6 February 1959
Of all the many locations where a man might possibly be shot, Lucien supposed it had been the best one, on the steps of a brand new, state-of-the-art hospital, full of the latest equipment, in front of a crowd that included doctors and nurses and one highly skilled army-medic-turned-surgeon. In that regard, he rather felt that the would-be assassins had chosen the moment for their treachery quite poorly, and he was grateful for it.
Everything had erupted into chaos, the moment the shots rang out. It was one of the young guards, a lad called Charlie, who had bodily flung Lucien to the platform, and it was Charlie, not Lucien, who had been struck by one of those bullets. The bullet had caught him in the side but still through the haze of pain he had maintained the presence of mind to protect his king; they'd gone tumbling down behind the podium together, Charlie's young comrade Danny joining him as he did his best to shield his sovereign while Matthew Lawson drew his gun and fired and bellowed orders to the other guards in the crowd. There was so much bloody noise; Lucien's ears had begun to ring, his hands had begun to shake, panic biting him while he lay confined beneath the bodies of the two young men who were sworn to protect him - no matter how foolish he thought that particular aim might have been. He had surged up, desperate for air, and that was when he'd seen the blood.
Training took over, then. He'd been a doctor far longer than he'd been a king, and having something to focus on besides his own distress helped to settle his nerves. Afterwards Patrick had been bloody livid about the whole thing, but in the moment there had been so many bodies moving in so many different directions that in the end it was actually quite easy for Lucien to assume control of the situation, or at least his own corner of it. Matthew had overseen the arrest and detention of the attackers, and Lucien had overseen the transportation of Charlie into the hospital. There had been a terrible moment when no one knew what to do; there were a few doctors and nurses in the crowd but none with the training to handle a bullet wound like this, and the streets had been closed down with no way for an ambulance to reach them.
Lucien had done the only thing he could, in that moment. He'd rolled up his sleeves, barked a few orders at the nurses, and set to work.
Darkness had fallen by the time Jean made her way up to the roof. Tension had settled thick and heavy on the walls of the castle, as the minutes continued to pass with no sign of the king. All sorts of conflicting reports had come in; that the King was dead, that the King was unarmed, that one of the guards had been wounded and the King had performed surgery on him right there in the street. The chaos grated on Jean's nerves, and she had done her best to avoid her fellow servants as much as possible, had foregone dinner altogether and refused to join the maids and the cooks as they gathered round the wireless in the kitchen after their meal. Several hours had passed and by now the news reports would have the right of it, but Jean did not want to know for sure, not just yet. As dreadful, as heartrending as it was to linger in this moment when she did not know for certain what had become of her King, at least for now she could still cling to hope. The hope that he was well, that he was safe, somehow, that he would be coming home, coming back to her.
Without any direction from her wayward thoughts her feet led her to the sheltered corner of the battlements where she stood most often, where so many nights her King had stood beside her and spoken to her softly. Alone up there, in the dark, with none but the stars to bear witness she allowed a few tears to slip down her cheeks, and reached into her pocket to retrieve the piece of stationary she'd pilfered from the King's study.
My darling Jean, those words written in his own hand, they danced before her eyes, taunting her with thoughts of shattered dreams and misplaced hopes. How could it be, she wondered, that he could be taken from her so soon, so easily, before she was able to speak the truth of her heart, before she was able to tell him just how very much he meant to her? Fate had been so cruel to her in the past but she had thought, before now, that her days of grief were behind her, that she had lost enough for one lifetime already and might be allowed a gentler sort of existence. But this, this howling, gnawing loss that seemed to hang just over her head had come for her regardless. Someone had shot the King, someone had, with hatred and unspeakable violence, threatened to steal away this man she loved, just as her husband had been stolen from her. When Christopher died she had thought that the memories only added to her torment, that knowing how it felt to fall asleep with his arms around her, to know the brush of his lips and the warmth of his hands and the soft sound of his laugh had only compounded her sorrow, but now she was left wondering if this would be worse, to mourn a love that had never truly come to be. Perhaps, she thought, they were each a torment, in their own way.
