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‘Do you need a minute?’ the Queen’s assistant asked, peering at Evie in concern.
Evie almost didn’t want to know what she looked like. Eyes red and blotchy, she was sure, skin an unhealthy shade of pale. Standing in the corridor just outside the private suites of the Queen and her family, she really couldn’t care less. Because Mateo had just torn out her heart. But she took the chance she was offered to freshen up in the bathroom. She splashed cold water on her face and dried off with a hand towel. She just had to get through this, then she could let go. Then she could take in the way her life had just been irrevocably ripped from its roots.
Are you so desperate for love and acceptance?
Her mouth wobbled until she bit down on her bottom lip hard. She willed the tears back, knowing there would be a time to let them fall, but that now was not it. Standing up tall, shoulders back, she stared at herself in the mirror. She didn’t look as bad as she felt, and that was a small mercy.
‘You will do this,’ she told herself. ‘And then you will go home,’ she said, trying not to break down on the last word. Suddenly realising that home and her life in London felt inexplicably alien to her after all that had happened.
The assistant knocked gently on the door and Evie cleared her throat. She rolled her shoulders and smiled through her hurt, all the while holding the ring Mateo had given her in her hand as if it were her only lifeline, and she emerged from the bathroom and went to meet the Queen of Iondorra.
It wasn’t until Evie found herself before the Queen that she realised she was in a bit of a daze. As if half of her was here, present and answering questions, and half of her was back in the cabin of a small plane with Mateo, saying goodbye for ever.
‘So, you’re telling me that you actually found it? I mean, foundher.’
‘Yes, Your Majesty,’ Evie replied, forcing herself to hold on to the present.
‘Really?’
The Queen seemed utterly surprised, and Evie supposed she could understand why. She’d initially only gone to Shanghai to retrieve a family heirloom and instead had come back with a tale so adventurous and outlandish she hardly believed it herself.
In the corner of the surprisingly comfortable sitting room, the Queen’s consort, Theo Tersi, was making them all a cup of tea. Belatedly, Evie realised, that this was in her honour, and perhaps because he and the Queen had been casting some slightly worried glances in her direction.
‘Would you like to sit down?’ the Queen asked.
‘Yes, that would be... Thank you,’ Evie replied eventually.
She sat at the end of a beautifully regal sofa, with pen marks scribbled on one of the cushions and a pile of children’s books in three different languages that almost reached the sofa arm. A little blonde-haired girl was sprawled on the floor in the corner of the room, colouring in a design with such fierce concentration, her tongue was sticking into the side of her mouth. Her father peered over her shoulder, pride and love shining from him with an almost ferocious intensity.Thiswas what she had wanted as a child, before she had realised that she would never have it with Carol and Alan. This loving, soft, easy, comfortable domesticity...thisfamily. Evie paled when the Queen caught her taking in the scene as if she could read much deeper than just the basic envy that had spread across her heart.
‘It has cost you greatly, this search for Isabella,’ the Queen said, rather than asked.
‘Yes,’ Evie admitted.
‘More than just your reputation.’
Evie nodded. It had cost her her heart.
Suddenly the little girl leapt up from the floor. ‘Grandpère! Grandpère!’ she cried, rushing to greet an old man with shockingly thick white hair and startling blue eyes. The little girl wrapped her arms around his thighs in a tight band and stared up at him with such adoration, it nearly brought a tear to Evie’s eyes. Had she looked at her mother like that? Had she ever thought to look at her adoptive parents like that?
The older man, the Queen’s father, placed a gentle hand on his granddaughter’s head, but his eyes zeroed in on Evie.
‘You found her?’
Evie nodded. ‘Yes, Your Highness,’ she replied. ‘But I’m so sorry, the octant was lost in the cave during the earthquake.’
‘Tell me everything,’ he commanded.
So there, sat on the sofa, with the Queen of Iondorra on a chair with her husband standing beside her, her daughter at her feet and her father opposite on another chair, Evie told the story of how Princess Isabella became the Pirate Queen. And if she embellished just a little, to please the fancy of a wide-eyed little girl who gave gasps of shock and delight, no one in the room minded one bit. There were looks of thanks as she carefully navigated the subject of finding the remains, and frowns of concern from the adults as she told of the daring escape from the cave, but everyone cheered when she described the captain of the yacht coming to their rescue.
‘I’m sorry that I wasn’t able to preserve their legacy,’ she concluded to the Queen’s father.
Again, to her surprise, he waved her off. ‘It was never about treasure, was it, my dear?’ he said, looking down at the little princess, who shook her head so determinedly her pony-tail nearly came loose.
Absentmindedly her father reached down to tighten it as she replied with a big, gap-toothed smile, ‘No, Grandpère.’
He fixed those piercing blue eyes on her, even though Evie knew he was talking more to the women of his family. ‘I wanted my granddaughter to know that no matter what happens in life, the women of Iondorra are strong and powerful. They are survivors and warriors, who will fight for their people and their families, no matter if they are princesses, pirates, or queens. The women ofthisfamily? They have the power to do whatever they set their mind to, don’t they, Alize?’
‘Yes, Grandpère,’ Alize replied with an even bigger smile, until she descended into hysterics as the once King of Iondorra tickled his granddaughter and chased her around the room until they both ran out of breath.
