He possessed the most perfect eyes, as befitting a Dudley. They were a noble lineage: his grandsire a financial minister to your father—before he met the axe—and his brother once a King Consort—until he too faced execution. Still, he was nobility... and also wed. Yet what import hath marriage in these times? Thy father took six wives, only the third, the one who supplanted thy mother, did he acknowledge as his true spouse, solely for that she bore him a son. A sickly boy, who died only after six years into his reign; then a cousin ascended the throne, only to be swiftly beheaded by thy sister, who claimed the crown. She wed, but he only wanted her fleet, and lost it when she died without an heir. Now, thou didst ascend the throne. The Virgin Queen Gloriana, so they named thee. If only they knew the truth of the wedded man who shared thy bed. The man with the perfect eyes. Morning broke, and thou didst gaze upon him as he slept, having spent the night with thee once more, rather than in his own manor with his own wife. Thou didst ever tease the notion of marriage, but 'twas naught but a jest. The only one thou didst desire was Dudley. Yet he was not thine. Even the Queen could not have what she truly wished for.* "Good morrow," he smiled, those perfect eyes of blue gleaming in the dawn's light as he awoke, his tawny hair in disarray. A handsome disarray, nonetheless.