I'm used to thanking NoPondInTheForest for all her help with beta-ing my chapters, but today I'm not only going to thank her - I'm also going to send her the biggest hug ever given. Thank you for always being there for me, my dear!

"Well, I must admit this has been a most delightful evening, Lord Boeshane," said Queen Elizabeth as they walked along one of the sumptuous corridors inside Whitehall Palace.

In her forty-two-year reign, the evening entertainment provided at Court had never gone past midnight. If it quite unprecedentedly happened that day, it was because of the ravishing impression Captain Jack Harkness had made on every single person that had met him. Armed with his personal magnetism, his lute, and an excellent choice of easy listenings, not only had he enraptured the Queen herself, he had also enthralled her ambassadors, her government officials, and her courtiers, male or female, and many a foreign spy would have willingly shared the most priceless state secrets of their beloved countries with him had he but made the unpardonable mistake of directing a simple glance or a smile in their direction.

"Indeed it has, Your Majesty," answered Jack, trying his best to sound drunk, which he most definitely was not. "It breaks my heart to see the party's over so soon."

"So soon, my Lord? It's long past three in the morning!" she answered as she hooked her arm around his. As a matter of fact, she had spent the day literally refusing to let go of his arm, only agreeing to be parted with it when entertainment was to be provided after supper. Even then, she hadn't let him out of her sight nor let others get too close to him, and when the curtain came down, she demanded he be returned to her immediately, given that, at that point, she was walking with considerable difficulty. After all, could there have been a better way to celebrate such memorable evening than by having a glass of wine too many? Possibly two? Or maybe three?

"The ticking of the clock makes no difference when one has been captivated by everything and everyone around him, my dear," said Jack, rather pompously, before adding, winking at her, "especially by a certain enchanting little Queen."

"Those last few words you've said have just saved your life, Lord Boeshane," she said, pointing her forefinger at him. "The previous ones had felt so much like a thousand daggers being plunged into my poor heart, that I almost felt like having you beheaded at sunrise when you said them."

"Then I couldn't have been any more disappointed, my dear."

"And why would you have been so, my Lord?" she asked, perhaps a little bit louder than necessary.

"Don't take me wrong, my sweet! I've spent the whole day waiting for the moment when you would finally have the condescension of killing me, but not that way." Jack came to a halt and forced Queen Elizabeth to do the same. He turned to her and sofly caressed her powdered skin with the back of his hand. "Were you to agree to be mine, my lovely little Queen, I would stop the hands of time with nothing but my own bare ones."

Queen Elizabeth opened her mouth as Jack passed his thumb over her lips and managed to bite it before he had time to remove it.

"And who said the soirée is already over, my beautiful man, when the best is yet to come?" she asked after releasing his finger, then she kept staring at him with unreserved desire.

"I wasn't expecting any less of you, my dear," said Jack with a seductive smirk.

That was all Captain Jack Harkness had time to say before a most unfortunate incident happened. Inebriated and febrile, Queen Elizabeth had removed her arm from his with the daring intention of letting her hand rest on a certain place beyond his lower back, but unfortunately she started to lose her balance. In an attempt to avoid the inevitable, she clang to Jack's cloak so desperately that in the end she took him down with her. In the end she fell flat on her face and made Jack fall right on top of her. After the fall, however, they remained on the ground for a while, Jack's trunk on top of her back, and laughing out loud in a childish manner.

Elizabeth's ladies-in-waiting, who had been walking behind Jack and her along the corridor for all that time, ran to the rescue. They did not, however, run to their Queen's rescue. They undertook the infinitely more pleasant task of helping Lord Boeshane get back to his feet instead. There had been no end to the six ladies' melting down whenever Jack had been around that day. Now that the Queen was sufficiently distracted by her own outbursts of laughter, the blatant desire with which those young women kept staring at Jack made it quite obvious to see how far they would be willing to go if they could only have the chance.

Jack felt delighted, of course. For a moment he saw himself as young Jonathan Harker trapped in Count Dracula's castle and being chased by his lascivious vampire princesses. He had been to many worlds indeed, but this was definitely out of any of them.

