A/N: See Chapter 1 for Disclaimer. I also want to add that the life of the most remarkable, courageous lady, Jacqueline Saburido (1978-2019), served as the template for what happens to one of the characters in this chapter. She is one of the most extraordinary human beings to have ever lived, a burn survivor whose face was destroyed because of a terrible car wreck caused by a drunk driver. She has been one of my heroes for many years, and because her heroism is frequently on my mind, I couldn't help but want to write about her (in a manner of speaking.) I don't know if she was saved or not but I hope with all my heart that she was. Please don't take any of this as an endorsement of Oprah, by the way. Her story, told on Oprah's show, can be found in clips on YouTube, but that does not at all mean that I endorse Oprah. Oprah preaches an evil, perverted, satanic false gospel which can destroy the entire eternity of anyone who blindly swallows whatever she says, so she is one of the last people I would ever support. However, regardless of Oprah, I will always have nothing but the deepest respect for Jacqui Saburido, and again, I wanted to note that it was her life story that has served as the template for much of what will happen in this chapter to one of the characters. Please brace yourselves because this chapter is going to be VERY intense. The ride is about to get extremely bumpy to say the least. Thank you all very much for stopping by. Happy reading, and God bless.
Chapter 4: Forty Seconds
Five weeks after the news of Mia's affair broke, Mia shocked us all yet again when, one day out of the blue, she simply vanished, along with her mother, Helen O'Connell, who had been visiting her at the palace at the time. Viscount Arthur Mabrey and his nephew, Lord Nicholas Devereaux, went missing also, along with Earl Martin Stuart, a man who'd served in Parliament for many years. All of the sudden, Mia and her mother and Viscount Mabrey and Lord Devereaux and Earl Stuart were just gone and nobody had any idea what could have happened. Royal Security immediately started conducting an investigation to try to find out what had happened, and naturally, Joseph agreed to help with the investigation. And about a month after Mia's sudden disappearance, Parliament decided that her husband, Prince Andrew, would continue to rule our country in her place indefinitely until we finally knew whether she was dead or alive.
Days turned into weeks, and weeks into years. For the next six years, we were never able to find out what had happened to my granddaughter and all the others. We didn't even know if they were still alive or not. Those years were agonizing for me because I truly did miss Mia so much, despite everything she had done. And I wasn't the only one. The entire palace was in immense grief over losing her. Everyone deeply mourned because of her absence. Without Mia's warm, sweet, lively presence in our lives, the palace became as cold as ice. As did Charlotte.
One particular morning two years after Mia's disappearance, I walked out of my suite for some reason, and I ran into Charlotte out in the hallway. Naturally, I invited her back to my suite for a cup of tea, and she accepted my invitation. And things seemed normal at first, but not long after Priscilla brought out our tea, things began to change, and Charlotte began acting downright cold towards me. After Priscilla had left us alone in my suite and it was just the two of us, I started getting vibes from Charlotte that were colder than Antarctica, and it really stunned me. Charlotte had never been like that before in all the years we'd known each other. But now, I could easily tell that Charlotte was absolutely furious at me, and I just couldn't understand why.
"It's really good to see you today, Charlotte," I told her.
"Thank you, Your Majesty," Charlotte quietly responded in the coldest tone.
She then picked up her cup of tea and spent the next few moments drinking it, refusing to talk to me at all, and her silence was even colder to me than her tone of voice.
Finally, she finished her cup of tea and set it down, and in the next moment, she looked over at me, and I saw nothing but white-hot rage in her eyes. And to tell the truth, it actually scared me a little.
"Thank you for the tea, Your Majesty," she said curtly, and then she got up and left. And after she walked out and I was alone, I got to thinking, and I tried very hard to figure out what I possibly could have done to offend Charlotte so much. It was obvious that she was enraged at me for some reason, and I just couldn't understand why.
