10 April 1959
The king was visibly shaken and his eyes had a glazed, dazed sort of look about them, as if he did not quite know where he was or how he had come to be there, and so Jean took charge, led him down the corridor to one of the small, unoccupied offices that littered the ground floor of the castle. The king stepped into the room and Jean neatly closed the door behind him, crossing her arms over her chest and watching him warily. Obviously something big was afoot, something important, something dramatic enough to make him forget himself entirely, and whatever it was she feared it. He was an enthusiastic man even at the calmest of times, but this was something else; he seemed to crack and fizzle like a downed electrical wire, and she feared they were both about to be burned. And though a part of her was desperately curious a quiet, uneasy piece of her heart was troubled, given over now to worry about the future. What he had just done, storming into the kitchen and calling out her Christian name for all to hear with that look of dire need upon his face, would set the gossip mill to whirling, and she knew she would be forced to spend the next few weeks carefully handling a multitude of questions presented with varying degrees of finesse. Some explanation must be given, but it would need to be delivered in a nonchalant, unbothered sort of way, lest she give rise to further suspicions by protesting too vehemently. It would be a delicate, unbearable tightrope to walk, and there was no guarantee she would not emerge with her reputation intact, and he had done this, all unthinking.
But she could not curse him for his foolishness, not now when he seemed so troubled. Perhaps that would come later, but in the moment she wanted only to help him.
"What is it?" she asked him when he did not speak. He was simply standing there, his back towards the door, smoothing one hand over his hair while the other pressed tight to his side, perhaps, she thought, to hide the evidence of its trembling.
"They've found her, Jean," he said simply, his voice as unsteady as his hands.
It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him what he was talking about, who he meant, but then she considered his extreme distress, and the answer came to her at once.
"Your daughter?" she asked, suddenly breathless.
His face broke out into a wide, brilliant smile. "My Li. My little girl. Safe and well."
In that moment Jean wanted, very much, to hold him. He had been waiting, for such a terribly long time, frightened and bereft, a father with no child, and to know now that his daughter had been found, that she was safe and well, that his hopes had been fulfilled and he no longer had to fret was a joyous, beautiful thing. From the moment he'd told her of his child Jean had been heartsick for him, thinking only how desolate she would be, if she were in his shoes, and now she could see his relief, could almost feel it, and she rejoiced in it. But he was her king, and despite the impropriety of their last encounter at the country manor she was determined to restrain his more reckless impulses - and her own.
And so she did not fling her arms around his neck, did not kiss his cheek and embrace as she dearly longed to do. Instead she only reached for him, wrapped her hand around the hardness of his bicep and gave him a gentle squeeze.
"Oh, Your Majesty," she said. "That's wonderful news. I'm happy for you, truly."
He covered her hand with his own, his expression almost grateful, and she wondered then when last he'd been touched by someone who wasn't her. It was the valet's job to help his king dress, but somehow she couldn't imagine this king letting young Peter do up his buttons; somehow she rather thought he would insist on doing that himself. How lonely he must be, she thought. His father was dead, his wife as well, his daughter only recently rediscovered; as her mind followed down that path it occurred to her that he had not told her where, exactly, his daughter was, and she was suddenly desperately curious to know. What sort of girl would she be, this child who was Lucien's flesh and blood? Was she bold and tempestuous like her father, or had she inherited some more measured traits from her mother? When would she be coming home? The whole kingdom would be aflutter, once this news got out, and Jean would need to sort out one of the palatial suites on the third floor for her, and she would need gowns, proper gowns befitting a princess, and-
"Where is she?" Jean asked. She'd kept her hand upon him for far longer than was proper, and so with some regret she pulled away, and clasped her hands together in front of her to keep from reaching for him again.
His face fell, and he tucked his hands in his pockets, looking so forlorn now that Jean felt almost dizzy, caught in the riptide of his emotions, flinging them both from one point to another too quickly for her to keep up.
"She's in Shanghai," he said. "A local family took her in, after...well. She's married now, and expecting a baby."
If Jean had thought she was dizzy before it was nothing compared to this; not only had the king found his daughter at long last, but he had found a son-in-law and a grandchild, as well. She rather thought he ought to have been pleased, to know that his daughter was flourishing, to know that he had gone from having no family at all to having all of this, and yet he seemed almost despondent, in that moment.
"She doesn't know me, Jean. She says Shanghai is her home, and she won't leave it."