There came the heavy sound of footsteps behind her, then, and the breath caught in her throat. She wanted, oh, she wanted so badly to turn and find him, this almost-love of hers, safe and well and home where he belonged, but if she turned and found instead a grim-faced guard come to tell her that the King was dead she was certain she would surely break in half. Regardless of their identity, beloved King or grieving guardsman she could not allow them to see the letter, and so she carefully folded it and stowed it in her pocket, and then she squared her shoulders, and waited.
It took only a moment for those footsteps to reach her, for him to come to a stop, close to her and yet not too close, not overly familiar. Silence stretched between them, Jean and this mysterious messenger, but she could not bring herself to break it. And so he broke it for her.
"I thought I might find you here," he murmured softly.
Jean spun on her heel, a fresh wave of tears overwhelming her as at last she saw for herself that her King was well, and whole. For an instant her eyes traveled over him hungrily, taking in his wrinkled trousers and his mussed-up shirt, his collar unbottoned, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He must have been freezing for he had come to her with no coat, no jacket, no waistcoat even, his hair beginning to curl at the end of an unbearable day. Her heart swelled in her chest, the breath left her lungs; there was no sign at all that he was injured, and though he looked exhausted he was still standing, here, with her, had come to find her before he'd even gone to his own rooms, of that she had no doubt. He was here, and that meant that all was not lost, that there was still a chance, however small, that she might be able to tell him the truth of her heart, and spare them both the heartbreak.
"Lucien," she breathed, unable to stop herself. He stared at her for a moment; perhaps the sound of his given name falling from her lips had stunned him into insensibility, but she could not bring herself to regret it, addressing him with such familiarity. In the time that they had come to know one another he had become more dear to her than most anyone else in the world, and he needed to know it. She took a single, tentative step towards him, her hands itching to reach out to him, to hold him, to drag him hard against her and never let him go. Someone had tried to kill him today, very nearly had done, very nearly ripped him away from her forever, and her heart was singing and desperate to claim him for her own, no matter how foolish, how destined for calamity such a thing might be.
"I thought I lost you," she whispered, her hands trembling, and as she spoke something inside him seemed to snap, for one instant he stood frozen still as a statue and in the next he had taken two short strides and reached out to catch her hips in his broad hands, pulling her hard against him. He was suddenly, fiercely close, blue eyes flashing dangerously in the darkness, full lips parted behind his soft beard, and a gasp escaped her as she felt her body connect with his. He loomed over her, tall and powerful, but bowed his head until their foreheads were almost touching.
"I shouldn't have said it-" she started to, well, not apologize, exactly, but at least to offer some excuse for calling him by his name, no matter how foolish that might have been, given how he touched her now.
"Say it again," he answered, his tone low and harsh and full of a longing Jean recognized all too well.
She had no defenses left; her heart had been pulled and pushed in so many different directions over such a short span of time that she could not find the strength to hold herself back a moment longer. Almost defiantly she lifted her chin, reached up with one trembling hand to cradle his cheek in her palm, looking him in the eyes as she spoke. In that moment, he was beautiful to her, so beautiful, real and hard and close, and she had never wanted anything more in her life than she wanted him.
"Lucien," she said again, and she would have smiled if only he'd given her the chance, but she had no sooner spoken his name than his lips crashed into hers and her very soul seemed to erupt in joy.
Nothing in all his life had ever moved him like the sound of his name falling from Jean's lips. Later he might regret it, might be forced to beg her forgiveness, but in the moment he could think only how he loved her, how he needed her, how he wanted her, how beautiful she was, how no one had called him by his name for months, or ever would again. But she had done that, had taken one look at him and seen not a King or a prince or a failure of a son but seen a man, and she cared for him anyway.
