6 December 1959

"I don't suppose there's any sense in waiting, is there?" Jean said to Li. She was not entirely certain that the girl understood her and so she tried to smile softly as she said it, tried to give every appearance of being nonthreatening and kind. Which, she supposed, she genuinely was, most of the time. It was only that this day, which had started out so wonderfully, had descended into a strange sort of disappointment that she liked not one bit. First there had been the unexpected interruption of her tea with Lucien and Li, then the revelation that she would be expected to keep a separate bed from Lucien - and that he had known this, and not forewarned her - and then she'd been sent off to the Press Office to assist Rose with drafting a statement about her newfound status as the King's fiance, and now this. A quiet family dinner had been arranged in the smallest of the dining rooms - the table was still big enough for thirty people at least - and Lucien was nowhere in sight. Jean was left alone at that too-big table, a bevy servants standing silently in a line by the far while while Li sat across from her, silent and still. She held her daughter in her arms, but the table between them was as wide as a canyon, and Jean could think of no way to bridge that distance, when she was too far away to lean over and comment on what a lovely child little Lin was. She might not understand me, anyway, Jean thought, perilously close to pouting.

There was no point, she thought, in continuing this charade; perhaps she and Li would have been much more comfortable in a smaller room, at a smaller table, with fewer witnesses, but the grandiosity of their surroundings had stifled them both, and there was no telling when - or if - Lucin would be joining them. Jean was on the verge of calling out to one of the servants - who she all knew by name, of course, and that was mortifying in its own way - when the door behind her swung open. For a moment a smile bloomed across her face, relief swelling in her heart, but when she turned to look it was not Lucien she found, but Peter.

"Begging your pardon, Mrs. Beazley," he said, looking distinctly uncomfortable, "the King sent me to tell you that he has been delayed, and he requests that you enjoy your meal without him."

That settles it, she thought grimly.

"Well, thank you, Peter. Do you think," she threw her voice a little further, catching the eye of the servant nearest her, "the Princess and I might move our meal to somewhere a little less…formal?"

"That's all of it?" Lucien asked as he finished signing the last of the vast stack of papers Alice had put in front of him.

"It is," she said, snatching the paper away the moment he lifted his pen.

"You're sure? There's no more little fires that need to be put out, no more insurgencies in the offing?"

It wasn't Alice's fault, and he knew it, but still Lucien could not help the frustration he felt having spent the entire day knee-deep in bureaucracy. The miners had actually gone on strike this time, and the public transport workers were threatening to do the same, and there had been meetings with Sir Patrick and a bevy of reports to read and now this, emergency measured that had been passed by Parliament to appease the striking workers and required the King's signature before they could take effect. The workers had the politicians over the barrel, and Lucien rather approved of that, but he dearly wished this madness had come on any other day, for Jean had been all by herself when she most need him, and was no doubt feeling a bit overwhelmed by her new reality. He had wanted for them to walk into this together, hand-in-hand, and yet duty had pulled him far from her side.

"That's everything," Alice assured him, already tucking the papers back in their box, to be delivered back to Parliament with all haste. But then a thought seemed to occur to her, for she spoke again almost at once. "Actually, sir, if I may-"

"Good God, Alice," Lucien groaned, dismayed by yet another interruption, but Alice only frowned at him, and carried on.

"This matter is of a more...personal nature, sir. You may want to go and find Mrs. Beazley as soon as you can. I think she's a bit...well. I think she'd like to speak to you."

No doubt she would like that, very much, and Lucien would, too; there were so many things he still wished to say to her, to show her. It was not the advice that gave him pause, but the tone in which it was delivered; Alice looked rather troubled, and Lucien liked that not one bit.

"Has something happened?"

"You really should speak to Mrs. Beazley, sir," Alice told him, and then she spun smartly on her heel, and left one rather confused man in her wake.

Was Jean upset about something? He wondered. She'd have every right to be, he knew, after the way he'd been taken from her, the way he'd missed dinner, but she'd known before now the sort of demands that were placed upon a king, and she was a practical sort of woman. Surely she wasn't cross over his absence alone, he thought, but then what could it be?

