62 pages • 2-hour read
The Heir Apparent
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Part 3, Chapters 21-25Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of substance use, death, sexual content, and anti-gay bias.
Part 3, Chapter 21 Summary: “10 October 2023”
Lexi dreams of floating on a raft with Isla and then wakes up hungover in Colin’s bed. Mary picks her up for a royal engagement at a hospital and tells Lexi that her approval numbers are at 69%, officially passing Richard’s. She warns Lexi not to lose more weight; Lexi can’t remember the last time she ate. Mary encourages Lexi to focus on her goal of reforming the monarchy, though Lexi laughs at the notion that the monarchy is changeable. At the hospital, Lexi meets with doctors and patients, successfully diagnosing a baby with gas. She returns home to sleep. When Amira wakes her, she finally asks Lexi what happened with Jack.
Back in August, Lexi woke with Jack after their intimacy, and the first days of the trip were blissful. However, as the end approached, tensions rose. Lexi brought Jack to a cliff that was Isla’s favorite viewpoint, and Jack asked Lexi what she planned to do about the crown. Jack and Lexi both knew that she was planning to accept it. What Jack didn’t know was where he fit in Lexi’s new life. Lexi didn’t want to make Jack give up his life to become her consort; Jack didn’t follow his ex to New York, so Lexi assumed that he wouldn’t follow her to England. In response, Jack confessed that he was in love with Lexi and that Georgia knew it. Afraid that if she let Jack see the real her, he’d “recoil,” Lexi told Jack to go back to Australia and did not reveal that she shared his feelings.
Before she left Scotland, Richard also confronted Lexi and threatened her with the name David Rossi, which meant nothing to Lexi. Ten weeks later, Lexi remembers a Davide Rossi. She calls her uncle James and says that she must tell him the truth.
Part 3, Chapter 22 Summary: “25 July 2011”
Louis and Lexi spent the summer with Isla in Rapallo, Italy, at a villa on loan from one of Isla’s friends. Isla had spent most of her divorce settlement on private security, including Davide Rossi, their private guard. During dinner, Louis and Isla argued, as Louis parroted Frederick’s sentiments about Isla’s public behavior disgracing the monarchy. Isla stormed off, but after Louis and Lexi went to bed, she woke Lexi up and asked that Lexi join her on the yacht. Lexi knew that Isla was tipsy but went with her anyway. They snuck out onto the boat, Isla convincing Davide to let them go. Isla took the boat out into the gulf, and she opened a bottle of champagne to split with Lexi. Isla discussed her marriage to Frederick, admitting that they both were searching for something they didn’t have: for Frederick, recovery from heartbreak over Annabelle, and for Isla, a family.
Isla explained that she worried about Louis because she knew about him and Kris and that she worried about Lexi because Lexi never wanted anyone to worry about her. Isla assured Lexi that she was more than just the spare child in the royal line. Lexi fell asleep, and when she woke up, Isla was gone. Lexi screamed for her, but she was alone. She called Frederick and told him what had happened, and Frederick told her to clean up the yacht so that it would appear that Lexi was never there. Davide collected Lexi and smuggled her back to the villa, where Louis yelled at Lexi for being careless before holding her as she cried. Though Davide promised to search for Isla, Frederick demanded that he go home and pretend he left early the day before.
It took three days to find Isla’s body. The police concluded that Isla took the yacht out alone while under the influence of alcohol and anxiety medication. She likely fell into the water and was unable to pull herself back out. Now Richard has found Davide’s name and knows the truth: Lexi was there the night her mother died.
Part 3, Chapter 23 Summary: “5 November 2023”
Lexi barely recognizes herself in the mirror as she attends an investiture ceremony. James checks in on Lexi; he has texted her daily since she told him the truth about Isla’s death, hoping to make sure that Lexi doesn’t blame herself. Mary gives her Davide’s contact details, and Lexi wants to fly to Italy to see him, but Mary reminds her that Stewart has her passport.
Lexi feels trapped, so she confides in Vikki, who is the closest thing Lexi has to a mother. She asks how she could pay someone off, hypothetically. Richard obviously plans to bribe Davide, but Lexi doesn’t think he has any available money; wealthy Russians used to bankroll Richard, but after the invasion of Ukraine, they left London to avoid seizure of their assets.
Vikki doesn’t probe for too many details and explains how to give money to someone secretly, even promising to help Lexi do it. However, she does warn Lexi that there’s no turning back if she takes this route.
Part 3, Chapter 24 Summary: “15 November 2023”
Lexi attends numerous events in Scotland. Eleanor plans to announce Lexi as the heir at Christmas; Lexi hasn’t fully committed to being heir, but her continued presence indicates its inevitability. Lexi and Mary get trapped in Scotland during a storm, so Lexi stays at the royal estate. Lexi sends Mary to bed before sneaking out to see Annabelle at Frederick’s estate in Candacraig, which was a wedding present from Eleanor.
