A Mess ~ Part Three Concluded...
by Lise

The Begining
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Elizabeth dropped Henry off at his office and then she went to her own. Teddy was there, looking bored. What with an Elizabeth who was nearly two hours late she had nothing to do. "Why, if it isn't Lady Setchley! Did you drive your husband to work?"

"And his daughter to school, yes. We did some work in the car," Elizabeth defended herself for her lateness. She did not come straight from bed. Teddy was wont to check her bedroom if she was late, but perhaps she had not done so now that Henry might be there. It remained to be seen whether Teddy cared about that, however.

"Oh, there mustn't have been a chauffeur then," Teddy said suggestively.

"Of course I had a chauffeur. I can't read while I'm driving."

"Read?"

"What are you talking about?" It confused Elizabeth.

Teddy laughed. "The stupid thing is that you were probably really reading."

Elizabeth took some documents from her bag and laid them on the table. "I studied some papers and told him what I thought about them."

"Not those," Teddy noticed. "You haven't signed those yet."

"What's the point in taking them here? I gave them to Henry. They should go back that way after I've given my opinion."

"Which always coincides exactly with his," Teddy predicted.

"He doesn't always have an opinion," Elizabeth revealed. She began to look through her mail. "What are we doing today?"

"You have to fit a dress for that wedding next week."

Elizabeth thought of her figure. She wondered how noticeable it was. Surely no one would miss it if she was standing in her underwear. "I'm not sure I like that. Can't I wear an old dress?" But she might not fit them anymore. Unconsciously she put her hand on her stomach. It was not that bad, she hoped, but she did not want to try.

"What's the matter now?" Teddy sighed.

"I'm pregnant," Elizabeth said bashfully.

Teddy placed her hands on her hips and stared at her with interest. "And that means you can't wear dresses?" She did some mental calculations and wondered.

"It means I can't undress because people might notice."

"I hadn't noticed." Teddy studied Elizabeth's figure. There was absolutely nothing to be seen.

"You haven't tried to fit me into a dress." Perhaps, if Teddy had not noticed, fitting into a dress would not be such a problem.

Teddy came nearer to subject Elizabeth to a closer inspection. One could possibly detect a slight protrusion of the stomach if one used a magnifying glass. "How and when did this happen? No, assuming you are the same as other women, I don't need to know how. When did this happen?"

"It must have been in Brazil."

"But you're not sure."

"It must have been."

"But you don't recall the occasion."

Elizabeth blushed a deep red. "Yes, I do."

"And are you sure?" Not that this had ever been an issue she had thought about very much before, but Teddy had always been under the assumption that Elizabeth could not have children. It was not something she had ever discussed with Elizabeth. "I thought you couldn't get pregnant."

"Well, apparently I can. I don't know how."

"Henry must have had something to do with it," Teddy surmised cheekily.

Elizabeth blushed even more. "I meant that I don't know how that doctor could have thought that it wasn't possible. It happened the first time I tried and I wasn't even trying." She began to smile.

Teddy hugged her. She knew her friend loved children and that she would be delighted. "I'm happy for you, Linnie. But darling, you'll still fit into any dress you like. As always."

"But Henry could feel --"

"Henry!" Teddy said with a dismissive gesture. She wondered if this meant that Henry had alerted Elizabeth to the fact. She would not be surprised. "But that's his job." She observed Elizabeth's figure and saw no difference. Henry had to be a sensitive chap.

"And it's not anyone's job to fit dresses?"

"They have hundreds of clients. Henry should not if he's a good boy. Hmm…if you hadn't patched things up," she mused, playing devil's advocate. "You wouldn't have noticed at all, would you? You would have grown fatter and fatter and one day someone would have warned Henry that he had a crisis on his hands because the Queen had given birth to an illegitimate heir."

"Oh shut up," Elizabeth scolded good-naturedly. "Listen to yourself: illegitimate heir. That's an impossible combination."

"It's a combination you would use. You've got some concepts and labels crossed, my dear. If you see a picture of a baby in your mind, you think heir." And not merely an heir, but a legitimate one with a respectable pedigree.

"I do not!"

"I can give you more examples. If you see the Prime Minister, you think mmmm. You probably think PM stands for Perfect Man."

"It does. But anyway, do continue your story of how you would have warned Henry. What would he have done?" Fortunately it had all come right, but it might have gone terribly wrong. "Would he have come to the hospital?"

"Of course. Immediately. He would have known it was his. Have you ever seen that foreign commercial about a queen giving birth to a baby that looked the spitting image of the bishop that was also in attendance?"

"Oh God," Elizabeth shuddered. "Commercials are sick these days. No baby could look the spitting image of Henry, because he doesn't look like a baby."

"And he's not a bishop. Speaking of bishops, wouldn't they be rather cross with you for getting married?"

Elizabeth would be rather cross with them if they raised any objections. "Why, are they jealous?"

The girls thought Mary was just trying to be interesting, but she really did not know where she was going to live during the holidays. "They haven't thought about it yet," was not an answer that the girls believed. It did sound stupid. Mary would admit that readily, but it was the truth.

The assumption that she would now be meeting hundreds of handsome foreign princes made her laugh. "I'm sorry, but handsome foreign princes? Have you ever been to the doctor's? Have you ever looked into those magazines? There are no handsome foreign princes. And anyway," Mary said smugly. "Elizabeth wouldn't allow me to wear her sexy dress if there were any handsome princes around. She wouldn't even allow me to wear it when there were no princes around. She wore it herself. I got to wear one that was a little less sexy."

They looked jealous of that, but they did not want to admit it. "To their wedding?"

"No, I think she wore trousers to her wedding."

"Trousers!"

"Well, she was wearing trousers when they got home and said they were married." She shrugged. "I don't think she was feeling any less married because she was wearing trousers. Men always wear them when they get married." She wished they would stop questioning her. It was really not that interesting. Mary could not even remember what Elizabeth had been wearing. She could remember much better what Elizabeth had said.

…the Queen is married?…

Elizabeth had intentionally ignored the newspapers and the radio and television news. She could not be upset by anything she had not heard or seen and therefore she avoided it. In a sense she already knew what she would be reading if she tried and in what order. First shock, then judgements, then people who had known all along.

Everyone had needed a while to sort out their opinions after the Queen Mother's revelation, especially since the identity of the husband had not revealed and nobody wanted to cut a ridiculous figure by drawing the wrong conclusions. Frantic research had taken place behind the scenes to make sure that it was indeed Lord Setchley, something all evidence pointed to. Unfortunately Lord Setchley himself had not been available for confirmations and his staff refused to say anything about private matters. However, there would have been a denial had it not been Lord Setchley, so everyone assumed the rumour was true.

The Palace refused to answer any questions likewise and issued a statement that said that nothing could and would be added to Her Majesty Queen Sophia's statement.

Those posting outside the palace gates had more evidence to go on than those posting near the Prime Minister's residence, for he might have appeared in the former location, but certainly not in the latter. Again, there was nothing conclusive about this appearance. All they had seen was a wet man with a raincoat and an umbrella, passing through the gates on foot, and which Prime Minister visited the Queen on foot? He had slipped through their midst before anyone had had the chance to realise someone had been let in. And then it had been too late.

It might have been a security guard on his way to work, but the next day in the press it had most definitely become the Prime Minister himself. The unidentified male, Umbrella Man, had to have spent the night at the Palace, since he had not been seen to return and because the Prime Minister did not appear to have spent the night at home, there was no option but to conclude that he was the unidentified male who had married the Queen. Where two unidentified males occurred, they had to be identical.

This was an important conclusion. Someone made the connection to the as yet unidentified female from Brazil. It was too large a coincidence for the Queen to have an unidentified male while the Prime Minister had an unidentified female.

The matter was reviewed and both cases were seen to be extremely similar. The Prime Minister had been at the Palace, because he had not been elsewhere. In the same way one could conclude that the Queen had been on his balcony because she had not been elsewhere. Her presence there could not be excluded by any sound evidence.

Another similarity was that the description of both unidentified persons did not exclude the Queen or the Prime Minister, since their faces had not been visible and both had appeared to be of rather average build. It was hard to see how tall a man with an umbrella was, but in any case he had not been exceptionally small or fat. The same thing applied to the lady in the bikini.

The only point that was not in favour of such an interpretation was that one would not have expected the Queen in a bikini, nor the Prime Minister on foot with an umbrella. If one assumed they were indeed married it made a whole lot more sense.

However, it was all hardly sound reasoning to interpret the evidence according to the assumption and then to use the evidence to prove that the assumption was correct. Most of the discussion centred therefore on the crucial point of the identity of the lady in the bikini. And since Elizabeth was not known to wear so little in public, there was no way they could see it was her. All they could do was to examine her possible motivations and feelings, which could keep them occupied for weeks because they did not really know her.

Elizabeth did not have to leave home to fit on dresses. The couturier and his assistant always came to her. She watched TV as they helped her into the dress, in the hopes that this would keep her mind off her waist. It was ridiculous.

"Could you please relax, Madam?"

She tried to relax. These people were discreet. They saw the entire beau monde in their underwear and they would know nobody was perfect underneath their fashionable clothing.

"Do we need to take into account the Prime Minister's attire?" asked the couturier, who had already scolded her for getting married in secret and not having given him the chance to make her wedding dress. "Is he going?"

