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Then the man backed away, still bowing, so it almost looked like he was folded in half.

Saviero stayed where he was, in the entrance to the small room. He heard the far-off sounds of people moving, and assumed that the gallery guards were at work, making sure that the gallery was empty of all visitors.

And then slowly, all around them, the gallery grew quiet.

That didn’t mean that everyone had left the building, but Saviero felt certain that they were alone on this floor, at the least.

And in all that time, even though he also knew that his wife was perfectly aware of his presence, Cesca did not deign to spare him a glance.

Quite deliberately, he thought. And not only because if she had, the poor guard might have ended up on his belly as he’d retreated.

It was dark outside the windows. The gallery was lower down Palace Hill, so Saviero could see the streetlights on the city streets, and in the windows of the apartment buildings. The red wave of brake lights on the main boulevards, and, here and there, hints of individual New Year’s celebrations in the form of sparklers and small fireworks over different neighborhoods.

Inside the gallery, the shadows grew long. Saviero’s pulse slowly, slowly returned to normal. His breathing was deep again.

Looking at Cesca had that effect.

This time, when he pressed his hand to his chest, it was for a different reason.

“My mother loved art and music,” Cesca said, her voice quiet and faintly scratchy. “She was the one who taught Vesuvius and me to sing, and to prefer novels above all other reading choices, though I think it made her sad that neither one of us could draw at all.”

Cesca still did not look at him. She kept her gaze trained on the framed sketches along the wall before her.

“But she also taught me, a long time ago, to know better than to trust anyone who came to me as a friend. When I could not see their motivations.” Saviero could not pretend that didn’t feel like a slap. He was certain that was how she meant it. And she kept going. “She said it was a matter of taking care not only of myself, but of the kingdom. That because I was Royal, I could never trust anyone. I needed to assume, always, that there were ulterior motives.”

That was when she looked over at him, and Saviero found that for once, he could not read that look on her face. Nor the dark little gleam in her eyes.

It was as if she was a stranger.

And he hated it.

“What I mean is that this is all my fault,” Cesca told him, and though her words sounded generous, there was still that dark gaze that suggested otherwise. So Saviero was already braced for the knife’s sharp blade when she stuck it deep, straight into his chest. “I should have known better than to trust a man who was so eager to do my brother’s bidding that he would marry a complete stranger. With barely a full day of lead time.”

That was meant to be a scathing insult, clearly.

So, though he could feel that knife perfectly well, Saviero decided he would not take it as an insult. He would look at it a different way. Why would she want to hurt him? Why would she try?

Saviero chose to view this urge of hers as an indication of what her feelings truly were for him. That they ran hot and deep.

And as it happened, luckily enough, so did his.

“I have always done my duty,” he told her, after a moment, making sure that he sounded unbothered and entirely calm. When he was decidedly not either one of those things. “And I hope that I always will. But that is not the same thing as doing your brother’s bidding. Much less doing yours.”

She lifted a shoulder and let it drop. “That sounds like semantics to me.”

“I think you know that it is not.”

He crossed from the door then, moving so he could place himself in her line of sight, there between her and her mother’s drawings. She did not rise from the low bench where she sat, so he knelt down instead. Putting himself at her eye level.

Then he put his hands on either side of her, laying them on the cold stone on the far side of each of her thighs. And had the distinct pleasure of watching her color rise to betray her.

“You cannot tell me that you truly believe that this thing between us is about duty, Francesca,” he said, his voice very low. And deeply serious.

“You always call me that.” Her gaze met his, and he still couldn’t read her. “My full name. Why?”

Saviero did not look away. He held that solemn, accusing glare of hers instead.

“Because I like it,” he said, starkly. “Because I like you. I have for a long while. I am not the one who thought you were boring.”