Annabelle greets Lexi casually. Lexi tells her the truth about Davide and Richard’s blackmail. Annabelle isn’t surprised, as Richard blackmailed her and Frederick during their affair and blackmailed Frederick with the truth about Louis and Kris. Richard is desperate for money, as he has massive debts and no way to repay them without the help of his Russian friends. He plans to use the money from the Duchy of Exeter to pay off Davide once he becomes heir. Lexi can pay off Davide herself before Richard can, but Annabelle warns her that if she becomes heir, Richard will continue to torment her.
Before Lexi leaves, she asks Annabelle why she warned her about Mary, and Annabelle says that Amira and Eleanor chose Mary to bring Lexi to the palace because Amira knew Mary at Astley and thought Lexi would like her. Lexi leaves Candacraig and calls Davide.
Part 3, Chapter 25 Summary: “16 November 2023”
Lexi goes to Colin’s apartment when she arrives back in London. She asks him about how to secretly transfer a large sum of money to someone, and Colin offers to help her. Lexi refuses his help but stays the night, though they don’t have sex.
The next morning, Lexi asks Colin why he and Amira don’t like each other. Lexi tells Colin that Amira told her about the incident where he brought a new girlfriend to a group dinner with the woman he was secretly seeing; the latter was Amira. When she said that she wanted to leave Louis for him, he knew he had to do something that would make her leave him; he claims that he did this to be a good friend to Louis. Now, Colin tries to convince Lexi that they would make a good couple; their first child would rule England, and their second would become the Duke of Hereford and inherit billions. Lexi refuses him and leaves.
Part 3, Chapters 21-25 Analysis
The first half of Part 3 focuses heavily on Lexi’s struggle with the end of her relationship with Jack, which is inseparable from her royal status. Lexi had hoped that the trip to Scotland would cement the relationship; instead, the trip illustrates the fissures caused by Lexi’s return to royal life and her continued feelings of guilt about her mother’s death. As Scotland is the royals’ traditional retreat, this irony itself speaks to Lexi’s dilemma, implying that her efforts to integrate Jack into her life as heir are bound to fail. Richard’s criticism of Lexi’s “naivety” in believing that Jack could fit in with the Villiers underscores this point: “Did you think you could dress him up like your little doll and prop him on the sofa with the Queen and we’d all be one happy family?” (295-96). Richard’s cruelty is a key element of his characterization and is on display here: He desires power and is willing to harm his own family members irreparably to obtain more influence. Nevertheless, it is the fact that he’s largely speaking the truth that allows him to hurt Lexi. He knows that, like Isla, Lexi yearns for love, freedom, and an authentic family, and he hurts her by pointing out that her dream of having a “normal” family is impossible as long as she remains a member of the royal family. The Challenges of Identity Formation Under Institutional Constraints thus stays thematically significant, as Lexi’s dreams and her reality remain unaligned.
However, Lexi’s guilt also limits her character growth. After Lexi tells Annabelle the truth about Isla’s death, she thinks, “I felt like I had pulled up my skirt and revealed an oozing, gangrenous limb. I was hideous and should be shunned. But there was something about exposing this horror that was like salt water, a salve to the wound” (330). Lexi uses vivid language associated with disease (oozing, gangrenous) to describe the experience of unburdening herself, illustrating that although she’s willing to be honest, she views her secret as something shameful and disgusting. Because her secret plays such a large part in her continued role in the monarchy, Lexi also views the secret as integral to who she is—as vital as her own limb. This struggle to see the possibility of a life free of secrets, in which she can be her most authentic self, also plays a role in her breakup with Jack.
Duty Versus Personal Freedom returns to the forefront of the novel as Lexi struggles to solve the problem of Davide Rossi. It becomes increasingly clear that Lexi is bound not simply by duty in the abstract but by the actions of those around her. For instance, she realizes that she cannot fly to Italy to speak with Davide because Stewart took her passport after they left Australia months prior, which causes her to remember what Isla told her years ago: “Never, ever let them take your passport or your phone, she once told me. You’re a person, not a pet” (321). Isla’s word choice highlights the paradox of royal life: Despite the immense privilege associated with it, royalty is dehumanizing. In this case, the palace’s oppressive control infantilizes Lexi while simultaneously placing intense responsibility on her shoulders. This tension only exacerbates Lexi’s struggle to fit into the mold of the model princess. A pair of high-heeled shoes symbolizes the difficulty, as evidenced by Vikki’s observation, “I don’t think you’re ready to be up this high, do you?” (326). Vikki refers to the high heels, but she also implicitly questions Lexi’s readiness to rejoin the monarchy in earnest.
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