Knowing Katharine

By Q. Kelly

Tessa Donovan is a New York City cop tired of pounding the streets, tired of the long hours, tired of the wrecked relationship with the woman she used to love. So, when Cliff Sandings with the Royal Protection Command approaches her for a job opportunity, she jumps at the chance.

Her task: going deep undercover, including a new name, to protect Britain’s Katharine Anne Elizabeth Amalia, heir to the throne. Katharine is entering her junior year at Purcell College in Maine. She won’t let a near-successful assassination attempt deter her plans to live as normally as possible.

Tessa (undercover name Trisha) moves into a dorm room near Katharine’s, and the security officer quickly learns that protecting Katharine is tricky. Not necessarily because of physical threats but because lust gets in the way. Plus there is the fact that Katharine is poised to be the future queen of England, and an out lesbian relationship with her is all but impossible. There’s also another lesbian in the picture, the persistent Joyce Thomas, and Trisha can’t help but be drawn to her too.
Will Trisha succeed in getting to know the true Katharine, or will it be one of the other women in Katharine’s life? Does anyone truly get to know her?

And what about the woman who fantasizes about ending the lives of Katharine and her father, the king?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Q. Kelly
• Release date: Jun 15, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370241781

Q. Kelly

I live in Washington state, where I am a writer and an editor. I also have a master's degree in deaf education. In my free time, I hike and savor frappuccinos.Fact One: I like corny jokes. If you have any good ones, send them my way!Fact Two: My favorite color is purple, but my writing is gray. Life is not black and white. I often write about issues and characters where there is no "right" answer.Fact Three: I'm weird. I like being weird.Email me at [e-mail]. I'd love to hear from you.Check out my blogs at qkelly.wordpress.com and qkelly.blogspot.com.

Book preview

Overview

Tessa Donovan is a New York City cop tired of pounding the streets, tired of the long hours, tired of the wrecked relationship with the woman she used to love. So, when Cliff Sandings with the Royal Protection Command approaches her for a job opportunity, she jumps at the chance.

Her task: going deep undercover, including a new name, to protect Britain’s Katharine Anne Elizabeth Amalia, heir to the throne. Katharine is entering her junior year at Purcell College in Maine. She won’t let a near-successful assassination attempt deter her plans to live as normally as possible.

Tessa (undercover name Trisha) moves into a dorm room near Katharine’s, and the security officer quickly learns that protecting Katharine is tricky. Not necessarily because of physical threats but because lust gets in the way. Plus there is the fact that Katharine is poised to be the future queen of England, and an out lesbian relationship with her is all but impossible. There’s also another lesbian in the picture, the persistent Joyce Thomas, and Trisha can’t help but be drawn to her too.

Will Trisha succeed in getting to know the true Katharine, or will it be one of the other women in Katharine’s life? Does anyone truly get to know her?

And what about the woman who fantasizes about ending the lives of Katharine and her father, the king?

Part One

Tessa Donovan

To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves.

- Frederico Lorca

August 2012

Last week, I was Tessa Donovan, a twenty-five-year-old Manhattan cop. Now I doubt my mother would recognize me. This week, and for the foreseeable future, I am Trisha Donnelly, a twenty-one-year-old junior at Purcell College in Maine.

My contact lenses are gone, replaced by heavy, black-rimmed glasses. My hair, clothes and biographical details are different—all because the heir to the British throne is, in the words of my new supervisor, bloody stubborn about going to college in the United States. Then Cliff grinned. He wouldn’t have Katharine any other way. The princess may be stubborn, but she’s his princess, his future queen, damn it, and she deserves credit for staying steady in the face of danger.

Yep, Cliff sure likes his royals.

Do I like my royals? Eh, whatever. Fancy overdressed welfare recipients behind the times. I’m proud to be an American. So, I tell myself I’m not nervous about meeting the young woman who is poised to be the next queen of England.

I take a deep breath as I approach her in the library. Katharine is twenty years old, honey blond, blue-eyed and willowy. I can tell myself all I want that I’m not nervous, that I’m not intimidated, but I am. This young woman wears jeans and a T-shirt, but hundreds, if not thousands (I’m ignorant on my royal history) of years of power pump through her veins.

Look on the bright side. It’s good that I’m nervous. That way, I don’t have to fake. Katharine should always think I am Trisha Donnelly. My job is to keep an eye on the princess in a way her official bodyguards can’t, and perhaps more importantly, integrate myself with her fellow students. Keep my eyes open and my ears peeled for any talks of assassination.

The gazes of Katharine’s two official bodyguards laser in on me. She has six with her at college, but they pair off to work rotating shifts. Other than the guards, the only people on campus who know about me are my so-called roommate and the faceless people in administration. Or admissions. Whatever. I don’t bother myself with that stuff. I know my supervisor, I know my job, and that’s enough.

Katharine looks up from the sci-fi books she’s perusing. Her bodyguards, a stern man and an even sterner woman, hang back.

