Chapter 84

Noon, Saturday

Camille and Evan sat on the couch planning their afternoon when Anne walked in from her bedroom and sat heavily on a chair. She carried her smart phone and she wore a frown on her usually pleasant face.

"I fear I have shot my mouth off one too many times," she said as she looked at her son and his girlfriend.

"I've been saying that for years," Evan said, laughing.

"I'm being serious, Evander," Anne stated. The use of his full name caused Evan's eyebrows to rise - and Camille to snigger.

"I fear I have landed us all in a bother," Anne continued.

"Did you call the Duchess a trollop again for showing her behind?" Evan inquired, referring to a Facebook post his mother had made a year earlier.

"It is far worse than that," Anne confided.

"You referred to the future queen as a trollop?" Camille asked incredulously.

"She wore a short skirt on a windy day and everyone saw her arse," Anne stated flatly. "I called it as I saw it."

"And this is worse?" Evan cut in. "What did you do, Mother?"

Anne, looking abashed, glanced away for a moment.

"Mother?" Evan prompted.

"I fear that before I departed, I mentioned to Lady Briarfield the true purpose of my sojourn to the States," Anne said with a sigh. "I seemed to have forgotten that she is an indefatigable gossip. I fear that she told Lady Jones-Whitely - who I fear sold the information to the World."

"Oh, Mother," Evan said in exasperation.

"The world?" Camille asked.

"The World Times," Evan clarified. "It's a gossip tabloid in London that revels in splashing every tidbit about royal scandals across the top of its pages."

"It seems that they have managed to dig up Andy's name and residence," Anne admitted. "Lady Halveston has just been contacted to see if she could offer any sort of confirmation that Andrew Ryan Drayton is your son. She told them she had no idea of anything and then called me. They plan to publish the story in the morning edition - with or without confirmation."

"I thought you said there were privacy laws in Great Britain?" Camille hissed, turning to Evan. "You told that silly girl that she could face charges if she revealed Andy's name or his relationship to you!"

"It was a bluff," Evan admitted.

"It wasn't really a bluff," Anne countered. "We have strict privacy laws in regard to children. However, that shield ends at age 16."

"So call them and make them stop!" Camille insisted.

"It isn't that simple, Cammie," Evan said.

Again, his mother filled in the blanks.

"If it were anyone but The World, we could contact them and they might agree to wait," Anne explained. "The World has been unkind to the gentry for many years, going so far as to call for the end of hereditary nobility."

"And if they would have bothered to asked me, I would have told them I agree," Evan said. "I specifically asked you to keep silent about this so Andy could make the announcement on his terms. What is the first thing you do? You inform an old busybody whose only currency is information. The Jones-Whitely family feeds itself by providing information to the tabloids and you well know this! Mother, how could you do this?"

Anne was looking at the table shaking her head.

"I don't understand how they tracked him down so quickly," Camille said.

"It wouldn't be difficult," Anne replied. "I would wager they did it the same way that Rita Riley did. Evan's collegiate years are well-documented. If they could find someone at the school that recalled him, that would tie him to you. A search of public records could do the same. I seem to recall that you were both nicked for trespassing at the same time. Once they have your name, it's a simple newspaper search. Because everything is archived these days, your name would bring up a newspaper listing of Andy's birth.

"He has little online presence. I wasn't able to find a biography or much mention of him at all. It appears that he doesn't have Facebook or Twitter. A web search brings up two pictures of him. I know this because I've done it. One is from a group shot of him with several other students. It ran in the newspaper a few years back. The other is more telling. It is from his days in baseball. There is a very good picture of him that ran on the school website, I presume. His hat has blown off and his face is clear. There is no doubt about who is father is. Regan, on the other hand, is a different story. She has dozens of pictures of him posted to her Instagram account - but he's not identified by his full name in any of them. I would bet she has more of him that are hidden from public view. She 'friended' me so I could see them. If they put him together with her, they'll have a host of information to use - and not all of it flattering, I'm afraid.

"In context, none of the photos are bad but, to be blunt, The World won't use them in context. He's pictured with all of the young women in what might be construed as provocative poses. Again, because we know them all, we know the context. Out of context, it might appear as though he is promiscuous and I worry that is how they will portray him."

"There will be time later to figure out how it got to this point," Camille said through gritted teeth. "Right now, we need to figure out how to stop it."

Evan shook his head. He was at a loss to provide a solution.

"As I said, a call from us would be worthless," Anne said. "I am truly sorry. I was excited when I learned about you and Andy. I seem to have lost my sense of propriety."

"And I'm certain you've lost a great deal of the trust your grandson has freely offered to you," Evan noted. "He doesn't seem the sort to suffer fools lightly - even foolish old women!"

"Enough," Camille said before a mother-son fight erupted. "A call from you would be worthless, you say. What about a call from me?"

"From you?" Evan asked. "What would you have that you could bargain with? That's how this works. They will only pull the story if you offer them something in return."

Camille nodded and her eyes narrowed.

"I have something to offer," she said in a tight voice. "Anne, do you have the number?"

"I have it but you should really discuss whatever it is you have planned with Andy," Anne pointed out.

"Just dial the number and give me the phone," Camille insisted, holding out her hand.

