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But he knew better than to tell her such a thing.

Especially because he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Cesca had absolutely no idea who she was dealing with. She thought that he was boring, and perhaps he played that role—but not in the bedroom.

Just because he did not parade his conquests through the streets like some, that didn’t mean he didn’t tear them up where it counted. In his bed.

And he wasn’t certain if he had ever wanted any of the lovers he’d enjoyed the way he wanted Cesca.

Purely on a physical level, he assured himself. That was all he had to offer. Everything else in him was focused on his duty, whether she found that boring or not.

Saviero shook it off, and forced himself to walk back out of her rooms, because there was still so much to do and the whole of a fraught Christmas Day to get through. Though, again, he was grateful that he had these things to focus on.

He was grateful that while he did not have Vesuvius—and still could not allow himself to accept what had happened to his friend, even though he knew he needed to call their other best friend, Prince Kyriakos of Zaccaria, and make sure he heard the terrible news from him before it was reported widely—he had this plan that the two of them had hammered out.

Saviero intended to execute every single point as if his life depended upon it. Because if he was going to live his life without his friend, then he would be damned certain that everything was exactly the way his friend had imagined it. That the kingdom would work precisely as he had intended it should in his absence.

Up to and including marrying Vesuvius’s younger sister, something that Saviero never would have considered. Much less suggested, but Vesuvius had insisted.

He had never said, throughout the course of the conversation, that he was aware that Saviero had a particular soft spot for her. He had never indicated that he knew that Saviero always knew precisely where the Princess was in a room. That without even trying, he seemed to know every detail of what she was up to at any given time.

Vesuvius had not discussed any of that, and Saviero was grateful for it.

But he also had been under the distinct impression that his friend knew, just the same.

What he hoped his friend had not guessed was that this particular call to duty was Saviero’s worst nightmare.

Because while he could certainly find his way into enjoying the marital bed given who he’d be sharing it with, Saviero did not do personal relationships. Vesuvius and Kyriakos were two too many and that had not been his choice. He had been dutifully presented to the future king as a companion when he was young and by the time he’d known better than to allow such intimacies, Vesuvius had roped in Kyriakos and it was all too late.

Every death proved to him that he was right to dedicate himself to loving a thing that could never die. That would never leave him, no matter what.

A wife—especially a wife like Cesca, who already saw far more than she should have—was the very last thing he had ever wanted. Likely because he had that soft spot for her.

That was something he never intended to discuss with anyone.

He stood out there in the hallway and made more calls. He spoke to the staff that were coordinating the wedding and updated them accordingly. He had told them yesterday that the wedding would go ahead though the participants would change, so all that was required today was confirmation. He summoned Cesca’s staff and when they arrived, he gave them a short, to-the-point lecture about his expectations not only for the day, but for the future.

No flouting of protocol—like deliberately concealing the location of the club the Princess had chosen to grace with her presence the night before. No more allowing Cesca to sneak out of required appearances without making certain the Royal Guard knew her every movement.

No letting Cesca behave as if she was not the monarch, because she was now. That transition would likely be difficult—but it would be significantly worse if the Queen of Liandero was found out partying, making herself not just a spectacle but a target.

“Her Majesty the Queen has requested that there be no change in her staff,” he told them at the end of his remarks. “But I have only agreed to take that under advisement.”

He did not need to say more. He could see they all understood.

And he made them wait before going in to attend to her, so that he could introduce them to Madam Durand, who had been one of his first calls yesterday once he and Vesuvius had finished plotting out how all of this would go. He had given the famous Parisian grand couturier an impossible task and she had taken it as a challenge, arriving from Paris earlier this morning with her battalion of assistants.

When they were all standing there before him, as he stood all but guarding Cesca’s door, he nodded to each of them in turn. Staff and Madam Durand in turn.

“What I wish to see when I return,” he told them all, “is the glory of the new Queen. Who must also be, by definition, the most stylish and iconic bride the world has ever seen. So that there can be no debate, now or ever, about her worthiness to ascend the throne. Every detail about her appearance can and must convey the weight of law, tradition, and all that is Liandero.”

Then he smiled, because he was not the monster his bride liked to imagine he was. “Because as we all know, she not only deserves nothing less, but will insist upon it herself.”

They all loosened up at that, as he’d intended.

They filed into her rooms, chattering happily among themselves, no doubt planning all the ways that they would work with Cesca’s natural inclination toward high-impact fashion to transform her into a Queen for the ages.

His own ceremonial attire was even now being prepared in the rooms he’d had his own staff begin to move his things into during the night. Saviero had chosen the apartments directly across from hers. That meant that the Queen and her consort now occupied the entirety of this wing, and she would not have to move her things at all. He felt that was a far better solution than moving them both into the traditional monarch’s space—Vesuvius’s space—on the upper level.

For both of them.