Elizabeth looked startled. "Er…why?"

"If he's going, you probably wouldn't want your dress to clash with his suit or his tie," he said patiently, but as if he were explaining all too evident things to a small child.

"He's going, but this is work." It made a difference. They would not always be together if they were representatives of two different things and not a couple. They might not even be seated together, although she had a mind to upset any seating arrangements that were not to her liking. "We don't have to be compatible."

"However, by next week everyone will know and you'll be able to talk to him in public. You might have to dance with him. Good God. He absolutely cannot appear in turquoise if you are in green." The couturier shuddered when he imagined his horrific picture. Still, his shudder was probably more genuine than his name, Raoul.

"Don't think he'd want to," Elizabeth mumbled humorously. "He's pretty conservative when it comes to clothes." She could not imagine Henry in turquoise.

"Madam, he's pretty conservative when it comes to anything. I know you married an old-fashioned aristocrat who would not dream of ever wearing turquoise, but I didn't mean it literally. Even respectable shades of green may clash, even if you are both beautiful people."

"He's not that old-fashioned!" she protested.

"Of course he is. He married you. People nowadays don't get married anymore. He could have kept you as his girlfriend, but he married you and not for the party, because there was no party, so he must have married you for some old-fashioned reason. You know, he might love you. It's so old-fashioned that it hasn't occurred to anyone yet, I think."

Elizabeth liked Raoul. He knew things and he knew people. He was wiser than he usually let on. Half the time he was acting like an idiot, just like right now. Soon he would be calling himself the King of Couture again, because he always did. "So, what do you think people are thinking?"

"The papers had to make a choice for or against, but television is undecided as you hear. They prefer to discuss it from all angles -- good for the ratings."

"Someone told me people found it funny," she said cautiously.

"It is funny," was Raoul's opinion. "Some people had given up on you, hadn't they? And then, just when they think it's too late, you pull this stunt on them. I love it," he said enthusiastically.

"It's not a stunt."

"But it's capital." Raoul clicked his tongue when the dress fit. He had been wise to make the bodice out of fabric that stretched. He had a good memory for figures and if he was not mistaken she was a little heavier now. "If this hadn't stretched, it might not have fit you."

That was information she could have done without. "I was thinner when you measured me," she admitted unwillingly.

"Yes, that's what I said." Raoul took a tape measure and measured her chest, comparing it to his notes. He studied her carefully. "I will need to take all your measurements again for future dresses. They seem to have changed. Perhaps in the past few years I've been relying too much on the fact that they always stayed more or less the same," he said doubtfully.

"Raoul, is it really bad?" Elizabeth studied herself in the mirror. The dress looked perfect on her. Only she might be able to see she used to be a tiny bit thinner, but that would be because she knew. At least, she hoped so.

"No, but I want to make perfect dresses. Even minor changes might make a difference. I need to take your new measurements."

"No," said Elizabeth, who would rather not be confronted with hard evidence. "I mean…it's no use." She would be getting fatter by the week.

Raoul eyed her with a worried look. "Now don't start slimming, Madam. I never said it looked bad on you. It looks good."

She sighed. "I meant that it's no use because it will change again."

"I hope you are not planning to lose weight."

"I plan to gain weight," she muttered.

"Excuse me?" He had not quite caught that.

"Please Raoul. In the next few months, if you make me a dress, don't measure me more than a week in advance."

He looked at her uncomprehendingly. "But Madam, if you are still planning to have a church wedding, there is no way I could make you a wedding gown in just a week." And the Queen's wedding gown would be more or less the crown of his labours. He did not want to miss the occasion, even if he was fairly certain that she would not ask anyone else.

He had a point there, but she did not think she would still have a church wedding. It would not matter to her if she did not and if it mattered to other people that was a pity for them. Anyway, a wedding gown should look pretty and white simply did not look terrific on large bodies. "But --"

"Madam, I know you are not the type to have a spectacular gown --"

"Would you be surprised!" she cut in with a laugh, but it would be spectacular in another sense.

"I beg your pardon?"

"I can't tell you yet."

"You know I would make you something simple and elegant."

"I know you do," Elizabeth said soothingly. "The point is that I would not be looking elegant anymore if I were to have another wedding."

"I don't understand."

"My elegance will be going downhill very quickly. By the time a public wedding has been arranged, my elegance will be gone. It is pretty hard to get out of a carriage in a ball gown as it is. I won't make it harder on myself by trying to get out of a carriage in a wedding gown in a few months' time. They would have to cut off the top and lift me out with a crane," she mocked.

The guard shuffled his feet uncomfortably. He never got to see the Queen much, let alone speak to her more than just a polite greeting. "Madam, there are two boys at the gates. They say you married their father and they ran away from school to see you. They're crying."

Elizabeth stared at him. "Two boys? How old?" It had to be David and John. She had not married anyone else's father. What were they doing here?

"Nine?"

"David and John?"

"Yes, Madam." The guard was relieved that he had done the right thing by telling her about it. He had not been absolutely certain she knew the boys and frankly it was against his orders to tell her personally who was at the gates.

Elizabeth got up immediately. "I'll go with you." Usually people came to her, but in this case she had to make an exception.

As she walked to the guards' lodge she tried to imagine what the boys could be doing here. They were supposed to be at school. Why were they not at school? Why were they here and crying? She walked quickly to keep up with the guard.

There was a small crowd outside the gates, but she paid no attention to it. All she focused on was the door to the lodge. It opened when she was close enough to be recognised and two boys ran out without their coats. As they were running closer she could see they were crying, or at least trying not to. They threw themselves at her and she automatically put her arms around them, wondering what was wrong.

She stood a bit helpless when they did not explain anything, but simply stood there with their little faces hidden against her coat. She could not move, but perhaps all she needed to do was hold them. John was crying, she could feel that. David was not -- he was too big. Still, he did not lift his face and she stroked his hair. "Let's go inside. Where are your coats?"

John was reluctant to go back. The lodge was too near the gates. They might throw him out again. It had taken so long to get in. "That way," he insisted, pulling her away in the direction of the Palace. Elizabeth had come from there.

"Where's your coat?" she asked gently. It was much too cold to walk all that way without a coat.

"I don't need one," he said bravely.

"Yes, you do. I can't fit all three of us in mine."

"It's in there," David pointed.

"Alright. We'll get it and then I'll take you back with me," Elizabeth promised.

"Some boys took John's phone because they liked to see him cry so they could call him a cry baby," David said indignantly. "So I beat them up and then I got punished. The headmaster took my phone and he took John's phone and then we couldn't phone. We didn't even have the numbers, because they're in the phones. And he wouldn't let us phone. So we bought train tickets."

They were sitting in the guards' lodge. John was crying in her lap, but David was telling his story calmly. Elizabeth could see he had cried too, but that had been from pure frustration when he had got this far and then the guards would not let him in. Now that she was here he did not cry anymore. "You came here by train?" she asked in disbelief. "Alone?"

"Yes."

It amazed her. She would not know how to do that. How did two little boys know? "How did you know where to go?"

"We looked at a map and we asked a few times." Everybody knew where the Queen lived. He and John had paused in awe when they had first seen her house. It was so big. It looked bigger than school.

"I'm really proud of you." And she was. They were extremely resourceful. They had made this trip all by themselves.

"You're not angry that we ran away from school?" David asked bashfully. He knew it was not a good thing to do, but he had really had no other option. And he had feared they would be punished. They ought to be.

"I don't know yet. I'll have to talk to your headmaster." Elizabeth did not think she could be angry if what David had told her was true. And maybe she should not let them go back to school. They would not run away from a place where they were happy. John was clinging to her as if he had missed her terribly. She stroked his hair comfortingly. Even David, who was trying to be a big boy who would not sit in her lap, had given her a hug. "Where did you get the money?"

"We were saving to buy something, but we hadn't bought that yet."

She made them wear their coats and then she took them by the hand to walk back. A glance outside had told her that the number of people outside the gates had increased. News travelled fast. People knew she was here. She hoped they would also know why and why she could not talk to anyone. As they walked away she could feel them stare at her back.

The first thing Elizabeth did when they had walked back was phone Henry. "What are they doing there?" he shouted down the line, but she knew he was merely relieved to hear they were safe. "I'll come to pick them up and take them back."

"Er…Henry…" She did not think that such a good idea. If there was ever going to be talk of taking them back it would not be today. The boys had to be given some time to say what they wanted. Tomorrow they might be more capable of giving their opinion. "No."

It was silent at the other end. "No?" he asked finally. He always trusted her judgements, but this one was surprising.

"I'll tell you when you get here. Be here within the hour, or we'll be gone." She saw David begin to look afraid and she winked at him reassuringly. She would only take them back to pack their stuff and then they would all return here for the night -- or possibly a few more nights until they had sorted this out. They would not have run away if there were no problems.

"I don't know if I can make it that fast," Henry said doubtfully.

"If you can't, you don't have to bother to try because we'll be gone."

"Don't take them back before I've seen them!" he protested.

"Henry," she said with a smile he would only be able to hear. "Trust me."

Henry was there very quickly, afraid as he was that she would take the boys back before he could see them. He found them eating dinner. After Elizabeth had called he had phoned the school to say the boys were safe, but he had not been able to say when they would return to school. Elizabeth seemed to have a plan. She had told him to trust her and he did, although he could not see where she was going.

