HIS MAJESTY’S MISTRESS REVEALED

American artist Laura Bright has been identified as the former mistress of the King and the mother of his illegitimate daughter, Evangeline.

Bright, 43, of Arlington, Virginia, is alleged to have had an affair with His Majesty during the autumn of 2004. According to an anonymous family friend, Alexander broke it off when he discovered his wife, Queen Helene, was pregnant with the couple’s daughter, Princess Mary. By then Bright was also expecting Alexander’s child, and the months that followed were allegedly filled with legal battles revolving around their unexpected souvenir.

“He wanted her to get an abortion,” recalls Jackie Merton, a former schoolmate of Bright’s who kept in touch after the pair graduated from Three Oaks Academy in Arlington. “She refused, of course. We didn’t know at the time who the father was, but it all makes sense now, her determination to keep it. To keep the King of England’s baby.”

In a twist of fate, the two half sisters were born within hours of each other on 1 July 2005, Princess Mary in London and Evangeline an ocean away in Arlington. Soon after the births, the King relinquished all custody of Evangeline and focused on patching up his marriage, and Bright reportedly walked away with a seven-figure settlement in return for her silence. The ex-lovers never saw each other again.

Unbeknownst to the King, in the years that followed, his former flame began to show signs of mental illness. “She was acting paranoid,” claims Merton, who often visited Bright and her young daughter. “She thought people were following her and tapping her phone. She began to withdraw from me and our group of friends, and when she did show up, she’d burst into tears over nothing. We all thought she was depressed. I encouraged her to get help, but she insisted she was fine.”

Bright’s mental state continued to deteriorate until the night of 17 November 2009, when Arlington police received a frantic phone call from Bright’s mother, the late Betty Bright, who believed her granddaughter was in imminent danger. When the police arrived at the Bright residence, they discovered Laura had barricaded herself in a bathroom with four-year-old Evangeline.

“We had to break down the door,” recounts retired officer Gerald Way, who was present at the scene nearly fourteen years ago. “And when we did, we found the suspect holding her daughter down in a bathtub filled with water.”

Bright was arrested and charged with attempted murder, while Evangeline was treated at Arlington Children’s Hospital, where she remained in intensive care for several days. Betty Bright was granted sole legal and physical custody of her granddaughter, and though His Majesty was made aware of the incident, he allegedly declined to visit his estranged offspring.

In the weeks and months that followed, Laura Bright was diagnosed with schizophrenia, a lifelong mental illness that often has a genetic component. Her doctors testified that she had suffered a psychotic break that led to the attempted drowning, and the charges against her were dropped in favor of inpatient mental health treatment. Two years after the incident, she was released.

Though Bright’s current whereabouts are unknown, an anonymous family friend claims Evangeline hasn’t seen her mother since Betty Bright’s death in 2016. Evangeline, who was expelled from no fewer than nine North American boarding schools in a six-year period, often for criminal behaviour, is currently a suspect in the murder of Jasper Cunningham.

—The Daily Sun, 26 June 2023

 

WHEN I WAS LITTLE, I used to have the same dream almost every night.

I’d be wading into the ocean, bobbing up and down with the gentle waves while the sun beat down on me under a wide blue sky. My mom and grandmother would be unpacking a picnic or reading books on the shore, and I would dig my toes into the sand, as happy as I’ve ever been.

I would spot a colorful fish nearby, or maybe a shell—whatever it was, it was always pretty and caught my attention, and I would chase after it until the water grew so deep that I had to go back. But the shore always vanished. Even if I’d only taken my eyes off my mom and grandmother for a split second, I would look up and find myself alone in the middle of the ocean. And the waves weren’t gentle anymore.

The water would close in around me until I couldn’t breathe, and I would sink, suspended in the ever-darkening sea and unable to move. Sometimes I would call for help. Sometimes I would try to swim, even though I didn’t know how. But the dream always ended the same way: right as I was blacking out, I would scream myself awake, and my grandmother would come running into the room to comfort me as I sobbed.

I never understood why I had those dreams. She and my mother never took me to the beach or the local pool. I didn’t even learn how to swim until I was eleven, at the very first boarding school Alexander sent me to after my grandmother died. But that nightmare has haunted me for years, and now I finally know why.

“It’s utter rubbish.” Tibby sits beside me on the bed, her hand hovering over my shoulder even though she doesn’t actually touch me. I’ve never heard that tone of voice from her before—almost gentle and reassuring, but too full of anxious concern to pull off either. “Records like that would have been sealed, and half of it comes from an unreliable source who was undoubtedly paid to make her story juicy—”

“Where’s Alexander?” I manage. There’s a hole in my chest, like I’ve been ripped open and every vulnerable part of me is exposed, and I don’t know how to stanch the bleeding. “Is he awake?”

I climb to my feet, and even though I’m wearing a ratty tank top and shorts, I move with single-minded focus toward the bedroom door. Tibby scrambles after me, her sneakers thumping on the carpet.

“He may still be sleeping,” she says, but she falls into step beside me. “I’ll wake him if he is.”

I’m too numb and adrift to fully appreciate her loyalty in this moment, but some part of me recognizes how lucky I am to have her. She stops me only long enough to make sure I put on a robe and slippers, and then we’re off, heading down the brightly lit corridor that connects the royal family’s private apartments.

The palace is eerie this early in the morning, with fog rolling through the courtyard, but we aren’t completely alone. We cross paths with two cleaners on the short journey, and as we round the corner toward the door that leads into Alexander’s private quarters, I nearly run straight into a tall figure dressed in sweatpants and a T-shirt.

Kit.