And I wasn't the only one who couldn't understand what was going on during those years. Joseph couldn't understand it any more than I could. He constantly worked his tail off during those six years, trying everything he could think of to help with the investigation and find Mia, and in the end, all he ever came across were a bunch of dead ends. It was unbelievably frustrating for both of us, and that was putting it mildly. But then all of the sudden, one day, Joseph picked up on a lead from the most unlikely source – Mia's cat – and it changed everything.
It was September of 2018 when my granddaughter's beloved cat, Fat Louie, suddenly turned up missing one day. Andrew had had to leave for a few weeks on a diplomatic trip to Portugal, and soon after he left, it was discovered that Fat Louie had left the palace as well. Joseph knew that somebody had somehow sneaked out of the palace with Fat Louie. It wasn't really a question of what had happened; it was a question of who had done such a thing, and why? Why would anyone want to steal Mia's cat from the palace? It really made no sense. And when Joseph did manage to track down Fat Louie's whereabouts a few days later, he was downright stunned. Fat Louie had, in fact, been in the last place on earth that anyone would ever think to look. Somehow, Fat Louie had ended up in the house of the man who had once been our family's greatest enemy, Viscount Arthur Mabrey.
And finding Fat Louie in Viscount Mabrey's house was just the tip of the iceberg. Finding Mia's cat was the first domino to fall, and all the other dominoes behind quickly fell down with it. And as soon as all those dominoes began falling, Joseph was able to uncover the whole truth about Mia very quickly. And as soon as Joseph had all the pieces to the puzzle and was able to see the entire picture accurately, he broke down and cried – something I almost never saw him do. The day that Joseph finally uncovered the whole truth about Mia, he barely said two words to me, and he spent most of his time in the palace gymnasium. I understood my husband so well that I knew better than to question it; instinctively, I knew that he needed to have some time off to himself, away from everybody else, to sort through all his thoughts and feelings before talking with me.
The next day was a day that I knew I would carry inside me for the rest of my life. Even if my life were to last for five thousand years, I still would never be able to forget that day. Joseph had called for a meeting that morning in our suite, and as soon as he walked in with Prime Minister Motaz, Charlotte, Mia's best friend Lilly Moscovitz-Kelly, and Viscount Mabrey, I knew something was up. And I knew that whatever that something was, it was not good.
After we all sat down together in the living area of Joseph's and my suite, my heart began pounding away inside my chest, and I started feeling nauseous. I really was scared of what Joseph was about to tell me as he stood there in front of all of us.
A few moments later, Joseph told us, "I appreciate all of you coming here for this special meeting I've called today. As you all know, I've been helping with the investigation of the disappearance of Her Majesty, Queen Amelia, for six years now. And today, I finally know the whole truth, as do Lilly, Charlotte, and Viscount Mabrey. The two people who don't know the whole story yet are you, my dear wife, and you, Prime Minister Motaz. And I called this meeting today because it is essential for both of you to have all the facts. Clarisse, Sebastian, you really need to brace yourselves, because the truth is extremely painful. The truth about our dear Queen is heartbreaking. It is ugly. It is…downright horrifying. But regardless of how much the truth hurts, it's something you must know."
"Talk to us, Joseph. What is it?" Sebastian asked with concern.
"Yes, Joseph, what on earth is going on?" I asked.
"You all know of Earl Martin Stuart, right?" Joseph asked us.
"Of course," Sebastian replied. "He used to be one of our Parliamentarians before he…before he suddenly went missing ."
"And when did he go missing, Sebastian?" Joseph inquired.
"Six years ago. The same time Her Majesty did," Sebastian answered.
"That's right," said Joseph. "Although you may find it difficult to believe, Martin Stuart was actually the one who was to blame for Her Majesty's disappearance. He threatened the Queen and her mother, Helen O'Connell; he forced them to walk out of this palace with him at gunpoint, along with Viscount Mabrey and his nephew, Lord Devereaux."
"But how in the world could he have brought a gun inside the palace?" I asked. "How could he possibly have gotten it past all the metal detectors and all of our security guards?"