All the fantasizing came to an unexpected end when Lady Caroline, the youngest of the six ladies, took her hand to her throat, fear written all over her face. Then she pointed at her Queen, and staring at the other maids, she shouted.

"Your Majesty!? Are you in pain, madam? Do you feel unwell?"

The five other maids were naïve enough to rush to assist their Queen, not knowing that, in doing so, they were actually giving Lady Caroline the chance to do what she had been planning to do from the moment the handsome Lord Boeshane had got back on his feet. As soon as none of the other girls was paying attention to anyone who wasn't the Queen Elizabeth herself anymore, she turned to Jack and grabbed him by the shoulders, then buried her hands in his hair and pulled his head against hers, kissing him with such passion that they were both absolutely breathless and flushed when she finally separated her mouth from his.

"Leave me alone, you silly girls!" the Queen shouted behind them. "Leave us alone! You can go to your chambers now! I won't need you tonight. Lord Boeshane is taking care of me."

So it was now or never, Lady Caroline thought.

"She will not be awake for long, my Lord," she whispered in Jack's ear. She then kissed his neck intently before she went on. "Meet me at the stables, sir, and I promise you this will be a night you shall never forget. I'll be waiting for you."

After that, Lady Caroline sluggishly joined the other ladies-in-waiting. She did it in time to take her leave with them, as was customary, by bowing in front of the Queen and taking a few steps backwards.

Once the six women were gone, Jack took Elizabeth's hand in his. They walked slowly, holding each other's gaze, until they got to the end of the long corridor. Then they stopped in front of two enormous ornate doors which were opened from the inside, revealing a room which reminded him very much of the corridor they had just left behind, its walls also covered with flamboyant panels, tapestries, and paintings. In seeing the low seat right in the centre of the room, Jack realized they had just entered one of her private chambers.

The two guards that had been inside that room had not held the doors open for long when Queen Elizabeth dismissed them for the night, as she had just done with her ladies-in-waiting.

"A thousand eyes see all I do all the time, my love," she said, turning to him. "Not tonight, though."

Immediately after saying those words, Queen Elizabeth put her arms around Jack's waist and let herself rest on him, to which Jack responded by pretending to be drunk enough to lose his balance, and therefore, letting himself be cornered by the her. Then she pressed his body against his and, sliding a hand behind his back, squeezed that part of his anatomy on which she had been yearning to put her hands since really early that morning.

"Shall I pour you a glass of wine, my dear?" was all Jack could come up with at that point to prevent things from happening faster than they should.

"Do you think we should have more wine, my lord?" she asked impatiently as she squeezed harder, her black teeth now dangerously close to Jack's mouth.

"Well, my dear, there's this saying in the Boeshane Peninsula," he said, carefully freeing himself from her and walking to the opposite corner of the room, where a jar of wine and several glasses could be seen on top of a table. "It goes, the more wine you drink before, the broader your smile will be when you wake up the next morning."

"I would have thought I'd had enough wine tonight, my dear," she replied with a yawn. "But come to think of it, having a bit more might make me even more reckless, and being here alone with you, Lord Boeshane, I want to be as reckless as I possibly can," she added, narrowing her eyes as she started to rub her neck.

"Then drink you shall, my dear," said Jack from the other side of the room, his back still turned to her, "'cause I wouldn't miss that for the world!"

"Will you keep calling me Vilja when we find ourselves in a more intimate manner, my dear?" Elizabeth asked, marking those last words. "I must confess I rather like it."

She was visibly tired by now, but determined to hold on against all odds.

'I'll do anything you want me to, my dear', he answered upon coming back to her and putting a glass of wine in her hand.

"Well, if you will be calling me Vilja, what shall I be calling you?"

"Whatever you want, my lovely Queen."

"Why don't you tell me your name, for starters?" she asked, yawning again.

"My name?" asked Jack, surprised.

"Yes, my lord, your true name." Elizabeth took a long sip of her drink before she continued. "I know you call yourself Lord Boeshane of the Boeshane Peninsula, but what is your real name?"

It had been so long since the last time he had been called by his real name that he suddenly felt quite surprised he hadn't forgotten it yet.