"You worried all of us!" he exclaimed when he saw the boys.

"All of whom?" Elizabeth asked in slight irritation upon hearing that a lot of people had known and not she. "Nobody told me they were missing." She could see John's lip was beginning to tremble again and even David was frowning at his food, whereas he had been smiling before. They were afraid that they were going to be punished for running away. She was not going to allow that and she pushed her chair back. "Henry!" she gestured at a corner. They should have a word first.

"I'm sorry, but they don't have your phone number at school, so they didn't call you, just me and Amanda and my mother." Henry obediently followed her into the corner. He thought she was upset that he had not told her. "And I…"

Elizabeth placed her arms around him. He could have called her himself, but evidently he had not thought about that. She was not one to make a big point of that right now. It was not as if they had been married for twenty years. And anyway, this would be between them and nothing to do with the children. They were more important now. "Don't upset them."

Henry was not aware of having upset them. He had only been glad to see them. "But --"

"Leave it to me," she said insistently. "They came to me. They want me to do something. They came all the way by train. Tell them you're impressed." There had to be a way to make the boys feel better instead of worse. They were so afraid Henry would be angry. She had gathered as much when she had told them Henry might be coming over. "I promised them you wouldn't be angry. Don't make me break my promise."

"They ran away! Should I encourage that?" Henry was baffled. He was not angry, but a warning of sorts would be in order all the same.

"No, of course not. They know very well that they shouldn't have. You don't have to tell them. But…" she grinned in an attempt to convince him. "I'm always very partial to people who run away." She had run away herself during the holidays. Had he forgotten that already?

It was not that easy for Henry. "Linnie, you didn't know they were missing. You weren't worried. You have no idea how I was feeling." To her it would simply have been a nice surprise to see them here, whereas he had feared them kidnapped or worse.

"You should have come to me," she said softly, pulling him into a hug. "I do know what it's like to be worried. Forget how you were feeling. They're here. Come and have dinner with us."

Henry looked at the boys over Elizabeth's shoulder. They had both turned in their seat and they were watching anxiously. "They might not want to go back tonight." It was damn hard to resist this multiple attack on his softness -- the boys' anxious looks and Linnie's embrace. He knew she was deliberately doing this to convince him, but he had no defence.

"They must. I have to go and get their pyjamas."

He was reluctant to let go of her, but he had to see her face. "I beg your pardon?" She had just told him they were staying. Did she mean she was going to return with their pyjamas so they could sleep here? Her expression was mischievous and he knew she was teasing him in some way.

Elizabeth smiled at his puzzled expression. "You heard me." She placed a soft kiss on his cheek and then wrapped her arms around his neck. "Henry…" She did not know exactly what she wanted, only that she wanted to stand there for another while. But someone tugged at her blouse.

"'Lizabeth?" John said shyly. "Your dinner is getting cold."

"Sorry, Henry." She smiled at him. "But come with us so I can keep talking to you."

He watched Elizabeth's hand on the boy's shoulder and the smile this had brought to John's face. He had never really asked how they had got along when he was gone. He had merely asked how she had managed. They seemed to get along very well.

"Sit next to me, Henry," Elizabeth invited when Henry was slow, pulling a chair nearer to hers. She quickly finished her dinner so she would have her hands free.

"I don't like peas," said David, who felt it was safe to mention this now that Elizabeth had brought Henry over to their side. She might have some compassion for his dislike of peas and tell him to leave them on his plate.

"Eat them," Elizabeth ordered. "You won't die." She had finished eating herself, but she filled her plate again for Henry and gave it to him.

He did not like peas either and wanted to refuse them politely. If peas were the only thing that was left he would rather ask the cook to make something else. After all, a grown man would not be able to dine on peas alone. What had Elizabeth done to the meat and the rest of the dinner? He knew it had been there, because there were remnants of it on John's plate. "Thank you, darling, but --"

She was not going to have a discussion about food now. "Eat it," she said with an impatient gesture.

Henry and David shared a look and shrugged. They would humour her just this once and they poked at the peas unenthusiastically.

"What sort of suit will you be wearing to that wedding next week?" Elizabeth asked Henry.

Henry had long stopped to be surprised at the odd twists in Elizabeth's mind. "I haven't decided yet. Why are you asking? All my suits look the same."

"Do they?" Elizabeth tried to recall that. Dark blue seemed to be his favourite colour. "Well, what sort of tie? What colour?"

"That doesn't matter. It will match the rest of me." His sister and mother had educated him in that matter. Or rather, they usually bought things that went together.

"But Raoul said it might clash with me."

"Who's Raoul?" he asked interestedly.

"He makes my dresses. He was worried you might wear turquoise. My dress is green, you see."

Henry raised his eyebrows at men who were afraid other men might wear turquoise. "Does he want me to wear a green tie? A green handkerchief would be even better. I'm not going to wear a green suit, though. Besides, I'm sure they'd sort royalty from the politicians and other upstarts at some point."

"But I'll stay with you."

He would be glad to eat his peas in that case, knowing Elizabeth. She had not displayed her husband so far. After she had married him she had suddenly become shy, it seemed. There had never been any problem in appearing in the same place before they were married, even though before that time they would have had a lot more to be afraid of. He would gladly appear with her, but it was she who dictated these matters and she had been unreasonably concerned up till now. He was not that bad, he had almost wanted to say but he did not have to say that anymore. Staying with him would be a lot more than simply staying by his side.

Henry had expressed a desire to eat something more and something different, so Elizabeth had decided to leave him at home because that would all take far too long. She had packed the boys into her car and driven off. Frankly he did not regret having to stay behind. He was exhausted.

He always worked long hours. This was nothing unusual for him, but he never had this much stress along with it -- questions about his marriage, worries about David and John's disappearance. Elizabeth had seen it and she had said he should relax.

He wondered about the boys. Elizabeth had obviously known the entire story, but she had not told him yet. She had only said she would handle it. If she wanted to handle it he should not stop her. She should build up some bond with the boys, but he was stepping back against his own wishes.

David had apologised to him for having gone to Elizabeth. "Everyone would know where she lives," he had said. "And you would be working during the day." Henry smiled at the implication that Elizabeth did not work. He wondered what she would say to that herself. Just because she did not leave her home did not mean she was not doing any work. He knew that.

After dinner he wandered about the building a bit, going especially where he was not supposed to go. Nobody stopped him, surprisingly. A few times he encountered men in funny uniforms but they greeted him very respectfully.

When he had seen enough, he returned to Elizabeth's private wing and checked the bedrooms there. He knew hers by now and he discovered that her mother had one too. There were enough rooms left to house the boys and he turned on the heating in two of them. He knew Elizabeth thought the energy prices were far too high, because she was always going on to him about that, but she would not begrudge the boys a warmer room.

He knew how much time he would have before she came back, assuming it did not take her long to handle matters at the school. Sitting with Elizabeth's mother was not his favourite option, but the only one available if he did not want to slight her.

She was knitting, of course. "Nora taped it for me," she said.

Who was Nora and what had Nora taped, Henry wondered. "That's nice of her," he said politely.

"Not at all. I told her to." She glanced at him. "Ask me what it is."

"I'm not asking if you're not telling."

That made her chuckle. "You know that wouldn't work." She lifted a remote control and pressed a button. The video began to play.

Henry watched something that was obviously leading up to what was to come. It was really not surprising, he told himself, that she could be this prepared for his visit. She had nothing else to do. "Oh, this is your announcement?"

"Yes," she beamed. "It was grand."

Henry raised his eyebrows. At least she did not suffer from false modesty. "I'm sure it was." He watched the tape, suppressing some snickers now and then, despite the fact that she was talking about him. "Well, you were kind to me," he said at the end. "You could have made more fun of me." She had restrained herself now.

"I do take you seriously sometimes."

"Sometimes!" he exclaimed involuntarily.

"Well, yes. What you see is not what you get. That applies to both of us, the difference being that you can at least stop being mischievous during a serious announcement."

"Er…that sounds a suspicious lot like a compliment." But then he realised something. "No, it isn't. You just said you can't stop being mischievous during a serious announcement and that was one." He eyed her doubtfully.

The Queen Mother laughed. "I do like you, Henry. Even if I cannot quite get a grip on you. As long as Linnie can, isn't it?"

"Oh, Linnie can," Henry said immediately. "If we are ourselves, that is." Elizabeth was not as perceptive when it came to the Prime Minister's motives or wishes.

"You should always be yourselves."

"We can't. And that wedding next week…" he sighed. What and who were they going to be there? Elizabeth was going to be there as a member of the family, though not close, but he was supposed to go there as the representative of the government. Had their marriage made him a family member as well? "Are you going?"

"Oh yes. It's my niece's son getting married."

"Oh God, inbreeding. I knew these families were all related, but I didn't know how close. Where do I fit in?"

"Oh, Linnie has already informed them that you'd be with her."

"And…?"

"Major panic at the other end!" the Queen Mother laughed in delight. "They said one week wasn't enough to reshuffle everything. Linnie told them they would have to, or else two of their guests would be drawing more attention to themselves than the bridal couple and they would never have that!"

The boys were very quiet during the drive. They were afraid Elizabeth would make them stay at school if they misbehaved. For a large part their quietness was also due to their fatigue, she noticed as she peered in the mirror a few times.

