Being Margaret

  Being Margaret

  By Q. Kelly

  © Smashwords 2019

  Table of Contents

  Author’s Note and Blurb

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Have you read the earlier three books in the series?

  List of Q. Kelly’s Works

  Author’s Note

  Being Margaret is the fourth book in a four-book series (future series additions are possible). It stands alone okay, but reading the earlier books may enhance your enjoyment.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead or actual events is purely coincidental. Being Margaret © 2019. Q. Kelly

  Blurb

  The future for Britain’s Princess Margaret represents a marked change from her past. For example, Margaret will not be heir to the throne much longer due to the impending birth of her nephew, and her memory, while sometimes still resembling Swiss cheese, is better than ever. However, there is one memory in particular she wants to erase. It haunts her, sometimes crowding out her other thoughts and rendering her breathless.

  Tessa Donovan, a detective in New York City, is the one person Margaret thinks can help, but Tessa doesn’t want to get involved. Margaret refuses to take no for an answer. She travels to Manhattan, seeks out Tessa and ushers in a future that neither of them could have envisioned.

  Can Margaret get a happy ending like her sisters did?

  Chapter One

  It took Margaret one hour and one week to prepare the notes. One hour to cover the ten index cards in large handwriting as neat as possible. One week to wait—to see if her memory turned up new kernels, new truths before she called Tessa.

  It didn’t.

  One of her doctors, Dennis Milville, used to liken Margaret’s memory to Swiss cheese, only her wedge held more hole than cheese. Now her memory was improving, but she still had to do things at half the speed a normal person would. Nay, a quarter of the speed, especially this task that required the notecards. A wrong step meant disastrous consequences.

  Two p.m. now in London, meaning it would be ten a.m. in New York City. No putting it off. Margaret opened Safari on her iPhone. She’d asked Adam to buy the phone and sneak it to her. No one in her family knew she had it, and the fact filled her with pride.

  She navigated to the page that she’d studied intently for the past month—the NYPD Cold Case Squad—and to the picture of the smiling woman she was about to call. Margaret inputted the number and kept the phone flat on her desk. Her motor skills were okay most of the time, not where they’d been before the shootings, but okay. Still, this could be a difficult, lengthy conversation, so why worry about having to hold the phone?

  Ring. Ring. Ring.

  “Hello, Detective Tessa Donovan speaking. How may I help you?” Slightly harried voice. What had Margaret interrupted? An intense discussion among the detectives on the best way to nail a suspected murderer? Something lower-key, perhaps grumblings about certain detectives who came in late and left early? No matter. Margaret glanced toward the first notecard she had painstakingly prepared.

  “Hello, Tessa,” she said. “I’m glad I caught you in the office.” Her voice felt strong, steady and crisp. She experienced occasional days when she spoke haltingly, but they had become far fewer.

  “Emma?” Tessa whispered. Margaret imagined the detective’s face going pale, blood rushing out of her cheeks.

  “Margaret,” she clarified, looking at the first notecard again. “We met two times during Katharine’s wedding week.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  The second notecard: “At the breakfast with my mother and sister, there was a discussion on how one would commit the perfect murder.”

  Tessa didn’t answer, so Margaret continued. “My father’s death—”

  “I don’t recall that conversation.”

  Margaret blinked. She moved her gaze to the third notecard, but it offered no clues on dealing with this wrinkle. “It happened,” she said hesitantly. “I remember.” At least, I remember it most days.

  “No, I’m afraid it didn’t.”

  “It did.”

  “Okay, maybe it did,” Tessa conceded. “That week…it’s a blur for me.”

  Margaret bit her lip. She’d thought Tessa would be a good person to talk to, to confide in. A police detective who must suspect the truth! Why else would her gaze have been so uncomfortable during that breakfast?

  Margaret heard a mouse approaching, a mouse drawn by her panic and stress. He readied his sharp teeth to nibble a fresh hole in her cheese. Gnaw. Bite. Meaty bite. Not one of these tiny holes she could work around, but a huge, significant black hole. She fought against it, her gaze frantic on the rows and columns of notecards set around her phone. The card marked #3: “My father’s death was not an accident,” Margaret cried, beating the mouse to that area of the cheese.

  “Whatever concerns you have, I work for the city of New York,” Tessa said neutrally. “Your father died in England.”

  “I do realize that, but—”

  “Your Royal Highness, I have to go. Sorry I couldn’t be of help,” Tessa said, her voice as cold as ice.

  Margaret’s mouse started shivering as it opened its mouth for a giant bite of cheese.

  “Wait. Wait!” Margaret said.

  Tessa hung up.

  **

  Margaret awoke the next morning needing a desperate wee. While she washed her hands, her gaze flickered to the ornate mirror above her sink.

  An old face looked back at her. Well, not old old, but older. Definitely older. She blinked, but the aged face remained.

  Calm down. It’s okay. You are dreaming, Margaret. She moved her gaze to the right of the mirror, where a neon-yellow poster taped to the wall read, “You are 35 years old.” A picture of younger Margaret jostled for space next to a larger picture of older Margaret.

