28 April 1959

It was a Tuesday, and the weather was warm, and Lucien and his entourage had descended upon a small hotel in a prosperous corner of Shanghai. He had been ferried there as if by magic, for in truth he could not recall one single thing that had happened between the moment he woke and the moment he stepped into that hotel. All that mattered in the world was Li, and he had known once the sun rose that she was close, that he would meet her, and all his being had focused on that one truth.

His ambassador to this country, a gregarious man named Frank Carlyle, had escorted him to a fine open room in the depths of the hotel; perhaps it had been a ballroom once, but no one had danced there for many a long year, and Lucien doubted whether they ever would again. Frank had swung the grand doors wide and Lucien's gaze had fixed at once on the center of the room, on a small table with one chair on either side of it. The chair nearest him was empty, but the other certainly wasn't.

If he had taken the time to examine his surroundings he would have noticed the police stationed around the perimeter of the room, would have noticed the way his guards eyed them uneasily. He would have noticed that chairs had been brought for his retinue, and that throughout the course of that day those chairs sat empty for his guards remained determined to stand, watching their king from a close but respectful distance. He would have noticed that food and drink had been prepared, set neatly on a second table off to the side. As it was he took no note of any of it, for at that table in the center of the room, sitting in that one occupied chair, there was a young woman with long, dark hair and a stern expression on her face.

She's taller than her mother.

That was the first thing Lucien thought upon seeing his daughter again for the first time in nearly two decades. Before that moment he had hoped that when he looked at her he would think how beautiful she was, would feel the call of his blood in her veins, a bond so unshakable, mystical in its power, that he would understand the moment he set eyes on her that she was the one, that she was his own flesh and blood. And she was, and he did feel it, to a certain extent, took one look at this young woman's hard, unsmiling face and felt a wave of love crash over him so strong and so fierce he was almost swept away by it, but the thing that struck him most was how tall she was.

Li was, of course, not quite as tall as himself, but as near as he could reckon she was of a height with Jean, which meant she had outstripped Mei Lin at some point when she was growing, and a strange pain pierced his chest as that thought struck home, as he realized it was another moment they'd missed. They should have had more time, and there should have come a day when Mei Lin looked upon her child and pretended to pout as she realized she was now looking up to her daughter, rather than the other way around. Mei Lin would not have been disappointed, he knew, and would have taught their child to walk with dignity no matter how her body changed, but Mei Lin was gone, and all that remained of her were the memories he carried within his own heart. Perhaps Li remembered her as well, but Li's memories would be the fuzzy, insubstantial images of a child's mind, and Lucien could still recall his wife so clearly at times he felt almost as if he had conjured the ghost of her to stand beside him.

Li rose when Lucien entered the room, and he went straight to her. He did not run, did not cry out her name, did not fling out his arms and reach to embrace her; he wanted to, and his whole body was quivering with the need to hold her, but he kept his hands by his side for he knew that such a display would only discomfit her, and he could not bear to embarrass her, or turn her against him before they'd even spoken. So he only walked, quickly, his shiny black shoes ringing impatiently across the marble while the tap tap tap of Matthew's cane followed him at a more stately pace.

As he approached Li stood tall-backed and still, though her gaze darted over his shoulder, no doubt counting the uniformed guards who'd accompanied him, searching their faces as if she was not entirely sure who she was looking for, as if despite his haste she did not immediately realize that the bearded man in his fine navy suit who was bearing down upon her was the father who had come at last to claim her. When he reached the table Lucien curled his hands around the back of the chair in front of him, and stared at her face unblinking, awe-struck and overcome.

"Li?" he said. It was her, of course it was her; Mei Lin's face had never been quite that emotionless, her eyes had never been quite so cold, but Li favored her mother, and Lucien could see the echo of his wife in this young woman's face. Her clothing was plain and utilitarian as was the custom in that time and that place, but the long tunic she wore was dyed a dark blue, and there was a piece of Lucien's heart that rejoiced to see it.

"Are you him?" she answered him in Mandarin.

A wide grin burst across his face; he could not help it. Here was his child, whole and well, and that was her voice, speaking to him now, and the words came spilling out of him, his heart eager and full of hope.

"I am," he answered her in his own tongue. He pressed his right hand to his heart, covered it with his left, and then gave a small bow in greeting. The guards behind him did not speak, but he could feel the sudden rise of their unease, could sense the way they shifted and tensed; they were in a strange place, surrounded by strange people, and they could not understand a word that was said, and their king had just bowed his head to a foreigner in a gesture of deference that would have been unthinkable back home. But he rather thought it was the right thing to do, for Li's expression softened infinitesimally, and as he raised his head he saw her mirror the gesture, folding her hands over her heart and bowing her head.

"I can't tell you how happy I am to see you again," he said earnestly. "I have dreamed of this day."

"So did I, once," she told him. They were still standing, frozen for a moment as the reality of the situation crashed in on them; a tear threatened to fall from the corner of Lucien's eye as he looked at her, this beautiful, quiet woman who was his daughter. The tunic she wore was loose-fitting, but he could see the rise of her stomach, just beginning to press against the fabric, and the tear did escape him then as he thought of how wonderful it was, that she had found a family, a home, that she had married and was now expecting a child of her own. She was going to be a mother, his own child, and though it was strange to think so much time had passed his heart was full of love to have her here with him now.

"Please, sit," he said, gesturing towards the chair. She waited a beat, as if she did not intend to sit until he did, but she folded herself neatly into the chair as Lucien took his own, as he wiped his cheek with the back of his hand.

"I suppose you have a lot of questions."

