Chapter Two #2
All things considered, he’d rather be left alone.
He liked living in London. He liked the life he’d built away from the glare of his royal roots.
He was not nearly as irresponsible as certain publications made him out to be, but he had also not truly understood how much he cherished his anonymity and freedom until it was gone.
Everything he did now directly affected the principality. That was what his long-suffering top aide had been at pains to tell him.
There is no space between you as a person and the principality itself, Your Serene Highness, the man had said.
Repeatedly, in those early days. Should you act impetuously, it will be seen as the country behaving in that fashion.
Should you shirk your duties, it will be the country that is falling apart.
As the heir to the throne, you had only to be alive and available.
I fear that far more is required of you now.
That had been a year ago. It had not settled well, but Kyriakos had done his best.
Now he was married, a state he’d had no desire whatsoever to enter into. Though he could not deny that he had taken a specific and particular personal pleasure in watching the icy Princess Aikaterini kneel at his feet.
Especially after that kiss that plagued him still.
He was alive, after all.
And he had not yet become too much a principality instead of a man, he decided now, because all he wanted to do was reenact that scene. Privately, and with a much different ending.
Because he had developed something of an obsession over the past year and it started—and likely ended—with the impenetrable Aikaterini naked. Sex was something he understood. He assumed that once they crossed that barrier in their marriage, he would understand her, too.
Far more than an odd, public, performative kiss that he should already have forgotten about.
Though, given the fact that his blushing bride looked at him as if he had fangs, he rather doubted that there would be anything like sex happening anytime soon.
He was led to her side now, where he could admire once again how good she was at what she did.
Even in the depths of her grief, her every public-facing moment had been executed flawlessly.
Every statement she had issued had been perfectly pitched and able to capture the moment, which Kyriakos knew perfectly well was a skill.
And a rare talent. Nobody was that good with the public by chance.
He had wanted to discover that it was her staff who were so good. And she did have excellent staff. But it all came directly from her. Princess Aikaterini, who had been widely beloved while Venediktos was alive.
His death had canonized her. Her sacrifice today for the good of the country had solidified her as the beacon of the principality unto the world.
Kyriakos decided that he thought that was rather hot, all things considered. He’d never dallied with a veritable goddess before. He assumed all that widespread adoration would make it even better.
But he was getting ahead of himself.
With that kiss still holding on strong, still burning bright within.
The reception was to wear on, but it was time for the Prince and Princess to retreat within.
Though it might have seemed like a delightful party that did as it liked, every moment was accounted for.
And so, as the bells began to ring and the crowds began to cheer, he took his new wife’s hand and waved benevolently toward the masses. She did the same—and more gracefully.
Then they retreated into the palace, trumpets blaring all the way, as he led her up the grand stairs and higher into the residence toward the marital bed.
This, too, was an ancient tradition. After all, warring clans were known to pounce upon weddings like this, so vows were made, fealty was sworn, and then a wise Prince went and bedded his potentially duplicitous new wife so there could be no mistaking the matter.
He led his own Princess down the brightly lit hall toward the royal bedchamber he had only been allowed into yesterday. Guards stood at attention and courtiers cheered as he paraded the both of them down to the far end of the palace into the bedroom that had been prepared for this moment.
All the lights blazed. The bed was dramatically turned down. There was a cart he’d been assured would be well stocked with food and drink tucked to the side, out of sight.
And because the palace photographer had followed them all the way down the hall, they turned in the doorway, smiled, and waved some more.
As if choreographed— because it had been choreographed—they turned to gaze at each other, and smiled after a breath.
But only slightly. Then they looked back out into the hallway again, waved once more, and the heavy doors were closed.
Locking them in.
His wife did not leap away from him, exactly. Though she certainly did a good impression of it. “This is so archaic,” she said under her breath. He heard her.
Kyriakos moved further into the room, shrugging out of his suit coat, made so heavy with all of the hardware. He tossed it onto one of the chairs and then busied himself loosening the tie and the cufflinks and all the rest, so he could breathe a little bit.
Aikaterini was pacing, a frown on her face, and unless he was very much mistaken, she was doing her very best not to look in his direction.
“Did you think it equally archaic the last time?” he asked her mildly. Very, very mildly.
He could feel it when she turned around and glared at him. He didn’t look.
“Venediktos was my best friend,” she told him sharply.
“I am aware.” Kyriakos looked at her then, finding her fairly bristling with what looked like affront. “You tell me so at every opportunity. Am I to assume from the repetition that yours was not a great and overwhelming passion?”
“That’s not your business.”
“As a matter of fact, my darling wife, it is.”
He went to the well-stocked bar that had been wheeled in for their use and poured them both a stiff drink.
When he went to give it to her, she took it. And then stared down at her hand as if she’d been possessed.
He had no such scruples and tossed his back. “If you and Venediktos had been less friendly and more dutiful, we would not be standing here today, would we?”
She looked at him in that stony, icy way of hers. “We thought we had time.”
“And we are living proof that you did not.” Kyriakos shrugged. He kicked off his shoes and laughed when he saw the horrified look on her face. “Calm yourself. I’m not going to fling myself on you like some animal.”
She did not look convinced. He thought about pouring himself another drink, but refrained.
He had asked himself repeatedly throughout the last year why he was so determined to step into this role. His friends had been no help, locked into dynastic roles themselves. They had always assumed that he would do what was necessary.
It had taken him longer to accept.
And loath as he was to admit it, much of that acceptance had come from watching Aikaterini accept what was required of her, too.
Some people chose their lives. He and his brand-new wife could choose only how they acquitted themselves in the lives that had been plotted out for them since before they were born. He had decided to think of it as an honor.
Or to try.
He eyed her instead. “I am afraid, Aikaterini, that you are going to have to come to terms with this. This is reality. I cannot come up with any reasonable explanation as to why you and Venediktos did not secure the line of succession immediately, but we will not be making the same mistake. We cannot make that mistake. Do you understand me? You can assume that a clock is ticking.”
“And what will happen when it finishes?” she asked. A bit shrilly, to his ear. Suggesting that she was not as icy as she appeared.
“Nothing,” he said quietly. “You proved today that you can in fact do your duty. And beautifully. I assume you will do so again when you know you must.” He lifted a shoulder as if he did not care one way or another. “But in either case, you’re stuck with me tonight.”
Because this, too, was tradition. The Prince and Princess were locked in their bedchamber together. The theory, his aide had informed him with no visible change in expression, was that most differences could be solved in a room with a bed. And no outlet.
Given the fact that the history of Zaccaria was one of peace prevailing throughout the centuries, for the most part, Kyriakos had to think that those ancient medieval assholes were onto something.
He watched as his lovely bride attempted to hide her anxiety, and failed.
And he supposed he could have said something to put her at her ease, but he did not.
Instead, he removed himself to the seating area arranged loosely in front of a great fire that was not lit this night.
The island was still too warm this early in the fall.
And even when it was at its coldest, as he recalled, it would likely be confused for a summer afternoon in London.
He watched his Princess, his wife, closely.
She was willowy in the same way that his cousin had been, and Kyriakos had never known if she had simply been born that way or if they had deliberately grown into their likeness together.
He had thought of them as bookends. Slim, black-haired, exuding that kind of elegant otherworldliness that he thought was all too common in Europe’s aristocratic elite.
Vesuvius would laugh and call it inbreeding.
But to cast that stone meant hitting himself, Kyriakos was aware. Unlike many of the aristocratic women Kyriakos had grown up with, and now enjoyed in very specific ways that he supposed he had put behind him today, Aikaterini was luminous.