I really found it difficult to believe that she was willing to wait around 5 years for him to return and produce enough political results to marry her. More importantly, I think at that time, it would have been completely impossible for the son of a woman who didn't marry his father, as well as an Irishman, and also a mixed race person... all of those things would make it completely impossible to have a legitimate marriage relationship with the queen of England. I mean, you can tell that even in modern times, a mixed race relative of the British royal family is shunned. Granted, being an Asian mixed race is not the same for white people as a black mixed race, but I think at that time race relations were about 1000x worse. I think that this book would definitely have been better if he didn't go with the royal romance trope.