H-hi, I say. Then, pretending to blunder, I add: Your Royal Highness. From what Cliff told me, most people on campus make this error. So must I.

She frowns a little. Not enough to showcase her dimples. Katharine, she corrects.

Katharine. I dip my head. Sorry.

She’s furrowing her brows when I look back up. Trisha, right? Trisha Donnelly from creative writing?

I’m surprised she remembers me, much less my name. The heir to the British throne remembers my name!

Ain’t no big thing. Calm down. Katharine meets tons of people. No doubt she has memory tricks.

Yes, I say. That’s me, Trisha Donnelly. I’m also—well, I thought I should introduce myself. I’m on your floor in Bensonhurst.

She grins, and her dimples are so deep I might fall in them. Her eyes are deep too—more so than in pictures and on TV. A lagoon of blue. My knees go slightly weak. A teeny, teeny bit weak. I suddenly love women with dimples and blue eyes.

Okay, I go more than a bit weak. Damn it. Damn Cliff and his, You have twelve hours to decide if you’re taking this job.

I didn’t realize how gorgeous Katharine’s dimples were when I accepted the job. And I didn’t realize how beautiful she was as a whole.

Get ahold of yourself, woman. They’re dimples. They’re imperfections.

That’s cool, Katharine says. Nice to meet a fellow floor mate. She holds out her hand, and we shake quickly. Her palm is smooth, babyish, wealthy, privileged. Not a trace of a callus. She’s definitely not my type. I like older, hard-working women. Blue-collar women, not prancing princesses.

Who’s your roomie? she asks.

Virginia Davenport. Virginia is the other undercover agent on campus, and no, I don’t know Virginia’s real name. I was hired to replace Priscilla Connor (not her real name, either), who found out five days ago she was pregnant and quit the assignment.

Oh, Virginia’s great, Katharine says.

She is. Purcell has been…it’s been awesome so far.

You’re new?

Mmm. Transferred from CUNY. Too close to home, you know?

Katharine laughs, too shrill and understanding. I do know.

I suppose she does. She went clear across the ocean, after all.

Well, hey, I say. I just wanted to introduce myself and stuff. Nice to meet you. I’ll see you around.

Nice to meet you too.

I hesitate and pull out a book from the shelf across from me. I’d go with this. Replay by Ken Grimwood.

Katharine’s eyes widen. I’ve read that. You like sci-fi?

Love it. This is the truth and a big reason Priscilla Connor thought of me to replace her. We have been friends since we were seven years old, and she says the only other person who tears through sci-fi like I do is Katharine. I continue with, I have some books you could borrow. If you want.

Katharine cocks her head. Trying to figure out if I am for real? Then she uncocks her head and squeals. Thank goodness!

I find myself smiling. Really, truly smiling in I don’t know how long.

I read all this— Katharine indicates the paltry shelves that Purcell calls its science fiction section—last year. She grimaces. They didn’t add any new books over the summer!

Do you have an e-reader? Like a Kindle?

Yeah, yeah, of course. I have tons of sci-fi on it. I could lend you my books too. Print and e-book.

We get to talking and talking, and we wander to the cafeteria together for dinner. Only then does guilt twinge me. I’m basically being paid to become friends with this young woman and to deceive her in the name of safety.

Sucks for her. I never thought it’d suck for me, too.

The year is 2012, the month August. Today is the first day of Katharine’s junior-year classes at Purcell, but you could say this story begins on Easter 2008. On that day, two men fired a total of ten bullets at the royal family as they left St. George’s Chapel in Windsor after Easter services. Security officers stood at intervals in front of a crowd numbering about three thousand people, but as usual for such appearances, no guards walked side by side with any of the royals.

A quick word on security. The United States takes very seriously the job of guarding its leaders. The prep work the Secret Service does is unbelievable. They put protection above accessibility. British royals, on the other hand, have prided themselves on remaining accessible. They had, and have, plenty of quality security, but the royals did things that would give U.S. Secret Service agents nightmares—for example, shaking hands and accepting flowers in crowds untested or undertested for weapons. Riding down streets in open carriages. Serving in the army, as Katharine’s father did when he was Prince of Wales.

Back to Easter 2008 and the fate of these ten bullets, numbered in the order they were fired:

Bullet one whizzed past the head of the sixty-two-year-old King Henry VIIII and lodged in a tree.

Bullet two struck Henry’s mother, the eighty-seven-year-old Queen Mother, in the ribs. A few inches to the side, any side, and she would’ve died.

Bullet three pierced the brain of Katharine’s sister, fourteen-year-old Princess Margaret. She survived surgery but was in a coma for a month. She has not been seen in public since and is said to have severe mental challenges.

Bullets four, six and eight struck Henry VIIII but in non-lethal places: both sides of his shoulders.

Bullets five and seven barely missed the head of Henry VIIII’s older sister, Princess Josephine, then fourth in line to the throne.

