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This is a Fandom Gives Back piece for Happymoon35 who is quite possibly the most patient person on earth. It will be a full-length, multi-chaptered story.

The Heir and the Spare

Prologue

It wasn't supposed to happen this way.

When Her Majesty Queen Charlotte refused to grant her eldest son a divorce from his estranged wife, she did so hoping to force them to reconcile. She never expected her daughter-in-law would go to such lengths to be free. Yet after she was briefed on the details of the automobile "accident" in which Princess Elizabeth had perished, the Queen could no longer pretend she hadn't intentionally taken her own life.

Her Majesty doubted she'd ever be able to understand why her son's marriage was such an utter failure. After all, her own marriage had been arranged. She and Prince Peter came from a generation of royals free of romantic notions. Duty came before emotion, and physical attraction (or lack thereof) never entered the equation. Though she wouldn't deny there'd been a period of adjustment, even in the beginning they'd shared a deep, mutual respect. In time, they'd even learned to love each other. She couldn't be sure her husband never kept mistresses, but if he had, he'd done so with enough discretion that neither she nor the press ever found out about it.

Meanwhile, her son's infidelities were the lead on the news. More often than not, they were followed by opinion pieces questioning whether such a man was fit to inherit the throne and what purpose, if any, royalty served in modern society.

The monarchy she'd devoted her entire life to preserving was now in danger because her son couldn't keep his dick in his pants. Because polls seemed to indicate that the Queen had a better chance of raising Princess Elizabeth from the dead than she did of redeeming her heir apparent in the eyes of his subjects, the future of the monarchy rested on the shoulders of her grandchildren. After much introspection, she grudgingly realized that while there were no guarantees, there was one thing she could do that would make them less likely to repeat their father's mistakes.

She would allow her grandsons to marry for love.