Many names came bursting to his head and all them for obvious reasons, but there was a particular one that seemed to be stronger than all the others.

"Ianto," Jack finally said.

"I'm sorry, my love?"

"Ianto," he repeated. "My name's Ianto, my lady." His gaze suddenly became inexpressive, his countenance unfathomable, and his voice throbbing.

"But Ianto is a very sad name, my love," Elizabeth said, "and you are anything but sad, my dear! I shan't call you that, my sweet. I shall find a more suitable name for you, if you will just but grant me the time to choose one. Do you know I mostly give puppy names to my lovers?"

Wait a minute, Jack thought. Had she said 'lovers'? Had the the Virgin Queen actually used the word 'lovers'?

"Puppy names, my dear?" was all Jack could ask.

"Puppy names, yes," she managed to say, then went on between yawns and giggles. "It's not that I disliked their real names, of course I didn't! But then I went and married the man who had the most stupid name of them all, would you believe that? I don't know why I worry about names so much, anyway. After all, what's in a name?"

By now, Jack was all astonishment. Not only had she said lovers. She had even said she was married.

"I see you like the works of William Shakespeare, my dear," said Jack, smiling as a way to hide his frustration at not being able to ask what he really wanted.

"Oh, my sweet darling! Since we're on the subject of names, I guess that now I should tell you that you probably mean the works of Edward de Vere. Oops!" she said faking surprise before she took another sip from her glass. "Oh dear! Look what I just did! I have certainly had too much to drink tonight, Lord Boeshane!"

Jack froze. He had certainly recognised that name this time.

"Excuse me?" he asked, casually. "What did you say? Edward de What?"

"De Vere, my love," she replied. "I should not have told you anything about that, my love. It is supposed to be the greatest secret in my kingdom. However, as I always say whenever the question is asked, what's the point in denying what cannot be denied?"

"Are you sure about that?"

"Am I sure about that? But of course, my darling! I may be a little drunk, my love, but I know what I'm saying. It needn't be a secret if you are going to remain at court, my beautiful blue-eyed creature. There's no William Shakespeare. There's never been a William Shakespeare. Well, there is, but he's no playwright. He's just a stage actor, and may I add, a rather mediocre one. Edward de Vere, on the other hand, is, in my humble opinion, the most gifted man who ever lived! I first met him a very long time ago, when he was still a child and I had just been…"

At this point, Jack realised how the features of the woman who until then had been nothing but flirty and giggly had become those of an old sad little lady, which made him want nothing more than to continue to listen to the story that had but started to be told. Hence, it was really disappointing when the Queen's yawns suddenly became unruly. "Oh, what a funny thing, my dear! I suddenly feel this tremendous need to sleep…" And so, she yawned… "Ha ha! Well… Where was I? Oh! Edward! Edward de Vere was born in…" …and yawned… "He was born… Edward… He was born here…" …and yawned… "Here at Court when…"

Well, he honestly didn't have the right to be cross, did he? After all, this was all his doing.

Sitting on the carpeted floor next to the Queen's seat, Jack had watched and listened as her words started to be interrupted by her continuous yawns and the irrepressible falling of her eyelids. Elizabeth didn't realise when she dropped her glass of wine, but no noise could have startled her at all as Jack grabbed it immediately. The combination of all the wine she had been drinking and the tiny little capsule he had managed to put into this new glass had had definitely accelerated the process and she had eventually gone to sleep. As he had always intended, before she entered her own bed chamber.

Only under those circumstances did Captain Jack Harkness dare go into that room. He approached the Queen's four-poster bed and spent a while making a mess of the linen sheets, the blankets, the covers and the pillows, then went back into the adjoining room and, taking Elizabeth in his arms, he got her into her bed chamber and put her on her bed. Then he proceeded to loosen her clothes only as much as was strictly necessary for her to need no persuading that something physical had definitely happened between them that night.

Having reached the door once everything was finally in place, Jack turned around and took another look at the sleeping old lady.

"Good night, sweet Queen," he said softly. "And may my enhanced amnesia pills make you believe this has been a night to remember when you wake up in the morning."

And then he headed for the stables in search of Lady Caroline.

