6 February 1959
It was bitterly cold; not entirely unexpected, for early February. A faint smattering of snow lay on the ground, glittering brightly in the early afternoon sun. The King had left the castle to go and give his speech at the opening of the new hospital, and while Jean wished him well in her heart she had not given him her regards in person. She had, in fact, not spoken one single word to the King beyond a simple greeting of Your Majesty in the last three weeks. She had not walked along the battlements in the darkness as she was wont to do - though given just how cold it had been, that was no great sacrifice, really, to trade the bitter chill of the stones for the warmth of her suite. Each time he entered a room she left it as quickly as she was able, and each time she tried to ignore the way his eyes lingered on her, his gaze heavy and troubled. To his credit the King had not pushed her; he was an intelligent man, and no doubt he realized that their continued separation was by design, and respected her apparent desire for space.
That thought troubled her, a very great deal.
Yes, the priest had told her to remove herself from temptation and yes the proper course would be to keep her distance and incite any further feeling from him, or draw attention to the many lapses in judgment they had indulged in during the early days of his tenure in the castle. Yes, Jean was behaving exactly as she ought, but the thought that her King believed her to be disinterested in him, believed that she wanted no part of him, grieved her very soul. It was not an absence of affection that stayed her hand, but rather an overabundance of it; she cared for him too deeply to allow their friendship to continue, and risk both of their reputations and positions.
And yet, she had not withdrawn from him entirely; even if he never knew it, she was still the only one who cleaned his rooms. Technically such a task was below her station; as head of housekeeping she oversaw the maid staff, and did not often act as one of them. She had decided long before that an exception must be made in this case to protect his reputation, and her opinion on that matter had not changed. It would not do, she thought, for one of the other maids to see what she saw now.
Jean entered his rooms each day just after lunch, and each day she followed a precise pattern. She walked through each room and gathered any rubbish, tying it neatly in a bin bag. As she went through she also bagged his laundry, to be sent downstairs. Then she dusted each and every surface, wiped down the drinks cart and replaced the glasses, vacuumed twice a week and washed the windows monthly. She cleaned the mirrors and the counters in the little bathroom and made sure the whole place sparkled, but first, before anything else, she went and made his bed.
That was where she lingered now, taking rather longer than was necessary to strip the old sheets in preparation for laying down a fresh set. This was where he slept, here in this grand, handcrafted four-poster that while smaller than the one in the suite that had belonged to his father nonetheless dwarfed the little bed in Jean's own room. A big bed for a big man, she thought, blushing, though even a man as tall and broad as he might feel lonesome, lying there alone. The sheets were twisted and tangled and smelled faintly of sweat despite the chill outside; what could torment him so, she wondered, that he should sleep so fitfully? Her thoughts drifted, as they so often did, to the woman he'd spoken of, the girl he'd loved and lost. What sort of woman had she been? Jean wondered, not for the first time. To catch his eye, to keep his attention so fully, to mean so much to him, she must have been special indeed, and yet she had been lost, and there had been something in the way the King spoke that word that told Jean whatever had befallen his mysterious love must have been permanent.
Jean knew a thing or two about that, how deep that grief could run, how time might dull the sting but never fully heal the wound. It was the sort of thing she'd rather like to share with him, and yet she knew she could not, must not; it was not her place to comfort him, or even try to understand him. This was her place; the only way she would ever enter this room was to clean it, and she knew she needed to be getting on with her work.
And so she pushed those thoughts aside, thoughts of his broad hands and his poor broken heart, and finished making the bed, smoothing her hands over the coverlet and smiling a bit as she examined her handiwork. She had the routine down almost to a science, and could clean all four rooms in just an hour. It was not a bad way to spend that quiet period after lunch, and there was plenty of time left for her remaining responsibilities.
Quickly she gathered up the sheets and slipped from the room, dropping the sheets in a pile by the door and then gathering up her bin bag. The study first, always, then the formal sitting room, then the bedroom, then the bathrom, that was her way. And so she went straight across and entered his study, a room that smelled faintly of cigarettes and printing ink, the desktop a shambles of paper she hardly dared look at, let alone touch. There was an empty bottle of scotch on the desk and she sighed as she tossed it in her bag; the third empty bottle this week, and it was only Friday. Honestly, she could hardly imagine how he got through the day, if he drank so much at night. It would be up to Peter to replace it - as valet stocking the drinks cart was one of his daily tasks - and she made a mental note to remind the boy. And then, then she reached for his wastepaper basket.
