8 June 1959

"Working hard?" she asked him as she came slipping into his study on silent feet. Lucien startled at the sound of her voice; he had not heard the door open, had not heard her approach, but his surprise gave way to delight in a moment. There was no surprise more lovely than this, the sight of Jean in her well-fitted navy dress, a smile upon her face and two steaming cups of tea in her hands. The afternoon had been a long one, and he was much in need of tea, and much in need of her.

"Always," he said, laughing, "though I welcome the distraction." He held out his hand to her and she came to him at once, placing the teacups on the desk before reaching out to clasp his offered hand in her own. He smiled, and lifted her hand to his lips, kissed her gently and held her tight, his heart full of joy to think that she loved him, that she was growing more confident in their connection to one another, that he might one day make her his wife. There was nothing he wanted more than that, to take her hand for all to see, to have her with him always, and never have to worry about what people might think should they be spotted together. She calmed him, soothed him, set him straight when he needed it, and she brought such hope to him as he had not felt for many a long year.

And she had, at long last, accepted him. After a fashion, for her acceptance had not come without a caveat, but he was confident he could bring Sir Patrick around to the idea of his marrying Jean and once that was done...once that was done he could hold her, whenever, wherever he wished. And for an engagement present, he thought as he looked at her, I shall give her a glasshouse, and she can grow whatever she wants inside it.

Affection made him bold and so he gave a gentle tug on her arm, and she went with him, allowed him to pull her into his lap while her arms wrapped around his neck and a silvery laugh slipped past her lips. Jean took advantage of her new proximity to press a kiss against his temple, and then she simply held him while he held her, content to be near one another in this most rare, most precious of moments.

"I have a meeting with Sir Patrick tomorrow," Lucien told her, gazing up into her beautiful face, watching her bright eyes sparkle at him, watching the furrow of her brow and the way her lips shifted as she digested this news.

"I see," she said, reaching out to fuss absently with his tie. "And will you-"

"I will tell him that I mean to marry you. And I will hear his arguments, if he has any, and I will beat them, and then I am going to see about getting you a proper ring." A grin flashed across his face at the very thought; Jean was not a particularly ostentatious sort of woman, and while he knew that eventually she would be forced to grow more accustomed to finery he had no intention of presenting her with some monumental diamond. He had in fact already procured his late mother's engagement ring from her affects; it was tasteful, though small by royal standards, delicate and lovely, and deep in his heart he knew it was the ring that Jean would want, the one that would most speak to her heart, the one she would be happiest with. It was the sort of ring, he thought, that she could wear for the rest of her life.

"I hope you aren't getting ahead of yourself," she sighed, some of her good cheer fading as she retrieved one of the teacups, and took a sip. "Sir Patrick will almost certainly be against us-"

"I have a plan, remember?" Lucien raised an eyebrow at her, the way she so often did to him when he was being foolish, and when she laughed he took advantage of her momentary distraction to seize hold of the cup she held, and steal a sip for himself.

"You're always so sure you know best," she said wryly.

"Not always," he answered truthfully, "but this time, my darling, everything is going to be all right. You'll see." He started to tell her his plan, the way he intended to bring Sir Patrick round to his way of thinking, but the sound of the door in the parlor opening had them both jumping like startled rabbits at once; Jean scrambled out of his lap and only just managed to right her dress before young Peter came shuffling in, wide-eyed and looking almost afraid.

"Begging your pardon, sir," he said, "but Sir Patrick is here and asking to speak with you at once."

That was not welcome news; they were not due to meet until the following day, and Lucien did not like the thought of a matter urgent enough to warrant the Prime Minister arriving at the castle unannounced. Jean, too, looked troubled at this revelation, though of course she did not speak; she only gathered up the teacups, refusing to meet his gaze while he slipped into his jacket.

"Is he in-"

"The counsel room, sir," Peter finished for him.

"Right, well, off I go then," Lucien said. After all, he had no other choice. And while he wanted, very much, to take Jean into his arms, to kiss her cheek and tell her once again that everything would be all right, Peter's presence made such informality unthinkable, and he was forced to depart without offering her any reassurances at all.

It was impolite to eavesdrop, and Jean knew that better than most, but she was terribly concerned by Sir Patrick's unexpected arrival, and she did not know when next she'd get a moment alone with Lucien in which to discuss whatever ill tidings the man had brought with him. The counsel room was part of a warren of offices and meeting chambers that filled the lower level of the castle, and an interior doorway connected it to an adjacent office. The office was much smaller and seldom used - its last occupant had borne the title of seneschal, that's how long it had been since last office had been assigned to anyone - but the door was not particularly thick, and if one were to sit quietly in the abandoned office near the door, one could hear most every word spoken in the counsel room. This presented a matter of national security, as it would not do for just anyone to go wandering in there, and so the office remained locked.

