“What is this son like? Is he someone suitable? He’s not living in some American trailer park, is he?” Dowager Queen Simone demanded. “Someone who would be a disgrace to the throne and the de Bergeron name?”
“I don’t believe he’d be a disgrace, no,” Luc replied. “Naturally he’s somewhat stunned with the news.”
The dowager queen leaned forward eagerly, her thin hands resting on her gold-filigree-topped cane. “Where is he?”
“You’re looking at him.”
She blinked her laser eyes at him. “I don’t understand.”
“Katie Graham was my mother.”
Luc could relate to the look of astonishment on the prime minister’s face. He’d felt that way himself when he’d first heard the news. He still felt that way.
The dowager queen’s expression was harder to read.
“If you knew Katie Graham was your mother, then why on earth did you spend the past few months searching for her son?” the prime minister asked.
“I knew my mother as Katherine Dumont,” Luc replied. “I had no idea about her…colorful past. It was only as I began the investigation that I started putting the pieces together. Even then, I didn’t believe it could really be true. When I went to my father—the man I believed to be my father—and confronted him, he gave me the key to a safe deposit box that my mother had requested I open should I ever question my heritage. It’s all here.” He opened the manilla envelope he’d brought with him. “The entire paper trail—wedding certificate, my real birth certificate, not the one my mother had Albert Dumont falsify.”
“Falsified birth certificates seem to have reached epidemic proportions around here lately,” Simone noted tartly.
Luc flinched.
“Not that we’re accusing you of any such behavior,” the prime minister hurriedly assured him.
“I can understand your skepticism,” Luc said. “I considered not sharing this information with you at all, just pretending I never found it.”
“Why would you do something like that?” the prime minister asked.
“Because I’m not any happier about this…situation than you are,” Luc said in a clipped voice.
“You misunderstand me.” Simone put her thin hand on his arm. He was surprised to feel it trembling slightly. “Is it really possible? Could you be…my grandson?”
“According to those papers I am. Even so, I’d still like to get corroborating evidence from an independent source before we proceed any further.”
“You sound as if you’re not happy with this news, Luc,” the prime minister said. “I can tell you that I, for one, cannot think of a more honorable man to take the throne.”
Simone was looking almost gleeful. “You know what this means? It means that awful Celeste won’t get her grasping hands on the throne. Her baby is due any minute now, and if it’s a boy, well, then our ship would have been sunk.”
“I don’t think Queen Celeste will take the news about Luc very well,” the prime minister noted.
“As I said,” Luc interrupted them. “No one but the three of us and Juliet is to know about this news just yet.”
“Juliet?” Simone raised a perfectly penciled eyebrow. “So you told Juliet. Before you told us?”
Luc refused to squirm in his seat. He was a former Interpol agent, he was not a schoolboy being reprimanded by his headmaster.
“Yes, I told Juliet before I told you.” The set of his jaw communicated his aggravation. “Do you have a problem with that?”
“I fear it would do me no good if I did,” Simone replied. “I’ve always liked Juliet. She’s a wise little thing. So what did she advise you to do?”
“She didn’t advise, she listened.” Luc’s pointed look indicated it was something that the older woman could learn to do better.
Simone smiled and leaned back in her chair with satisfaction. “Yes, you will do well as the king. Quite well indeed.”
“I want you both to swear you won’t tell anyone about this information until we can get it confirmed,” Luc said. “And the situation with Rhineland also has to be addressed.”
The prime minister paused in his close inspection of the material Luc had handed him. “The birth certificate is registered, and the rest of the documents appear legitimate.”
“I know someone from Interpol, someone very discreet, who will do some follow-up work,” Luc said.
“I understand you were born in Texas,” Simone said with a slight shudder. “Thank goodness Katie had the foresight to bring you back to Europe and civilization. Imagine if we’d had to track you down in Texas, as some kind of roving cowboy.”
“You’ve been watching too many movies,” Luc said. “Not everyone in Texas is a cowboy.” He knew, he’d traveled to Texas during the course of his investigation.
“Some are ruthless businessmen like J. R. Ewing,” the dowager queen continued, “on that television show…what was it called? ‘Houston’?”
“‘Dallas’,” Luc corrected her.
“There’s no point in worrying over what might have been,” the prime minister said. “We should focus on what our next course of action should be. I will need to notify the Privy Council.”
“I’m still trying to get information from the French customs agency about Katie Graham’s arrival and departure from France. Those records from over thirty years ago are in some warehouse waiting to be transferred onto the computer system.”
“What do you hope to gain from those records?” the prime minister asked.
“The date Katie arrived in France to marry King Philippe and the date she left for the United States,” Luc said.
“But you already have so much information from earlier in your investigation,” the prime minister noted, opening his own file on the subject. “The marriage certificate between Katie and Philippe, the birth certificate of her son Lucas Johnson, the marriage certificate of Katie Graham and Ellsworth Johnson, the divorce certificate of Katie Graham and said Mr. Johnson and lastly her marriage certificate to Albert Dumont.”
“I could still be Albert’s son, just trying to pass myself off as the king’s.”
“DNA testing would resolve that.” The prime minister gazed over the top edge of his reading glasses before removing them entirely to solemnly ask Luc, “Would you be willing to subject yourself to that?”
Luc paused before nodding.
“Ah,” Simone murmured. “I understand now. It is not that you want us to be sure you are the real heir, it is that you yourself are not sure that you want to be the king. Isn’t that correct, Luc?”
Yes, Luc silently noted, the elderly dowager queen was still sharp as a tack, all right. She’d certainly summed up his emotions in no time at all.
“Your Majesty?” the footman whispered to Celeste as he delivered her lunch to her suite on the second floor of the palace. “I have some information for you.”
Shortly after her marriage Celeste had completely redecorated the suite in shades of ivory and gold. She thought the colors complemented her own coloring—the ivory of her flawless skin, the gold of her perfectly cut hair.
“Information? It had better be something good,” she warned him. “The baby has been kicking me all day and I’m not in the best of moods, Henri.”
“I overheard a conversation…”
“Overheard?”