It was only by chance that she ever saw it; as the slips and scraps of paper came tumbling out of the basket and into the bin bag she only glanced at them, but somehow, by some force of fate, perhaps - though if that were true fate was cruel indeed - it caught her eye. She reached into the bag at once, and pulled out several sheets of paper all crumpled together. They had given her pause, for one very simple reason: she had seen her own name written there. Carefully she unraveled the pages and smoothed them on the corner of the desk, one by one. There were three of them, three pieces of the King's own stationary. On one he had written Dearest Jean, though apparently he had gotten no further than that before crumpling the page and tossing it aside. On another he had written My Dear Mrs. Beazley, though that one too he had crumpled up without writing another word. But the last one, oh, the last one began My darling Jean, and then continued, I am afraid. He had crossed that out, and written instead, It grieves me to think, but the cause of his grief remained unnamed for underneath that he had written in large, unsteady capitals OH BUGGER THIS, AND BUGGER ME TOO. And then, it would seem, he had cast it aside as well.
The other pages Jean dropped back into the bin bag but that one she held for a long moment, her heart full of questions. She could almost picture it, her King sitting at this desk late in the evening, bottle of scotch close to hand, his jacket and tie discarded, his hair a frightful mess, trying and failing to put his thoughts to paper. He had been trying, then, to reach out to her, to find some way to explain himself and his feelings, and she felt the prickle of tears in the corners of her eyes. Oh, but he could be a dear, sweet man when he wanted to be. The jade brooch he'd given her - which she'd regretfully put away after their dance and not worn since, though she looked at it often - was testament to just how tender his heart could be. And she had wounded him, knew she must have done, for he would not have even attempted to write to her had that tender heart not been full of questions.
Perhaps it had been unkind, she realized, to pull away from him without explanation. He was a clever man but a privileged one; perhaps he had not realized just how precarious their position truly was, and would need only for her to explain it to him before he agreed that this course of action was best. Perhaps, if she could only tell him the reasons for her decision sleep might come to him more easily, and the scotch might call less loudly. Perhaps there was a way forward for them both, without such distress.
But then again, perhaps not; those brief words spoke of yearning, of need, had come from a place deep within himself. She wished, oh but she wished that he had only finished his letter, that she could only know, for a certainty, what it was he wanted from her.
Behind her the main door to the suite banged open and she hastily shoved the scrap of paper into the pocket of the white apron she wore over her navy dress.
"Jean!" It was Mattie, her voice high-pitched, desperate. After the death of the old King there had been a terrible moment when Jean wasn't sure that Mattie would be kept on, but the decision had been made that given the sheer number of people working in the castle - and the inherent potential for accidents and illness - it made sense to keep a nurse on staff, and Jean was glad of it. Mattie was a dear, sweet girl, and Jean cared for her almost as if she were her own daughter. But it would not do for Mattie to see the letter, for there were some secrets Jean intended to keep to herself.
"In here!" she called back, wondering why Mattie seemed so distraught. The sun was shining, the King was out of the castle, everything was as it should be.
Or so she thought.
Mattie came racing into the room, tears staining her cheeks.
"There's just been a report on the wireless," she said breathlessly. "The King's been shot."
It was bitterly cold; Lucien supposed he should have expected that. It was only early February, and snow still sparkled bright on the little patches of grass beside the pavement. A small stage had been erected for him in front of the hospital now, a raised platform and a podium mounted with microphones, his speech typed out on crisp white paper and sitting in front of him.
Sir Patrick had expressed his concerns regarding the speech every day for the last two weeks and again in the car on the ride over, but there were soldiers and police everywhere, and Matthew Lawson was standing grim-faced just behind him, and all in all there had been no indication that anything nefarious was afoot. A crowd had gathered, members of the press and hospital staff and more than a few ordinary folk eager for a glimpse of their King. Lucien could only hope he would not disappoint them.
He wasn't entirely sure he looked particularly kingly; though he wore a fine-tailored suit it was completely covered beneath the dark navy pea coat he wore to ward off the chill. Peter had tried to get him to wear a scarf as well, crimson and cashmere and lovely; just to get the lad to stop talking Lucien had worn it until he slipped into the backseat of his towncar, and then he had promptly removed it and stuffed it in his pocket. This speech was about more than appearances to him; the hospital and the NHS itself were causes rather dear to his heart, and he thought the people ought to know that. He had worked with Rose Anderson from the Press Office, and they had together drafted a speech that extolled the virtues of National Health while also making reference to his own experience as a doctor. Jean had told him once that such information was important, that people ought to know he was a soldier and a doctor, ought to know how he'd spent the many long years of his self-imposed exile from this place. Jean thought it would endear him to the people; if only endearing himself to her would come so easily.
It happened so quickly; he was in the midst of speaking, staring out at the crowd, hoping that he wasn't making a hash of things, and then there came the sharp retort of gunfire. That sound; he would know that sound anywhere, on any day, even a day so bright and otherwise pleasant as this. There was no time for him to process it, to even realized what had happened, for as the shots rang out - pop pop pop pop pop, five of them in rapid succession - a body slammed against him and he went tumbling down onto the platform.