Bullet nine proved more accurate. Josephine was pronounced dead upon her arrival at the hospital.

Bullet ten targeted Princess Katharine, the sixteen-year-old heir to the throne. She was shot in the head, rendered immediately unconscious, and underwent a series of surgeries over the next few days. At one point, she was near death due to brain swelling, but yet another surgery saved her life. In only three weeks, she went from the ICU to walking again. Today, you can’t even tell she has been shot. No physical scar.

The shootings happened in a mere four seconds.

Left uninjured (but certainly not unscathed) were all security officers, Queen Amalia, Princess Emma (Katharine’s youngest sister, then twelve years old), and Princess Josephine’s husband and adult children.

After that, the royals cut down dramatically on their accessibility. Even Josephine’s funeral, which would normally be an open, state occasion, became the most private royal funeral in years.

Despite all the bloodshed, Katharine declared in June 2010 that she was skipping gap year and would attend college in the United States. Furthermore, she announced her choice: Maine’s Purcell College, the same school that Josephine attended for one semester as part of an exchange program.

My aunt loved her short time at Purcell, Katharine explained in the statement released through Buckingham Palace. She said it was an oasis, a place where she could truly be herself. It’s where she wanted me to go.

Some pundits said Katharine was crazy (gun-friendly Maine!). Other pundits countered that the shootings happened in England, and more could happen anywhere. Katharine would be safer in the United States, they thought. Purcell College was as benign a place as any—a sleepy campus in the middle of Purcell (Nowheresville), Maine, town population 18,000, college student population 7,000. The palace quickly hammered out agreements with the media to leave Katharine alone at school and around town.

The men who claimed responsibility for the shootings said they worked for an al-Qaeda offshoot. As far as anyone knows, the group could try again at any time and with any royal.

So here Katharine is. And here I am, ready to give my life for a young woman who thinks my name is Trisha Donnelly.

In the cafeteria, Katharine and I get hamburgers and French fries that smell surprisingly good. She leads me to a table where three female students sit. A few tables over, Virginia Davenport catches my gaze for a nanosecond and frowns. She probably thinks I’m integrating myself too much with Katharine’s circle. Maybe she’s right.

Sometimes people click. Sometimes they don’t. Virginia and Priscilla never clicked enough with Katharine to be more than mere acquaintances, which was fine. Being friends with her isn’t necessary. It’s preferable, actually, least of all because there’s little risk of a cover being blown by a student photograph on social media. You never know if Virginia or I have a friend, cousin or auntie with super powers of perception capable of seeing through a disguise.

In fact, I’m surprised Katharine wants me to eat dinner with her. Cliff said she is the reserved type, very slow to let her guard down. The power of shared sci-fi love, I guess.

Hey guys, Katharine says. Make room for Trisha.

The introductions are quick. Betty is a junior from Tallahassee, Florida, and is majoring in computer science. Rebecca, a junior from Fort Wayne, Indiana, is majoring in liberal arts and has droopy eyelids. Joyce is from Los Angeles. She is the lone sophomore in the group, a fact she declares proudly as well as her age—Thirty! She smiles at me a few beats too long. Hmm. Interesting.

Thanks for letting me sit here, I say as I bite into my thick hamburger. How did you all meet?

Communications class last year, Rebecca mumbles.

We were assigned to work on a group project, Katharine says with a beam. And we kind of stuck together.

I nod and chew. Cool.

Without further ado, Betty and Joyce prop open romance novels and start reading. Huh. Okay. Nothing like, Excuse me, but I’m going to read now.

Katharine asks Rebecca about her classes, but Rebecca doesn’t have much to say. She leaves after inhaling dinner.

Poor kid doesn’t have much of a social life, Cliff said yesterday, shaking his head on Skype. At least, she hasn’t so far. Maybe this year will be different.

Doesn’t seem like it, but the school year is young yet.

As I finish my food and mentally vow to run an extra mile tomorrow, I put myself in Katharine’s shoes. If she goes to a student party and lets loose, has a few drinks, or a million drinks, whatever, there will inevitably be photos of her splashed across the Internet the next day. Or immediately, thanks to instant cellphone uploads. She runs the risk of being photographed or worse nearly 24/7.

What I hear Katharine does sometimes is, she hosts small, private parties in her dorm room (she doesn’t have a roommate, and the college built a private connecting bathroom especially for her). Katharine’s bodyguards confiscate guests’ cellphones, but Cliff tells me these parties are not popular. Maybe they will be next year when Katharine is twenty-one and moves into a wet dorm.

She’s a geek, Cliff explained. She sure doesn’t look like it, and the world has no idea, but our dear princess is an out and out, one hundred percent geek. She’s not a partier. She’s introverted. Makes our jobs that much easier.

After Rebecca leaves the table, I ask Katharine if she brought a book like Joyce and Betty did.

Yep. Katharine tugs a worn copy of A Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein from her backpack.

I actually haven’t read that one, I say (the truth).

Oh! She slides it over.