A/N: Hello everyone, I just want to say a quick thank you to you all for reading the latest chapter of this story (and all previous chapters if you've just discovered it) and an even bigger thank you to OliviaBond, bee-327, Guest, Guest, Chelsietx and DW.618 for taking the time to leave me such wonderful reviews on chapter 9. Sorry it didn't go the way you hoped, but thank you all so very much, I really do appreciate them all and your continued support! It means the world. Thank you.

Now, here's the next chapter for you all…


Hurrying into her suite, Clarisse frantically kicked off her shoes beside the sofa and walked over to the drink's cabinet, to pour herself a shot of scotch, and pressing a hand up on her chest, she held the glass up in front of her with her other hand. Simply staring at the contents of the glass a moment before raising it to her lips and downing it in one. Setting the glass back down, she pressed her hand now to her stomach and closed her eyes as she grimaced at the burning sensation it caused to the back of her mouth and her throat.

It wasn't her usual tipple, scotch, but she was in need of something much, much stronger than wine or her preferred champagne tonight. Especially after the way she had left Joseph in his suite. It wasn't that she didn't want to be with him because, as she discovered this evening, she did. Oh, she did, so very much so. But because she couldn't give him what he so longed for, she wanted to give him the chance, the opportunity, to find someone who could give him just that.

"Clarisse?" Béatrice said softly from the doorway and watched as her daughter turned her head to look over at her before raising her hand from her chest and holding the back of her hand against her mouth, she broke down. "Oh my dear, it's okay. I'm here," she said, quickly closing the door behind her and hurrying over to her. "My dear, dear Clarisse, tell me why are you so upset?"

"He asked me to marry him," Clarisse cried on her mothers shoulder and closed her eyes as Béatrice wrapped her arms wrapped around her, comforting her.

"Who asked you to marry them?" Béatrice asked while smoothing one hand up and down the top of her back. "That Lord guy?"

"Oh god, no, not him," Clarisse exclaimed and shook her head as she pulled back to look at her mother. "It was Joseph. Joseph asked me to marry him right before he confessed his love for me."

"Oh, my," Béatrice replied as she turned her head to one side, scanning the room for the box of tissues, before turning to look the other side when she spotted the box on the coffee table. "Come," she said softly while taking hold of one of Clarisse's hands gently in hers, "come sit down and tell me everything."

Brushing her tears away from her cheek with her free hand, Clarisse allowed her mother to lead her over to the sofa, where they both sat down before Béatrice reached forward for the box of tissues from the coffee table. "Thank you," Clarisse said tearfully as she pulled a tissue from the box that her mother held out to her and gently dabbed her eyes and along her cheeks with it.

"You're welcome, dear," Béatrice nodded and set the box back down on the coffee table before looking back up at her. Watching her a moment as she looked down at the tissue she now held in both of her hands resting together in her lap. "Now, tell me what happened," she said, reaching one hand out onto her daughters knee.

Taking a deep breath, Clarisse looked up at her mother. "After a disastrous dinner with Lord Durand, Joseph and I were talking down in the kitchen about how he didn't tick any of the boxes and how he wasn't the right person for me and the boys, when I finally got enough courage to ask if he would be willing to help in becoming my husband, but he completely threw me by asking me to marry him instead. I was so shocked that I actually thought he was joking. But then he told me that he loved me and that he had done for a long time," she said, studying her mother sitting on the sofa next to her. "But you already knew that, didn't you? Going from what you said to me down in the foyer before my dinner with Lord Durand."

"I had my suspicions that he did, yes," Béatrice admitted and nodded. "I have seen the way he looks at you when he thinks no one is looking. He has that same look in his eyes that your father had whenever I caught him watching me," she said, smiling a little at the memory. At how her husband used to look longingly at her. "He was a man in love, just like Joseph."

"But how did I not see it all these years?" Clarisse asked sadly and looked back down at her hands together in her lap. "How did I not know that he loved me when it's so obvious now?"

"Because, dear, he's your best friend and has been ever since you were children. You have loved him as a friend all these years, it would never have crossed your mind, unless otherwise told, that there might be more there than just friendship," Béatrice said softly as she reached her hand up from Clarisse's knee and placed it on top of her daughter's hands in her lap. "And I suspect that the feeling is mutual?"

Looking up now, Clarisse studied her mother a moment before breaking down again. "Yes, it is. I realised tonight, after his confession, that I love him too," she nodded and raised her hands to cover her face as she cried.

"I thought as much," Béatrice said softly and shuffled along the sofa, so she was now sitting right beside her and wrapped her arm around her back. To comfort her as she cried on her shoulder. "I am, however, struggling to understand why you are so upset? I thought finding out that he loved you and wanted to marry you, especially right now, given the circumstances, would be a good thing?"

"Because," Clarisse sniffled, rubbing her nose with the tissue as her head remained on her mother's shoulder, "we can't be together."

"Why can't you?" Béatrice asked and watched her lift her head to look up at her. "If you both love one another, what's stopping you? At least you'll be married to someone you actually love, my dear, instead of one of those other men that you picked out earlier today?"

"But he doesn't have a title,"

"Oh tush," Béatrice exclaimed, interrupting her daughter and reaching out for her daughter's hands. "To hell with all that, my dear, you're a Queen, you can marry anyone you wish. Yes, it's considered proper to marry someone of nobility, someone with a title, but not if you're not going to be happy. And if Joseph is going to make you happy, and I suspect that he will make you very happy, then please go and grab life by the horns and marry him. After all, you can not help who you fall in love with."

"But I can't give him what he longs for mother," Clarisse said, chewing on her bottom lip as she looked down at their hands.

"What do you mean?" Béatrice asked as she studied her daughter.

But before Clarisse had a chance to answer her mother, there was a knock on her suite door. "That'll be him," Clarisse said quietly as she and her mother turned their heads to glance over the back of the sofa at the door before looking back at each other, "he can't see me like this. I'm a mess."

"Just a minute," Béatrice called out to whoever was at the door before leaning closer to her daughter and whispering. "Quick, go into your bedroom, and I'll tell him that you have gone to bed."

"Oh, thank you, mother," Clarisse said as they both got to their feet and she leant closer to kiss her cheek before hurrying across the room, to hide in her bedroom.

Making her way around the sofa, Béatrice pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders and checked to make sure that the coast was clear before turning to the door and opening it. "Oh, it's only you," she said, feeling relieved when she saw that it was her two grandson's standing there at the door and not Joseph. "What are you both still doing up? It's late."

"We came to see if mother was back from her dinner with Lord Durand yet," Pierre said as he and his brother entered the room.

"She is back, yes, but she's a little upset right now," Béatrice said as she followed her grandson's into the middle of the room, completely forgetting about the door being open. "Clarisse, my dear, you can come out. It's only Pierre and Philippe."

Looking over at their mother's bedroom door as it opened, Pierre and Philippe watched as she slowly emerged and began to make her way over to them. "Why are you upset, mother?" Philippe asked.

"It doesn't matter, sweetheart. I'll be fine soon enough," Clarisse said as she stood beside her youngest son and wrapped her arm around his shoulders while leaning closer to kiss the side of his head and letting her lips linger there a moment. "Anyway, how come you are both still up?"

"We wanted to come and see how your dinner went," Pierre said as his mother looked up at him before averting her gaze past him towards the open suite door.

"Joseph," Clarisse said quietly, and everyone else looked over at him, standing in the doorway.