‘Yes,’ Kedah told her, and he watched the swallowing in her throat. ‘I caught my mother cheating when I was a young child.’
‘Does anyone else know?’
Kedah thought back and shook his head. ‘I was on my own when I caught them.’
‘Does your mother know what you saw?’
Kedah didn’t answer.
‘Tell me what happened.’
‘You don’t need the details. I made a decision a long time ago never to speak of it.’
She saw his eyes shutter and Felicia let out a tense, ‘What happened?’ Then she continued. ‘Tell me what you saw. You hate it when I discredit your work—well, don’t dismiss mine. I deal with this type of thing a lot. Well, maybe not with royalty, but I know I can help. Though you have to tell me it all.’
She knew he didn’t believe there was any difference she could make but, to his credit—or perhaps to hers—he told her some more.
‘I was young.’
‘How young?’
‘Just turning three.’
He was hesitant to say more, but then he looked at Felicia. Yes, Matteo had been right about her. She was tough and experienced—he himself had seen that. And now they were lovers. But, more than that, he trusted her.
‘The office where you worked yesterday...just outside the one where my portrait was done...?’ He offered the location and Felicia nodded as her mind’s eye went there. ‘I was hiding from the royal nanny. My grandfather and father had been away and I didn’t want to go and welcome them back, so I ran off and hid under the desk. I could hear noises coming from inside the office, and at first I thought my mother was hurt. When I opened the door she was being held by Abdal.’
‘Abdal?’ Felicia checked, but then, aware of her own impatience, she shook her head—she would find out in time. ‘Go on.’
‘Abdal walked off and she told me she had been crying and that he had been comforting her. She told me not to tell the King or anyone else. I don’t think she knows that I remember.’
‘What about the nanny?’ Felicia asked. ‘The one you were hiding from?’
‘She came in then, and apologised for losing sight of me.’ Kedah thought back. ‘She was awkward, though I don’t think she would have seen...’
‘She might have seen Abdal leaving.’ It was good that Felicia had been to the palace and could picture it properly. That corridor was a long one, and if the nanny had seen Abdal leaving then it might have been clear he had been alone with the Queen.
While the King was away.
It was immaterial now, but possibly this helped Felicia understand how important it was to Kedah that no one guessed what was between them.
They were still in bed together, and Felicia had never worked like this before.
They were trying to unravel the past, to work out how best to deal with the future.
Now she sat up cross-legged, with the sheet around her, trying to imagine that the Queen she had met would risk it all for a brief fling.
‘Why, if you were only almost three when you caught them, do you think it was a prolonged affair?’
‘You don’t take the Queen over a study desk unless you’re very sure...’
He looked up, and he saw that Felicia smiled.
It felt odd to smile about something so dark, and yet it helped that she did and so he told her some more.
‘My mother comes from a much more modern country. Abdal was an aide also from there. He came to Zazinia to help with the transition and to ensure my grandfather upheld his agreements.’
‘Did he?’
‘Minimally. There was a lot of hope for change when the marriage took place, but little transpired. If he wasn’t dead I would cheerfully kill him...’
Felicia didn’t doubt him. Kedah’s voice was ominous.
‘Abdal had been in Zazinia ever since the royal wedding,’ he went on.
‘How soon after you caught them did he leave?’
Kedah thought back. ‘A few days afterwards.’ Even at such a young age he had served his mother a warning that day, and it had been heeded. ‘I look nothing like my brother or my grandfather. He must have been a risk-taker to do what he did. So am I—’
‘Kedah,’ Felicia interrupted, in a voice that was terribly practical. ‘Let’s assume you inherited your risk-taking behaviour from your mother.’
He gave a reluctant smile, because he had never thought of it like that.
‘What about a DNA test?’ she asked. ‘You’d know once and for all.’
He liked it that she was practical, that she didn’t judge his mother or wring her hands, just got straight to the pertinent facts and seemed to sense how vital it was that Kedah knew where he stood.