Elizabeth discovered that the headmaster was no longer there and that the house master did not recognise her. He was a pleasant young man who called her Mrs Breckingham. She grinned from ear to ear, but she supposed this also meant he was not acquainted with all the particulars of the boys' history. While she preferred to remain Mrs Breckingham, she realised that as she as she talked about the boys' situation she would have to reveal more details about herself as well.

First she would try to do that without those details. "They're my stepsons," she began.

"But we don't mind," David interrupted. He was standing by her side. John was on her other side, half behind her.

"I was rather shocked by their story. It's not usual to run away," she continued.

"Did David tell you he's been fighting?"

"But --" David began to protest indignantly until Elizabeth placed her hand over his mouth.

"They were bullying John. I know that is no excuse to fight, but -- David, John, why don't you get your pyjamas?" When the boys had run off she turned back to the house master. "I'm convinced they feel very bad about running away. There's no need to punish them further. I'm not at all sure I approve of this school's reaction to crying boys. They need people who care about them, not people who punish them for crying!"

"David beat some other boys."

"Those other boys would never have got beaten if this school hadn't encouraged a repressive attitude towards emotions! If those other boys had been taught that it was normal to cry, they would never have bullied John." Elizabeth spoke calmly, but she was warming to her topic. She had to defend the boys from the barbarous punishment they would receive.

"I don't know what started the argument."

Elizabeth did. They had told her. "They took his phone away from him."

"Is that so very bad?"

She wondered why he did not realise that, but she wanted to stay reasonable. "Of course they would try to tease him. They're boys. I don't blame them for not knowing John's phone is his only connection to his family. He's alright as long as he can phone my husband when he needs to. If they take away his phone, he's lost. His parents are dead, but he's still got his uncle, my husband." She paused. "The phone is not a toy. The school should have known about this. They know his history, I presume. They know his current family situation. I am not at all pleased with the way this was handled."

"I know very little about what happened precisely," the house master said uncomfortably. "Are you taking them home, Mrs Breckingham?"

"Not only do you know very little of what happened, you also seem to know very little about them personally. Yes, I am taking them home." Just in time she swallowed to my palace. "I don't know for how long, but it's what they need right now."

"I'm sorry, Mrs Breckingham, but I haven't held this position for very long. I'm sure our headmaster knows everything about them, but --"

"He hasn't told you. He probably thinks it isn't important. Be a good boy and don't grieve, don't cry, don't -- I know the type. I have been dealing with them all my life." They had told her to do the same. It had not worked.

"I know what you mean, Mrs Breckingham," he said reluctantly.

"Good grief, an enemy in their midst," she muttered. "Or are you just saying that because of who I am?" She saw him look at her rather uncomprehendingly and she sighed. He did not know, did he? Or else he would never call her Mrs Breckingham all the time. Why did he not know? Did he never read the newspaper? Surely she did not look that bad in the wild? "I'm taking them home until we've decided what is best."

"Mrs Breckingham wants to take her sons home until she's decided what to do with them," the house master dutifully reported to the headmaster over the phone. He had to do that before he could give any parent permission to take their child away from school. It might not be an actual rule, but he preferred to consult the headmaster in any case, young as he was.

"Mrs Breckingham?" the headmaster repeated with audible suspicion. "Would that be the mother of David and John Breckingham?"

"Yes, sir."

"Mrs Breckingham has been dead for two years," he said ominously. Who, then, was this woman posing as her?

"Oh yes, sir," the young house master said hastily. "I forgot to mention that she's actually their stepmother. That's what she said."

"That would make her their uncle's wife?" Contrary to this junior teacher, the headmaster had read his newspapers faithfully and he was aware of a change in the uncle's family situation.

"I-I-I believe so, sir. She mentioned that their uncle was her husband, yes."

"What does Mrs Breckingham look like?" The headmaster always had to reckon with the possibility of a kidnapping and sadly enough, a kidnapping sounded more likely than the Queen picking up her stepsons under the name of Mrs Breckingham. "How does she behave?"

"She behaves as though she wants to take them home, sir. As for what she looks like, dark hair, quite nice…I don't really know."

There were hundreds of women with dark hair who looked quite nice. That was not conclusive information. "Did she say she was Mrs Breckingham?"

"No, she smiled because I guessed."

"Where is she now?" The headmaster was concerned. Of course a kidnapper would be happy to be mistaken for Mrs Breckingham. She would hardly say he was wrong. Perhaps he should not have made such a young teacher a house master. "Is she still there?"

"She's waiting for the boys." He could see her from his office. She was waiting patiently in the hall.

There was one last solution. "Does she look like the Queen, Jeremy?"

"Why? Does Mrs Breckingham look like the Queen?" Jeremy peered out of his office. He could not really tell. The Queen was always dressed up and this woman was not.

"Mrs Breckingham is the Queen."

"S-S-Sir!" Jeremy uttered in shock. He stared at the woman. It could not be. "But this is not the Queen, sir!"

"Are you sure?"

Of course he was not sure. He hardly knew what the Queen looked like. "She doesn't look like one. She looks like any other of the mothers."

"Then we have a problem on our hands," the headmaster decided. "Keep her there. On no account let her take the boys. I'm on my way over. Does she look dangerous?"

"No, sir."

"Don't upset her in any way. Don't trigger any aggression. Just keep her there."

"Y-Y-Yes, sir." Jeremy replaced the phone and sighed in distress. It was all up to him now to prevent a kidnapping from taking place. What if she did something to him? He was sure he would not know how to hold an innocent and careless conversation with her anymore, even though she looked quite innocent. And he still had to digest the fact that Mrs Breckingham ought to be the Queen. How? Why?

"Well?" she asked when he came out of his office. "I have to say I don't really care if the headmaster doesn't grant me permission to take the boys."

Jeremy looked at her with some degree of horror. "But you have to wait until he gets here." He knew that was a pretty futile thing to say to a kidnapper. It was not as if they cared.

"I'm sorry, but the boys have to go to bed. I can't wait forever." She gathered that his nervousness meant that he had been told who she was. Well, he did not have to be nervous. She did not bite.

Jeremy racked his brains for something to say. He was not allowed to upset her, so he had to be careful. "Where do you live? Is it far away?"

"About an hour. It's going to be pretty late before we'll have them in bed, knowing how slow they are."

How could she know they were slow? She knew them, obviously. Of course they had arrived together as well. He tried to connect these things and draw some logical conclusion out of it. Maybe the headmaster was wrong. It did not make sense. This woman could not be bent on kidnapping David and John. Why would she have returned to the school on that case? Maybe she was the Queen after all. He studied her again.

Elizabeth leant against the wall and bent her head. She had come here with the intention of taking David and John away from here very quickly and she now found herself being detained. She could, she supposed, pull rank and take them away, but she was here to ascertain what was the best situation for the boys and not for herself. Maybe it was wise to hear what the headmaster had to say about it all.

John came up to her shyly. "I forgot what to take!" he whispered in embarrassment. He knew she had told him when they had been in the car and thought it was really bad to have forgotten, but he had been so worried that she might leave him here after all that he could not remember what she had said.

She took his hand. "I'll help you. Show me what you've got so far." He pulled her with him towards his dormitory. Several boys were sitting upright in their beds to watch what was going on. She ignored them and focused on what John had laid out on his bed. First she had to sort through it to see what was actually there. It was one messy pile. "Hmmm," she said bending down to whisper in John's ear so the other boys would not hear. "You might need some clean underwear tomorrow, don't you think?"

"Oh," he blushed and felt stupid. He laid it on the bed as well and then looked at her again anxiously to see if more was missing.

Elizabeth wondered if it sped up things if she searched his closet herself. "Why don't you put everything in a bag?" John got one and put everything in it while she looked through his closet, getting some extra clothes out of it just in case. "Finished. Do you want anything else?"

John shook his head.

"Alright then. We'll see how David is doing." She turned to see the house master watching her. Was he following her around?

The house master was indeed following her around. He had to make sure she did not disappear out the window. So far she had not betrayed any intention to do so and he had not caught any unmotherly actions.

"Quiet now," he warned the boys in the dormitory before he closed the door. They were bound to discuss where John might be going when they ought to be sleeping.

The problem was really that he could not imagine John holding the hand of either the Queen or a kidnapper, yet that was precisely what the little boy was doing.

They saw David in the hall. "Have you got everything, David?" Mrs Breckingham asked.

"Yes."

"Have you thought about it twice?"

"No, but I know I have everything," David said confidently. "Can we go?"

"We have to wait for your headmaster."

"Why?" he whined.

"I have to ask him if I can take you."

"But he's not going to say no to you."

Not many men would say no to the pretty Mrs Breckingham, Jeremy agreed. Every time he had begun to study her, she walked away, but he had at least noticed she was attractive. Perhaps she would sit still now so he could come to some sort of conclusion about her. Kidnappers were criminals and criminals could never have the sort of cultured accent she spoke in. Perhaps that came closer to that of a queen.

Elizabeth knew the headmaster would, in the end, not say no to her, but it was only polite to give him a say in matters at first. She sat down in a chair in the house master's office uninvited and John climbed onto her lap.

David stood by the door, sulking. He just wanted to leave.

"Why don't you sit down, David?" the house master invited. He sat down himself on his desk. John surprised him. It was always such a reserved and proud little boy, not one he had expected to climb onto a woman's lap. John never confided in anyone.