  Margaret remembered now—enough, anyway. She reached her fingers out and traced the lines of her fourteen-year-old face, the photo paper curling up at the corners. Another memory came to her, from when she was nineteen. Her parents had gone to ride their horses after dinner, leaving Margaret and Emma home alone at Buckingham. “Alone” meaning that numerous servants and staffers surrounded them.

  Emma suggested that they do the flashcards. Margaret didn’t want to. It seemed like her family only cared about her ability to take up normal duties.

  “Come on,” Emma urged. “You have one week left, and Mum’s really excited.”

  Margaret forced a smile. “Sure.” In one week, she and her mother were scheduled to open a mobile support unit for a cancer care center. It would be Margaret’s first official appearance. She would not give a speech, but there was still much to remember.

  Margaret and Emma settled into one of the couches in Margaret’s study, and Emma, then seventeen years old, proffered the first card. “Who’s he?”

  Margaret scrunched her face at the mean-looking, ratlike visage that greeted her. “Ew,” she said.

  Emma sighed. “Margaret, he leads the principal funding organization.”

  “Principal…funding? What do…you mean?”

  Emma’s eyelids fluttered shut for a second. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed you.”

  “I can…do it.”

  “Okay.” Emma pointed again to the card. “Who is he?”

  “Simon,”
Margaret volunteered. The name somehow sounded right.

  “No,” Emma said. She gathered up the deck of flashcards. “We’ll try again tomorrow.”

  After Emma left, Margaret curled up on the couch. She needed to rest her eyes and relieve her growing headache. “Anthony,” she whispered. “Anthony Jakes.” The ratlike man.

  She awoke some time later to her mother sitting on the couch across. Amalia wore her riding clothes, and the knees were stained brown and green. She sat with a sort of coiled energy even as she stared out into space.

  Alarm ran through Margaret, and she forgot the word for “Mum.” It tantalized the tip of her tongue, but there was nothing to be done about it but to wait. She’d remember soon enough. She closed her eyes, struggled for the word, and finally it clicked.

  “Mum!” Margaret said, sitting up. “What…time is it?”

  Amalia crossed to her and hugged her. “Darling, Margaret, darling.” Amalia broke their embrace and peered into Margaret’s eyes. “I have bad news.” Her chin quivered. “I’m so sorry, but your father had an accident on our ride.”

  “Accident?”

  A tear broke free from Amalia’s right eye, and she let it shudder in all of its wet glory. “His horse…” Amalia wiped the tear away. “She must have reared up because of a noise or animal or…I’m not sure, but he was thrown off.”

  Margaret saw in Amalia’s eyes that he had died. Her chest clenched and her heart wheezed, but her brain remained sufficiently calm because his death was too awful to contemplate. “Where’s Emma?”

  “In bed. Asleep.”

  It confused Margaret, why her mother would’ve told her but not Emma. Well, Emma could have been told but then fallen back asleep. Would that really happen, though? A lot of things confused Margaret in that moment, but she could voice nothing through the muddle of thoughts.

  “Katharine has been informed,” Amalia said. “She is on her way from Maine. She will give a speech in the morning.”

  No! No! Margaret would pretend that her limited mental faculties prevented her from understanding.

  “I’m going…to sleep,” Margaret said.

  Amalia narrowed her eyes. “Margaret, darling, you are the heir to the throne. There’s much we need to do before Katharine arrives. You need to get dressed and tell Emma and your grandmother. Then the staffers must be told.”

  Simon Anthony Jakes! “You do it. I need to sleep.”

  “You are the heir to the throne,” Amalia repeated. “And you are capable. You know your duty. I will help you, of course, but—”

  “I want to sleep!” Margaret screamed.

  “Margaret Vivian Alexandra Rose! Your father would be ashamed to see you shirk your duty like this.”

  “I have…a headache, Mum,” Margaret mewled, but she didn’t. For once, her brain remained free and open.

  “I’ve laid out your clothes,” Amalia said. “Shall we get you dressed? I will brush your hair.”

  “I will dress myself.”

  “Good. You have five minutes, then I’m coming in,” Amalia warned.

  **

  They headed into Emma’s suite together, Amalia in her soiled riding clothes and Margaret in her black mourning dress.

  “You change too,” Margaret told her mother.

  “I will while Emma gets ready.”

  “No,” Margaret said, squaring her shoulders. “Change. Now. I will wait.” The brown and green on Amalia’s knees was the same earth as that upon which Emma and Margaret’s father died. It was too real.

  Amalia left. Rather than wait, Margaret entered Emma’s bedroom and tapped the lamp on the nightstand. Dim light illuminated her sister curled up in bed, blond hair spread across her sheets.

  Margaret rubbed Emma’s back. “Emma,” she whispered.

  Emma stirred awake and sat up. “Margaret?”

  “Simon Anthony Jakes,” she said proudly.

  Emma smiled. “Anthony Jakes. Yes. You got it.”

  “Dad is dead,” Margaret said. Out like that. Because of her condition, she lacked some of the filters other people had. Finesse and nuance could elude her.