"Stuart was a very wealthy, very powerful man in Genovia. He had more than enough money to buy off the majority of our guards and get them to work for him, and that's exactly what he did over the years. As disturbing as it is, Stuart paid off most of our guards in Royal Security and got them to secretly work for him instead of us. On the day that Queen Amelia, her mother, Viscount Mabrey, and Lord Devereaux were kidnapped, one of his minions in Royal Security had all the metal detectors turned off."
"Where has he taken Mia? Where is she now? Is she alright?" I asked anxiously.
"Is she still alive?" Sebastian inquired, daring to ask the question that I was too terrified to ask myself.
"Unbeknownst to everyone, Stuart had a very well-hidden underground bunker in his summer home in France, and that's where he took Her Majesty, Mrs. O'Connell, the Viscount, and Lord Devereaux. Since he was the only person who knew about the bunker for so many years, it explains why we never really got anywhere in our investigation. And with him buying off the majority of our guards, turning them against us, it also explains why I kept running into dead ends all the time. His minions sabotaged me at every turn, and I couldn't see what was happening right in front of my face because I never dreamed that any of our guards would ever betray us like that. Some of these men are men I've been friends with for decades. I never could have imagined any of them stabbing us in the back the way they did.
"Anyway, back to your questions," Joseph continued, "yes, Her Majesty is alive today. But she is not well."
"What are you saying?" I asked Joseph as waves of terror overwhelmed me.
"Her Majesty was gravely injured in Stuart's bunker, and after she was finally rescued by firefighters and paramedics, she was in a French hospital for over a year," Viscount Mabrey explained. "That beast shot my nephew in the head, just murdered him in cold blood before our very eyes, and he shot Mrs. O'Connell in the head as well, although she survived…at least somewhat. To this day, she is still in a coma, and she's in a long-term care facility in France. I paid off the French press to kill the story about Mrs. O'Connell because I knew that if the rest of the world found out what had happened to our Queen's mother, the poor woman would be hounded by the press constantly. I knew that if Mrs. O'Connell ever regained consciousness, she would never really be able to recover if she had to put up with swarms of reporters continually invading her privacy."
"Well okay, that does explain why we never found out what happened to Helen before now, but why weren't we ever told about Mia being hospitalized?" I asked, trying so hard to stay calm. Hearing about how Earl Stuart had kidnapped my granddaughter at gunpoint and how she was, in Mabrey's words, 'gravely injured,' stirred up intense fear inside my heart.
"It's a long story," Joseph said quietly. "Just as Viscount Mabrey, here, chose to conceal his nephew's true place in the Genovian royal line of succession for many years, Stuart also kept the truth about his real place in the line of succession a secret through most of his life. But as it turns out, Stuart was behind Lord Devereaux in the royal line of succession and ahead of the von Trokens. And that's not the only secret he kept."
"What do you mean?" asked Sebastian.
"I've also learned that Stuart ran a huge child prostitution ring in this country for many years, right under our noses. He's guilty of many horrific crimes. He was involved in child pornography, child prostitution, child molestation. He has wrecked the lives of hundreds of Genovian children over the years. And years ago, when he was living in America, there was one child in particular whom he coerced into being one his sex slaves, and that child was none other than Queen Amelia, herself."
"What?!" I gasped, unable to believe my ears. And then I started to cry silently.
"Many times when Her Majesty was little, he would threaten to murder her mother if she refused to have sex with him or with one of his 'clients.' The reason why he did that – besides his own sick perversion – was because he was hoping that forcing her to endure constant rape for so many years would eventually push her over the edge; drive her to complete insanity. He always deeply resented our family because the Renaldis had the crown and he didn't. He'd long since made up his mind that he would take the throne one day no matter what he had to do or who he hurt. He could have murdered Her Majesty back then if he'd wanted to, but he didn't because he hated our family so much that he wanted to cause you and King Rupert as much pain and humiliation as possible. And had Amelia developed severe mental illness as a child because of his incessant abuse, and had it ever been leaked to the press that the Renaldis' hidden princess had succumbed to insanity, just imagine how painful and embarrassing that would have been for you and for King Rupert.