"No," David said in a stubborn tone and glared at Elizabeth. Why did she not leave?

"David, don't look at me like that. We're not leaving yet."

"Why not?"

"Because we have to wait for your headmaster."

"Why?"

"You know why. There are rules."

David was not impressed. "I heard you tell Dad you could bend most rules."

Elizabeth winced. She had been thinking the boys were playing when she had said that to Henry. They must have been overhearing more than she had thought and David was revealing this at a most inopportune moment. "That was something different. I wanted to marry him."

"And I want to go home," he said as if there was no difference.

"David, I don't want to make any problems. There will be a problem if I take you now. All mothers have to wait for the headmaster. It is a question of politeness. Besides, I should like to talk to him for a minute."

"He's going to make us stay." That was his biggest worry.

"No, he is not." She looked at the young teacher. "Where were you when I brought them back here after the Christmas break?" She ought to have seen him then, but they had seen another teacher, who had discovered the truth but who had obviously not spread the news.

"I was here."

"I didn't see you."

"We saw Mr McCann," David said.

"Oh." Elizabeth was silent until her phone began to vibrate.

John stirred and got it out of her pocket for her. He checked the display. "It's Mum," he read. "Mum? How could it be Mum? Who's Mum?" Elizabeth was their Mummy, but she could not phone herself.

"My Mum," Elizabeth clarified.

"You have a Mummy?"

"I do." She took the phone and answered it, but it was Henry. "Oh, no. It's Dad."

"Your Dad?"

"No yours."

"But it said Mum," John objected. "If it is Dad it should say Henry." He knew, because he had typed it in himself.

"It's Henry on my Mum's phone, John. Are you satisfied?" she inquired in amusement.

John went back to his slumber in response. He was satisfied by this explanation.

"Henry? Sorry," Elizabeth said to him.

"It's alright. I heard. Have you conquered that bastion of male chauvinism yet, darling?" he asked.

"What do you mean?" she said, sounding slightly guilty. He knew her too well.

"You could have been back by now."

Elizabeth checked her watch and gasped. "Henry, I could not! I stick to the speed limits, especially with two children in the car!"

"The speed limits for cars, darling? Or those for scootmobiles?"

The headmaster looked surprised when he arrived. Ha had not expected to see this scene, but he felt very relieved. "M-M-M….Mrs Breckingham?" he asked. Only at the last moment did he swallow a more formal greeting. One should conform to her preferences and if Mrs Breckingham was what she wanted, she would get it.

"That's me," Elizabeth answered, although he had sounded more curious about her choice of name than about her identity.

"I understand you want to take David and John home. For how long?"

"I don't know yet. I want to find out what they want. My husband didn't have any other choice than to send them to a boarding school, but things have changed. If they are unhappy here I must keep them home." Henry and she had not even discussed where they would live, but he could only move in with her.

The headmaster hesitated to voice his surprise. "Er…they would be living with you?"

"Yes, I think so. I also want to know why you took away their phones."

"Because they had fought. I always take whatever object they're fighting over until they've made up and apologised."

"Do you know why they fought?"

"No, but I'm not really interested. Fighting, for whatever reason, is not allowed at school. Those who fight always find their reasons acceptable, so it's rather a waste of time for me to listen to them. Besides, they didn't volunteer to tell me." He noted that they had obviously told her and that she considered their reasons valid enough. Perhaps she was not aware that David and John were not among the most communicative of boys. David was better than John, but even he was hardly the type to defend himself. He was too proud to beg.

Elizabeth saw little point in a discussion if that was the way he was thinking and she pushed John off her lap. "I don't want the boys to stay here. This is an emotionally repressive institution."

"And one that brought forth Lord Setchley," the headmaster said cleverly. Would her objections still be as large?

Elizabeth's eyes flashed, annoyed that he had a small point. Yes, Henry had been to school here, but he was nowhere near as bad as this! "I've had to do a lot of work on him."

Perhaps Lord Setchley could do some work on his wife as well, the headmaster thought. It was funny how he could not think of her as the Queen right now. She was too worked up. The Queen would have remained calm. "I'm sure that a talk with your husband will sort it all out."

That did not please Elizabeth very much either. "I am not capable on my own? I don't depend on my husband to tell me what to think!" She realised she was doing exactly what Henry had been fearing and she took a deep breath.

"I'm sure you do not," the headmaster said politely. "But he knows the school."

"I know the mentality of the school."

"And you still married one of its exponents?" he raised his eyebrows mockingly.

"That was not because he went to school here."

"Nobody's going to know that, however."

"And you will increase tuition fees again?" she inquired. The school might become more popular now. It could ask whatever fee it liked and there would still be pupils.

He laughed. "Perhaps."

"They're pretty high as it is, I heard."

"His Lordship complains about them?"

"All the time. It's one of his favourite topics."

"He can stop worrying now, can't he? I'm sure they're no problem for you," the headmaster said. She was one of the richest women in the country, if not the richest.

"Of course not, but I'd rather send them to a cheap local school if they're happier there."

He looked at her incredulously. "I don't think a local school could offer you the same quality we're offering. They do not have the facilities or the money."

"But they might have the kindness," she countered. "They might show a little more sympathy for a child's situation. They might think a little more of the child and not of the money the child's parent will bring in."

"We are not mercenary. The school fees are used to provide the facilities for the children. We don't make a profit."

"You don't see my point. You might have the prettiest grounds and buildings, but you might have a lot of unhappy children inside them." Elizabeth was not at all sure if the children there were unhappy, but it was best to warn him that perfect facilities were not a guarantee. She knew what she was talking about.

The headmaster stared at her.

"Let me tell you something. I went to such a school. Everything was perfect, but on parents' day I had to walk around with the headmistress. We had the best seats everywhere, but it was like a punishment. If she had imagined herself in my place just one time, she would have let me help one of the younger teachers. It's the same thing. They never asked me anything. They only suggested things and at the same time said it was the best solution because it was bad to be selfish or spoilt. Things could not always go my way, but they didn't really realise that if all the material things go your way all the immaterial things automatically go your way as well." Elizabeth hoped he could still follow her. It was hard to explain. "I hope it has given me the insight to help people in a similar situation," she concluded.

He was still staring at her.

Elizabeth frowned. She hoped she had not sounded too melodramatic about it. It was not her intention to boast, merely to explain. Maybe she should clarify what she meant precisely. Her last words were too vague. "Their sister is at my old school. I had to apologise on Henry's behalf because he couldn't make it to the school's anniversary, so I spent the day with her when I saw she was unhappy and that made such a difference. She enjoyed the day, whereas she was crying when I got there. That gave me a good feeling, but I was happier that she had a nice day. She had been feeling unhappy. Does this in any way explain why I am taking the boys home right now?" She looked at him anxiously, fearing she had rambled too much.

He nodded.

"David? John? We are leaving," she decided. "It's too late right now anyway and they have to go to bed. I'll discuss the matter with you in private some other time."

"I'm looking forward to that," he answered.

She was not so sure of that and she smiled faintly. "I'm sure you get a lot of parents who tell you their child's case is special," she mumbled. "But I hope I was making a more general point." She had to, because she was not the boys' parent and he would not see her as such.

"I'll think of your point….Mrs Breckingham."

That made her smile again. She shook his hand. "We'll inform you of our decisions." She picked up John's bag and hung it over his shoulder. "Don't forget it."

"Well?" said Henry when they got home. He was in his pyjamas and obviously ready to go to bed. His mother-in-law had already left him alone.

"I got them," Elizabeth said triumphantly.

"You already had them," he pointed out, amused by her triumphant manner.

"But they didn't take them away from me."

"If they didn't, I will. Come here." He beckoned and the boys sat down next to him. "Did Elizabeth behave herself?"

"No!" they cried in unison.

"No?" He had been soliciting that answer, so he chuckled. He would almost stick out his tongue at Elizabeth. Fortunately she knew she was being teased.

"I can drive you back," she said warningly, pretending to search for her car keys.

"No!" they cried and clung to Henry for protection.

"Hmmmphh!" she said and then realised something. "I'm hungry."

Henry shook his head at her. "At this hour? It's bedtime. I'll put them in bed."

"No!" the boys cried again and clutched him so he would not be able to get them off the couch. They had not seen him for so long and he immediately wanted to send them to bed?

"I didn't have any rooms prepared!" Elizabeth realised.

"I did."

She looked at him in amazement. "You did?" He was marvellous to have thought of that. She had completely forgotten to consider it.

"I even risked your anger by turning on the heating," he said teasingly, pleased that she would look at him as if he were marvellous. Even though he knew he was not, it was nice to delude oneself sometimes.

"Henry, you idiot," Elizabeth scolded good-naturedly as she searched a small refrigerator for something to eat.

"Why, because I turned on the heating?"

"No, because you -- you know why." She was convinced he knew why. There was no need to tell him. "I know you. You know me." She sat down and began to eat.

The nation was slowly adjusting to the news. Some were quicker than others, but everyone seemed to realise that the situation was irreversible. Some who disapproved of the marriage were at least wise enough to know that it would be far worse if the marriage were annulled. Still, that did not prevent them from voicing their concerns about her image and his ability to do his job.

