3 November 1958

That night Lucien couldn't sleep. For a time he sat at the desk in his suite - still his old suite of rooms, as he had not yet found the fortitude to move himself into the rooms that had once belonged to his father - with a glass of whiskey in one hand, flitting aimlessly through the pile of paper Sir Patrick had left for his review. Not one single word of those reports and memos registered in his mind; his thoughts were consumed utterly by the bargain he'd struck with the Prime Minister.

If they find that my family has been...lost, then I will do as you say.

There had been no other way, he knew. It was always something for something; no aid came without price. The kingdom's security services would scour the globe for his wife and child, and for that he gave thanks, but he had traded his own future in the bargain. Perhaps those intelligence officers could do what a pile of private investigators could not, and find the family he had dreamed of for the last twenty years, the family he had lost. But if they were found, Lucien would have to bring Mei Lin and Li back to this place, would have to do to Li what his own father had done to him, uproot her from the life she had built for herself and thrust her into the unfamiliar world of royalty. His heart would rejoice, he knew, but he did not know his daughter, now, the woman she had become, and he worried for her desperately, worried that she would not accept him, would not want him or the life he offered her. And if it was discovered that Mei Lin and Li were in fact lost to the sea, Lucien would have to shackle himself to another, to take a bride Sir Patrick deemed acceptable and make a new family, and love would not play into that bargain. The very proposition was distasteful, but Lucien had agreed despite his reservations, for he would trade his very soul just to know, for a certainty, what had become of his girls.

Idly he reached for his pocket, and then frowned as he realized two things; first, that as king he no longer carried a wallet, and second that even if his wallet had been in his pocket the little picture of his family he carried there would not be in it, for he had handed it over to Sir Patrick. It was one of only a few pieces of evidence that still existed to show that Lucien had ever had any family at all, and Sir Patrick had been certain it would aid the officers in their search. No doubt the man was right, but Lucien felt uneasy without that photograph in his pocket. The past had become the stuff of legend to him, and what few mementos he had to remind himself of the beautiful days he'd spent in Singapore before the war were more precious to him than gold.

Drinking and brooding brought him no peace, and so Lucien heaved himself to his feet, taking his heavy grey coat from the back of his wardrobe before letting his feet guide him toward the stairs. It was a journey he had undertaken countless times before, and his feet knew the way, and so he let his thoughts wander as he emerged into the chill of the night. Up on the battlements the air was crisp and cool, the darkness somehow comforting. He turned to the right, just as he had done a month before, dragging his hand along the well worn stone as he walked. The occasional guard passed him by; each time it happened the lad in question would stop and salute, and Lucien would speak to him softly, and then the King would move on, and the guard would go once more about his business. Those interruptions were few and far between, and Lucien did not trouble himself with them.

What would she look like now? He asked himself as he walked. Li, his darling little girl, would be twenty years old, now. No longer a child with ribbons in his hair, no longer so small that he could easily scoop her up and hold her close. She had favored her mother from the moment she was born; if Lucien was ever blessed to look in her eyes again, would he see Mei Lin in every line of her face? Would she be grateful to him for finding her, would she be happy that their family was made whole once more? The answer to that question eluded him, for he knew there was another, far more difficult question that would decide it. What troubled him more than anything else was that most pressing question; what horrors had she endured, during the long years of their separation? Had she found a safe haven, where she was sheltered and loved? Or had the violence and starvation and terror of war shattered her utterly? He did not know, and he could not say for certain what was worse, to wonder, or to know.

He rounded a corner and came to an abrupt halt, for much to his surprise he found Mrs. Beazley, once more staring up at the stars.

Does she come here every night? He wondered as he looked at her, the elegant line of her neck as she tilted her head back to gaze at the heavens, the soft cream-colored shawl she'd wrapped around herself to ward off the chill. She looked exactly, inexplicably the same as she had the last time he'd discovered her here, and he smiled as he took in the sight of her. All his life was chaos, but Mrs. Beazley was steady, warm, predictable in a way that called to him. It was late, and the castle was asleep, and she was on the roof, almost as if she'd been waiting for him.

"Nice night out?" Lucien called to her in a gentle voice.

Mrs. Beazley jumped, slightly, startled by the sound of his voice, but she regained her composure quickly, and gave a little curtsy as he came to stand beside her.

"Good evening, Your Majesty," she said, and Lucien tried his best not to stare at her; her voice, soft and musical to his ears, soothed his weary heart, and he wanted to soak her in, to draw comfort from her as he would from a warm bath.

"Good evening, Mrs. Beazley," he answered. He wanted to call her Jean, but he knew that he must not, and stopped himself at the last second. For a moment he simply stood beside her, trying to gather his thoughts, trying to put aside the worries that plagued him, but much to his surprise he found that the longer he stood there the more he wanted to tell her the truth, every piece of it.

"Is everything all right?" she asked him, her voice very low.

No one asked him that, any more. No one asked how he was feeling, or if he wanted to talk about it. They asked him if he needed anything, if whatever they'd put before him met with his approval, but they did not ask about him. She did, though, and he was grateful to her for it.