And oh, but she kissed him with such heat, wound her arms around his neck and molded herself against the plane of his chest, rose up on her tiptoes to press hard against him, opened her mouth and let his tongue surge past her lips without a moment's hesitation. There was a roar in his ears that drowned out conscious thought; he could do nothing then but feel, and what he felt was Jean, soft and warm and beautiful on this bitterly cold night, safe in his arms, not rejecting him but kissing him with everything she had and he wanted -
He wanted everything.
A brush with death had always made him bold. In the past he had dealt with such terror in the usual fashion, drinking, brawling, singing, tumbling into bed with a woman who wanted him. His every nerve cried out for satisfaction and his battered heart rejoiced to think Jean could care for him so deeply, that her distance of late had not been borne of a lack of affection, that she was here, with him, holding him, warm and willing. She caught his bottom lip between her teeth and held it there before soothing away the sting with her own soft tongue and that decided it for him, more than anything else. It was no difficult thing; Jean was a slightly built woman and she was already wrapped around him, and so he turned them easily, took two steps back until Jean was flush against the stone wall of the castle and they were both of them hidden from sight in the shelter of that out-of-the-way corner of their home. A soft sound slipped past Jean's lips as she connected with the wall but she did not shy away, did not waste a single moment before she was kissing him again, eager and hungry.
Christ, he wanted her. He had wanted her for weeks, almost from the moment that they met, and every word she'd spoken to him and every detail he'd learned about her had only endeared her more to him until he was left with no doubt at all that he loved her. That such love was forbidden, that it could never truly be allowed to bloom, those things he knew well, and yet he disregarded every restriction in that moment, utterly consumed by need of her and heedless to anything else.
His lips fell to the curve of her neck and her hands tangled in his hair, holding him close against her, the breath leaving her in soft, delicious pants, and oh, he had to have her.
Without thought he reached for her, trailed one hand over the swell of her bum until he caught the back of her thigh, and she realized what he wanted at once, shifted her hips and lifted her leg until her apron and the tight skirt she wore bunched up around her hips and her thigh wrapped around his waist. His hand fell at once to the soft skin just above her stocking tops and he abandoned her neck in favor of kissing her lips instead, drinking deeply of the taste of her while still her fingers tangled in his hair and he ground himself into the soft cradle of her hips.
There were so many things he wanted to tell her, how he loved her, how he needed her, how he had grieved to think he'd wounded or offended her, how he could not spend another day without her, how frightened he had been, how happy he was now. The words would not come, but he hoped she could hear them anyway, in the gentle way he touched her skin, in the desperate way he kissed her. Somehow she had always seemed to know just what he was thinking, and in this moment he felt his intention was impossible to misunderstand. They were wound around one another, dangerously close to losing all control, and Jean was right there with him, until-
Until she broke from their kiss with a gasp as if she were drowning, her hands abandoning his hair in favor of pressing against his chest. She did not push him away entirely, did not even loosen the hold of her leg around his hip, but still she had called a halt to proceedings and so he relented, gasping slightly, his nose brushing against her cheek while he waited for her to speak. A moment passed, and then another, her fingers curling in the soft fabric of his shirt.
"We can't, Lucien," she told him breathlessly, her voice dripping with regret. And though he knew those words should have broken his heart he found they brought him only hope, for the tone in which she'd spoken told him plainly that she wanted to, and that was, he thought, the only thing that mattered.
Where there's a will, there's a way, the words floated through his mind, and he nearly laughed aloud, half-made from adrenaline and love.
"We can," he disagreed gently, dropping a kiss against her cheek. "But not tonight." He gave one last affection squeeze to her thigh and then helped her to stand, his hands ghosting over the curve of her hip while her skirt fell back into place.
"No, Lucien," she said, and then she gave her head a little shake. "Your Majesty," she corrected herself, and the hope that had filled him only a moment before burst like a balloon in his chest and sent him hurtling towards the ground, and his doom. "We can't."
She stepped up close to him, and kissed him one last time, though there was no heat left in her now, only sorrow. "I'm sorry," she breathed against his lips, and then she turned, and walked away.