Author's note: Thank you so much for your reviews, kindness, patience, criticism etc. This is the end of Part 2 but there is still lots more to come. Thank you again.

It was seamless really, the transition from alive to dead. He seemed to be dying in front of her. Magda had told her to be strong and to be decent. It was good advice but right now, it was hard to be all of those things in the face of the king.

"Anna…"

He pulled the mask away from his sallow face and gulped, like a fish, for air. Despite how much she didn't like him at times, she pitied him then.

"Put the mask back on father."

Old habits died hard for her and she had respect for him and for the lie her life had been built on.

"You are a good young woman," he sat forward, a cough gurgling wetly from his chest and echoing around the room.

"I don't know that I am," she shook her head, sat further back in the chair.

"Anna, I want to apologise."

She was shocked then. Rupert Renaldi was not very well known for his urge to repent. Well, not for genuine repentance anyway. He had repented often enough for his infidelities and humiliations to which he subjected his entire family but he'd not really meant it.

"I really want to apologise to you."

Perhaps he meant it now.

"Let me speak," he asked softly, "Then you can ask anything you wish to."

She nodded silently.

"I am sorry, Anna, that I told you what I did. Despite the fact it was true, I regretted it the moment it left my mouth."

She had to force a cruel retort back into silence.

"I knew, the moment I told you, what I had done. I should have gone then and fixed it and instead I marooned you. You could never have gone to your mother or Joseph. I very much couldn't bear to look at you after that, not because of what you were a product of, but because you were so miserable as a result of me. I left a little girl, who had no coping mechanism, to deal with the worst news in the world."

She nodded silently, aware he had thought this out. While it was polished and considered, it didn't lack warmth or genuine remorse. To say she was relieved would be an understatement.

"So I am sorry. There is so much more I could apologise for, Anna, but you're far cleverer than me. You pointed that out to me just before I sent you to finishing school. So I give you permission to hold any grudge against me now, and I ask for your absolution too."

That heated exchange from nearly a year ago came flooding back to her and she grew warm with embarrassment.

"I am sor-"

"Don't," he waived his hand, "You were right to point out to me what I had done. I wasn't ready to hear it yet. Dying certainly forces you to gain perspective."

She nodded.

There was silence then, punctured only by his rasping breaths, as she tried to calculate her next question.

"Why did you let them lie to you?"

He seemed surprised by her train of thought and was silent.

"You swore you would-"

He held up his hand, "I know I did and I am as good as my word."

"That is not promising."

He rewarded her sarcasm with a dark smile. It occurred to her, then, just how potent a catalyst death could be. The old Rupert would have been furious at her barb.

"He pressed the mask to his face and she waited for his answer, "Because I owed her it."

She was puzzled and her face obviously showed that.

"I owed her it. You know, you once pointed out to me, that I was not a good husband. I saw it between her and Joseph long before I was willing to do anything about it. It vindicated me a little, I think, sometimes. I thought that if she was as weak as me it was easier for me to justify my infidelity. And I was such a coward, Anna, I was. I saw it and I could have loved her and I didn't want to. I let it go unchecked because it suited me."

She nodded, trying to fathom the complexities of the three adults who had been so intimately woven into the tapestry of her life.

"I figured you weren't mine early on. God knows, Clarisse had never willingly came to my bed."

She shook her head, signalling to him that was quite enough. He shrugged and smiled crookedly.

"But I had put her through so much and I didn't deserve to strip her of her dignity. At any rate, she was a brilliant queen. It was my fault she had fallen in love with Joseph in the first place. But sometimes it was too much to bear; you were too much to bear. You reminded me of how much I'd broken, how much I'd destroyed. And she was so wonderful through all of it. What right did I have to humiliate her? There were times when I was angry, times when I was jealous, but there was never a time when I could have done that to her. She think she's the only one who suffered; what I did to her, my best friend, has been my worst punishment of all."