As quickly as he could Lucien rushed from the room. Given the time he supposed she had finished her supper already, and so he did not make for the dining room. He went first to the little suite that had been assigned to her, one of the smaller residences set aside for visiting dignitaries. He knocked sharply on the door, but no answer came to him; the door remained closed, and no sound came from behind it. An errant maid passed him by, giving a quick curtsy with a shocked look upon her face that only made Lucien feel foolish; how he must look, standing here in the corridor outside his fiance's bedroom, denied entry to her private domain. He knocked again, but the effort was wasted; Jean was not inside, or if she was she had no intention of opening the door to him.

No, he thought, that wasn't her way; she must have been somewhere else. And so he set off again, this time making for the Queen's suite, thinking perhaps she was trying to familiarize herself with the space. It was a happy thought, the idea of Jean taking charge of those rooms that were meant to be hers, adjacent to his own, the pair of suites forming a home that they could share, content and delighted with one another. He had a key to those rooms, and so slipped inside at once, but the lights were off, and there was no sign of his beloved.

Where on earth could she be? He wondered. If she was not in the dining room, or either of the bedrooms that had been given to her, where could she have gone at this time of the evening, when darkness had fallen and most everyone else was settling in for the night?

The answer came to him all at once, and he grinned despite the worries that had begun to plague him. Of course, he thought. There was only one place she could go, only one place she would want to go, and the thought of meeting her there as he had done so many times before lifted his spirits immensely. Whatever it was that troubled her so he knew that he would find her, and he would hold her, and he would set her fears to rest, for as far as he was concerned there was no challenge so great they could not overcome it together.

His heart raced and his feet flew as he made his way up, and up, and up, until at last he emerged into the dark chill world that waited for him on the battlements. For a moment he lamented his foolishness in coming out without a coat, but Jean would be warm enough, he thought, and he intended to wrap his arms around her the moment he saw her. There was nothing he wanted more; he had been too long away from her, and he had need of her now, needed her gentle hands, her soft voice, her warm eyes, needed to know that this one day of royal treatment had not put her off the idea of marrying him altogether.

The battlements were a different world, a quieter world, a place of shadows and silent-grim faced guards. But this world had always, to his mind, belonged to Jean. It was where he had stood when he first spoke to her, first kissed her, first fell completely, madly in love with her. It was a place of wistful thoughts, and quiet dreams, a place where the ancient stone of the castle rose uncontested by the modern advancements of the city below. And for that reason he loved it, for when he stepped into this frosted, darkened world, he felt peace, and knew that Jean was with him.

The path around the worn stone parapet was familiar to him, and he did not falter in the darkness. Oh, there were lights here and there, but the guards who stood sentinel up here in the night preferred not to be blinded by them, and so much of the walk was cloaked in shadow. The guards themselves were shadows, the navy of their uniforms bled into black by the night, their rifles glinting like stars, their faces drawn as they paced at regular intervals, bowing to their king and standing aside to let him pass unquestioned. They must have known, he thought, why he had come here, the comfort he sought; it must have been these quiet guards who first learned the truth of his love, before anyone else. For so long that love had only existed here, in the shadows, but come tomorrow it would burst forth in furious light as his statement made its way to the papers, and Lucien was eager for that revelation, eager to take Jean's hand, and never let her go.

At last he found her, his beautiful love, standing by the same corner of the castle wall where he had stumbled across her for the first time more than a year before. She had traded her fine travelling dress for a warmer one in a pale shade of grey, and she'd wrapped herself in the same warm knitted white shawl he recalled from so many of their previous assignations. And she had her face turned up towards the stars, as if they were her old friends, as if they spoke to one another, Jean and the celestial bodies who were her kin, in a language Lucien himself would never learn to speak. She was, he thought, the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in all his life.