"Mercifully, all his attempts to drive our Queen to insanity during her childhood failed. And then when Prince Philippe was suddenly killed by that drunk driver, Stuart knew it wouldn't be long before you came to San Francisco to be reunited with your granddaughter. More importantly, he knew it wouldn't be long before you began preparing her for her role as the Crown Princess of Genovia. Not wanting to risk being found out by me and my security team, he left America a few weeks before you came to San Francisco. He returned to Genovia. And the following year, he was reelected to his former position in Parliament. And for the second time in his life, he enjoyed the prestige of being a Genovian Parliament member by day while secretly being a child trafficker by night. But while he was doing all of that, he was also biding his time, waiting for an opportune time to strike at Amelia once again. And a few years later when Lord Devereaux's place in the royal line of succession was suddenly revealed by the Viscount, Stuart realized that he couldn't just focus on removing our new Queen from power; he knew he would have to deal with Lord Devereaux as well.
"And in the meantime, soon after Her Majesty ascended the throne, she began conducting a quiet investigation of Stuart, attempting to gather evidence that was strong enough to take him and his child prostitution ring down for good. Stuart was always very powerful and very dangerous because he had many high-ranking officials in different positions throughout our government who'd been paid off by him and were secretly working for him. Her Majesty and Shades had to be extremely careful every step of the way because they knew that if the wrong person ever found out about their secret investigation of Stuart, their lives would be in danger. It was a very slow, painstaking process, but they did eventually get to the point where they had enough evidence against him to bring him down. But when Her Majesty was mere days away from exposing him, that beast leaked footage of her so-called 'affair' with another man, and he did that to try to frighten her and intimidate her into backing down. He did it to try to bully her into changing her mind about exposing him. And he also did it to try to ruin her reputation throughout Genovia and the world."
"So the footage was fake all along?" questioned Sebastian.
"Yes…and no. The footage was real. Her Majesty did have sex with the man in that footage, but not consensually. She was not an adult when it happened. The footage was doctored to make it look like Her Majesty was an adult, but the truth is, she was only fourteen at the time. That footage was not footage of Her Majesty cheating on her husband through an act of consensual sex; it was footage of Her Majesty being raped as a child by one of Stuart's 'clients.'"
"Oh, God," I gasped as I began sobbing. "Oh Lord, forgive me for being such a fool!" I cried out.
"Mia never once cheated on Andrew," Lilly said a few moments later as I continued to sob. "Not once. She never even thought it."
"Ever since Queen Amelia got married to Prince Andrew eleven years ago, she has never once laid eyes on another man," Charlotte told us.
Joseph then said, "When Stuart realized that he had not successfully intimidated Her Majesty into shutting down the investigation, he decided it was time to take matters into his own hands, and it was then that he kidnapped Her Majesty, Mrs. O'Connell, Lord Devereaux, and Viscount Mabrey here. After he got everyone to his secret bunker at his home in France, he planned to murder them all, especially Her Majesty and Lord Devereaux, since they were the ones blocking his way to the throne. We don't know for certain why he also chose to kidnap Viscount Mabrey and Mrs. O'Connell, and we may never know the answer to that question. But there is one thing we do know: our Queen made the biggest sacrifice imaginable in order to save our country from that cruel, disgusting beast, and she succeeded."
"What sacrifice did Mia make? How did she save Genovia?" I asked.
