Claudius never used to laugh too much before Gertrude came to Elsinore – it wasn’t princely, it wasn’t dignified, and if either his parents or his brother bothered to ask what was so funny, then seven times out of ten it would be deemed too vulgar or common. Anyway, it was better to escape notice, but the thing about Gertrude is that she always notices the people around her and makes them feel welcome and appreciated with an easy queenly grace, has done since she was a girl.

She does it so naturally and unthinkingly that he’s never found a good way to thank her and say how very much it’s meant to him but tonight, walking his fingers up under the hem of her wedding dress, whispering in her ear to ask what she wants, and offering a few suggestions of her own to make her blush, he thinks for the first time that he has a chance of coming close.