A heavily fortified black four-by-four pulled to a stop below them.
A tall man, very similar in looks to Theseus, stepped out of the back, followed by a rake-thin woman with raven-black hair and enormous sunglasses.
‘Is that Helios?’ she asked, grabbing at the distraction.
‘Yes. And that’s Princess Catalina from the principality of Monte Cleure.’ Theseus placed his enormous hands on the windowsill. ‘Between you and me, he’ll be announcing their engagement at the Gala.’
‘That’s quick. Didn’t they only meet at the ball last Saturday?’
‘Our families have been friends for decades. Catalina’s brother went to boarding school with us.’
‘They don’t look like a couple in love.’
Jo wasn’t an expert in body language, but the way they walked together—past the schoolchildren who had all stopped what they were doing to gape at them—reminded her of her parents, who walked as if even brushing against each other might give them a disease.
And as she thought this, Theseus’s arm brushed lightly against hers.
Her lungs tightened.
She could feel him.
‘Heirs to the Agon throne marry for duty, not love,’ he said, his voice unusually hard.
She looked at him. He was gazing intently out of the window, his jaw set.
‘It’s the twenty-first century.’
‘And protocol has been adapted. Helios is the first Agon heir free to choose his own bride.’
‘Can he choose anyone?’
‘Anyone of royal blood.’
‘Freedom with caveats? How sad.’
‘It is the way things work here. Change takes time.’
‘I hope they at least like and respect each other.’
She wondered if her parents’ marriage would have been different if her mother had ever respected her father. Would her father have resorted to the demon drink if her mother hadn’t been so disparaging towards him?
‘My brother would never have married someone he didn’t respect.’ A marriage without respect had to be just as bad as a marriage without love, if not worse.
‘When will they marry?’
‘As soon as it can be arranged. Hopefully before...’
He didn’t need to finish his sentence. Jo knew what he meant.
Before his grandfather died.
The mood shifted, the atmosphere becoming even heavier.
‘It will be a full state wedding,’ he explained curtly. ‘That usually takes a good six months to organise. Helios wants this one to be arranged in a maximum of two months.’
‘That’s asking a lot.’
He shrugged. ‘Our staff are the best. It will be done.’
‘Are you expected to marry too?’
‘The spare to the heir must produce more spares,’ he said scathingly. ‘Once Helios is married I will have to find a suitable royal bride of my own.’
‘And what do you consider “suitable”?’ she asked.
Of course it was only the fact that Theseus marrying meant Toby would have a stepmother, and eventually half-siblings to contend with, that made it feel as if a knife had been plunged into her heart.
Theseus was a prince. Princes needed their princesses.
‘Someone who understands that it will be a union within which to make children.’
She strove to keep her voice casual. ‘Don’t you want love?’
The look he cast her could have curdled milk. ‘Absolutely not. Only fools marry for love.’
‘That’s very cynical.’
‘You think? Well, my mother loved my father, and all she got for her trouble was endless infidelity. My grandparents loved each other, but when my grandmother died my grandfather aged a decade overnight. It’s not the cancer that’s killing him; it’s his broken heart. Love causes misery and I want no part of it. I want a bride who understands what palace life entails and who I can respect. Nothing more.’
Jo swallowed the bile rising in her throat.
Her memories of this man were filled with such warmth that this coldness chilled her.
Where had that man gone?
She wanted to argue with him, to tell him that surely the sweetness of love overrode anything else, but what would she know about it? The only person who’d ever truly loved her was her son, and in all honesty he had no choice in the matter, just as she had no choice but to love her own cold mother. In Jo’s experience filial love was as automatic as breathing. Parental love was not.
What if Theseus’s disdain for love extended to his children? There was a cynicism to him that scared her.