"Mrs. Beazley, what can you tell me about Sir Patrick?" he asked, choosing to answer her question in an indirect sort of way.

She turned to gaze at him, one eyebrow cocked as if she were taking the measure of him, weighing out his words and trying to determine his intent. If that were the case, he was fairly certain she'd see to the truth of him in a moment; those bright grey eyes did not miss a trick.

"I don't know him personally, sir, but he is well-liked."

It was a diplomatic answer, and did not help him a bit. Lucien grumbled and shuffled on his feet, leaning forward against the parapet to gaze down into the murky darkness below.

"What sort of relationship did he have with my father?" He left the rest of that question - and what does he expect of me? - unspoken.

"Well," she said slowly, carefully, "I think they got on well enough. It's always seemed to me that a King is rather like a father, and the Prime Minister is rather like a mother."

Lucien turned his head to face her, watching as she rested her hands on the stone beside him; it was a strange but somehow terribly apt description, the one she'd just given, and he rather felt as if she had more to say on the topic. And so he remained silent, hoping she'd continue.

"The King believes in upholding tradition, demands obedience from his children, sees his children as something he must protect. The Prime Minister does the work of keeping the children clothed and fed and educated. They aren't at cross purposes, necessarily, but they have different priorities. They both love their children, they just show it in different ways."

He could not help but gawp at her, utterly confounded by the simple, practical way she had so neatly defined the two positions. The analogy was rather perfect, he thought; traditional, conservative, demanding, those had been the best words to describe Thomas, as a father and as a King. He had laid out his expectations and everyone around him had scurried to uphold them. It was not his remit to make the laws that governed his people's day-to-day lives, the laws that regulated the market and the national health service and the schools and the welfare programs that cared for his people; that was the purview of the rather harried chaps in the Parliament. It was to the MPs - and the Prime Minister - the people turned to with their hands out when they needed something to eat, but in times of calamity - in times of war - it was to the King they looked for reassurance and protection.

A father and a mother, he thought, bemused and staring at her still. She's brilliant. A lifetime of university courses in political science could not have summed it up so well.

"Some fathers are more willing to be partners with mothers, and some less so," she added, and Lucien realized then exactly what she was trying to tell him. Thomas and Sir Patrick had both wanted what was best for their people, he knew, but perhaps Thomas had been rather more heavy-handed about it. Perhaps Thomas had clung too tightly to his traditions, and chafed his PM at every turn while Sir Patrick tried to keep their kingdom - their home - running smoothly. It was the sort of arrangement Lucien could imagine, given what he knew of the two of them, and a powerful insight from a woman whose official role was simply housekeeper.

There was something in her voice that gave him pause, though, something that stopped him from telling her how much he agreed with her assessment. In the soft glow of the nearby lamp she looked almost ethereal, an otherworldly sort of sadness shining in every line of her face. She was a mother herself, he knew, had spent years of her life keeping her children housed and clothed and fed, and a question rose in his mind, one that had nothing at all to do with the running of the kingdom, and everything to do with her.

"What sort of father was your husband, Mrs. Beazely?"

It was a terribly personal sort of question, the sort of question he should never have asked her, but it was late, and dark, and the air was chilly and damp, and they were alone, and she was beautiful, and there was so much about her that he did not know.

In the darkness she smiled, wearing her sorrow as elegantly as some women wore evening gowns.

"The sort who wanted above all else to make his wife happy."

In that moment he wanted, more than anything, to hold her. It was so plain to see, how dearly she had loved her husband, how happy he had made her, how devastated she had been by that loss. Time had turned her wound to a scar, had healed her heart and stemmed the flood of her tears, but that grief would be with her always. Lucien knew a thing or two about that; every time he looked at the one faded photograph of his wife's face that remained he felt the ache of losing her tear through his chest. Every time he saw a family together, mother and father and children, he shattered just a little bit more, thinking of all that he had lost. And Jean, dear Mrs. Beazley, must have felt the same. The sharing of that grief was like a silken cord that bound them, their two hearts singing the same lament, and yet he could not tell her, for he had sworn to Sir Patrick that he would not tell another living soul about his family, not until they had some news.

Would Mei Lin speak of him so kindly, he wondered, if she still lived, if someone asked her? What sort of father had he been? A gentler, warmer sort than his own, he hoped. He had loved the mother of his child, and given her all that he had, tried every day to make her happy just as Jean's husband had done. And as he contemplated this, and all that Mrs. Beazley had told him, he began to hope, for the very first time, that he might be good at this, at being King. Fatherhood had been the greatest joy of his life, and while he had lost his first child he had just inherited several million more of them, all in need of his protection, his devotion, his dedication. He was not sure his heart was big enough to shelter them all, but he knew that he must try, for the sake of his daughter, for the sake of the beautiful woman who stood beside him.

"Sir?" she asked him gently when he had been silent too long, her tone somewhat hesitant as if she feared she'd overstepped some unspoken boundary. Beside him she raised her hand briefly, as if she meant to reach out and touch him, but then she pulled it back quickly, and Lucien lamented for the loss of that touch he'd almost felt.

"Thank you, Mrs. Beazely," he answered. And he meant it with all his heart.