"I thought I might find you here," he called to her softly. At the sound of his voice her shoulders slumped, and a soft sigh escaped her. For a moment he worried that she did not want to see him, that she would be angry with him for interrupting her solitude, but she did not shout at him, or tell him to go. She only turned to face him, and held out her hand, reaching for him through the darkness.

"Oh, Lucien," she said as he took her hand, and used it to pull her close. He wrapped his arms around her and she fell against him willingly, nestling her head beneath his chin and letting him hold her. Though she seemed sorrowful and distressed at last she would allow him this mercy, and Lucien drank in the softness of her, grateful and concerned in almost equal measure. "Where have you been?"

"I'm so sorry, my love," he told her, kissing the top of her head. "There was a problem with the miners-"

"Actually," she said, tilting her head back so that she could gaze into his eyes, her expression rueful. "I don't actually want to know. It's all right, Lucien, I know it can't be helped."

"There's nowhere I'd rather be than with you," he told her, meaning every word.

"Well," she said, smoothing her hands over the lapels of his jacket and stepping back apace, out of the shelter of his arms. He missed the warmth of her at once but did not press her; he did not know what lay in store for them, and he did not want to give offense when she was already distressed. "The Princesses and I had a lovely dinner, even if we missed you."

"You did?" Lucien asked as his heart gave a great leap. That Li and Jean should get to known one another, should be comfortable with one another, was of the utmost importance to him, for he meant for them to be a family, all four of them, and he rather thought that Jean might feel the same.

"Charlie was a great help to us, actually. Between the three of us, we managed to have a nice conversation. She's a lovely girl, Lucien."

He beamed at her; he could not help it. She was a lovely girl, his lovely girl, the light of his life, and that Jean could see that and appreciate it meant that he was well on his way to making sure all their dreams came true. And yet sadness lingered at the corners of her eyes, her lips turned down in the ghost of a frown, and he knew he was not yet out of the woods with her.

"Alice showed me to the Queen's suite today," she told him then, speaking the words as if they were somehow distasteful; why should she take offense at that? He wondered. The rooms were beautiful, and had once belonged to his mother, and he'd had them painted and decorated in a style he thought Jean would like. Did she disapprove of his having taken charge of those plans herself? No, he thought, that seemed too trivial a concern for his Jean to trouble herself with.

"Do you really mean for us to sleep in separate beds, Lucien?"

"Is that what's bothering you?" he asked, perplexed by the very idea. Jean looked so out of sorts, and after everything else that had happened this day he couldn't understand why the matter of their bedrooms should be the one thing that bothered her most.

"Of course it bothers me!" she answered at once, her sorrow fading as anger began to take its place. The anger had been simmering low in her gut all day; oh, she wasn't angry with Lucien, or not only with him. On the one hand she wished he'd warned her, that he'd given them the chance to discuss the matter and make the decision together, as she felt all such matters must be decided. And on the other she understood why he had done it; it was simply the way things were. To be royal, to live in this house, to assume the crown, was to give away one's very self, to cease to be an individual and instead become one more piece in the inexorably turning cog of the monarchy. Perhaps it had not even occurred to him that they might settle themselves another way, but that angered her, too, the thought that such personal, private decisions would be made by tradition and protocol secretaries, and not Jean and the man who was to be her husband. Though the long hours of the day had given her time in which to cool her ire and remember that Lucien was not being deliberately cruel to her the rather flippant response he gave her now, as if he could not imagine why she should care whether they shared a bed or not, lit those sparks once more.

"Doesn't it bother you?" she hissed, and no sooner had she asked the question than it occurred to her that she might not like the answer. Perhaps he had grown accustomed to sleeping alone. Perhaps he preferred it that way, taking his pleasure when it suited him but retreating always to a private space that was reserved for him, and him alone. Perhaps that was what he wanted, and Jean felt her heart began to crack at the very idea. Marriage, as far as she was concerned, was an all or nothing proposition. To be married meant to share everything, the good and the bad together. And if she and Lucien did not agree on something as fundamental as where they ought to sleep, how could they possibly hope to build a firm foundation between themselves?