  “What?”

  “He and Mum…had an accident riding.”

  Emma gasped. “Mum too?”

  “No. Just Dad.”

  “Where is Mum?”

  “Changing. Clothes dirty. I have…to go to tell Grandmum and the staffers…but you take your time. Mourn.” Margaret patted her sister on the shoulder.

  Emma stared. Licked her lips. “I don’t even know what happened,” she whispered. “Like…did he suffer?”

  “Horse threw him off.”

  Emma winced. “I need to see Mum.” She took off, flying out of the room.

  Margaret knew that she had erred, been too callous, perhaps, but could not explain exactly how. She’d known instinctively that whatever way Emma reacted, be it confusion, tears or anger, Amalia would try to hurry it along in the name of duty. This way, with Amalia elsewhere, Emma could get in a few minutes of proper mourning.

  Except Emma headed straight for their mother.

  **

  The family and the staffers lined up for Katharine’s arrival. Amalia stood at the head of the queue. This time yesterday, she had still been queen of England. She would always be referred to as “Her Majesty,” but now she was the queen mother, not the queen consort.

  As for Margaret, she outranked everyone in Britain except for her elder sister. She heard her father’s voice: You are the heir to the throne. You must be smart and strong, Margaret. It’s as your mum said—you have your duty.

  Katharine came in wearing a black dress similar to what Margaret and the other women wore. She was the queen, no longer a mere princess, but the fact seemed to have diminished rather than emboldened her.

  Her gaze found Amalia’s. They exchanged a terrible look, one filled with confusion, hate, anger. Amalia did not curtsy, nor did protocol require her to. She stood, almost as if frozen, and looked at her daughter, the new queen.

  Then Katharine found Margaret, and Margaret knew in that instant what to do. It was important that she show her sister serious respect. It set an example for the rest of the family and the staffers. Because Katharine was gay, not everyone respected her or treated her properly.

  Margaret gave Katharine a deep, grand curtsy, an once-in-a-lifetime curtsy. In fact, she’d never given her father the king this type of curtsy. “Your Majesty,” Margaret said, and when she looked up, she saw embarrassment on her sister’s face.

  Amalia curtsied next, then Emma, then their grandmother Alexandra who, like Amalia, wasn’t required to curtsy, all three curtsies intricate like the patterns in spider silk, strong and delicate. The staffers curtsied too, beautiful, imposing dances to honor the young queen.

  It had been too much, way too much, judging from the mortification that continued to color Katharine’s cheeks. Katharine went to her suite without saying a word to anyone.

  ‘Tis all right, Henry’s voice said. You tried. That’s what matters.

  No, Daddy. I messed up.

  It’s okay. It’s fine. Go rest.

  **

  Margaret possessed few solid memories of the years in between the recovery that began when she was eighteen and her “awakening” after Alec Castle came into her life. It happened about the same time she started a new medication regimen, so who was to say that the man with the magic tongue was responsible?

  In any case, Margaret awoke one night and remembered having arranged her father’s death. In some areas, Margaret recalled the tiniest details. In other areas, much eluded her. For example, she remembered the light in Alicia Hastings’s kitchen, but she couldn’t recall why she chose Alicia. The light illuminated Alicia like an angel in front of the dark window, but Alicia was no angel, oh no. For whatever reason, Margaret hated her with a terrible passion. Margaret had smelled Alicia’s perfume, the Baccarat Les Larmes Sacrees de Thebes with its top notes of Egyptian cassie, pepper flower and pink pepper.


  “I like perfume that makes me sparkle,” Alicia had told Margaret once.

  The memories amounted to a mass of worm-words, a nest of dirty pink wriggly things seeking purchase in Margaret’s body, wriggling through her brain pores, saying, You have to hear us, you hear us, there’s nothing you can do about it and nothing you can ever do about it.

  Margaret felt the heat of Alicia’s angry, fearful breath on her neck and Alicia’s perfume wafting up Margaret’s nostrils. Margaret said words like, He is a bad man. He gets this look in his eyes whenever—

  Mercifully, Margaret’s memory could never complete that sentence.

  That night, Margaret dreamed dark and vicious dreams. The memory of her misdeed sometimes disappeared, but it always returned. It would stay with her in some form or the other until she gasped her last breath, her respites fleetingly brief.

  She, Margaret Vivian Alexandra Rose, princess of England, killed her father the king and became heir to the throne.

  **

  “Adam,” Margaret said the next time he visited. “Take me to Broadway to see a show. New York City.”

  He was a nice man, a boy really, at twenty-two years old. Steady and reliable. Fun, too. He made Margaret laugh. He didn’t mind that she sometimes spoke slowly and that she needed to think a lot and rest a lot. He didn’t mind the notecards and reminders she posted for herself.

  He wasn’t terrific in bed like Alec, but Alec was special. He’d been paid to court her, to ravish her lovingly, pleasure her, to give her orgasm after orgasm while putting his needs aside.

  Adam, he pulled his penis out of his pants and thrust it inside her. He’d shudder and then be done. Not once did he enquire, “Was it good for you?”