Raymond's POV:
I stood next to the queen at a press conference. Edward was on her left, I was on her right. She smiled as the reporters sat down, and she was soon addressing them all. "I have been made aware of some rumours have been spread around my advisor and my relationship. I would like to clear these up. I am in a relationship with my advisor. It only started about a week ago, and if I could have kept this quiet, I would have. But clearly I am in the spotlight now, and I cannot hide things like this." Reporters' hands shot up to ask questions. She pointed to one on the front row. "Are you sure that you should be fraternizing with the poor after what happened when your mother and father were together?" Maria seemed to tense up at that question. "That is an inappropriate question for this conference. If anyone is going to ask about the late king and queen please, put your hands down." Most of the audience's hands went down, leaving only one. Ria nodded to the younger female reporter, and the girl responded "Does this affect how anyone should approach you two in the future?" Ria smiled. "Yes. If any paper ever addresses Raymond as a peasant, in fact if any paper addresses anyone from my kingdom as a peasant that paper will be immediately shut down. Am I understood?" The press started shouting in despair but we all walked off the stage, Edward first, the Ria, then me.
I had finished helping Edward with his homework and I was going downstairs to grab some lunch when I was pulled into a room by someone behind me. I turned to see a servant boy, maybe 20 looking at me with wide eyes. "Who sent you? Why are you pretending to like the queen? Why are you here? If you hurt the queen the staff here will kill you ya know." I was shocked. "Excuse me? What do you mean?" The servant seemed timid now even though a few moments ago he was so confident. "Sorry sir, my name is Mason and I was wondering why you were actually here. The queen has never had someone who loved her before you came here. She is naive when it comes to love, especially romantic. So tell me now, why are you here?" I was shocked, but gained my composure and answered. "Mason, I was invited here for a job by the queen. I am with her now because she is beautiful both inside and out. We are trying to uncover things about her past, and about her family that no one would dare tell her before. So I really must be going to help her with that. And rest assured, I will never hurt her."
I walked away, not sure how he would react to my sentiment and heading to the kitchen to grab a quick snack as much of my lunch time had been taken by assuring Mason that I would never hurt the queen. I headed to her office immediately. Maria was already sitting there at her computer. I shook my head and sat next to her. "Ria have you looked for adoption papers rather than a birth certificate? Maybe it would lead us to your bio father's name which would lead to your birth name? Maybe your mother and Rupert changed your name and that's why you can't find anything?" She looked at me with wide eyes. "Oh. I hadn't thought of that." I chuckled and handed her a sandwich before taking over the computer, searching the royal records for adoption papers. There were three papers, one bearing the late king and queen's names.
I looked at the name of the child and it was redacted. "You're kidding me." I rolled my eyes and stood up, starting towards the record room, Maria following close behind. I went into Rupert's file and started combing through each page trying to find the adoption papers. I ended up sitting down with papers completely surrounding me. Ria started going through her mother's file but I stopped her a minute later. "I found it. Your name was Celia Dawn McDavids." I looked up at her as she took in the information. She grabbed the paper and pulled me up and towards her office once more. She sat down and started looking for her records. She immediately found her birth certificate and her father's name was the thing that stood out to me the most. "David McDavids? That's... What a name." She nodded and started looking for him in the database. She didn't find much, just the basics, a birth certificate, a marriage certificate from about a year ago, and three birth certificates of his children. Maria wasn't in the file, I'm sure because she wasn't his legally. There wasn't a death certificate but there was an address on file. She grabbed my arm.
I looked at her. "We need to visit him. He's alive. He could maybe tell me about my mom. I could meet my dad Ray." She moved to leave and I grabbed her hand. "Ria shouldn't we start with a letter? The queen showing up to his house without notice? It might freak him and his family out." She nodded and sat down. "You're right. Start with a letter." I gave her a small smile. "And maybe send it by normal mail instead of by servant this time." She gave me a small chuckle and started typing a letter.