She knew she had accepted his proposal in haste, overcome by the idea that he had undertaken that journey, come to her, rather than sending for her, and she was beginning to wonder if she had not given the matter due consideration. They came from such very different places, Jean and her king, had lived such different lives, and perhaps she had been foolish, to think she could make a good match for such a man.

"To tell you the truth, Jean, I hadn't considered it," he said slowly. He was watching her uncertainly, as if he feared she might fly into a rage at any moment, and that wounded her, too, that he could think she would take her love away from him, having only so recently bestowed it. Perhaps she had been rash in accepting his proposal the day before, perhaps everything was moving entirely too quickly, but Jean did not intend to abandon the course she'd set for herself. She loved this man, this infuriating, beautiful man, and she had known before this day that a good marriage required hard work to sustain it. She was willing to put in the effort, should Lucien be her reward, but she was less certain whether he understood the challenges that faced them.

"It's the way things have always been. I think in the beginning it was meant to protect the Queen, when marriages were more about politics than romance. She has a stout door she can lock whenever she wants."

"I don't want a locked door between us, Lucien," she told him, wondering at the hurt she saw in his eyes. Did he think she would prefer it that way? Did he think she was frightened of him? "May I ask you something?"

"Of course, my darling," he said, in a tone that seemed to imply anything you want, whatever you want, you may have it. Those quiet words from his lips reassured her somewhat, and she carried on at once.

"When you were married, before the war, did you and your wife keep separate beds?"

It grieved her, to mention his first wife to him now. Having lost a spouse, a lover, a man who had once been the other half of his soul, Jean knew how it could wound her to have the subject of her former marriage brought up without warning. The past had left a trail of scars across the pair of them, and those scars pained them both in bad weather. This little disagreement was hardly a storm, but clouds had gathered above their heads, and Jean hoped that when he looked at her Lucien could understand that she meant to dispel them, and not bring a torrent down upon them both.

"No," he answered slowly, the light of comprehension beginning to dawn in his bright blue eyes. "We slept together."

"So did Christopher and I. We've both done this before, Lucien. You know how it important it is to be close to the one you love. Sharing a bed isn't just about...sex," the word tripped haltingly from her tongue, but she could not, would not falter, not now. "And I know you know that. Our bed is where we will go at the end of the day, together. It's where we can talk to one another without anyone else around. It's the one place where you aren't a king, and I won't be a queen. It's ours, and I want us to have that, together."

What she did not tell him, what she was unsure whether she would ever be able to tell him, was that she recalled the security and the tenderness of the bed she'd shared with Christopher, and she longed, with all her heart, to know such peace again. Never let the sun set on your anger, her mother had told her once, and she had taken that advice to heart, had insisted that any disagreement she and Christopher might have between themselves be settled before they retired to their bed. And so it became a refuge, the place where they fell in together when their apologies had been spoken, the place where they healed one another, with tender words and gentle hands. That bed was the place where her sons had been conceived, where Christopher learned every inch of her, and she him, until they were as familiar to one another as their own hands. In the darkness they whispered to one another of their dreams, banished one another's fears, held their children close when nightmares sent them fleeing for the shelter of their parents' arms. That bed had been more of a home than the four walls that surrounded it, and she wanted that with Lucien, that comfort, that joy. She wanted to rest her head on his shoulder, and let him hold her, wanted to be with him, always, when the passion took them and when it abated, when they were only just beginning and when they were both old and grey - well, greyer than they were now.

These words she did not speak, but she could see there was not any need; her point had been made, and Lucien understood her, now. He reached for her hand, and she let him, let him take hold of her, their fingers lacing together even as their hearts began to beat in time with one another.

"I want that, too," he told her. "I don't care which bed, I don't care where it is. But I want us. I want you and I, together, for as long as you'll have me."

"'Til death do us part, Lucien," she reminded him. Perhaps he feared that one day she might tire of him, might long for that stout door between them, but Jean knew better. Her heart, once given, could not be taken back, not for anything. She had accepted him, and there would be no turning aside from the choice she had made. And she did not regret it, not for a moment.