"I swear to you, my Lord, we were all there while she argued with Lord Cecil when he came back in the evening!"

Lady Caroline had not drunk a single drop that night – not until the moment Lord Boeshane had appeared at the stables carrying a glass of wine that he took to her mouth himself the very instant she had sat on his lap.

"And what did she say?" asked Jack, seductive mode on, massaging the back of her neck with one hand while letting her dark hair loose with the other.

"She spoke to him in a most indelicate manner, sir!" The things Lord Boeshane was doing with his big and agile hands were highly distracting, but even so, she made an effort and continued with her narrative of the events that had taken place earlier. "She came really close to him and shouted that it was her and not him who decided who was and who was not invited to spend a night or as many nights as she pleased in any of her palaces. And that she said that you should remain in Whitehall Place for as long as she wanted you to. Then Lord Cecil tried to reason with her and started to explain that there are more than a thousand guests at court at present, therefore there are no chambers left, not even to house one more guest. That was when she said he needn't worry about that because your chambers had already been taken care of. And she meant her own chambers, sir! What would she say now if she knew you are spending the night with me? Ha ha! You wouldn't believe how much she hates me!"

"I can well imagine, my little shameless creature." Her black hair being loose now, Jack raised a hand to her chin and turned her face to his. "A beautiful young girl like you? I'm sure I'm not the first of the Queen's suitors whose eyes have turned to you as soon as you've appeared in the room… She must be green with envy! I would send you to the Tower straight away if I was her!"

"I would not be the first lady-in-waiting to be sent to the Tower for doing what I am doing right now, my love."

"Mmmmm," Jack whispered, letting his head rest on the crook of her shoulder, his lips softly brushing her neck. "Then I'll make sure this is worth the risk, my dear."

"Anyway," Lady Caroline said after a nervous giggle, "the single mention of the Tower gives everyone the shivers these days, Lord Boeshane."

Then she turned her head to his, and pulling his head towards hers, she bit his lower lip.

"Ouch!" Jack moaned, then softly pushed her away from him and smiled. "And why is that, my sweet?"

She was beautiful indeed, Lady Caroline. But for once, he was not in the mood for romance – he had come here on a mission.

"People say there are ghosts in the Tower, my Lord. The Queen, however, is not afraid of ghosts, and preparations for the Big Day have not been cancelled."

The Big Day, huh? Interesting.

"And what event is that, my young ivory goddess?" he asked, planting a quick kiss on her lips.

"Don't you know, Lord Boeshane?" she asked in turn before she bit his chin.

"I promise you I do not."

"Oh," she said, rather sadly. "I'm afraid I cannot tell you, my lord, unless you give me something in return. Otherwise, it would not be fair."

"Oh no!" answered Jack, taking the back of his hand to his forehead in the style of a drama queen. "I wouldn't want any of my dealings with you, my lady, to be unfair… Let me think… What could I do to? Oh yes! There! I got it! I think I have just figured out the best way to repay you."

"And what is it, my Lord?"

"I'll help you get rid of your dress."

"And do you think I need your help to do that, my Lord?"

"I'm sure you don't, my sweet, you're an intelligent little creature, but you can't deny the fact that, with my help, you could do it much faster," he replied with a smirk.

A broad smile indicated that Lady Caroline had found Lord Boeshane's offer to her satisfaction, so she carried on with her narrative.

"Well, I had assumed that you knew, my Lord, and that that was the reason why you were here. It's all everyone is talking about at court these days. Not today, though. Today they were all talking about you. Before you arrived, I mean. An execution will be taking place in the Tower on Friday morning. That's what the Big Day is about and that's why the Queen's here at Whitehall Palace right now. She's never here this time of the year, but so many guests have been invited to this particular execution that only Whitehall Palace offered as many rooms as were needed to accommodate them all."

"And who is being beheaded, my dear?"

"Nobody really knows, my Lord, except for the Queen, of course, and probably Lord Cecil, but rumour has it it's the Queen's wedded husband."

"What?" asked Jack, quite surprised by Lady Caroline's revelation.

"Yes, my Lord. The Queen never speaks about him, but it's always been said that she was married once, and that her husband abandoned her."

