10 April 1959

Lucien's hands were trembling as he took the photo Patrick offered him. The Prime Minister was still talking, rambling on while next to him the kingdom's intelligence chief sat silent and brooding, but Lucien paid no heed to the words. The words did not matter, in the moment; the only thing that mattered was the photograph he held in his hands.

There in black and white, the paper slightly bent after its long journey but the image still clear as day, he saw a young, stern-faced woman staring up at him. Her dark hair was tied tightly behind her head, adding to the severity of her expression. The clothes she wore were the standard mode of dress for people in that corner of the world in that time, dark trousers under a long dark tunic. It was difficult to tell from the photograph, but he knew the color was likely grey or blue. Some small piece of his heart hoped for blue; he had always favored it himself, and he was desperate for any connection he could find between this girl and himself, however tenuous it might be. She was not smiling, but her features were lovely nonetheless; she had high, delicate cheekbones and her eyes…

She has her father's eyes, he thought numbly. Not the same color, of course - when she was small her eyes had been so dark as to be almost black, and even in the colorless shades of the photograph he could tell that had not changed - but the size and shape of them she had inherited from him. It was hard to say just how tall she was; there was nothing else in the photograph, no furniture, no other people, nothing to give a sense of scale, but her bearing was proud, and somehow Lucien felt sure she was taller now than her mother had been at that age.

"Are you certain?" Lucien managed to choke out the words, though he could not tear his eyes from the photograph. It had been so long, so very long, since last he'd seen his daughter; she had been small enough for him to lift her in his arms when they parted. He had known that as the days passed she must be growing, changing every minute, but his mind could not comprehend what his eyes could not see, and in his heart she had remained, always, a child.

"Yes," the silent intelligence chief spoke for the first time. His name was Bill; perhaps he had given his surname, but Lucien couldn't recall it. Compared to this revelation, it hardly mattered.

A worried look passed between Bill and Patrick then, but Lucien did not see it, for his gaze remained fixed on the face of his child, now twenty-one years old and a woman grown. She favors her mother, he thought, but there is a piece of me in her. Or perhaps he only thought there was, only wished.

"She was rescued along with a few other children from the shipwreck. She did not speak much Chinese, but there was an English translator working with the rescue effort, and she was able to tell him her name, and her mother's. They matched it to the information on the ship's manifest. She was kept in Hong Kong for a year, but when no one came to claim her she was sent to Shanghai. From there she was adopted by a local family."

At those words Lucien looked up at Patrick sharply, his heart in his throat. When no one came to claim her...the very thought of it seared him to the core. He could hardly bear it, to think that his child had been waiting, had been told that no one was coming for her, had believed herself to be utterly alone in the world. All those years he had been tortured, desperate, spending every penny he had to try to find some trace of her, but she had been ignorant of all of it, knowing only that no one had come. She did not know that he had been held captive, had been trapped and utterly oblivious to the horror that had befallen his family, did not know everything that had passed in the long dark years since his release; oh, my darling, Lucien thought despondently, there is so much I must tell you.

"By all accounts the family treated her well," Patrick added, and Lucien was grateful to him for it. Though he feared this was a wrong that could not be undone, at least he knew she had not been abused, had been taken in by people who were kind to her, perhaps even loved her; please, please let her be loved, Lucien had whispered those words to a God he did not believe in for seventeen long years, and now at last it seemed he might have his answer. It was not enough to restore his faith in God, but it did serve to bolster his belief in his fellow man, to know that someone somewhere had seen a child in need and given her a home.

"When can I see her?" he demanded. There were other questions he wanted to ask; for a start, he wanted to know why his own inquiries had not turned up this information, when it seemed the intelligence service had found it so readily. Perhaps it no longer mattered, but he had failed for so long to find her, and some part of his heart longed for reassurance, longed to know that it was not lack of trying on his part that kept him separated from his darling girl.

At his question Bill and Patrick shared another knowing glance, and this time he did see it.

"What is it?" His heart had begun to race the moment this conversation started, and it had yet to abate. This news was everything he had longed for, for years now, but the dour-faced men sitting across from him did not seem to share his joy, and the bitter sting of disappointment hung in the air, breathless and waiting like a guillotine poised to fall.

"She sent this letter, along with her regards," Bill said, rifling through the file of paperwork he'd brought with him and producing a sheet of plain stationary. "We had it translated, of course, if you would prefer to read it in English."

"I can read the Chinese," Lucien answered, taking the paper at once. The characters had been formed neatly, in a steady hand, and as he looked at them he thought to himself, she wrote this. My daughter. Her hands formed these words, and sent them to me. What a gift that was; he could not touch her, but he could hold this page, this physical object his own child's hands had touched, could read the words that had come from her heart across the sea to find his own. His hands were still shaking, and so he smoothed the page out on the tabletop in front of him, and began to read.

My esteemed father, the letter began, I am pleased to learn that you are well. I thought of you often when I was small. I hope that life has been kind to you, and I wish you every happiness.

The words were pleasant enough, but there was a stilted, almost formal inflection to them that troubled Lucien a very great deal. This was not the effusive declaration of love his father's heart had hoped for. I thought of you often when I was small in particular felt rather like a barb, as if she were trying to tell him that she no longer thought of him at all. He read on, despondent, desperate.

I understand that you wish me to join you in your country, but I must decline the invitation. My home and my family are in Shanghai. I have married, and am expecting a child. I wish only to be left in peace. What has been done cannot be undone. You may write to me, if you wish, and we may come to understand one another in time, but I will not leave my home. Respectfully yours, Li Chen.