It wasn't until the tears were sliding down her face that she realised she was sobbing.

"Anna, I love your mother in my own way but not in the way any woman wants to be loved," his voice shook with effort, "And you were a sparkling reminder of that. Sometimes my own guilt got the better of me."

She swiped at her eyes with the sleeve of her zipper, "What about Joe?"

His face darkened a little and he shook his head.

"He's a good man," he said simply, "And she loves him. I can't blame him. Even though, at times, I wanted to. I am to blame."

She shook her head, "I don't think any of you are. Shitty circumstances."

This had become her new mantra.

"I'd be proud to have you as my daughter, you know."

She nodded then and, in a move unprecedented between them, she crawled up beside him on the bed.

"Anna, I am sorry."

"Why is it that people spend all of their time apologising? Life is complex, if anything, being a Renaldi has taught me that."

After an hour or so of lying there, silent and contemplative, he'd fallen into a slumber that she knew was induced by the morphine the surgeons had been administering more and more regularly. She slipped out of his chambers, past the guards who smiled and welcomed her home, and went in search of her father. She found him in his office, writing up the log of the day.

She stopped in front of his desk, "I think he is dying."

He looked up at her, his face sad with recognition.

"I think so Anna."

She sat down on the seat in front of his desk and watched as he slid the book to the side and shut down his computer. He was making a point of showing her she had his full attention.

"Do you want to speak about it?"

She considered his offer for a second, "No, not really."

"Alright," he nodded then reaching forward, touched his fingers to hers.

"Why don't you find your mother? She might need you right now."

She nodded then and reaching over, squeezed him as tightly as she could.

She was waylaid on her way to her mother's chambers by her brother who was sitting, in the recess of a window, reading.

"Such an introvert," she muttered, flicking the page irritatingly.

"One was under the impression finishing school would have bred annoyance out of you."

"Don't be silly Pierre, I didn't last long at finishing school. Thankfully I have you to pray for mercy on my black soul."

He shook his head, "I don't want to know."

He moved over and motioned to the seat beside him. They were pressed shoulder to shoulder in the small space but it gave her comfort. She examined her brother for a second and noticed that he looked older than he had last time. The age gap was considerable, of course, but she'd never noticed it properly before.

"I'm a reformed character now though," she leaned her head on his shoulder.

"I highly doubt that," he ruffled her hair, "Are you okay?"

"Are you?" She countered.

"Yes," he nodded, "This is what happens in life."

She nodded, "Even though he's not my…it's still sore."

He simply smiled at her, not at all shocked or appalled by her admission. Instead he looked pleasantly curious. She didn't know why now felt like the right time to explore this unspoken understanding between them but acknowledging it was certainly a relief.

"How long have you known he is not your father?"

"A long time," she shrugged, "But it's mattering less and less."

"You will always be my sister," he said gently, "You know that?"

"Yes," she put her head back down.

Pierre could always be counted on for quiet revelation. She wondered how long he had known.

There were too many questions now but she didn't feel able to ask. It was funny, she thought for a moment, that she had been the only person in her own life who hadn't know this secret.

"This is a peaceful sight," the sing-song voice of their mother broke the silence, accompanied by the clacking of her heels.

"Just reflecting," Pierre said softly.

She looked at her mother properly since the first time she'd come home. Her mother was still appallingly youthful looking but she had started to age. It was evident in the softening of her middle and the dullness of her skin. And there was such tiredness in her face but such happiness too.

"I didn't really hug you, properly, when I came home."

Anna stood up and didn't give her mother the chance to do that thing she did where she stepped back, so the hug was merely perfunctory. She wouldn't let her say 'ha' and then brush her hands over her lapels to wipe the hug away.

She was stiff at first – it had been so long since Anna had properly embraced her mother, not just literally but in every other way too – but she relaxed into it.

"I missed you so much my Anna, my baby."

And Anna was sobbing again.

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