Only a few select members of staff had keys to that little room, and of course, the head housekeeper was one of them.

It might have been a breach of trust, was certainly an egregious overstepping of the boundaries between the government and the people who served them, but Jean was eager to hear what Sir Patrick had to say, for somewhere deep in her heart she feared it might concern her intimately. It had been over a week since she'd accepted Lucien's proposal, since the gossip of her compatriots had first come to light, and for a week she had been waiting anxiously to see which of her friends would betray her first. After all, news of Lucien's trip to China had made its way to the press - though, not mercifully, the true reason for that trip - and if those details could escape the confines of the castle it stood to reason that other, more salacious tidbits might also make their way out into the world. Even if the Prime Minister had not come to discuss her at all there was a chance Lucien might raise the issue once more pressing matters were dealt with, and she rather thought she ought to hear the impressive arguments he had so far only hinted at.

So it was that she unlocked the little office and slid inside, promptly locking the door behind her before taking up her post on the far side of the room, her ear pressed against the door that connected the office to the counsel room.

"The editor of this particular newspaper owes me a good many favors," Sir Patrick was saying, and his tone was cross indeed, "and so he has agreed not to run the story. But you must see, sir, how close we have come to calamity."

"This is madness," she heard Lucien answer, dismayed. "How could anyone say such things? It might not even be true!"

"Which part?" Sir Patrick fired back. "The part where it says you have been carrying on an illicit relationship with your housekeeper, or the part where it says she was already pregnant when she married the first time?"

A gasp escaped her, an icy fist of fear clenching suddenly, unbearably around her heart. Oh, no, she thought, so terrified that she had begun to shake from head to toe, oh, God, no, how could they have found out? How could this have happened so quickly? What are we going to do? It was her very worst nightmare, come to life right before her, but somewhere deep inside her heart a soft, angry voice whispered to her, reminded her that she should have known better, that there was a price to pay for reaching above her own means. Devastation had been hanging like an axe above her head for months now, and it would seem the killing blow was falling at last, and nothing she could do to stop it.

"This must stop, Your Majesty," Sir Patrick said then.

"I agree," Lucien growled. "I'm going to find the person who spoke to this journalist, and I am going to -"

"That's not what I was referring to," Sir Patrick cut across him sharply. "This threat has been neutralized for now. The paper will not run the story. But in the meantime, we must move Mrs. Beazley out of the castle and you must stop this ridiculous liaison before there are consequences."

Perhaps Lucien made to protest; Jean could not be sure, and then Sir Patrick was speaking again, and she was holding her breath while she listened, every fiber of her being focused on his words, shame and grief threatening to drag her under, to knock the legs out from beneath her where she stood.

"Every king has his mistress, sir, that's hardly shocking. But you must marry first, and quickly, before news of this gets out. It will be much harder to convince a noble lady to take your hand if everyone knows you've been chasing after the help."

"I mean to marry Mrs. Beazley," Lucien ground out from between clenched teeth, and the conviction in his voice offered Jean the barest thread of hope; she clung to it, desperately, praying that Lucien could find some way out of this, when she herself could not.

"That was not our agreement," Sir Patrick answered. Agreement? Jean wondered. What on earth - "You and I agreed that if your wife could not be found, or if she was found to be dead, that you would marry a lady of good breeding who could provide you with an heir to the throne. We agreed, your majesty, to secure the line of succession. We did not agree that you would marry a servant, let alone one who's likely too old to conceive already!"

As the conversation on the other side of the door played out, a good many emotions wound their way through Jean. At first had been shame, the old familiar shame at having been caught doing things she shouldn't. She'd felt it as a teenager, when she stayed out past her curfew, and again when she fell pregnant and was forced to confess to her mother, forced to marry Christopher in a hurry. She'd felt shame when she lost her first child, and again when her husband died and she could no longer keep up the farm on her own. Shame had followed her; no matter how hard she tried to do good, to be good, to be precisely where she was meant to and doing what she ought, it seemed that her heart always tripped her up, in the end, and revealed her for the brazen girl she could be, when she set her hopes on something just beyond her grasp.

After the shame had come fear, fear at the thought of losing Lucien, being cast from her home, set aside when all she wanted seemed to be just within her grasp. Fear at having been caught out, fear of what came next; she had been nearly swallowed up by fear.

But what she felt now, hearing those words from Sir Patrick, was neither shame, nor fear, nor doubt nor sorrow. It was, quite plainly, rage. Anger suffused her very being, set her hands to trembling, frustrated tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. There had been an agreement, an agreement she had known nothing about; Lucien had agreed to marry, and then set his sights on her. Had he done such a thing, as he said, because he loved her, or did he only believe he loved her because he had set his sights on marriage, and she was the first agreeable woman he'd seen? Was his haste to marry her borne of his great love of her, or his need to appease Sir Patrick?