Tears had formed at the corners of his eyes as he continued to read, and he made no attempt to hide them; the letter had been translated already, and so both Bill and Patrick knew its contents, and must have known how it would wound him. Grief and joy bit at him, tearing his heart to pieces; how could it be, he wondered, that he could feel such disparate emotions, so many contradictory things all at once? His child was alive, and she had found a family, found love, was even now expecting a child of her own. He was going to be a grandfather, and that thought alone was so delightful he could hardly remain sitting in his chair, had to fight back a desire to leap to his feet and cry out with relief. And yet, her tone had been distant, and she had made it plain that she had no intention of seeing him. For so many years it was only the thought of seeing her again that kept him from putting an end to his misery, only the thought of his dear Li that kept him alive. And now she was so close, almost within his grasp, and yet rejecting his affections.

"She's expecting a child," he murmured, not realizing he'd spoken aloud until Bill answered him.

"The letter was written about a month ago. The agents who delivered it to us said she wasn't showing yet, but I imagine that's changed by now."

That might explain why she still looked so slender in the photograph he held; a whole month had passed, and every day she would be changing, drawing closer and closer to the dawn of her own motherhood. Mei Lin should have been there for her, he thought bleakly. A girl should have her mother, at a time like this.

"Of course this presents a bit of a problem for us," Patrick said then. "We share in your joy, Your Majesty, knowing that your daughter is alive, but if she remains determined not to accept her birthright -"

"That is a problem for another day," Lucien cut him off sharply, carefully folding the letter and slipping it into the inner pocket of his jacket. "Gentlemen, I'm sure I don't need to tell you that this is a lot of information for me to digest all at once. I will discuss the details with you, and I would like to send a letter of my own, but I don't want to get into any of that just now. I need a little time. If that's all right."

They could hardly refuse him, though he could see Bill wanted to. Likely both the intelligence chief and the Prime Minister were eager to bring her home, through any means necessary. Several soldiers had been sent to collect Lucien, after all, told to gather up the heir to the throne regardless of his personal wishes and bring him home post haste. Lucien could not stomach the thought of putting his daughter through the same ordeal he had endured himself; she had not seen him since she was a child, hardly more than a toddler, and she had built a life all her own. If they were to, as she put it, come to understand one another, if they were ever to cultivate a relationship with one another, he knew that such deliberate interference on his part would only serve to make her hate him. He could not order her around, could not destroy her life and uproot her from the only home she'd ever truly known. However he approached her, he knew he must be gentle. And he likewise knew that in that moment he was incapable of making such a delicate decision. Not now, when his heart was in turmoil, when the tears were still damp on his cheeks, when he could not still the racing of his hands.

"As you wish, Your Majesty," Patrick said, though he ground the words out from between clenched teeth.

The little meeting broke up then, but Lucien paid no mind to the niceties. He was in need of counsel, but it was not the advice of the politicians or the spies he needed, was not the heartless words of men who thought only of the crown and the kingdom. He needed the wisdom of a mother, in that moment.

And so he rose and left the counsel room at once, his feet carrying him out into the castle proper. It was lunchtime; Peter would have arranged for a meal to be delivered to his quarters, but the servants would be eating in the kitchen, some at the little wooden table and others standing about, some drifting through to pick up a sandwich before racing off to other duties, all of them talking, laughing, ducking the good-natured swats of the cooks who were trying to go about their business with all of their friends underfoot.

He made his way there unerringly, one hand pressed to his stomach as if the force of his own touch could keep his emotions at bay, just a little while longer. The thoughts that swam through his mind were hardly more than fragments, shattered images and half-formed longings. I will not leave my home - it was Mei Lin's voice that spoke those words in the vaults of his mind, for he could not imagine what his daughter's voice would sound like now - and you may write to me, if you wish, and what is done cannot be undone, and over it, above it all, the most important urging, you must find Jean. Jean will know what to do.

The servants scattered like a flock of ducks set upon with a rifle as he came storming into the kitchen. Those who were sitting rose to their feet with a clatter of cutlery and the scraping of chairs, bows and curtsies offered to him quickly by the two dozen or so terribly confused people who had gathered in that place. Lucien tried to scan the crowd but gave up the attempt almost at once; everything seemed to tilt and whirl around him, his vision no more clear than his thoughts had been.

"Jean!" he called sharply. "Where is Mrs. Beazley?"

I shouldn't have said her name. The thought vanished as quickly as it would come; later he would worry about this breach of propriety. In the moment finding her was the only thing that mattered.

"Here, Your Majesty," she answered, stepping out from around a corner, a frown on her face. She was wiping her hands on her apron, and at the sight of her his shoulders sagged in relief.

"I need to speak to you," he said. "Can we…" he gestured vaguely towards the door. Of course he hadn't really thought this through, and now he felt a bit sheepish; everyone was staring at him, and word would be all over the castle within the hour, everyone whispering about how the king himself had come stumbling into the kitchen, calling Mrs. Beazley by her Christian name and demanding a private audience with a wild look upon his face.

"Of course," she said, though somewhat warily.

And so she came to him, and he manged to refrain from offering her his arm, only holding the kitchen door open so she could step through it. He followed in her wake, having no idea where they ought to go but knowing only that they must go there together. Later he would worry; in the moment, he needed her too badly to think better of it.