As if to show there was absolutely no conflict of interests, everyone interested enough to lie in wait could plainly see the Prime Minister leave the Palace very early in the morning, bound for his office. He stayed there for a few hours until he was due for his weekly meeting with the Queen, whereupon he returned to the Palace in exactly the same manner as he was wont to do before his marriage.

Others were busier in reconstructing the event. It was not that difficult to research public records to see whether the Queen Mother had spoken the truth, despite not having been contradicted by the Queen, the Prime Minister or any spokesmen afterwards.

It was also not that difficult to research whether Elizabeth was free to marry anyone she pleased. Due to her distant relatives' rather liberal lifestyles and the danger in allowing them to get married to simply anyone, this kind of information was freely available, but it had never been looked at with her own marriage in mind. However, it was clear that there had been no lawful impediments.

The Church was shocked, but that was to be expected.

The position of her cousin as the heir was not in any danger, or so it was believed. There was a widespread unconfirmed rumour that Elizabeth could not have any children, but it was not likely to ever be confirmed. Still, in the unlikely event that it did not happen to be true, there was her age to reckon with. She was forty, hardly an age to still start a family. This sensitive matter was only ever brought up indirectly and discreetly, for nobody wanted to offend and hurt, except perhaps the tabloids.

There was the ever so discreet suggestion that her marriage was more proof of her infertility, since it had given her the children. Given that there were currently only pictures of her and the boys and not of her and Henry, it was easy to state that they had been her primary motive in getting married.

They were more direct about Henry. He had three children to look after already and he could not even handle those. He would not be eager to have any more. People had been quick to find out that David was Lord Setchley's heir. Things had already been taken care of in that department.

Whenever these matters were discussed, however indirectly, one sensed somewhat wistful and disappointed undertones the writers of the articles were perhaps not even aware of.

Elizabeth had let the boys play outside, but there was hardly any wilderness to explore. Everything in the park was too neat and geometrical and they occupied themselves by throwing large chunks of stone onto a frozen garden pond until they were sent away by a maintenance man.

They then went inside, but got lost and discovered a swimming pool. Since they were lost, they could not ask Elizabeth if they were allowed to swim and they sat watching the water for a while, but especially the ball that floated in it. A ball would be much more fun to play with, but they could not reach it.

David tried to get the ball to float towards them by making waves from the side. He accomplished nothing, except that he got a little wet.

John decided to be funny and he pushed his brother in. Soon they were both wet and swimming with their clothes on, but they at least had the ball. They had overlooked the fact that if it was freezing outside it might not be very wise to go outside with wet clothes to play football and David was bright enough to realise that people might not appreciate it if they dripped onto the carpets and rugs in the corridors. They had to stay in the pool until their clothes were dry, even though they were hungry.

Elizabeth had been thinking they were busy playing and she had not really missed them. Henry had been to see her and they had got a lot of work done now that their meetings were not the only occasions on which they saw each other. She had a small snack and decided to go for a swim before lunch.

She was surprised to find total chaos in the pool. Everything that could possibly float was floating and everything else was wet. There was so much in the water that at first she did not even see the two boys, until a ball was thrown at her from somewhere. She stared in disbelief at the two small figures swimming towards her in their underwear.

"Hello Elizabeth!" John said enthusiastically as he clambered onto the side. He looked like a happy puppy waiting for a stick to be thrown.

Elizabeth nearly felt tempted to throw the ball back into the water to see what he would do, but she was still stunned by the mess she had stumbled on. She had never known it was possible to make her swimming pool look like this. There were even things on the bottom that apparently did not float. "What are you doing?" she managed to ask.

"Playing," David said. He looked more guarded than John and seemed to realise that perhaps they had gone a little too far.

She swallowed. Should she be angry? Or should she be treating this as an elementary science experiment? Plastic floated, but metal did not. "But…look!" she gestured at the pool. It was cluttered with objects. "Where am I supposed to swim?"

David and John studied the water as if they had not seen the mess yet. "There's enough room if you push things aside," John decided. She could slalom through the pool.

"No," she shook her head, suppressing an involuntary smile. "I want you to put everything back where it belongs."

"But we don't remember," David remarked.

Elizabeth sighed. "I'm sure you at least remember that the chairs were not in the water when you got here."

"Nothing was," David agreed.

"Get everything out," she ordered.

"But that's not fun," John piped up.

"This isn't fun," Elizabeth pointed at the water.

"Some things sunk and we can't get them up. You have to help us."

Elizabeth sat down on the floor. "We'll see about that later. First get as much out as you can." She watched them. They had looked happy to see her, but she did not think she should tolerate this, even though she did not think it was so very bad. However, if she gave them the idea that this sort of thing was alright, they might become worse and worse. It was very difficult.

It was easier to throw things in than to get them out. She could see they were not strong enough and she let them struggle for a while until she saw them whisper together and John was sent to her.

"We are really sorry. We can't get it out if you don't help us," he whispered. "Please?" he begged when she did not answer. "We'll never do it again."

Elizabeth had no idea if she was being too strict or too lenient. She got up and helped them. After that she took off her bathrobe and hesitated. If she now went for a swim she would let them out of her sight again and they might make a mess elsewhere. Still, she could not be with them all the time. "Hang up your clothes and do twenty laps." That should keep them occupied for a while.

"That's too much for me. I'm too small," John protested. He did not like being small, except when it suited him. "I'm tired and I'm hungry."

"Me too," said David.

"You'll wait here until I finish," she warned them and dove in, to hide that she had no clue how to handle this. Did everyone have this problem? People who were writing about her would never imagine that she was struggling more with these dilemmas than with Henry's apparent conflict of interests or her own image.

After one day Elizabeth was no longer so sure the boys should not go back to school. This place was not built for children, could look like a mausoleum on a dreary day and there were no other children for them to play with. She told herself it had nothing to do with the mess they had made in the swimming pool.

She was used to this from birth, she thought as she looked around herself. She barely noticed all the antiques anymore. It was only when she was somewhere else that she noticed the difference, but it had never consciously registered. It was not simply that children would like other surroundings better, but perhaps she might as well.

The boys might keep living at school, but they would be here during the holidays, not to mention that there was a child on its way that would not be going to school for a very long time. Everyone had to feel at home here. She tried to look at the paintings through the eyes of a small child. They might be frightening. It was a long time since she had still noticed paintings, but she remembered that one or two had given her an uncomfortable feeling in her youth.

It was all very well to live here alone with her mother, but children required something else. She could not think children would automatically fit in. Elizabeth felt she was justified in thinking that. After all, it was very common for people to redecorate or move houses when they were starting a family. Why should it be any different for her?

It would not be a problem to redecorate her private wing, but it might take far too long. The renovations elsewhere in the buildings had taken years. She might be a grandmother when it was finished.

Still, it would not do for the Queen to move out. Elizabeth pondered that problem. Was that really true? Simply because no monarchs had ever moved out, it was unacceptable? They had all had secondary residences in the countryside and abroad where they remained for very long periods sometimes. This had always been their main residence, but honestly, her case was different.

Her father had had one child and one could hardly say he had started a family when he had become a father. He had been quite a few years older than the average new father. Looking back upon it, she doubted whether he had ever felt the family feeling. She had been the heir, not the daughter. Heirs needed other things than daughters.

Her grandfather had been the same. He had only had one child as well. Besides, this had been in the nineteenth century, almost. Her father might have been born in the twentieth century, but her grandfather's outlook on life and family life had definitely been shaped by the century before it. All of this, she looked around herself, was his doing. It might have been very modern back then.

Yes, her case was different. If she felt she had to move out, she should. She had never taken such a step. Even her houses abroad had been part of the inheritance. She had not felt she needed any more than she already had, so she had never bought a new house, let alone moved somewhere she had never lived before. Hesitant excitement bubbled up in her. It was only logical that taking that first step would cause a chain reaction of drastic changes. She could not have expected everything to stay the same after she had married Henry.

Nearly having decided about a move now, the next thing was to find a good house to move to. She glanced at Henry, who was watching television with David and John. It should not lead to Henry having to commute because then she would hardly see him, therefore the location should not be too far from town. She herself would have to commute fairly often as well.

Another thought struck her. She could kill two birds with one stone if they also lived close enough to the boys' school. That would be perfect if the school accepted day pupils and why should they not? She got up and found the map she had used the day before to see to where she had to drive. It was not far. Any house near it would also be near enough to town. She placed her finger on where she knew Henry's country home to be, but a finger covered too much. This was her map, so she might as well draw circles to see it more clearly. Henry had driven to his mother's home, so she did not know precisely where that was, but everything was more or less in the same area. Only Mary's school was a bit further away.

The solution was clear. Her hand trembled as she lay down the pencil.

Now how to consult Henry? Elizabeth wanted to do it right now, but she could not. The boys were there and they did not know she was pregnant yet. That raised another question. When should they be told? When it was so visible it could not be denied anymore? She felt her stomach again, but she had not yet reached that point.

Henry lazily got up to walk towards her when he caught her staring. He took one long glance at the map and then a long one at her. Then he sat down again.

Elizabeth wished he would not do that. It nearly made her jump in frustration. What was he thinking? She looked at him. He appeared to be watching television, but he was not. While David and John were nearly gaping open-mouthed and gasping when something happened, Henry betrayed no reactions at all and he looked a bit absentminded as if he was thinking about something.

When the programme was finished, he came up to her again. "What do you mean by pointing out that everything is in the same area?"

