Author's note: Thank you, thank you, for such positive reviews! Please keep on going and enjoying it.

Clarisse looked at the clothing laid out on the chaise in her dressing room. She was sick to the teeth of black. It was funny, but when your son died, you thought of the blandest things to be angry at. Everything made her angry. But everything felt blunt too, as if she had been a knife hacked relentlessly against stone until she was soft and chipped at the edges.

And where she had chipped she was bleeding life.

She turned from the clothes and wandered into the sitting room. It was the first moment she'd had alone in the last week, and yesterday she had visited his body lying in state at the church.

It was a horrible thing to visit your son's body, put in place so people could parade around it.

He had looked so beautiful there, not a mark on his face. He had bled, Joseph told her, from the inside out.

Just like her right now. You couldn't see it, of course, but her life was flooding out of her body.

Someone had left a tray of tea for her, a pear tart set at its side as a subtle hint that she needed to eat. She didn't want to let anything aside from prayer pass her lips.

Anna had essentially refused to leave her side but Clarisse had convinced her to go and shower, phone some friends, read a book. The girl had been her only limited pleasure in the last few days. She had fallen in love with her even more, if that were at all possible.

"Clarisse," she looked up towards the door, to find Anna and Joseph standing there.

Both were showered and casual, sweat pants and t shirts and socks.

She had always scolded Anna for wearing socks over the slick marble floors of the palace. She was shocked the girl had yet to break a leg.

"Mama," she whispered, her voice timid with something Clarisse couldn't place, "Mama, can I speak to you?"

"Of course."

Joseph stood behind the settee as Anna settled herself across from Clarisse, refusing to meet her eyes.

Clarisse knew terrible news was coming but she felt as if she were floating above it. Nothing, she imagined, could truly feel worse than here and now. Nothing could hurt more.

"Mama, I know."

There was no fanfare, no preamble or jollying around. In fact it was so blunt that for a moment she was puzzled as to what her daughter was talking about.

Then it hit her like a punch in the gut.

She sat back though and pulled the edges of her cardigan together.

"Well Anna, your timing is very poor."

Anna smiled weakly, evidently not sure how to interpret her mother's reaction. Clarisse felt fury building behind her ribs, forcing the oxygen from her lungs. She could not bear to look at Joseph.

"Mama I-"

"Am I to assume this is because you don't want to ascend the throne?"

She swallowed and nodded, "Yes mama."

Clarisse confronted the fact that her world was falling apart by moving on to plan B in her head already. Amelia. Amelia would have to do it.

"Who told you?"

At this Joseph spoke quickly, "Clarisse, I did."

Anna seemed to falter for a moment and then she turned towards her father, levelling a gaze Clarisse did not understand.

In a moment Clarisse was on her feet.

"You promised, you promised me Joseph! I cannot believe you would do this," she realised she was screaming, "You have broken me. You've broken this and us and everything!"

She was thumping his chest, her fists pounding against the hard planes of muscle. She was doing no harm but it helped her to feel like it might, for a second, break him as he had shattered her. She had never wanted to inflict harm more than she did in this moment. Oh Rupert had known, and she had known and Joseph had known but to think, to think her daughter knew was something entirely different in terms of pain.

"Why? Why did you tell her? Why did you do this, why?"

He held her wrists and she looked into his face as he used all his might to stop her, "I had to. She isn't Rupert's heir and it would be wrong."

"I will never forgive you," she turned away from him, her anger blinding her as she lifted and sent an antique side-table crashing to the ground.

"I had to-"

"It wasn't Joseph," Anna cried suddenly, pulling Clarisse back by the shoulders from a Ming vase she was about to grasp and level at him, "It wasn't him! It was Rupert! Rupert told me."

When she eventually turned to look at the man she had loved forever, she knew her daughter was not lying. His look was one of sincerity, of pleading contrition. She knew why he'd lied in an instant, yet it did not remove the sting of the revelation.

She collapsed onto the Persian rug under her feet, her legs losing all of their strength.

"I…," she clutched at her sides and felt her grief as real, physical pain, "I cannot do this. You were never supposed to know."

"Mama," Anna slid down beside her, "Rupert told me when I was eleven! I've known for so long, and I've been happy with it for so long. I, I am glad about who my father is."

Clarisse felt sobs coming faster and thicker than she could handle and the breath in her body was growing so scarce she thought she might pass out. Joseph was beside her then, grasping her shoulders.

"Why did you lie to me?" She gasped, eyes searching his.

The feeling of betrayal was acute – like a sickness she would never shake, a fractured bone that would cause her agony for the rest of her existence.

"Because he thought it would be easier for you to think I'd just learned it. I told him I didn't want him to lie but he did not listen to me," Anna was glowering at her father with a look of anger that almost mirrored his, "He is such a martyr."

"Anna," he whispered, clearly stung.

"Please," Clarisse slid away from them both and propped her back against the couch, "Please stop both of you!"

They nodded almost in tandem.

"Anna, get your mother some water," he ordered and she watched as her daughter sprung from her knees and went to the sideboard.

He fished in his pocket for his handkerchief and offered her it.

"I have failed," she whispered, "We failed."

"No we didn't," he was suddenly stern, "Look at her. If it hadn't been for her, you would not have survived this week. I would not have survived this week."

"I promised him," she shrugged, "I promised him I'd see a Renaldi on the throne. I've tried twice. And I've failed."

He stood up and offered her his hand. She took it and let him pull her up and settle her on the sofa. Stupidly, a minute ago, she had thought this couldn't get worse. Her daughter held out a glass of water and she took it, though the appeal of something more potent was incredibly strong.

"I don't have words-"

"You don't have to explain," Anna shrugged, "It is what it is. And I am at peace with that. I can't be queen, mama, because that is a lie too far. A lie you can't ask me to tell."

"I have so many questions," she found herself muttering, then she looked at Joseph, "When did she tell you?"

"Only last year," Anna interjected defensively, "I told him and it was a relief mama. I hated that everyone pretends."

"Everyone knows?"

She felt herself blanch and vomit rise in her throat. Joseph darted his hand out to press his fingers to hers in an attempt to calm her yet it only irritated her more.

"Everyone does not know," he said smoothly but she saw that he gave Anna a disgruntled look, "Our daughter simply means she knows and…and Pierre. Pierre knows. He guessed, he told Anna he guessed."

Clarisse groaned and tipped her woozy head between her legs. How demeaning it was to realise her son knew just how truly hypocritical she was. Just how stupid she had once been.

The feeling of nausea washing over her, she simply muttered, "Is there anything else either of you would like to tell me?"

"No," she could hear the nerves in her daughter's voice.

"Good," she withdrew her hand from Joseph's, "I need time. Please go."

She could tell, from their almost identical concerned faces, that this was not the reaction they had expected. If they had wanted a screaming, irate woman they had come to the wrong place.

She would be lying to say the outing of this was not a relief, but it was a relief she needed time to digest. She needed time to process it without either of them trying to soothe her.

"Cla-"

"Go," she didn't lift her head, "I need time. Surely you can both give me that."

"Clarisse-"

"Joseph!" She saw that Anna jumped at her cry and realising she'd alarmed her, tried to lower her voice, "Joseph, please."

He nodded and motioned to his daughter to go.

Anna was so like him, so calm and controlled and dominant.

When they were gone she suddenly felt bitterly angry, as if Joseph had stolen her daughter from her. It was ludicrous of course but all she knew now was insanity. It had been so much easier when she was the ringmaster of the circus but now she was as equally a performer as the rest of them.

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