Across the table Li regarded him gravely. "I do," she agreed. But she did not ask them; she folded her hands together in her lap and looked at him, dark eyes wide and watchful, and Lucien tried desperately to calm his racing heart, to make some sense of the jumble of his thoughts, the riot of his emotions. This was not the warm, joyful reunion he had hoped for, but she was here, right in front of him, and he drank in the sight of her hungrily. For so long he had been lost, utterly adrift, lost in darkness with neither love nor connection to sustain him, but at last he was finding his way, and whatever else she might have been Li was his family, and he loved her with his whole heart.

"May I tell you my story, Li?" He wanted to call her sweetheart, or my darling, wanted to tell her how he loved her, but to her he was no more than a stranger, and given her reserved behavior he didn't think she would appreciate such demonstrative affection from him. What he needed, more than anything, was to tell her the truth, all of it, to hope that she might forgive him, and come to understand him in time.

"Yes," she said, her composure slipping just for a moment as the word came tumbling eagerly from her lips. She wanted to know, and he wanted to tell her. But where to begin?

"Where do I start?" he asked aloud, though he knew she would not answer him. Did he begin with his childhood in the castle, the first steps along the long and bumpy road that brought him to Singapore? Would any of that matter to her? "You must know, I loved your mother." That was the important thing, he realized. For so long Li had not known what had become of her parents, her real parents, and if she learned nothing else this day he needed her to know this, that she was born of love, and had been loved herself. "I loved her desperately. She was...she was my life, Li, and you were my joy. I have to show you…" his voice trailed off as he reached into his pocket, and withdrew an old photograph. It was the picture he had given to Patrick when the search had begun in earnest. In it Lucien was sitting, and Mei Lin was standing behind him, and Li was standing beside him, his hand broad and heavy on her shoulder. They were not smiling, but there was happiness in that photo just the same, their warmth and familiarity with one another shining through. The colors were worn and faded, and he knew that he had changed much in the intervening years - though not as much as Li - but the faces in the photograph were still impossible to deny. Li reached for it, and he watched as she gazed at it, as her hand began to tremble.

"We were happy, and our home was full of love," he told her. He did not want her to doubt that, not even for a moment. "But then the Japanese came."

And so, haltingly, he told his story. Told her of the way he had met her mother, how they had come to be wed, how the war loomed ever closer. He told her of the decision he and Mei Lin had come to, very reluctantly, to send his girls away. How he had sent Derek Alderton with them, in the hopes that having a soldier in their midst would keep them safe. How when their ship sank he himself had been battered and bleeding, wasting away in a prisoner of war camp. How he had been trapped there for three long years -

"Three years?" Li interrupted him sharply. Lucien nodded, not understanding the importance of the time frame, but then she noted his confusion and explained herself. "I was six when I left the orphanage. They kept me for two years, and then decided no one was coming for me. They told me I wasn't wanted-"

"No, qiān jīn," the old endearment came tumbling out for Lucien was too distressed to stop it. "I didn't know where you were, what had happened. I was trapped. I would have cut off my own arm to save you but I didn't know. You were always wanted. You were always loved." His voice was a choked and ragged thing but he still managed to speak the words, to tell her this most earnest truth.

For a long moment she was silent, as if she were trying to determine whether or not he was telling the truth, but then at last she urged him to continue, and so he did. He told her of how he was freed at the end of the war, told her of how he had ended his tenure with the British Army and made his way at once to Hong Kong - though he did not tell her of the work he did there, how he sustained himself for years working as an agent for the British government, for no one, not even Sir Patrick, knew their king had been a spy for another kingdom, nor would they if he had anything to say about it - how he had hired private investigators and tried every possible avenue to find his family, with no success. And then he told her of his father's death, and how he had returned to his homeland, and how with the help of his country's resources he had at last been able to locate her.

"Why didn't you go home sooner?" she asked him seriously. "It did not take your men long to find me. When you had no success yourself, why did you not turn to them for help?"

Why, indeed? The question flummoxed him, for it had never occurred to him before now that there might have been another way, that if he had only returned to his home after the war and told his father the truth he might have been able to save his child years before. Shame welled up within him, hot and sharp, and his hand trembled with the sudden want of whiskey. He could have spared them both so much grief, it had been within his power, but he had hated his father, had been so certain that his foreign wife, his foreign child would not be accepted in the castle, and he had never even tried. Li, though, Li had seen that rather obvious solution at once, and he wondered now if she would hate him for the rest of her life as a result of his own inaction.

"Forgive me, qiān jīn," he said miserably. "Perhaps I should have, but I did not. I thought I could find you, and after so many years I thought…" I thought you were dead already, and there was a part of my heart that did not want to know for certain.

"What is done cannot be undone," she told him, the same words she'd written in her letter, but when she spoke them now it felt less like an accusation than it had in print. "I was adopted by a kind family, and they treated me as their own child. In time even I forgot that I wasn't."

"And have you been happy?" he asked, for that mattered to him, a very great deal.

Through the course of their conversation some of Li's character had revealed itself, and he had found that she was not given to platitudes or emotionalism; she meant each word she said, and she kept her heart closely guarded. As he looked at her now he could see that she must have been weighing her words very carefully.

"I have been content," she answered at last. "I have a good family, and a good husband, and a good home. But always I have wondered...I have wondered about you. You were a stranger to me, a white man who abandoned his Chinese wife and child. And when they told me you were a king...I have thought unkind thoughts about you. And for that I ask your forgiveness."

"There's nothing to forgive," he answered at once, reaching his hand across the table all unthinking. "You've done nothing wrong."

And then, to his surprise and his delight, she reached out and took his hand in her own. "Neither have you," she told him.