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And they stood there for a long while. He waited until she turned away, hugging herself. Then he held out his hand once more, took hers in another firm grip, and led her through the palace once again.

This time, he stopped off in one of the lower-level office areas of the palace, where he ignored the offices and went into a large closet instead. From there he produced puffy, long jackets for both of them. He handed her a fuzzy knit hat, watched her put it on, and then reached over to tug it down over her ears as well. She let him do it, looking back at him as if she couldn’t quite take his measure. Not anymore.

Saviero was fine with that. He pulled a scarf from one of the shelves and wrapped it around her neck, then quickly handled his own protection against the elements—especially if it concealed his identity.

Then he walked her outside, directly into the public gardens.

Cesca balked when she saw where they were heading. Not back to the palace gardens set higher on the hill, but the public gardens that were open to the public night and day.

A place where the Royal Family rarely ventured, and certainly not without the Royal Guard at the ready.

“No one will have the slightest idea who you are,” he assured her in a low voice, and tugged the hat down farther over her hair, which was still caught up in all those braids that had held up her crown.

She could have been anyone. He doubted if any of her subjects would think to stare intensely at one more woman in a puffy coat, wrapped in a bulky scarf and a hat almost down to her nose.

He had obscured himself in much the same way.

And that was how he managed to take the brand-new Queen on a tour of the Christmas-themed lights that some felt were the European highlight of the season. It was called the Old Town Holiday Glow.

Because they went all out. The public gardens were divided into three tiers, and at this time of year, they lit each tier with a different theme, all holiday related. The wide paths were open, and filled tonight with merrymakers. Children, flushed with Christmas itself and all the sugary treats that went with it, squealed and ran amok. Citizens of all ages strolled, taking in the spectacular light displays that overtook the pathways, lit up the trees, and, in some places, seemed to move as if they were actually alive.

It was truly glorious.

“I’ve only seen pictures of this,” she told him, sounding awed and, if he wasn’t mistaken, happy. Not something he’d seen too often from Cesca. “But it never occurred to me I could see it in person unless I shut the whole thing down for a private viewing.”

Which would have been pretty, of course, but not the same. Part of the joy of walking through these gardens was the reactions of all the other people seeing them at the same time.

As they walked, he noticed that it seemed to take her a little while to understand that she was completely anonymous. It was full dark now and the lights all around them were the attraction, not the people looking at them.

Nobody gave her a second glance.

And he could see when the Queen realized how particularly freeing it was to be anonymous. Saviero wasn’t sure she’d ever had this experience before.

So he made sure that it was the full experience. He got her a frothy cup of hot chocolate. And toasted marshmallows on a stick.

He watched as she sang along to Christmas carols sung by a choir, and stared at commemorative tea towels for sale with her face on them. If anyone had been given time to make wedding swag featuring both of them, he knew, there would have been far more of it in the stalls near the entrance.

When he finally took her back into the palace, she was as close to giddy as he’d ever seen her.

They stripped off their outer layers and hung them neatly in the closet where they’d found them. Then he led her back to that spiral stair and they climbed it together, all the way back up to their rooms.

Once there, Saviero ushered her into his private dining room, where the dinner he’d ordered waited for them.

It was a simple meal of freshly baked bread, roast chicken, and a platter of perfectly prepared vegetables in a variety of bright colors. There were stout crocks of soup with cheese melting on top, a deeply green salad, and a number of smaller dishes of things like olives, roasted nuts, and cold cheeses.

He thought that Cesca would complain, or excuse herself, but she didn’t. She sat at the small table with him and ate hungrily. Belatedly, it occurred to him that she likely hadn’t eaten since yesterday. Not a full meal, anyway.

When they were done, she sat back in her chair and gazed at him over her glass of wine.

“Thank you,” she said, in what was, for her, a very measured tone. Maybe he meant earnest. “I don’t know what I was expecting when you said you wanted to show me something, but it certainly wasn’t that.”

“Perhaps,” he suggested dryly, “you might revisit this notion you have that I’m the most boring man who ever lived.”

If he sought to embarrass her, however, he was to be disappointed. Because all she did was smile. “Let’s not get carried away,” she said.

“I apologize,” he said at once, and while he didn’t roll his eyes—he could certainly never allow himself to be so juvenile—he imagined he gave the impression of doing so all the same. “You certainly looked utterly bored in the public gardens. And at the overlook. That’s exactly how I would describe the expression on your face.”

“Well, the lights weren’t boring, Saviero,” she said, shaking her head as if she was taunting him.