothing, to make decisions about nothing, and so she had developed a way of making her opinions clear by fluctuating tones in her voice. I hadn’t had a long enough acquaintance with her to be able to read those tones accurately, but I was more than familiar with this particular tone: disapproval. I’d heard it in my own voice enough times in my early teens, when I’d been dealing with all the crap my parents threw at me before they’d finally sorted their lives out and quit drinking.

It was also a tone that I automatically associated with the Queen talking about me and my acquaintance with Prince Andrew, given the way she’d spoken to me in the Long Gallery all those weeks ago, and I was filled with a maddening curiosity. Was it possible that Andrew had told his mother about us? Possible, but not likely—surely he would’ve told me if he was planning on doing that. So was it possible that the Queen had found out on her own? That was very possible, for her Majesty was exceptionally intelligent and insightful, but she also hated confrontation and it seemed unlikely that she would put her son on the spot about his fooling around with a maid. That said, she might scold him by inference as she so often had in the past.

Knowing that I would never be content with wondering if the jig was up or not, I stole back to the door. I checked up and down the ornate vestibule looking for anyone who might catch me in the act of eavesdropping, which was the cardinal crime of a royal servant, but there was no one. Cautiously, I leaned closer to the crack in the door and held my breath, listening intently.

“…to your left,” the Queen said.

“To my left,” repeated Andrew.

“Other left.” The Queen’s tone was withering.

“Sorry. I was thinking stage left.”

“Why?”

“Not sure, really.”

“Andrew…” That tone of distinct disapproval that I knew so well had re-entered the Queen’s voice. “I can’t help feeling that you are not giving this matter the attention it requires.”

“Does it really require that much attention? We’re essentially talking about seating arrangements.”