"I was considering doing something absolutely unprecedented." Well, it was unprecedented here. Her cousin abroad, though not yet a queen at the time, had done the same. She had moved to a house in the country because of her family.

Henry raised an eyebrow. "Again?" She was really on a roll. Elizabeth did not do things in a half-baked way.

"Yes."

"Does it involve me again?"

"Yes, it does. If you want." Just in time Elizabeth remembered that Henry had to agree, but how could he not agree to this? It was the only sensible solution there was.

"Absolutely."

"Henry, please tell me if you have any idea of what I'm getting at. Don't torture me," Elizabeth begged. Sometimes it was really hard to tell what he was thinking and he liked to tease her.

"I told your mother last night that you were the only one I couldn't torture." He could fool her mother, but not Elizabeth herself. Not for long, anyway.

"What does that mean?"

"It means that you can't draw circles on a map and then expect me not to know what you're getting at," Henry explained.

"So why can't you tell me?" she asked.

"For the same reason you can't tell me." His eyes looked directly into hers. "I think I know what you're getting at and you think I think I know. The only reason why we're not saying what we think the other is thinking is that we're afraid we might be wrong and we don't want to be wrong about each other. We'd rather just circle around it in the hopes that the other will say it first. Doesn't that sound familiar?" Henry said mockingly.

"Why don't you say it first? Isn't it so that I do the thinking and you take the action? Wasn't that so in Brazil?"

Henry laughed. "That wouldn't quite be an honest division! I did a far greater share of the work in that case, because I don't think you thought all that much."

Elizabeth had never told him if she had been thinking anything at all beforehand. "Yes, I did. I just didn't think it would lead to that. I thought we'd talk."

"Had you been wearing your parka, we might have had a very interesting conversation, but as it was you were wearing your bikini. If I had seen you in a bikini before I might have been more capable of carrying on a conversation. And you never gave any indication of wanting to talk," he said mischievously.

"I didn't really know what I wanted," Elizabeth admitted.

"Oh, you knew," Henry said with a grin. "You knew. And what do you want now?"

"How could you know what I was thinking just by seeing circles on a map?" she wondered.

"Well…" he smiled. "I'd rather not reveal my secrets. If your mother found out by accident, I could never fool her again."

"But honestly?"

"Promise me you won't tell anyone. If you're thinking you do a lot of things you might not be aware of. You stare at things you're thinking about, for example. I can add everything up and in this case it added up very nicely. One, you have some objections to sending the boys back to school. Two, you have some objections to keeping the boys here, because they got into mischief today, they told me. Three, you've only just noticed that you've got some hideous paintings. Four, you remembered that you were having a baby. Five, you realised that the house in the country is not too far from the school. Six, need I go on?"

Elizabeth was impressed. "You can tell all that by looking at me?"

"Half of it I already knew. We met and talked nearly two hundred times in the past two years. I know your opinions on certain things. I know in which matters your opinions don't conform to people's expectations."

"So what do you think of it?" Elizabeth inquired. That was the most important thing and the one she feared the most.

Henry always considered suggestions carefully and he could see the good points in Elizabeth's suggestion. It was the same as always, however. Her job was always a barrier. It allowed little room for normality -- if you took the job seriously, that was. He was all for a less rigid interpretation of the function. Too many restrictions would stifle his wife, not to mention himself.

"It's not bad," he said, sensing she was not quite convinced she had just suggested a good idea.

"But it's never been done before. Not that I know of."

The situation in the past had been vastly different. "I don't think a nineteenth-century man would see things the same way as a twenty-first-century woman." And people could not expect Elizabeth to live her life in the same way her father and grandfather had lived. Times had changed.

"I'm not a twenty-first-century woman. I'm the Queen." The public would be making that distinction.

Henry's face betrayed that he thought this utter rubbish. That argument always surfaced when she felt insecure. He had learnt to recognise that. "Really? You give a damn good impression of being a woman."

"But people might expect a sort of universal and continuous value system."

"Don't try to beat me at my own game," he said. If it should come to that, he would win for certain.

"What do you mean?"

"My speciality."

"And that is?"

Henry grinned. "You don't know? I thought that was why you married me."

"Apparently not. Don't tease me."

"Why did you marry me then?"

"Tell me!" she insisted.

"Alright. If you start cramming as many random latinate words into a sentence as possible without making any sense, you should remember that you won't impress me because I can always surpass your efforts. What on earth is a universal and continuous value system?"

"Adhering to traditions."

"Traditions have a random starting point. I'm sure I could find you an appropriate tradition that started long before people conceived of the idea to appoint the warrior who could chop off most heads as a king."

Elizabeth drew in her breath. Henry's opinions were not new to her, but he was usually less blunt in phrasing them.

"Fortunately we have already broken with that tradition," Henry continued. "Otherwise my head would be on the floor right now, I'm sure. A tradition develops, people recognise it, they stick to it for a while and then when it no longer fits into the society of that time, it disappears. Nobody still expects you to lead your men in chopping off heads. We've seen a little regression recently in that people assumed me to be your obedient vassal, in which they were not very much mistaken, albeit for different reasons. Now what I was saying was that it's completely idiotic to believe that people would insist that you live here simply because you're the Queen." He glanced at her. "Are you offended now? You have to realise that because of the pyramidal structure of the nobility, I have to rank a little lower than you, but if we were to investigate why our families ever came to possess those titles, we might find some less than respectable reasons. We might even find that my ancestors were more respectable than yours."

"Right, right, point taken."

"Not graciously, though."

"It wasn't graciously delivered either," Elizabeth retorted.

"Blunt measures are often more effective," Henry agreed. "Come on, Linnie. That's why you like me." From the beginning his long speeches had not fooled her and she had practically forced him to be blunt.

"What happened to the days when I could beat you?" she asked sadly.

"It keeps things exciting if you cannot always beat me," he said with sparkling eyes. "I remember thinking that I would never be able to beat you."

"When was that?" Elizabeth wistfully thought that had to have been ages ago. Lately she had not been sounding impressive at all.

"When I first met you."

She looked at him incredulously. "Really? I thought it was the other way around!"

"You did?" Henry would like to discuss that, but David and John were watching television in the same room. He stole a kiss when he thought the boys were not paying attention.

"Oh Daddy!" John cried in shock.

"What?" Henry asked somewhat guiltily. He could not recall if he had ever kissed Elizabeth in their presence. Perhaps he had not, but why was it strange?

Elizabeth chuckled when she detected a faint blush.

"Are you in love with Elizabeth?" John inquired with a giggle.

"John, I'm married to her!" Henry said with incredulity. Of course he was in love with her. He did not understand the question.

"That's different!"

Elizabeth really laughed now and hid her face against Henry's chest. "Of course it's different, Henry! You're not supposed to be in love with your wife."

"How is that different, John?"

"Because!" John did not see why he had to explain such an evident thing.

"Can't I kiss Elizabeth?" Henry wondered.

"She's not your girlfriend. You don't have to kiss her anymore."

"Oh!" Elizabeth protested in a soft voice. "Only unmarried people can kiss and only married people can have babies, eh Henry?" She wondered if this might be Henry's own doing.

"I am not responsible for that first belief," he assured her with a smile.

"John," she called. "Henry can kiss his wife."

John frowned at that. He did not see why Henry might want to do that. "But why?"

Elizabeth left Henry and sat down next to John. "Because he likes me. Actually, he kissed me because he likes me and he married me because he likes me."

"Also because we liked you."

"Yes, that too," she agreed.

John had to point out that the connection between marriage and kissing was tenuous. "Because he also kissed someone we didn't like. And he didn't marry her."

"Who?" she inquired immediately, wondering if she was jealous. There had never been anything to be jealous of before.

"I don't know. It was in a picture."

She wondered if it had been her. She hoped there was no one else. "How do you know about that?"

"The older boys at school showed me."

"But that was me."

John was not ready to believe that. "They didn't say it was you."

"Was I in a bikini?"

"No, in your underwear."

"That was a bikini."

"Oh." John looked relieved. "But Daddy didn't say it was you."

"Well, would you tell everybody if you kissed a girl?" she asked.

John looked disgusted by the suggestion. "I don't want to kiss any girls."

Elizabeth tried something different. "Well, if a girl kissed you, would you tell everybody?"

He looked even more disgusted. "No! Everyone would tease me."

"So, there. Everyone would have teased Henry."

"That's his own fault. He could have run away. I would run away if a girl tried to kiss me," John said bravely.

"You gave me a goodnight kiss last night."

"You're not a girl."

Elizabeth returned to Henry. "Alright. Here are the facts. I'm not a girl. I'm not your girlfriend. I'm someone John is allowed to kiss goodnight, but you are not allowed to kiss me at all. And you married me because John liked me."

Henry rolled his eyes. "Don't you believe that!"

"You married me for another reason then?" Elizabeth's eyebrows shot up.

"Yes, come here."

After a long and satisfying deliberation just outside the sitting room so as not to shock John again, they had agreed that Henry would take the boys back to school. He sat in the car, recalling the sensation of holding Elizabeth when he was saying goodbye to her. There was a bit of a paradox in it. He did not want to leave her, but if he never left her, he would never enjoy saying goodbye and while he was not really enjoying saying goodbye, it was good all the same.

