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He had concluded almost before Vesuvius had left the palace that it would take months, possibly years, to warm Cesca up to what he had to offer. Despite this, and what he had assumed would be voluminous and rather loud protestations to the contrary, he had always suspected that she did not find him quite as distasteful as she pretended.

She liked to harp on about how boring he was, but he had seen her looking at him far too many times. At the very least, she found him physically attractive. Saviero was aware that many royal marriages had been based on less than that.

Surely he could work with it, he’d thought.

But now he knew better. Now he knew that he had more tools at his disposal than he’d imagined.

And poor Cesca was used to her brother’s loyal minister. She found him boring. She had no idea what she was in store for with Saviero in her bed.

He could work with that, too.

She reached the altar at last. Her gaze found his and held, and he watched that serene, commanding sort of expression on her face shift slightly as her gaze met his.

He was smiling, and he could tell she found that confusing.

Cesca handed her scepter off to one of the aides who waited there for her. Then she faced Saviero.

She was the Queen, so he performed a dutiful bow. Then he reached out for her hand. He was keenly aware that every gesture, every breath he took, was under scrutiny. He had instructed his staff to prepare a statement on their relationship, which was, of course, a piece of fiction. Her Majesty would have to sign off on it, but she would also have to be briefed on it in the first place, and all of that would need to occur in short order once they left the Cathedral as a married couple.

But first there was this. This performance of a wedding that had to cover so many bases it ought to have been dizzying, and they could not afford to fail at any one of them.

For example, he could not simply take her hand. He had to offer his, exuding both humility and confidence, and wait for her to place her hand in his.

She did so, and every time they touched, he felt more of that wild current arc between them. It had been unexpected in that club early this morning. He could not say he was used to it now, but he liked the implications of it.

Not to mention what it suggested about the relationship they could have in the coming years.

Her dark hazel eyes were filled with a kind of understanding, a kind of knowledge that he could feel like a physical touch. And his attraction to her had never been in question. But he found that he was delighted to discover that her attraction to him was a simmering thing all its own.

Saviero had no doubt that he could bring it to boil.

But not now, he cautioned himself.

Because they were facing the altar now, and the Archbishop stood before them. Then raised his hands and began the wedding service.

The palace staff had been working through the night to rearrange the ceremony so that it did not feel like a slapdash effort. So it could not be discussed as an insert Queen kind of situation. It had been imperative, Saviero had insisted in the darkness after midnight, that it feel as if this wedding had always been planned to be about Saviero and Cesca.

He needed it to feel as if the two of them had been fated all along and this wedding was the inevitable conclusion of that.

Because they needed to also suggest that Queen Francesca’s reign was the same.

And as they moved from readings to blessings and then finally to vows, Saviero found himself thinking that they had done a spectacular job.

He and the Queen of Liandero stood there at the altar and exchanged rings. Both of the rings had been sourced from the Crown’s Armory, where all traditional pieces were kept and sometimes displayed. That was where the Queen’s Crown would stay when it was not on the monarch’s head. Saviero would have a crown of his own, he knew, but not today.

And meanwhile, they would both wear historic rings that spoke to the kingdom’s long history and connected them to its future.

His staff had spent hours finding precisely the right ones for this new moment in the kingdom’s history.

Sliding the ring that had been chosen for the Queen onto her finger, all the while gazing into those eyes of hers, did something to Saviero. He felt it as if it was altering the molecular structure of his heart. He felt it like a touch. Like placing a ring on her finger was somehow wrapping around him, too.

It felt like an exchange even while he was the only one doing it.

But then, he could feel the faintest tremor in her when she did the same, and he wondered if both of them were shocked in the same way by this duty of theirs. This inevitable necessity that they had both agreed to, knowing it was the best thing for the kingdom, and that he suspected they would have agreed to even if there was no attraction on either side.

Because it was the right thing to do.

He wondered if he wasn’t the only one who was shocked to find that what could have been nothing more than business felt sacred now.