And then, to add insult to injury, Sir Patrick had declared her too old; the words confronted her, left a sense of righteous indignation swirling through her. How dare he, she thought, her hands clenched in fists by her sides; how dare he? How dare he assume her past her prime - though she knew in her heart he was likely not far off the mark she had not yet undergone the change and perhaps a child was not entirely out of the question - how dare he insinuate she had no value if she could not bear children? As if that could be her only possible contribution to a marriage, as if without it she was of no consequence at all?

And how dare Lucien not tell her any of this? The anger built, then, as she thought about Lucien's pride, the casual way he had assured her that he had everything in hand. He most certainly did not, for what galled Jean most of all was the knowledge that Sir Patrick was right. If Li would not come home the king would need an heir, and Jean was not certain she could give him one. What then would become of their kingdom? Would Lucien arrive home in time to stave off the calamity of his cousin's succession, only to choose to put his own happiness first, to put the eventual chaos off for only another decade or two before he himself died? What would become of the country, if they lost this king without another worthy soul in line to take his place?

That stung most of all, more than anything. Sir Patrick had been thinking of future of the kingdom, while Lucien and Jean been thinking only of themselves. He is the king, she thought then. He can not afford the luxury of being a man.

"I will not sit here and listen to you speak about Mrs. Beazley this way," Lucien growled on the other side of the door, drawing Jean's attention back to that awful conversation.

"You will, if you care about what happens to your kingdom, sir," the Prime Minister answered him coolly. "You must have an heir-"

"I have an heir!"

"You, sir, have a Chinese girl who has no intention of stepping foot inside this country and who would not be accepted in any case. Parliament will not condone your marriage to your housekeeper."

"I don't need your bloody permission-"

"No, sir, you don't, but without my support, articles like this one will appear in newspapers across the country. Can you imagine what sort of thing they'd say about her, given the chance? Living beneath your roof, spending time alone in your rooms each day, and now we learn she already started one marriage in the family way? That's not to mention her son, I've set Bill Hobart to look into this Jack Beazley, and what he's found would ruin Mrs. Beazley."

The tears broke free from her then; she could not stop them. It simply wasn't fair; Jack had been a good boy once, had been her very heart, but he had gone astray. She had tried so hard, for so long, had done everything she could think of, but her darling boy had fallen into shadows. To hear Sir Patrick speak about him now, to consider even the possibility that others might do the same, might cast aspersions on him and on her for not having a more upstanding son, was too terrible to imagine. They can say whatever they like about me, she thought, but I couldn't bear to have them say such things about my children.

The terrible, heartbreaking realization of her predicament came over Jean then, sharp and fast as lightning. Lucien had no plan for this; he had not known, when this meeting began, just how great were the obstacles stacked against them. There could be no hope of success in the face of such dreadful opposition; the only dignified course, she was beginning to see, would be retreat. The only way to spare herself the shame, to spare her sons the public scrutiny, to secure an heir to the throne and in so doing secure the nation's future, would be for her to leave, and never see the man she loved again. What could love hope to accomplish, in the face of such overwhelming facts? Her love of him could not change their circumstances; he was the king, and his duty lay with his people, and not his heart. She had told him so, once, had whispered to him that time and planning would not change who they were, but proud and haughty and unused to failure as he was Lucien had barreled onward.

No more, she thought sadly. I have to protect him. Lucien would not back down, she knew, but Jean was beginning to see there was no other choice. If he could not save himself, she would do it for him.

"You don't need our permission," Sir Patrick said, casting one final blow, "but by law the king must be married in the church, and after a few months of stories like that one you might find it difficult to locate a priest willing to officiate."

"I swear, Patrick, I love that woman, and I have made my choice. I will marry her, or I will abdicate the throne."

Jean stepped away from the door, then, and scrubbed her hands across her tear-stained cheeks. There was no need for her to hear more; she had made up her mind, and Lucien's final declaration only strengthened her resolve. If he was determined to throw the kingdom away for her sake the only course of action available to her would be to run. To allow him to do such a thing was unthinkable; her love was not worth the price of damning the country to the king's cousin Edward, to a Nazi sympathizer and a brute. The king must remain on his throne, and she could not let him throw it away for her sake.

It will go easier for him, if I'm gone, she thought as she drew in a deep breath, as she squared her shoulders and slipped silently from the office. He will forget this love, in time. Men always do. And then he can marry the Lady Ann, and he can have his heir, and the kingdom will be safe.

It was not the first time Jean had resolved to leave the castle, and she had plans still in place, plans she could put into motion. It would be perhaps the hardest thing she'd ever done, to leave her home and her heart behind her, to tear herself away from the promise of joy for the sake of pragmatic reality, but there was no other choice. The end has come, she thought, drifting up the stairs towards her room silent as a ghost. And I must face it.