Could she be the secret daughter of the Prince of Wales? In this dazzling novel by the author of Sisters of the Resistance, a young woman seeks to discover the truth about her mysterious past.
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from The Royal Windsor Secret by Christine Wells, which is out September 12th!
Cleo Davenport has heard the whispers: the murmured conversations that end abruptly the second she walks into a room. Told she was an orphan, she knows the rumor—that her father is none other than the Prince of Wales, heir to the British throne. And at her childhood home at Cairo’s Shepheard’s Hotel, where royals, rulers, and the wealthy live, they even called her “The Princess.”
But her life is turned upside down when she turns seventeen. Sent to London under the chaperonage of her very proper aunt, she’s told it’s time to learn manners and make her debut. But Cleo’s life can’t be confined to a ballroom. She longs for independence and a career as a jewelry designer for Cartier, but she cannot move forward until she finds out about her past.
Determined to unlock the truth, Cleo travels from London, back to Cairo, and then Paris, where her investigations take a shocking turn into the world of the Parisian demi-monde, and a high-class courtesan whose scandalous affair with the young Prince of Wales threatened to bring down the British monarchy long before anyone had heard of Wallis Simpson.
The sitting room, which doubled as Serafina’s study, was littered with stacks of papers and papyri, books and maps, not to mention the odd artefact: an ushabti here, a faience scarab beetle there. Cleo’s own corner of the room was scarcely any tidier. Her desk was stacked high with sketches of the fabulous jewelry she loved to design and scrapbooks full of inspiration. Cleo was picking her way around the detritus when she heard her name spoken.
She stopped. Not only were the sisters talking about her, the discussion seemed heated.
Cleo hesitated. Eavesdropping was not really cricket, she knew that. On the other hand, when one’s very origins were shrouded in mystery, one developed the habit of gleaning any and all information about oneself in whatever manner possible. When Cleo’s name was mentioned again, she tiptoed over to the closed door and bent to listen.
Lady Grayson was saying, “She’s growing up wild. You must see this can’t go on.”
“Cleo is perfect!” The rejoinder from Serafina made Cleo’s eyes pop open in shock. “She is the opposite of insipid.” Cleo clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle a chuckle. Really? Serafina never would have dreamed of saying such a thing to Cleo’s face.
“She is a beauty, I’ll grant you,” said Lady Grayson. “But far from perfect. Why, even now she is running about the desert with that strapping stable boy—”
Cleo’s hot cry of indignation nearly gave her away but Serafina cut in before Cleo could storm in and leap to Brodie’s defense. “I won’t hear a word against him! That young man has a fine mind. He’s going to make something of himself one day. Mark my words.”
“That may be, but he ought not to be hobnobbing unchaperoned with a sixteen-year-old girl.”
At a snort from Serafina, Lady Grayson continued, “Saffy, you have no notion of responsibility. Why, Mademoiselle Faubert told me you left that child on her own in the hotel for two months last winter while you went off on one of your digs.”
Cleo rolled her eyes. Between Taaleb, the enormous Nubian who stood guard outside their room each night, the hotel staff, and the permanent guests—not to mention Fifi herself—so very many people had kept an eye on Cleo in Serafina’s absence that Cleo had felt far more restricted than when her guardian was there.
“She was hardly alone.” This came in a mumble Cleo had to strain to catch. “Besides, our parents left us for months on end and we didn’t suffer.”
“We were at home in England with Nanny and a staff of old retainers, not at a hotel in Cairo!” After a pause, Lady Grayson added gently, “There is no future for her here, Saffy. Surely you must see that. Her birth alone entitles her—”
“Birth?” Serafina gave a crack of laughter. “Did someone turn back the clock a few centuries while I wasn’t looking?”
Goodness, what did that mean? Cleo frowned but she didn’t have time to mull it over. She was too eager to hear what came next. “Saffy.” The gentle reproach was followed by something Cleo couldn’t quite catch. She strained to hear more.
Then: “Oh, why did I even start all this?” Serafina’s voice rang with despair. “I never wanted a child.”
Cleo swallowed hard. Her throat burned strangely, as if she was coming down with a cold, but she lifted her chin and glared defiantly at the door. She’d known she wasn’t wanted, hadn’t she? Where was the surprise in that?
“You did it because you’re a good-hearted woman,” said Lady Grayson. “And because everyone needs their own person to love. But loving that child means doing what’s best for her, even if that means letting her go.”
Silence greeted this statement. Cleo waited for what seemed like an age. Then Serafina sighed. “Very well, then. Take her.”
The blood drummed in Cleo’s ears so hard that she felt light-headed, and missed the next few sentences. Serafina was giving in? Just like that? Surrendering Cleo to her sister as if she were a dog or a horse. How could she?
No one ever made Serafina do what she didn’t want to do. She must have some reason—certainly not the selfless sort of love Lady Grayson described. The tender emotions were completely alien to the Honorable Serafina Davenport.
Cleo was about to barge into the room to plead her case when she heard Serafina add, “Promise me two things, Lydia.”
“Hmm. Why do I feel a sudden terrific apprehension?”
Serafina hurried on. “Cleo is . . . oh, ‘spirited’ is the polite euphemism, I believe. Don’t try to iron that out of her, will you, Lyddy? Don’t let anyone crush her the way Mama tried to crush me.”
“All right, I promise,” said Lady Grayson. “Though from what I’ve seen of Cleo, I shouldn’t think anyone could.” She paused. “And the second thing?”
Cleo burst into the room. “You can’t! You simply can’t send me away!”
