Royal Indiscretion, chapter 41 (Patreon)

Wading through the pack of reporters was no more pleasant the second time; however, they persevered. Yves collapsed into the passenger side of the car and blessed the clinic staff who had banned the reporters from the garage as it was private property.

Doug got in the car, but he didn’t start it. “How are you feeling?”

Yves attempted to divine his own thoughts, but they were too dark and clouded for him to understand them. He thought he might be feeling something in the realm of terror, but he felt too excited for that emotion. Mostly, he felt confused.

Doug squeezed his hand. Given the stereotype of American males as being rather stoic, Doug's preference for physical contact was a nice surprise. “That bad?” he asked.

Yves squeezed back, already feeling guilty about the worry on Doug's face. “No, more bewildered. What are we doing? What is my father going to do?” Yves gave and exaggerated shrug. “What’s the meaning of life? So many answers I don’t have.”

Doug smiled. “I can work with bewildered. Hell, I think under the circumstances, you should be confused. This whole situation is fucked up.” Doug started the car and looked over his shoulder to back out despite the fact that the rental car had a serviceable backup camera. Yves considered it one of his quirks, and since that meant that Doug’s hand ended up first on Yves’s seat and then on Yves’s shoulder, he had no complaints.

As they pulled out of the garage, the reporters lined the road and took pictures of them. Doug didn’t move his hand, and Yves turned away from the passenger side window to keep some illusion of privacy. Doug’s phone rang, but he ignored it as he turned onto the road.

“Any thought about where you want to go to dinner tonight?” Doug asked.

“Can we stay in?” Yves asked. “I don’t want to deal with more reporters, especially not once they start speculating about why were at the clinic.”

Doug snorted and his phone started ringing again. “I suspect they are already speculating, so staying in is probably good. Caro said to keep a low profile for a while. We’re trying to make your father back down, not declare war.”

Yves seconded that. If his father had nothing to lose, he could do incalculable damage simply by telling the world the truth about Yves’s past mistakes. The Duke would probably prefer to hide Yves sins since they reflected poorly on him, but if he had nothing to lose, he would embrace mutual destruction.

Doug's phone rang for the third time in as many minutes. “Perhaps you should answer that.”

“I'm driving. It's hard enough driving on the wrong side of the road without trying to do it while distracted. You answer.” He tossed his phone toward Yves. There was something incredibly intimate and trusting about the fact that Doug would allow him to answer his phone. 

Yves hit the green button. “Doug Wasso’s phone, Yves Stenbock speaking.”

“Yves.” The voice stopped, but Yves already knew who was speaking. Hagan. “Why are you calling this line?” If Hagan was trying to manipulate Doug, Yves was going to… he didn't know what he would do. He doubted he had the power to do much except hang up on the man.

“The estate pays your phone bills so your father has access to it. I was calling Mr. Wasser's phone so that I could speak to you without this number appearing on your call log. Do you have any idea how dangerous this game is? The news sites are already posting theories. One is speculating that you may not be the Duke’s son and another suspects you might be a bastard from one of your father's affairs. That is too close to the truth. Do you have any idea how angry that's made him?”

Yves spoke in English. “I think anger the emotion we were going for. So if he is, as the Americans would phrase it, freaked out, I count that a success.” In fact, Yves was rather proud of himself. Doug looked worried.

Hagan switched to English as well. “Don't! I told you to get out of the country, not antagonize your father.”

“I can do both. Doug and I are booked on a flight tomorrow, and I have a job lined up in the United States. Thank you for reminding me to mail my phone back to the Duke.” Already, Yves felt disgusted at the thought of the Duke paying for is phone. He didn't want to take anything of his father's with him to his new life.

“Yves.” Hagan stopped, but he didn't need to say more. There was a world of disapproval in that one word.

“Let me pull over,” Doug said quietly, but they were trapped in the traffic, and he couldn’t. More importantly, he had to deal with his own past.

“This is a strategy that Doug and I planned together,” Yves said firmly. He could not back down, not now. “We do not need your approval, and I will make my own decisions about how to handle my father.”

A long silence made it clear that Hagan disapproved of Yves’s new attitude. “Your father is screaming at one of the maids about how she repositioned artifacts on a shelf because he has to get some of that anger out before he calls you.”

Yves was unsurprised. “That is exactly why Doug and I chose this strategy. My father is a coward. He is perfectly happy to attack servants and children, but it is Doug who is taking the lead on this. My father might not be afraid of me, but he will keep his distance from Doug.”

“You assume your father is going to be afraid of an American,” Hagan snapped.

“I assume my father is going to be afraid of a very wealthy man who has powerful friends.”

“And are you completely sure of Mr. Wasso’s willingness to stand at your side through this? Your father's first strategy will be an attempt to separate you from your support.”