Anne glanced at her son before complying with Camille's command.

Camille put the call on speaker and listened to the transatlantic ringing. A gruff British voice answered.

"To whom am I speaking?" Camille asked angrily.

"You called me, lady," the man's voice responded.

"So I did," Camille replied. "Well, I guess it really doesn't matter. I can find your name easily enough. My name is Camille Drayton. I understand that you've been making inquiries about my son. Well, Mister, that stops now!"

"Oh, you Yanks are a hoot!" the man said. "Can I presume from your call that you are confirming that your son is Evan Duffield's son?"

"You can assume anything you want," Camille answered. "I'll also give you some facts to chew on. My son wishes to live a normal life, outside of the gossip magazines and the blogs. He is not yet an adult here, so I intend to make certain he gets to do that."

"So, let me guess, you plan to sue us," the man sneered.

"Oh, nothing like that," Camille said. "What I plan to do is travel to London and I'm going to find your mother and your wife and your sisters and maybe even your children, and I'm going to kick the ever-loving ass off of them. And every time, after I'm done, I'm going to tell them it's because you're a lowlife piece of shit that likes to drag families into your petty little battles with no warning. Once I've left you with absolutely no one in the world that gives a damn if you're alive or if you're dead, them I'm going to come for you - and you're going to rue the day that you ever heard my son's name."

"Now wait a minute, I'm only doing my job!" the man said, aghast at the possibility of having his privacy invaded.

"And I'm doing mine," Camille cut in. "I am Andy's mother and that is a job that I take seriously. So, if you decide to run unsubstantiated rumors and my son gets hurt by it, then I am going to pass that hurt onto you. It's how we Yanks operate. We spread the wealth around."

The line was silent for a moment and Camille assumed that the man had hung up.

"Are you saying that your son doesn't know about Evan Duffield?" the man asked.

"I did not call you to offer a statement," Camille said. "I called to inform you of the consequences your actions would entail."

"What about the hush money?" the reporter interrupted. "I got that on the record from a source at your courthouse. Evan Duffield paid you almost a million dollars. Was that to keep his secret?"

"There is no secret to keep," Camille hissed, her anger moving in a new direction - this time to the hateful old woman at Domestic Relations. "Evan didn't know about Andy; Andy didn't know about Evan. Mr. Duffield made arrangements to pay back child support the moment he learned of Andy's existence."

"So he is Duffield's son!" the man said in jubilation.

"He is my son," Camille corrected angrily. "Whatever he might be to Evan Duffield, he has been that for two weeks. He has been my son for 18 years. I have protected him from things that would make you soil your silk drawers and I will protect him from you if you make it necessary. I want you to tell me that you understand the situation as it exists."

"It's not that simple," the man said. "I mean..."

"It is exactly that simple," Camille cut in. "If any sort of story mentioning my son appears in your paper or on a web site, I am going to track you down and hurt you. See? Simple."

"The paper is getting ready to go to press," the man admitted.

"Then I suppose you have a day or two to get your loved ones out of my reach," Camille told him as she hid her disappointment as best as she could.

"Now, wait," the man said. "I ... I ... I didn't mean to cause hardship for your son."

"No," Camille said harshly. "You didn't give a shit about my son so long as you could get a jab in at Evan Duffield. The fact is, that makes it worse. You could have run a story about a rumor and only included Evan's name. Instead, you went to the trouble to track down a name to go with the rumor. You have no shame - and I have no recourse. Well, I hope your byline is on the story. That will save me the trouble of beating it out of the first World employee I find."

"I'll keep it off the web!" the man yelled. "I can do that. I might not be able to stop the first run but I can put something different together for the second printing. The first run goes to the outer edges and no one really buys it there. Just leave my family out of it!"

"I guess we'll just have to see how successful you are in mitigating the damage you've tried to do to my family," Camille replied. "The pain you inflict on my family will be visited on yours twenty times over so you had better work quickly. Either way, you and I will meet - very soon!"

Regan and Andy walked along the street looking at the attractions on either side of them. Andy had kept on his shorts and T-shirt and Regan had picked out a tan miniskirt and a polo. She stuck with cotton underwear - with an additional panty liner - to make sure she didn't walk around all day with a wet crotch.

Regan had taken Andy's hand after he'd opened her door for her in the parking lot but had quickly decided she preferred to be closer. She had slipped her arm around his waist and he had put his around her shoulder. She found that she couldn't think of anything that might make her happier at the moment.

The street fair was eclectic. There were the typical displays from some of the numerous artisans that called the city home. Potters and weavers had their wares on display but there were also other attractions. There was a busker sitting on a rug playing his guitar; there was a group of interpretive dancers shimmying and shaking to music it seemed only they could hear; there was a woman juggling more balls than Andy or Regan could count.

The duo made it through the first few blocks before deciding to find a cool drink and a place to sit down. Regan found a spot on a bench while Andy walked down to a stand selling lemonade. Regan took a grateful drink when he handed it to her. She waited for him to sit down before taking a seat on his lap.

"No reason to take up more space than we need," she giggled as she offered her straw to Andy's lips. He took a sip even though he had purchased one for himself. "Are you having fun?"