He reviewed his marriage so far. There were cases when fantasy was better than reality, but he would have to agree with Elizabeth that in this case reality surpassed whatever fantasies they had had before. She had not wanted to tell him about those fantasies, even though he had asked, but she had merely laughed and said he might make less efforts if she told him.

The headmaster was pleased to see David and John again. However, Henry still felt he had to correct the man's belief that Elizabeth's decision had been overruled by her husband. There was no secret alliance between men who had gone to this school themselves. "My wife has a plan," he said.

"Still?" the headmaster inquired. He thought this plan had ended with Lord Setchley's interference. Even though Lady Setchley or Mrs Breckingham was the Queen, she would have to bow to her husband's superior judgement in the case of this particular boarding school. The headmaster picked up the phone and asked Jeremy to come up if they were going to discuss something. "I think it's best if we informed Jeremy about everything as well, since he's the boys' housemaster."

Henry realised that for the time being he would have to battle prejudices everywhere he went. The headmaster had sounded suspicious of the plan. "You met my wife," he said significantly.

"I did." The headmaster failed to see the significance of it.

"Gabriel," Henry said finally. The man had known him for longer. They had been to school together. "Would I marry a stupid woman?"

"I'm not saying she struck me as a stupid woman."

"She must have struck you as an extremely intelligent woman."

"I did not have the opportunity to test her intelligence, Henry."

"Perhaps you were under the assumption that she could not have any intelligence, because that would be too much to ask for."

"I did not give her intelligence any thought, because I was wondering where she wanted to take my pupils," the headmaster countered calmly. "Perhaps I should tell you that I first had the impression that Mrs Breckingham wasn't bona fide, because I couldn't imagine her calling herself Mrs Breckingham."

"She called herself Mrs Breckingham?" Henry cut in. Elizabeth had not told him that. It was strangely flattering.

"No, later on I heard from Jeremy that he had addressed her as such at first, but that she hadn't corrected him. He wasn't aware of your family situation. Anyway, as soon as I came over to check it out, I realised who she was and I was more surprised by the fact that she had actually come here than by the fact that she appeared to be a sensible woman."

"Don't tell me you wondered why she had come."

"I'm sorry, but I did."

"Is it so unimaginable for her to be interested in David and John?" Henry wondered.

"I hadn't expected it. I had read, naturally, that you and she appeared to be married, although that hadn't been proven yet, but I hadn't expected her to be on a good footing with the boys."

Jeremy appeared and he shook Henry's hand. Henry realised with a shock that he must be getting old if they had housemasters nowadays who were nearly half his age. Perhaps it sounded better if he thought of Jeremy as about fifteen years younger, rather than nearly half his age.

"Well," the headmaster continued. "I'll summarise what Lord Setchley and I have been talking about so far. As you know by now, Jeremy, he's married to the Queen. To cut things short, Lord Setchley has been telling me she's a very intelligent woman. We'll have to take his word for it."

"Gabriel…" Henry said in an ominous tone.

"Henry," Gabriel said with a pacifying gesture. "Of course we've noticed that about your wife. We've also noticed that she cares about her stepsons and that if we didn't listen to her wishes we might get into some serious trouble with her. I had thought you would be able to convince her that the school does have the boys' best interests at heart, but if she still has a plan…"

"She does not want to take them from school, but neither does she want them to be unhappy."

"We got the impression that she thought the school was making them unhappy."

"Not the school itself, but rather the lack of parental affection, I think," said Henry. "Perhaps I have been remiss in the past two years, but I've had to grow accustomed to this new role as well and it didn't come quite as naturally to me as it did to her, I believe. Perhaps it's easier for women. Even so, you'll remember that even after spending the holidays with me, John was wont to make trouble when I took him back to school."

The headmaster nodded. It would be a serious understatement to say that John had never wanted Henry to leave. He had always cried and clung to his uncle.

"They spent the Christmas holidays largely with Elizabeth. I had to go to the Middle East halfway."

"I didn't see her take them back, but it was her, wasn't it?" He had heard that from one of the other teachers.

"Yes, it was. They got used to her and they missed her." Henry shrugged. "It's perfectly understandable. She's the sort of person you'd miss. I think she handled them well."

Jeremy had not said anything yet. "David told me his mother had had some problems with the washing machine and that was why he needed a new sweater. I didn't understand much of the story at the time. I assumed his mother had a new washing machine, although he made it sound as if she was new to doing laundry altogether."

"That's what I meant," Henry said with a nod. "Not the laundry, because I had already been fearing she might be a domestic disaster, but the fact that he referred to her as his mother. He hadn't known her for very long. They first met at a funeral and the boys were very positive about her because she had got them orange juice, but as I had just fallen out with her at the time out of pure frustration, I wasn't very eager to probe just how positive an impression she had made on them. It was very painful to hear them ask Mary who the nice lady was. We didn't see each other for a few weeks until she had to dine with me and some foreign politicians. I was so nervous about seeing her again, because she had refused to see me in the meantime, but no matter how much you tell yourself to be angry with her, you cannot ignore your feelings. Thankfully we managed to sort everything out in a side room as soon as she arrived, before exposing the tension between us to my foreign colleagues." Henry smiled as he recalled the occasion. "By sorting everything out I meant talking things over, of course," he said hastily, lest they should get the wrong impression.

"Of course," the headmaster said in a grave voice. "Having met your wife now, I perfectly understand your wish to talk things over, especially if you hadn't seen her for such a long time."

"Gabriel," Henry warned him.

"I'm not saying anything you're not saying, Henry."

"I'm not saying anything I'm not saying either," Henry retorted. "I took her into the side room and we talked things over." But then he grinned. "I know it's hard to understand that I could take Elizabeth into the side room to talk to her, but considering that we'd already made the mistake once of not talking when we should have…" He cleared his throat. "Right. About the boys…she's got a plan, but while we're still considering carrying it out, the boys will stay at school."

"Did you convince her to leave them here?"

"I think it was the mess they made yesterday. The Palace isn't very child-friendly. She realised they're better off living at school until she's arranged…the other thing."

"What other thing?" Gabriel inquired.

"I can't say yet. It's possibly going to be a shocker."

"More shocking than you marrying her?" he asked doubtfully.

"How's that shocking?" Henry wondered innocently. "We're made for each other."

Gabriel rolled his eyes. "Yes, well… However, I shall not deny that certain events have had good effects on you and the boys. There is one other thing I meant to discuss with you and that was John's progress. His teacher reported to me that ever since the Christmas holidays he's been found capable of writing, or should I say willing to write? Because we somehow suspect he's been leading us on, given his extraordinary progress in such a short period of time. He couldn't have acquired this skill during the holidays. It's more likely that he lost whatever objections he had to using it. Considering that you've also mentioned the Christmas holidays, I'm seeing a link here."

"I noticed it during the Christmas holidays. At least, my sister pointed out to me that John was entering phone numbers and names into Elizabeth's phone. We didn't talk to him about it. He might have stopped doing it. Elizabeth didn't know he wasn't supposed to know how to write. I didn't see her do anything special with them while I was there. I think she read some books with them while I was in the Middle East, but I don't know if she let them read for themselves. I think she might have. I vaguely recall her telling me they were fighting over the books." Henry frowned as he tried to remember. "But I'm not sure."

"His teacher would like to know, because John isn't exactly a source of information. He doesn't mind if people guess right, but he certainly won't take the trouble of providing more information." Gabriel saw some similarities to someone else. "Not unlike Mrs Breckingham, don't you agree? No wonder they get along."

"Mrs Breckingham is quite generous with other information," Henry objected. "But she wasn't here on an official visit and titles have nothing to do with being a mother. In fact, you'd probably have taken her abilities less seriously if she had come here saying she was the Queen."

"And it was my fault for not recognising her," Jeremy piped up. "But I've been ill and I've missed all the crucial information."

Henry snorted at the young teacher. "Have you been ill since birth?"

"What do you mean?"

"Elizabeth has been the Queen for quite a long time." Henry thought about it. "Well, I wouldn't insult both you and my wife by implying she came to the throne before you were born, because she's only forty, but still. You couldn't have missed the fact that she's been the Queen for a few years. I don't know exactly how many, because it happened before I took an interest in her. I'd expect you to have seen her before, though. I had seen her before too, although not with the idea that this was going to be my future wife. While that makes me understand rationally that our marriage is hard to swallow for anyone else as well, it is a bit frustrating all the same to meet with such disbelief."

"Yes, sir." Jeremy coloured. "But I wasn't aware that you had married her, so I didn't expect her."

"Don't worry about it. I was only teasing. Still, I'm always wary of meeting people who believe that Elizabeth is a conservative old prig, as she was described in the papers not two months ago, but oddly enough such people are mainly women."

"I wonder why," Gabriel said dryly. Of course some women would not like it that Henry was taken. "Anyway, Henry. I look forward to hearing your wife's plan whenever she decides to carry it out."

"Me too. That doesn't mean I'm not involved," Henry hastened to say. "But simply that she has more time and money to work on it. It won't be in the next two weeks, though. We've got to go to a Royal Wedding next week."

"Yours?"

"No, although I expect that we might be getting as much attention as if it had been our own. The mother of the bridegroom really is a conservative old prig. Her staff have already been communicating with my staff, at least they have sent my staff some orders disguised as efforts at communication." Henry laughed. "We have not replied."

To Part Four
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