"Why don't we sit down?" Jean asked him then, reaching for his arm once more and guiding him into one of the chairs that lined the small table in the center of the room. Partly she had done it for his sake, for it seemed as if at moment his legs might cease to hold him, but partly she had done it for her own sake, to buy herself a moment to think.
This girl, this Li, was the heir to the throne, a princess of the kingdom and the hope for their country's future, and she was Lucien's daughter, the child he had dreamt of through nearly two decades of grief, but she did not want to come to him. In choosing to stay in Shanghai she had spurned both her father and her birthright, and threatened to plunge them all into chaos. Jean did not even want to imagine what it might do to her king's poor heart, should his child reject him utterly, and when he shattered, the whole kingdom would shatter with him. And without an heir the politicians would be ruthless; her king was not a young man, and he carried a heavy burden upon his shoulders.
"Surely she isn't angry with you?" Jean asked, trying to wrap her head around the situation, and all the many implications of what her king had just told her.
"Not angry, I don't think," he said slowly. He reached into his pocket, and produced a neatly folded sheet of stationary.
"She sent me this." He started to hand it to Jean, and then his expression grew rueful. "I'm sorry, it's in Chinese. I don't imagine you could read it." He folded the letter and tucked it back into his pocket, and then ran his hand thoughtfully across his beard. "Come to think of it, I don't even know if she speaks English, now," he mused. "She spoke it beautifully when she was a child, but it's been seventeen years since the last time she would have had the opportunity, I don't know how much she remembers."
"What did the letter say, Lucien?" Jean prodded him gently, trying to get him back on track.
"Just that she has no intention of joining me here. That Shanghai is her home and she won't leave it. She says I could write to her but...honestly, Jean, how do I put this in a letter? How do I tell her about the invasion, and the camp, and all the years I spent trying to find her and her mother, and how I came to be here, and how badly I wish that she would come home? She's spent most of her life as an ordinary girl in China. We didn't tell her, when she was small, who I was. She didn't know that she was a princess. And now...now I think she doesn't want to have anything to do with me. Or any of it."
"It would be a lot for anyone to take in," Jean said, trying to find some sense of reason in the chaos before her. "You struggled when you first came here, and you've known you were going to be king since you were born."
"And I've spent most of my life trying to avoid that responsibility. I can hardly fault her for trying to do the same. I just...Christ, Jean, I need to see her. I need to hold her. I need to speak to her, but she's on the other side of the bloody world. A letter! I wouldn't even know where to begin."
An idea came to Jean, then. It seemed to her that when presented with a problem the simplest solution was often the best one, and she could think of no better choice for her king now. It would require a great deal of effort and some fast talking, but it was the easiest way to set her king's heart at rest, and give him what he wanted most.
"Why don't you go to her, then?" she asked.
The king stared at her for a moment, aghast, and then he sighed and rubbed his hand across his beard again.
"I can't," he said, his voice short and angry. "I've got a bloody kingdom to run."
"But you said it yourself, you want to see her. And I think you're right. I think she deserves to hear the truth from you, in person, not through a letter. Letters get lost, or intercepted, and even if it reaches her it isn't a conversation. You'd have to wait weeks for an answer. What your daughter needs is you."
"They won't let me-"
"How can they stop you?" she asked, somewhat tartly. "You're the king, aren't you?"
The newspapers all said that their little kingdom enjoyed a fairly cordial relationship with the Chinese; she was thinking that perhaps he could arrange an official state visit, and quietly meet with his daughter on the side. He was the king; he could take a far less diplomatic approach and order a military plane to transport him there that very day, if he wished.
He was looking at her now like she was quite the most miraculous thing he'd ever seen, as if it had never occurred to him before that now being king afforded him power, as well as responsibility. In a distant corner of her mind she wondered how much of the last few months he'd spent taking orders from the politicians, rather than the other way around, and wondered, too, if she'd just unleashed a disaster upon them all.
"Jean, you are a marvel," he breathed.
And then, before she could stop him, before she'd even realized what he was doing, he leaned across and took her face in his hands, and kissed her gently before vaulting from his chair and all but running from the room. In his wake Jean sat, bemused and somewhat frightened, a blush staining her cheeks as the sensation of his kiss lingered on her lips. She hoped that she had done the right thing; now she supposed she could do nothing else but wait, and see how events played out. For his sake, she hoped it would be all to the good, but that remained to be seen.