"After two days in that terrible bunker, that monster shot and killed my nephew in cold blood, and then he put a bullet into Mrs. O'Connell's head as well," said Viscount Mabrey. "Her Majesty and I realized it then that we couldn't just sit there, all tied up to a couple of chairs, waiting for someone to come along and rescue us. A few hours after we decided to try to escape, I managed to loosen my ropes, and after a lot of work, I was able to free myself from them and get out of the chair I'd been tied down to. Then I went over to Her Majesty and freed her from her ropes just as quickly as I could. There were two sets of stairs in that bunker that led to the first floor of the house, and whenever that maniac came down to the bunker, he always used the set of stairs in the front of the bunker that connected to the kitchen. The stairs in the back led to a hallway near the living room. While Her Majesty looked all around in the bunker, hoping to find something, anything that she could use as a weapon, I picked the lock on the door at the back staircase with a hairpin she'd given me. Her Majesty wasn't able to find anything that could be used as a weapon, but she did find a candle and a book of matches. And as soon as I saw her with the candle in one hand and the book of matches in the other, I asked her what she was planning to do. And she told me what I already knew myself, that as long as that beast was still alive, he would always be the cause of great suffering to our people. Especially to our children. If, God forbid, he'd ever managed to kill Her Majesty and take the throne for himself, a man as cruel as he was could have destroyed our entire nation easily. As terrible as the von Trokens have always been, we both knew they were child's play in comparison to that beast. Her Majesty told me that day that she knew what had to be done, and that I should go up the stairs in the back to escape while she stayed behind to take care of Stuart. I asked her if she was absolutely certain that she wanted to do this, and she insisted that her mind was made up, so a few moments later, I hurried up the back stairs, knowing that he could be returning to the bunker at any second. I rushed into the living room, picked up the phone, and called for the emergency services.
"I didn't see what happened next, but Her Majesty told me later on that soon after I left the bunker, she found an old kerosene lamp and threw it down onto the floor, which shattered it and caused all the kerosene in it to leak out everywhere. Then a few moments later, that monster returned to the bunker from the kitchen, and she quickly lit the candle she was holding. And as soon as he came down the last step, he tripped and fell down to the floor. Her Majesty immediately took advantage of it and threw herself down on top of him to try and prevent him from leaving. And then…she threw the candle onto the floor.
"During those next few seconds, the fire immediately began to spread, and it spread throughout the bunker very quickly. He tried to get up so he could escape the flames, but when he actually did manage to rise to his feet in those moments, Her Majesty, who was still on her hands and knees, punched him in the groin just as hard as she could, which caused him to fall to the ground once again. And when he fell the second time, according to Her Majesty, he hit his head and knocked himself unconscious. But even though Her Majesty had rendered him helpless, even though he no longer had any chance of escaping the fire, she no longer had the option to escape, herself, because it was too late. The fire had rapidly spread all through the bunker, and both sets of stairs had caught on fire. She was trapped, and it wasn't long before the unconscious body of that disgusting snake was burned up completely…and it wasn't long before Queen Amelia, herself, was on fire," Viscount Mabrey said in such a grave tone of voice, and I gasped in horror and silently cried while I listened.
"During the forty seconds that Her Majesty, Queen Amelia, was engulfed by the flames," Viscount Mabrey continued, "she was crying…and screaming…and moaning…and wailing. She made the most inhuman sound. A sound that I have never heard another person make in all my life. During the forty seconds that our Queen was on fire…she experienced such an intense, unfathomable level of suffering that I begged God with all I had in me to take her from this world so that she could finally stop hurting. But He didn't take Her Majesty from us that day, which is a very good thing for all of us and for Genovia…but not so much for our dear Queen. Life today for Her Majesty is truly a living hell. Had the tables been turned and had I been in Queen Amelia's shoes, I would have taken my own life a long time ago. I never would have had her kind of courage. I never could have chosen to stay alive and keep going like she has."
"After Her Majesty had been on fire for forty seconds, the emergency services finally arrived and firefighters and paramedics quickly put out the flames," Charlotte explained. "And then when they reached Her Majesty, they were utterly amazed that she was still alive and still moving. A helicopter was dispatched immediately, which transported Her Majesty to the nearest burn hospital."
It was in that moment that Joseph came over and sat down beside me on the couch, and he wrapped a protective arm around my shoulders – just as he always did whenever he had to tell me things that were especially painful.
Joseph just sat there with me patiently and let me cry it all out over the next couple of minutes, and then after I composed myself again, I looked at my husband and said, "Tell me, Joseph. How bad is it?"
