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“Because I know how to communicate with you, Your Majesty,” he said, as levelly as he could. And because he meant every word he was saying. “I made you a promise and I do not break promises. You will always have my support. Even if I disagree with you completely, that will be a matter we take up on our own, and it will be solved between us with no one else the wiser.”

They stopped walking when they were a bit short of what was called the Study, where delicate matters of state were discussed and handled by the necessary officials and ministers. And this particular part of the palace was not only not private, it was where the actual work of the kingdom’s government occurred. They might as well have been on a public street.

And yet the way they looked at each other then, he thought, was nothing short of electric.

“I’ll hold you to that,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper and a whole world in her eyes.

“Surely I have already proven to you, Your Majesty, that I am a man of my word.” When she gazed back at him, as if taking his measure all over again, he allowed himself a smile. “Never fear. I will be certain to show you again. And again. And—”

“Thank you, Your Royal Highness,” she said, with great formality, though he could see the sparkle in her eyes.

He could already tell that he was going to make it his mission to keep putting it there.

She turned back toward their destination and strode toward it, nodding at the guards who saluted and then opened the door for her. Saviero followed, and together they went inside to sit down at the long table within.

Where Cesca was briefed extensively on every matter of interest to the kingdom, in so doing, meeting the members of her government who she might not have paid much attention to in her formal role. Saviero was on hand to make certain that no one forgot themselves and dared to speak down to the party princess.

And also to share his own thoughts and opinions on the matters presented. As Vesuvius’s number two, he could speak with authority on the accomplishments, goals, and misfires of the previous monarch’s rule.

As expected, this took the rest of the afternoon and carried on well into the evening. They were not finished with her until late in the evening, and Saviero escorted her back across the palace to their rooms.

“I expected that you would charm them, of course,” he said as they walked together, Saviero maintaining that step behind her as they passed through the public areas of the palace. “But I believe you also impressed them, Your Majesty, and that is not so easily done.”

She flushed then. From pleasure, he thought.

“I know that everyone believes that I went to the Sorbonne to loll about Paris and attend parties all over Europe.” Cesca smiled when he lifted a brow. “I did those things, of course. But I also attended my classes. Perhaps you forgot, in your excessive over attention to my biography, that I cobbled together a course of study in philosophy, politics, and economics. With some attention to art, naturally, in honor of my mother.”

It wasn’t that Saviero had forgotten that, or anything else about her. What he had done, as had most everyone else, was underestimate her. He’d assumed her degree was a gift to the kingdom, not a representation of the work she’d put in.

She was watching him, and she allowed herself a look of satisfaction. “That’s what I thought,” she said. “You may not realize this, but the French grading system is quite rigorous. And yet I managed the highest distinction, a Mention très bien.” They started up the stairs that would take them to their private wing, and she sniffed. “What did you study at Oxford, Your Royal Highness? When you were not involved in back-alley fight clubs with your friends, that is?”

Saviero let out a laugh then, surprised. He’d thought that his exploits with Vesuvius and Kyriakos had been long since brushed under the carpet—two different royal carpets, in fact, in Liandero and Zaccaria. “I studied physics and philosophy,” he told her. “And graduated with a First.”

They eyed each other as they climbed the last of the stairs.

“It’s less impressive for you,” she said, a smile teasing the corners of her mouth. “You were expected to do well. Required to graduate with distinction, I imagine.”

“I am nothing if not a servant to the needs of the kingdom, Your Majesty,” Saviero replied smoothly as they reached the landing that led to their private rooms.

It was possible he might have demonstrated that service, but she was studying him closely. And she’d stopped walking.

“But why?” When he raised a brow, she continued. “Why are you so devoted to Liandero? So devoted that you have made it your whole life?” Her gaze intensified. “And you even married me.”

He had been asked that question before and had always brushed it off in a variety of ways.

Saviero didn’t know why he didn’t do the same thing now. It was something about the way she was looking at him, he thought. It was something about how adroitly she’d handled this new role she’d been thrust into, literally overnight.

He could not meet her grace with anything like glibness.

“My parents died when I was young,” he said. “So I went to live with my grandfather. And I suppose you could say that the Royal Family were his hobby. He loved the palace and all its doings.” He smiled, remembering the stubborn old man and his favorite pastime. “The Cimarosa family have always served the monarch when called. My grandfather always told me that his grandfather had been a contemporary of the King in those days. And that his uncle had been a minister in his time. He regretted that his generation had not served, and told me all the time that it was a great honor that because I was a Lianderoan of aristocratic lineage born in the same year as the future King, I was chosen to be one of his acceptable friends.”

“I forgot they chose his friends,” Cesca said. “Poor Vesuvius. They did not bother with me.”

He could have told her that Vesuvius had never considered himself poor anything, but he did not. “Your brother was not a great fan of most of his selected companions,” Saviero told her instead. “But he and I hit it off. And I suppose it was my grandfather who made me believe, from the time I was very young, that a man has to have something worth living for. Something to live his life for. Or what kind of life can it be?”

“A simple one,” Cesca said softly. “One where only you and your immediate family matter, and no one else takes the slightest notice.”

She sounded almost yearning, he thought. And it was not that he did not understand that yearning. He could have told her that focusing only on one’s immediate family was all well and good until that immediate family was gone. That what was left was nothing but loss. That she was lucky to have something external and eternal to concentrate on.