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Cesca shook her head, but he saw the way her pulse picked up in her neck. He decided to take that as a sign. Whether a good or bad one, he could not yet say.

Though he knew how he wanted this conversation to go.

“I have no affection for Lord Frick,” she said then. “He has always struck me as a pompous windbag from afar, and getting the opportunity to experience him up close has not changed that impression any. But he makes a good point.”

“He has never ventured anywhere near a good point,” Saviero retorted. “Not once.”

But Cesca could not be diverted. She kept her gaze on him. “You would do anything for the crown, Saviero. You have done. I knew this before Christmas. And I certainly know it now.”

“I must remind you that it was I who suggested that we employ modern methods of procreation to dispatch the duties inherent in our relationship.” He’d had no intention of actually following through on that suggestion, of course. But that didn’t matter. He was still the one who had put it out there. “And lest you forget, Francesca, it was you who insisted that we consummate our marriage the way that we did. I had made it clear that I thought we should wait.”

Saviero was happy they had not waited. But he didn’t need to share that. Not now.

Cesca stared back at him as if she was trying to see inside his head. “Don’t you think I know that it’s your job to make me believe you?”

And her voice was so quiet. It made his chest seem to press in tight against his own ribs, and it didn’t let up.

But when he started to speak, she shook her head. “It is literally your role. To support me in public and seduce me in private, and whether your heart is in those things, no one knows.” She was looking at him still, and did not look away as she shrugged. “And I’ll give it to you, Saviero. You’ve played it all beautifully. I believed you completely and without question.”

Her smile was not bitter then, but something like sad. It made him feel scraped raw and hollow.

“Nothing has changed,” Cesca said in that same way. “I needed to be reminded of reality, that’s all. The fact that Lord Frick is an unlikely messenger doesn’t mean he was wrong.”

“Do you really believe that the dynamic we have between us is manufactured?” Saviero asked then, and he felt that hollowness expand inside him, seeming to take him over. His heart was beating too quickly again.

And he thought that he was losing something here that he could not afford to be without.

“I believe that you are good at your job,” Cesca replied. “Very, very good.”

“Maybe so,” he agreed. “I served your brother for many years. And let me hasten to assure you, Francesca, I managed it with far fewer orgasms.”

Her gaze snapped to his and seemed to burn straight through him.

But Saviero didn’t care, because he could read her again. He could see her again.

The sense of relief walloped him, and he was faintly surprised it didn’t sweep him over. He leaned closer, putting his face close to hers and breathing her in.

And when she drew herself up, he smiled. “Shall I show you?” he asked, in that tone he usually reserved for their bedrooms. The tone he knew she would recognize.

She did.

He saw goose bumps shiver to life and snake down the length of her neck.

“You forget yourself,” she hissed at him. “I am the Queen. And we are—”

As if he had planned it, the lights went out in the main room beyond then. Though they remained on here in the small room where they were. A little patch of light that illuminated only the two of them.

Cesca stopped speaking, and he thought he heard her gulp.

“I think,” Saviero said quietly, but with that intensity that was all for her, that song they sang together, “that we are all alone, Francesca. That makes us husband and wife, not Queen and consort.”

“I have no intention—”

He reached up and put his finger over her lips, and felt the swift breath she took.

“Thank you,” he murmured. “But I think that’s enough talking.”

Cesca looked back at him, mutinous.