Author's note: A huge thank you for the reviews you've left. I want to say a particular thanks to those who have reviewed but not logged-in. I message those who do and I can't do so for you so thank you. If you're reading and haven't reviewed, thanks for that too, as I'm assuming you're enjoying it. You may well be despising it but thanks nonetheless for taking time to read!

He settled back into his life and back into the palace quickly. When he was here he couldn't drink and he couldn't remain in any sort of stupor, there was no time to stupor. Two new staff members to train and the young prince heading off to college in the States kept him busy. He saw her every day, and it meant he saw the child every day too. It wasn't what he wanted but it was certainly better than nothing.

And god, was his daughter wonderful.

She was crawling now, pudgy legs jutting onto the carpet as she explored on her hands and knees. He'd jumped at the chance to watch her, while Clarisse and Rupert spoke to Pierre. He sat in the centre and watched as she crawled back and forth from him, her face pink with endeavour.

"Anna," she crawled up, her little face raised expectantly to his, "My little Anna."

She had unruly hair, still as ebony as the day she was born.

"I write letters to you every day," he smiled and she gurgled as he pulled her onto his knee, "I do."

She reached up to paw his face, her soft little hand catching on his beard.

"I do. Just for you. A list of why I love your mother, a letter about my childhood, a letter-"

The door of the nursery swung open and the nanny, only appointed when the princess was born, stood in the frame.

"Colonel Romerro," the nanny made a beeline for Anna, arms open to scoop her up.

"No," he shook his head, "I shall do it."

The nanny didn't take a step back but she clasped her hands in front of herself.

"Did you put the princes down often when they were infants?"

She hadn't yet learned that in the pecking order of the palace, the only people above Colonel Romero were the royal family. He didn't like her, though he was nothing but polite to her, and he didn't trust her.

"The youngest prince was nine, the crown prince eleven when I first arrived here," he answered, "But there were occasions when I put them to bed, even as boys."

The nanny merely nodded, "I'll take the princess now."

"Do you think I'll do her harm?" Anna fussed in his arms, aware of the tension in the air and started to gurgle her distress, "Shhh," he lifted her onto his shoulder, "Shhhh, Anna."

"Princess," the nanny muttered.

He threw her a dirty look and stood, the child still in his arms. She had calmed now, her little cheek pressed against his chest, her thumb stowed in her tiny pink mouth.

"You are the Head of Security, not the nanny."

"No, you're right," he made towards the nursery, "But the queen asked me –"

At that moment the door opened again, "Joseph, please tell me she's not-"

The queen stopped dead when she saw the nanny there too, her arms outstretched. Clarisse stood up a little straighter, all of her pregnancy weight gone in favour of the tight suit she now wore. Her look was immediately sharp and critical.

"Camille, is there a problem?"

"No, Your Majesty," the nanny dropped a polite curtsey, her arms falling to her side.

"Oh good," she came towards Joseph then, the whiff of her perfume coming before her.

It was terrible, he realised, that the scent still caught him to make his legs weak. He hadn't touched her since the baby had been born, apart from to kiss the back of her hand as he always did. But he was always paralyzed by memories and he'd stopped doing even that now. Sometimes be caught her looking at him and knew she thought about it too. Then a glaze of indifference would slide across her face and she'd smile politely and he'd have to think of Anna, because Anna was the only thing he could think about without feeling as if the world was coming apart.

She took their child from his arms and the baby giggled, a little fist coming out to touch her mother's cheek.

"You were just about to put her down?"

"Yes ma'am," both staff answered.

"Ah, Camille, I had asked the Colonel to do it tonight. Didn't I say?"

The nanny's silence was as good an answer as any.

"I quite forgot, forgive me Your Majesty."

"No harm," Clarisse answered, swinging the child gently, "But the Colonel will do it. It's important he knows the children, after all he is the one who will make sure they come to no harm."

It was said with such finesse, even to him it sounded plausible.

Isn't it important you know Joseph?" She asked the gurgling baby, "Of course it is."

Then handing Anna back to him, she smiled at the nanny.

"You may go. We'll see you in the morning."

When she was gone there was a small pause. When they were alone now it was hard to ignore the charge of something unsaid in the air. They were crumbling; he could see it every time they were together. She was ashamed to look at him and he was as equally ashamed to look at her.

"How did it go with Pierre?"

She gave a minute shrug, "I'm exhausted."

"That bad?"

"No," she shook her head and sat down, "Just…it was just…Rupert is very stressed. Pierre will continue his study of theology but he won't go to seminary, or indeed abdicate, until Phillippe is finished school in America. It's a very long, drawn out resignation I suppose."

"I see," he nodded, settling back on the floor with Anna. Her eyes drooped with the beginning of sleep, "Will Rupert stop by the nursery?"

He asked because he didn't want to see Rupert fawn over the baby. Sometimes, he thought, it was just for show. Then he convinced himself it was his own paranoia. Rupert did not, could not, know. He wouldn't have maintained the charade of loving father for so long had he known she wasn't his own. The thought curdled Joseph's innards.

He could cope with the shame, the scandal, but he didn't think he could cope with watching Clarisse's world unravel. She would never see her sons again, most likely, and she would live a life of shame and exile. He wondered, just for a bitter second, how many bastards Rupert had sired. It didn't matter though; being queen wasn't the same as being king.

"No," she rubbed a hand over her face and pulled off her jacket, "No, he won't. He has-"

She stopped short as he nodded his understanding.

Before he could say anything comforting or insulting or pleading she started again, "Let's put her down."

She let him go about organising the baby's things, her little gown and cot, the mobile above it which played lilting but tinny music at the same time. She simply stood by the window watching him and he couldn't help but watch her too, in-between settling their child.

"I write her a letter every day you know," he said softly, placing a now sleeping Anna in the cot, "I can't ever give her them but…"

"It helps," she finished for him, "I dream about you, night after night."

It was as if someone else was speaking. It was not the queen – it was the woman who had spent a weekend with him in Madrid. Her voice did not sound the same. It was the deep, lilting quality with which she'd once said his name.

"I thought it would end one day, that it would stop hurting," she kept her eyes trained on the October night outside as she continued, "But it doesn't. What do your letters say?"

"Inconsequential things," he whispered, "Mostly. Some though…some…"

The moonlight poured in through the window, coating their whispers with silver light. He wondered how it would feel to hold her again. Where he noticed she'd lost weight, he saw now she was thinner than ever. He saw now what he had done to her.

"Some?"

"Most of them tell her just why I love her mother so much," he kept his eyes focussed on their sleeping daughter.

"You should go, before you hate me," she said slowly, "Because I don't think I could handle that."

"I could never hate you Clarisse," he said softly, over the music from the mobile, "All I can do is love you."

"That has to turn to hate," she said simply, "It just has to."