Choices
The decision was made. Mary was going to wed Lord Darnley.
Did she love him? No. Not even a little.
Did she trust him? No. Not really, as much as she would have liked to.
Her country needed him, though, and that was what mattered. Scotland needed his money, his connections, and for Scotland and her people, she would do this. The rest, she could worry about later.
It was hardly the first time a monarch had been forced to marry out of duty rather than love.
She had only gotten lucky with Francis. Incredibly lucky, that she had loved him so and that he had loved her just as much. She should not expect such a thing to happen again.
But then again, her engagement to Francis had begun just as this one would - a political alliance, nothing more. Perhaps the same could happen with Lord Darnley.
She just doubted it very much, that was all.
"You have done what a queen must never do - you have put the personal above the political. His safety above the nation's," Francis had once told her. She shook her head at the memory, lip quivering at her dead husband's sudden appearance in her thoughts. That seemed like it happened so long ago, now, her affair with Conde and the selfishness she had put her husband through.
She was a queen. She would never again make that mistake. The political always had to be put above the personal.
This was a choice that Mary had made with her head, and not with her heart.