"And that's not important at all." He dared a wink- just a friendly wink, not an attempt to flirt. He'd have to be a lot younger and a lot more reckless to try flirting with a royal.

Though the news she added to what he knew did sober him, and not only because he had just winked at a queen. He considered it for a moment, nodding slowly. King George had only been crowned a few years ago- he still remembered his mother's acerbic opinions on the king's abdicated brother and the woman he'd married. It seemed surreal for him to be gone so soon afterward. He wasn't sure what to say that she wouldn't find offensive. "I'm... sorry about your father. It can't have been easy to lose him, he was a good man."