“Evan, you’re awake.” Without asking, he catches me in an unexpected hug, breaching that invisible wall between us like it doesn’t even exist anymore. “I’m so sorry. I was just on my way to find you—”

“Have you seen the article, then?” says Tibby in a hushed voice.

“I have, yeah.” Kit grows still, and finally he seems to notice I’m not hugging back. Immediately he drops his arms and steps away from me. “Evan? Are you all right?”

His warm brown eyes are full of concern, and his dark hair, still tangled from sleep, frames his face. Both are familiar—everything about him is familiar—but all I feel when I look at him is betrayal.

“You’re the only person I ever told,” I whisper, the words catching as I force them out. Kit stares at me, and realization slowly dawns on him.

“I didn’t say a word,” he says, lowering his voice to match mine. “I would never—”

“No one else. Not anyone from school, not Ben, not Maisie, not even Tibby—no one else knew about my mom,” I say tightly. No one but Jenkins, and I trust him more than anyone else in the world. He wouldn’t do this.

Kit swallows, and his Adam’s apple bobs. “You didn’t tell me her name,” he says. “Or about…about what your mum did to you.”

“All Robert Cunningham needed was a tip-off. He could have found the rest on his own.” Every word I say sounds alien to my own ears, like I’m not the one who’s really speaking anymore. “I thought Maisie and Rosie and Gia were the leak, but—you’re the only one who knew it all, Kit. You were right there the whole time.”

I expect him to get angry—to shout, to deny it, to tell me how wrong I am and that I’m being completely irrational. Instead, he takes a deep breath and rakes his fingers through his hair, only succeeding in making his waves stand up more than they already are.

“I swear to you, I didn’t breathe a word to anyone,” he says in a shockingly calm tone. He’s upset—I can tell from the slight shake of his voice and the deep grimace on his face. But he isn’t taking it out on me. “I understand why you think I might have. I know trust doesn’t come easy for you—”

“Don’t.”

A muscle in his jaw twitches, and he clenches his fists. “I want to be in your life, Evan. Badly. And I would never do anything to jeopardize that, I swear.”

“You told them about my mom.”

“It wasn’t me.” He says this with such gentle reassurance that for a split second, I almost believe him. “Feel whatever it is you need to feel right now. Be as angry and upset with me as you want. And when this is over and we know who really did it, I’ll still be here. I promise. You won’t lose me, and I would never do anything to risk losing you.”

Kit steps aside, giving me and Tibby ample room to pass. I stare at him for a long moment, doubt and fury and a dozen other emotions I can’t name warring inside me, but I don’t know what to say to that. I don’t know what to say to any of it. And when I finally walk past him, the urge to break down washes over me, and I shove it away. One terrible thing at a time, I tell myself. That’s all I can take right now.

As Tibby and I approach Alexander’s suite, the walls start to spin with the effort it takes for me to hold myself together. Despite the early hour, Tibby knocks loudly, an urgent rap that echoes down the hallway. After a few seconds pass, she knocks again, harder this time.

“Maybe he’s in his office,” she says. “Or maybe he’s not in residence, though I could have sworn the flag was up—”

The door bursts open, and Alexander stands on the other side. He’s dressed in a plush blue bathrobe, and there’s stubble on his jaw that makes it clear he hasn’t been awake for long. At first his expression is thunderous, but as soon as he sees me, his anger seems to melt away.

“Evangeline? Is everything all right?”

“You said they would never find her,” I say, my mouth bone dry. “You promised.”

“What are you talking about?” he says, but his voice catches with the same fear that’s already coursing through me.

“I take it you haven’t seen this, Your Majesty,” says Tibby, offering Alexander the tablet. When he unlocks it, the front page of the Daily Sun appears, and he’s silent as he scrolls through the article, skimming the text with such efficiency that I’m not sure he’s even reading it.

“Is it true?” I demand, my throat tightening. “Did my mother have a psychotic break and try to drown me? Is that the reason you haven’t let me see her all this time? Not because her medication’s being tweaked, but because you think she’s some kind of monster who would ever willingly hurt me?”

Alexander’s mouth hangs open, and he seems torn between answering me and reading the rest of the article. “Evan, I—”

“Yes or no?”

He exhales sharply, and that’s all I need to know the truth. “Your mother was very ill—”

“You had no right to keep me from her,” I snarl, the words exploding from me in a burst of rage and pain. “Once she was being treated and taking the right medication, she was fine. My grandma let me see her—she didn’t send me to boarding school because she thought my mom was one bad day away from having another break—”

“Boarding school was your mother’s idea, not mine.”

I stop abruptly and stare at him. “That’s not true. She loves me—”

“She loves you very much,” he agrees, “but after your grandmother died, Laura made it clear she had no desire to take custody of you or be responsible for your well-being. She’s lived in fear that she might hurt you again—”

“But she wouldn’t,” I say, angrily wiping my cheeks.

“She wouldn’t, no, but her illness did once, and you nearly died because of it.” Alexander grimaces. “I’m very sorry, Evan, but she was the one who insisted on sending you away.”

His words are spiked and jagged, and they cut me into ribbons as I stand there, speechless and feeling like everything I’ve ever known has been a lie.

“Sweetheart…” He reaches for me, but I jerk away, nearly colliding with a vase.

“You’re lying,” I say. “She didn’t. She wouldn’t.”

“Evan—” he begins, but I turn on my heel and hurry back toward my apartment, breathless and half-blinded by tears. It can’t be true. All I’ve wanted for nearly seven years is to see my mom, even if it was only for a little while. But if she never wanted to see me…if she’s the one who made sure I could never go home…

Then I really am alone.