At last, he was getting to something... Still, Jack found it hard to believe that the reason why the Doctors were there could just be the venomous revenge of a spiteful wife. The question was, who was the Queen's husband? And most importantly, what did it all have to do with the Doctor?

Jack took the glass of wine to Lady Caroline's mouth again. "Why don't you take another sip of wine, and then let me bite your lip? I think it's high time I gave you the prize you deserve."

Jack had taken the precaution of leaving a sedated Lady Caroline sleeping in her own bed before finding a discreet way out of Whitehall Palace and venturing the early morning streets of seventeenth century London in search for the Doctors and Clara. He had absolutely no clue where they might be at the time, but Lady Caroline's words had proved quite revealing, and if he knew the Doctor well, he knew that, regardless of his incarnation, he would be found wherever there was bound to be trouble. He had no doubt, therefore, that the two Time Lords and their companion would eventually end up in the Tower of London.

His footsteps were leading him to the north, but he had merely walked a few metres when he saw a figure that looked quite familiar even if it was just a tiny human silhouette in the distance. As it gradually came closer, Jack seemed to notice a hint of something that looked pretty much like contempt on the man's face the moment he recognised him.

Edward de Vere was no fool. He had realised that when he met him the day before, before finding out he was the man who had in fact written the works of William Shakespeare, and such knowledge was now clearly playing to Jack's disadvantage. Here he was, walking out of Whitehall Palace scarcely twenty-fours after having accidentally met him by the lake in St James's Park. He had been half naked, as usual. They had started a conversation, but they hadn't been talking for long before he was summoned by one of the Queen's servants. On top of all that, the Queen had happened to cancel each and every single one of her duties for the day.

Connecting all those events was something that someone with the ability to put two and two together could have done easily. Any ordinary human could have easily jumped to the right conclusion. And Edward de Vere, he had found out, happened to be a genius.

"Good morning, sir," said Jack with a bow when he was just a few metres away from the Earl of Oxford.

The newcomer stopped right in front of him and bowed as well, but when he finally spoke, Jack could tell he'd rather had not and that he was determined to let him know.

"The unparalleled education I received as a child, sir, leaves me no choice but to wish you a good morning in return. And yet I must confess I feel extremely pleased to see that you taking your leave this very instant. I presume Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth I shall have a few minutes of her time to spare for her subjects today, and that she shall most assuredly be no longer indisposed?"

"Well, I wouldn't be so sure about that, sir," replied Jack, grinning.

"That was a rhetorical question, sir," Edward replied, not wanting to hold his anger back anymore, "so it was never meant to be graced with a reply. Good day to you, Lord Consort-Would-Be. I have no words to waste on conversation with opportunists."

"Oh, this is just too good to be true!" an enthusiastic Jack said. "William Shakespeare has actually run out of words when talking to me? Oh, wow! Wait till I tell my friends!"

Jack's amusement could be read all over his face, but so could Edward's disbelief and rage. However, he didn't give the astonished man any time to react after admitting that he knew his secret. He simply got close to him, put his hands on his shoulders, and kissed him fiercely.

Jack had been expected Edward to reject him, maybe even to punch him out of pride and fury, but he hadn't cared. What truly happened, however, was that Edward put his hands on Jack's head and pulled it towards his, the way Lady Caroline had done not long before, thus allowing his kiss to get deeper and participating in it with anxious desire.

Unfortunately for the former Time Agent and the secret genius playwright, an actual conversation concerning the importance and significance of such a mutually burning experience would have to wait until much later. An unexpected flashing white light brought their rapture to an end, especially when they saw it materialise into a real human being.

"Wow, Captain, you don't waste any time, do you?" they both heard a female voice say.

Technically, they had already stopped kissing, but Jack and Edward still had not separated their mouths, so they kept facing each other while slightly moving both their heads to the side, foreheads glued, an eye wide open, the other completely shut. It was only when Jack recognised the person in front of them that he finally separated his mouth from the Earl of Oxford's.

Under the circumstances, there was only one question that could possibly be asked.

"Miss Clara Oswald," he said, sounding genuinely surprised, "what on earth are you doing here?"