Joseph then brought down his arm from behind my shoulders and took my hand in his, and as his heartbroken deep blue eyes gazed into mine, he quietly responded, "It's bad, Clarisse. It's terribly bad. Mia suffered third degree burns to sixty-five percent of her body. Her doctors truly did not expect her to survive, and to this day, they're amazed that she has. She's suffered so badly. In a nutshell…Mia's entire face has been destroyed. All her hair is gone. Her eyebrows."
"According to one of the nurses who helped care for Her Majesty at the burn hospital in France," said Charlotte, "the day that she first came in…her face was charred beyond all recognition. According to her, the Queen's nose…and her lips…and her ears…they all just fell off into her hands. Literally."
As soon as Charlotte told us that, I couldn't have held back my tears even if I'd wanted to. After being trained for so much of my life to maintain a stiff upper lip in front of others no matter what, now, I just clung to my husband and sobbed without even trying to hold back.
"Mia lost her nose and her lips and her ears. She even lost an eyelid," said Lilly, and the instant she informed us that Mia had even lost an eyelid in the fire, I clung to Joseph tighter and sobbed in his arms harder than I ever had before in my life. I didn't even cry and sob at the news of my son's death the way I was crying and sobbing now after hearing about my granddaughter's unfathomable suffering. And Sebastian and all the others cried as well.
When we all calmed down a bit a few minutes later, Joseph told me with tears in his eyes, "The doctors had to amputate all ten of Mia's fingers."
Again, we all cried together after hearing him say that.
"Mia was in a coma for ten months," Lilly explained. "And when she woke up, she was completely blind. But thankfully, doctors were able to restore Mia's vision in her right eye with a corneal transplant. At least somewhat. She does have some vision in her right eye today, but it's very poor."
"Clarisse, if our little girl were standing here before us in this suite right now…you wouldn't recognize her," Joseph told me in a whisper. "On the inside, where it matters the most, she will always be that gorgeous young lady that we remember. But now…all her physical beauty is completely gone."
Over the next several minutes, Joseph showed Sebastian and me current pictures of Mia's poor face that was now charred beyond recognition. He also showed us pictures of Mia when she was in the burn hospital in France. He showed us pictures of her poor hands that had been destroyed by the fire. It appeared as though all of her fingers had just been melted together by the fire into a mitten of flesh. It was beyond heartbreaking, and we all just cried and sobbed together for so long.
After we finally pulled ourselves together once again, I turned to Mabrey and said, "I'm quite certain, Viscount, that you have a good explanation for stealing my granddaughter's cat out of the palace."
"He has a wonderful explanation for it, my dear," Joseph assured me.
"Forgive me, Your Majesty, but the explanation for the sudden abduction of Sir Fat Louie is a very long story, so I must ask for your patience," said the Viscount.
"I'm listening. Patiently," I told him.
"Hearing Her Majesty screaming in that fire is something I will never forget. It's something that still gives me nightmares to this very day. I know I used to be a mean-spirited, vindictive old man, but witnessing Her Majesty sacrifice her body and her health and her future and her life in that terrible fire…it changed me. One of the reasons why I was so dead-set against Her Majesty becoming Queen all those years ago was because she'd been born and raised in America and was not, in my mind, a true Genovian. But as Her Majesty was screaming in agony in that fire, I realized that that American girl had more love, devotion, and dedication for Genovia in her little finger than I'd ever had in my whole body. Queen Amelia may have been born and raised in America, she may be half-American, but even so, she is a better Genovian than I could ever hope to be. She's a better person than I could ever hope to be. And after the indescribable sacrifice Her Majesty made to keep our country safe, I knew that as a loyal Genovian, I owed it to her to care for her and keep her protected at all times.
