Page 3 of The Unlikely Heir

A sinkhole starts in my stomach. I can almost feel the little bits of ravioli I just ate for my starter clinging to the sides, trying not to plummet to their doom.

“The crown?” Emily asks.

“I’m eleventh in line,” I say to Spencer. “Surely my security is not important?”

“Something has happened that has changed things,” he says.

I blink. “What’s happened?”

He purses his lips. “There’s been a police investigation, and as a result of that investigation, some senior royal members are going to be removed from their place in the order of succession.”

My eyebrows fly up. “What senior royals?”

He clears his throat. “Uh…your three uncles and their children. Basically, all the senior royals besides Her Majesty.”

All of them? All of them? The words rattle around my brain, refusing to settle.

If all the senior royals are being removed from their place in succession, and he’s here to make me secure…surely it can’t mean what I think it does…

“But hang on a second, are you telling me…do you mean to say…?”

Spencer seems to take pity on my stumbling. His eyes are kind as he meets my panicked gaze.

“It means you are now heir to the British throne.”

ChapterTwo

Oliver

“This is a complete and utter fucking cock-up,” Alfred, my Home Secretary, says as we stride down the dimly lit hallway towards the cabinet briefing room.

“It’s what happens when two cock-ups get together, fuck, and then make a whole lot of super cock-ups,” Toby, my Chief of Staff, adds.

It appears my advisers are stuck in a cock-up conundrum. Unfortunately, I’m lacking a better word to describe the current situation.

“Ten members of the royal family arrested. It’s unheard of,” Alfred continues as we walk into the briefing room.

Senior members of my cabinet are gathered around the large table for an emergency meeting. It’s Saturday, and I received the phone call from the Commissioner of Police this afternoon and another call from the queen soon after, so it was five p.m. before I called a situation-critical emergency meeting, telling the cabinet to drop whatever they were doing and dash straight to Downing Street.

Bernard, the Deputy Prime Minister, looks like he’s dressed for playing squash. I’m assuming Helen, dressed up in fishnet stockings and a red corset with a plunging neckline, was on her way to a fancy dress party. At least, I’m hoping she was on her way to a fancy dress party, or else I might not be able to look at my Secretary of State for Education in quite the same way again.

All the cabinet members stand and do their usual “Mister Prime Minister” nod to me as I approach the table, which is something I still haven’t got used to in the three years since I’d been elected.

Toby thumps the folder he’s carrying onto the table as he plonks down in the seat next to me.

“So, what’s your analysis of the situation?” I ask him in an undertone among the shuffling noises of the other cabinet members.

“The monarchy will struggle to survive this,” he replies in a low voice.

I don’t think Toby is being overdramatic. My instant political judgment matches his. It’s hard to see how the monarchy will be able to emerge intact from the fallout of this scandal.

I take a deep breath as I scan all the faces at the table waiting for me to speak. “Okay, before we decide exactly how to respond, we need the full facts. Thomas, can you get us up to speed with everything you know so far?”

Thomas, the liaison between Scotland Yard and my government, nods and then begins speaking rapidly.

It’s not a pretty story.

Scotland Yard has suspected for months that members of the royal family have been involved in illicit dealings with a Middle Eastern business syndicate, taking bribes to orchestrate meetings with key movers and shakers in the UK.