a kiss, and she heard another cheer. Perhaps the kiss was a bit over the top, but she felt in that moment strangely reckless, almost defiant. There was no going back now.
And then she turned back to the cathedral and her waiting groom.
* * *
Leo stood with his back to the doors of the cathedral, but he knew the moment when Alyse had entered. He heard the murmurs fall to an expectant hush, and the roar of approbation that she generated wherever she went had fallen to silence outside. He flexed his shoulders once and remained with his back to the door—and his bride. Maldinian princes did not turn around until the bride had reached the altar and Leo deviated from neither tradition nor duty.
The organ had started playing with sonorous grandeur, some kind of baroque march, and he knew Alyse was walking towards him. He felt a flicker of curiosity; he hadn’t seen her dress, had no idea what she looked like in it. Polished, poised and as perfect as usual, he presumed. The perfect bride. The perfect love story. And of course, the perfect marriage. All of it the perfect pretense.
Nothing more.
Finally he felt the folds of her dress whisper against his legs and he turned to face her. He barely noticed the dress. Her face was pale except for two spots of blusher high on her cheekbones. She looked surprisingly nervous, he thought. For the past six years she’d been handling the intense media scrutiny of their engagement with apparent effortless ease, and her attack of nerves now surprised him. Alarmed him a bit too.
She’d agreed to all of this. It was a little late for cold feet.
Conscious of the stares of the congregation—as well as the cameras televising the ceremony live to millions of people—he smiled and took her hand, which was icy and small in his. He squeezed her fingers, an encouragement if anyone saw, but also a warning. Neither of them could make a mistake now. Too much rode on this marriage, this masquerade. She knew that; so did he. They’d both sold their souls, and willingly.
Now he watched as Alyse lifted her chin, her wide grey eyes flashing with both comprehension and spirit. Her lips curved in a tiny smile and she squeezed his hand back. He felt a flicker of admiration for her courage and poise—as well as one of relief. Crisis averted.
She turned towards the archbishop who was performing the ceremony and he saw the gleam of chestnut hair beneath the lace of her veil, the soft glimmer of a pearl in the shell-like curve of her ear. He turned to face the man as well.
Fifteen minutes later it was done. They’d said their vows and Leo had brushed his lips against Alyse’s. He’d kissed her dozens, perhaps hundreds, of times during their engagement, always in front of a crowd. A camera.
He kissed her now as he always had, a firm press of lips that conveyed enthusiasm and even desire without actually feeling either. He didn’t want to feel either; he wasn’t about to complicate what had been a business arrangement by stirring up a hornet’s nest of emotions—either in her or himself.
Although now that they were married, now that they would actually consummate this marriage, he would certainly allow himself to feel attraction at least, a natural desire. All his life he’d controlled such contrary emotions, refused to let them dictate his behaviour as they had his parents’. Refused to let them ruin his life and wreck the monarchy, as they had with his parents.
No, he had more dignity, more self-control, than that. But he certainly intended to take full advantage of his marriage vows—and his marriage bed. It didn’t mean his emotions would actually be engaged.
Just his libido.
Leo lifted his head and gazed down at her, smiling slightly for the sake of their audience, and saw that Alyse was gazing at him with panic in her eyes. Her nerves clearly had not abated.
Suppressing his own annoyance, he gently wrapped his hands around hers—they were still icy—and pried them from his shoulders. ‘All right?’ he murmured.
She nodded, managed a rather sickly smile and turned towards the congregation for their recession down the aisle.
And now it begins, Leo thought. The rest of his life enacting this endless charade, started by a single moment six years ago.
Who could ever have known how a paparazzi photographer would catch that kiss? And not just his lips on her cheek but her hand clasped against his cheek, her face uplifted, eyes shining like silver stars.
That photo had been on the cover of every major publication in the western world. It had been named the third most influential photograph of the century, a fact which made Leo want to bark in cynical laughter. A single, stupid kiss influential? Important?
But it had become important, because the sight of the happiness shining from Alyse’s eyes had ignited a generation, fired their hearts with faith in love and hope for the future. Some economists credited the photograph with helping to kick-start Europe’s economy, a fact Leo thought entirely absurd.
Yet when the monarchy’s public relations department had realised the power of that photograph, they had harnessed it for themselves. For him, his father King Alessandro and all the future Diomedis that would reign over Maldinia.
Which had led, inevitably, to this engagement and now marriage, he all the while pretending to live up to what that photograph had promised—because for the public to realise it was nothing more than a fake would be a disaster.
Hand in hand with his bride, he walked down the aisle and into a lifetime of pretending.
* * *
She was breaking up, splitting apart, all the fragile, barely held parts of her shattering into pieces. She’d held herself together for so long and now...?
She wasn’t sure she could do it any more. And it was too late not to.
Somehow Alyse made it down the aisle, although everything around her—the people, the colours, the noise and light—was a blur. Everything but the look that had flashed in Leo’s eyes after he’d kissed her, something bordering on impatient annoyance at her obvious unease. Her panic.
She felt Leo’s arm like a band of iron beneath her hand. ‘Smile as we come out of the cathedral,’ he murmured, and then the crowds were upon them, their roar loud in their ears and, still feeling sick inside, she smiled for all she was worth.
The wordless roar turned into a rhythmic chant: bacialo! Bacialo!
The crowd wanted them to kiss. Wordlessly, Alyse turned to Leo, tilted her head up at him as he gazed down at her and stroked her cheek with a single fingertip and then, once again, brushed his lips against her in another emotionless kiss.
Even so that cool kiss touched Alyse’s soul, whispered its impossible hopes into her heart. She kept her lips mostly slack beneath his, knowing after six years of such kisses he didn’t want her to respond, never had. No hot, open-mouthed kisses of passion for them. Just these chaste displays of their mutual love and devotion.
He lifted his head and she smiled and waved to the crowd. It was done.
Still smiling, Leo led her to the waiting carriage, all gilt and scrollwork, like something out of a fairy tale. A Cinderella carriage for a Cinderella bride.
He helped her in and then sat next to her on the narrow leather seat, his thigh pressing against her hip, her dress billowing over his lap. The liveried coachman closed the door and they were off for a celebratory ride through the city, then back to the palace for the reception.
As soon as the door had closed, Leo’s smile, his mask, dropped. There was no need for it now; no one was watching. He turned to her, a frown appearing between his brows.
‘You’re too pale.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured. ‘I’m tired.’
Leo’s frown deepened, and then it ironed out and he sighed and raked his hands through his hair. ‘It’s no wonder. The last few days have been exhausting. I expect it will be good to get away.’
They were leaving tomorrow