“I am completely sure of him,” Yves said firmly. He looked over at Doug and smiled, and Doug smiled back. There was silence on the line, and Yves could hear Hagan breathing. Seconds ticked past, and Yves had a flashback to being a child and sitting in Hagan's office listening to the grandfather clock marked the time as he waited for Hagan to pronounce whatever punishment Yves had earned. But he was not that child anymore. He was not going to back down, because he believed that he and Doug had chosen the right strategy. The very fact that his father was off screaming at a hapless maid showed the depth of his cowardice.

Doug pulled over into the parking lot of a squat concrete building. However, there were no spots available, so Doug circled the lot while casting concerned looks in Yves’s direction. Finally, Hagan spoke. “Elizabeth Anders.”

“Who?”

Hagan paused, and in the silence, Yves’s brain made the connection. “Her name was Elizabeth Anders,” Hagan said, and when he spoke again, his voice turned sad. “She was a beautiful woman, a trainer in the stables. The Duchess did not like how your father looked at her, or how much time he was spending with the horses, so she demanded that the Duke fire Elizabeth. Your father set her up in a small apartment so that he could continue his affair.”

Words abandoned Yves and even his thoughts seem to slow as they tried to turn in the bog thick confines of his skull.

“What is it?” Doug caught Yves by the arm and squeezed. Yves shook his head. “My mother's name was Elizabeth Anders.”

“There were several police officers at the scene of the murder,” Hagan continued. “More than one was unhappy about the King Joachim’s decision to deal with the event privately. It was a different time then, a different reality. But your father has always worried about the fact that so many police officers knew his secret.”

Yves had trouble catching his breath. He had a name. His mother had been a horse trainer. He wondered if he could find an image of her. “My father, worried that he couldn't control police officers,” Yves corrected Hagan. The Duke would consider them men in a way he would never see Yves. And yet, Albert had served and his father still disrespected him. Yves could not begin to imagine what the inside of his father’s skull must look like.

“It's the only ammunition I can give you,” Hagan said, his voice soft. “If you insist on going to war, at least you have something in your arsenal.”

Yves looked over at Doug. “I have a lot in my arsenal, Hagan. But thank you.”

Hagan sighed loudly. “Be aware that your father is going to call as soon as he can calm down enough to speak without screaming profanities.”

“Hagan, you need to be careful yourself. If my father sees Doug's phone number on your phone, he's not going to be amused.”

“First, I would convince him that I was attempting to defuse this situation. Second, I always keep burner phones in my desk. Protect yourself,” Hagan said, and then the line was dead. Yves was left holding Doug’s phone. Elizabeth. The name was seared into his brain.

“Are you okay?” Doug sounded hesitant. He stopped the car, and Yves looked up to see another car backing out of a spot.

“I'm not sure. I have a name. Elizabeth Anders. She was my mother.”

“Do you want to look her up? See if she had other family?” Doug pulled the car into the open spot.

“And tell them what? I am the bastard child that got her killed?” For the first time, Yves realized she might have other children. He might have brothers and sisters. He could have aunts and uncles and grandparents. Yves's mind struggled to wrap itself around that idea.

“No one would blame you for what your father did,” Doug said firmly.

Yves suspected that was wishful thinking. “Maybe. Maybe not. But right now I don't have the emotional reserves to deal with a new set of family drama. My current dysfunction is all I can handle.”

“And that's okay to. There is strength in saying that you know when to take a break from things.”

Yves shook his head. “You're saying that because you're my boyfriend and you are required contractually to be emotionally supportive.”

Doug snorted. “Okay, you have an unrealistic expectation of boyfriends. Plenty will emotionally shred a partner. However, from a physical training point of view, a good athlete has to be willing to say that he needs a day of rest. Otherwise he's going to injure himself by overusing muscles. So taking a break from the hard work is often the hardest and the healthiest thing to do.” Doug shifted in his seat so he was facing Yves.

Yves summoned his best smile. “You are amazingly good at being emotionally supportive. One might think you are therapist since you are better than the ones who have been employed to fix me.”

A boyish smile spread over Doug’s face. “Nah. I'm just echoing all the shit my therapist tells me when I start beating up on myself. Maybe she'll give us a group rate.”

Despite the grin, Yves could see the serious and pained edge under that cavalier attitude. He held Doug's hand tightly. “When it's your turn for your family drama, I promise to repeat all of the emotionally supportive shit.” He handed Doug’s phone back. “Apparently, my father is going to call as soon as he vents his spleen on some innocent bystander.”

“It's amazing that that man can get any staff to work for him.” 

“It's considered quite the honor to work for royalty and many of the servants are the children and grandchildren Stenbock servants.”

“So the abuse is generational,” Doug summarized.

“Quite,” Yves agreed. He took his phone out, and it felt like a bomb ticking in his hand, waiting to go off and blow him to smithereens. Yves had to convince his father that they were a credible threat, or else his father would never stop coming for them. Hagan was right that this was insanely dangerous, but Doug was right that it was the only way to get a coward to back off. Yves just had to drive home the point that he could and would destroy his father, if the man did not back off.