"With Stuart's minions spread throughout the Genovian government and Royal Security, I knew Her Majesty was not safe in Genovia. I knew she certainly wasn't safe in the palace. And with her face charred beyond all possible recognition, I made the decision to keep Her Majesty's true identity a secret. I told the French authorities and all the doctors at the French burn hospital that Her Majesty was my niece and that I was her only living relative. And I hope you'll understand and forgive me, Your Majesty, because I also made a big decision on yours and your granddaughter's behalf during the ten months after the fire that she was comatose. I was afraid that if you learned the truth about what had happened to your granddaughter, you would naturally want to come to France to be with her. And as the Queen Dowager of Genovia, making such a trip would automatically require arrangements to be made with Royal Security. And I was concerned that despite yours and your husband's best efforts to keep your trip to France a secret, one of Stuart's minions in Royal Security would inevitably find out why you were going to France and what had happened to Her Majesty. And I was afraid that if that happened, Her Majesty would be murdered by one of Stuart's minions under the perfect cover of her extensive burns."
After a long silence and a lot of deep thought, I told Mabrey, "I'll admit that I'm not exactly pleased with the decision you made on my granddaughter's and my behalf, but given the situation you were faced with at the time, I understand why you did what you did. Had I been in your place, I probably would have made the same decision myself. But why did you continue to keep my granddaughter's condition and her whereabouts a secret from me for so many years?"
"When Mia finally came out of the coma ten months later and Arthur and I told her the truth about everything that had happened to her, she insisted that she didn't want you to know," Lilly explained. "Then later when she received a corneal transplant in her right eye that restored a little bit of her vision and she was able to see her face for the first time, she was adamant that she didn't want you to know. She wanted to spare you the pain of it all. We all tried to talk her out of it over the years. Arthur tried; I tried; Charlotte tried; Andrew tried. But no matter how hard we tried to convince Mia to agree to let us tell you and Joseph, she just wouldn't budge. She said that you'd been through enough pain in your life after the loss of Prince Philippe, and she said that she didn't want to make things worse for you. All these years, she's been thoroughly convinced that it was better for you to know nothing and for you to just go on thinking that she was out there missing somewhere."
"Furthermore, Her Majesty's health really has been quite fragile all these years," Charlotte added. "She has undergone so many surgeries to try to rebuild her badly burned face and body. Her entire life over these past few years has been nothing but a whirlwind of doctor's visits and hospitals and operations. And understandably, her psychological health has suffered just as much as her physical health has. It is a huge challenge for Her Majesty to simply maintain the will to live every day. We were all afraid that if we went behind Her Majesty's back and told you against her wishes, it would upset her. And Her Majesty's health is so fragile now that simply getting upset about something is enough to make her physically ill. So when she continued to insist over the years that she didn't want you to know what had happened to her, we chose to keep the truth to ourselves, even if we didn't agree with her decision. Her Majesty decided that she wanted to remain in France, away from you and Joseph, away from Genovia, away from the palace, and even though we weren't thrilled about it, we respected her wishes."
"Like that snake, Stuart, I also have a second home in France," Mabrey informed us. "I've had it for decades. My late wife and I bought it a few years after we were first married. And as soon as Her Majesty was finally strong enough to leave the hospital, I brought her to my home in France, and I hired a team of nurses and physical therapists, as well as a psychologist, who have helped my housekeeper Gretchen and me to care for her through the years."
"That's where Mia's been all this time? With you, at your second home in France?" I asked.
"Until about four months ago, yes, Your Majesty, that is correct," Mabrey confirmed. "After Her Majesty had been living with Gretchen and me in France for three years and I felt that she was finally strong enough to make the move back to Genovia, we all started trying to convince her to let me bring her back to my main residence here in Pyrus. It wasn't until a few months ago that Her Majesty finally agreed to let us bring her back to Genovia. And it wasn't until then that she finally agreed to let us tell her husband, His Royal Highness, Prince Andrew. Her Majesty tried so hard over the years to get us to convince Prince Andrew to have her legally declared dead so that he would be free to get married again and move on with his life. And when she permitted us to tell him about everything at long last, she tried so hard to convince him to get a quiet divorce from her, but of course, he will have none of that, no matter what arguments she tries to come up with."
"We've all been trying to convince Mia to change her mind about telling you, Your Majesty, but she still insists that she wants to try to protect you from all of this," said Lilly.
"Now, to finally answer your question about Sir Fat Louie, a couple of weeks ago, Her Majesty got to talking about how very much she missed him. Since she has suffered so very many losses over the years, I figured the least we could do was return Her Majesty's beloved cat to her. So I asked Charlotte to embark on a rather sneaky mission."
"Viscount Mabrey asked me a couple of weeks ago to find Fat Louie the next time I was here in the palace and sneak him out of here and take him to the Viscount's house so that Her Majesty can have him by her side once again," Charlotte explained.
"We thought, Your Majesty, that you and your husband Joseph would simply assume that the cat had suddenly run away for some reason and not give it another thought. We never expected Joseph to conduct such a thorough investigation over a cat."
"When I uncovered Sir Fat Louie's whereabouts two days ago, I paid the Viscount a visit, and it was then that he explained everything to me," said Joseph. "I also spoke with His Royal Highness over the telephone, and he assures me that he and Shades and others that they trust are working tirelessly to weed out and expose all of the Earl's minions who are still working in our government. And they are also planning to replace almost the entire Royal Security staff as soon as he returns from Portugal so that Her Majesty's safety will be completely ensured when we bring her back to the palace in what we hope will be the near future. However, we still have one major obstacle to overcome."
"What obstacle?" I asked.
"Queen Amelia, herself," Joseph answered. "Ever since she was burned so horrifically in that fire six years ago, she is so embarrassed by her physical appearance that she has just wanted to remain hidden away from the rest of the world inside Viscount Mabrey's home. It's very rare for her to ever go anywhere. She doesn't want anyone to see her. She doesn't want us to see her, Clarisse," my husband explained to me as even more tears filled my eyes. "She is unaware that you and Prime Minister Motaz and I know about everything that has happened to her now."
"And if Her Majesty had her way, you still wouldn't know," Viscount Mabrey told us.
"It's going to be very difficult to convince Mia to come back to the palace, and that's putting it mildly," said Lilly. "She doesn't want you and Joseph to know the truth about her. She definitely doesn't want you to see her. She doesn't want her lady's maids or her royal guards or anybody in the palace to see her the way she looks now. She's very stubborn about it."
"Well Joseph and I will simply have to go to Viscount Mabrey's house and see her and convince her otherwise," I told everyone.
"You're going to have your work cut out for you, Your Majesty," Mabrey warned. "Ever since Prince Andrew finally learned the truth, he's sneaked away from the palace to my house to visit Her Majesty many times, just him and Shades, with him wearing a disguise so no one would recognize him. And each time that he would visit her and try to talk some sense into her, try to convince her to let him tell you and Joseph and let him bring her back to the palace, she has adamantly refused."
"Well no matter how stubborn my granddaughter might be, I'm even more stubborn, as my dear husband will tell you," I said, which caused everyone to chuckle through their tears. "Forgive me, everyone, but I must ask you all to leave now. As I think you will all understand, I need some time to myself in order to digest all of this."
"We understand completely, Your Majesty," Viscount Mabrey said with great compassion, and then he and all the others immediately got up and left me alone with my husband.
"I hope you don't mind me telling you in the presence of all the others, my dear," said Joseph as I rose to my feet and walked over to him in those moments. "Frankly, I wasn't quite sure how to go about it. I finally decided that it was best to have everyone else there with you when you first found out. I guess I was hoping that you would find Lilly's and Charlotte's and Sebastian's presence to be somewhat comforting. And as our Prime Minister, Sebastian needed to be informed as well."
I nodded as silent tears streamed down my cheeks, and I said, "I understand, Joseph. You did the right thing. But right now, I just need us to be alone together."
Without another word, Joseph just pulled me into his arms and held me close, and we just spent the entire rest of that day holding onto each other and crying together.