“Sydney …” He tried to wrap his arm around her.
She dodged away from his touch. “Why, exactly, is she expecting you to marry her?” She looked at him then. Those green eyes that could be so soft and full of desire for him, were cool now, emerald-bright.
“I told you, she’s always believed herself to be in love with me, ever since we were children. She’s looked up to me, she’s … waited for me. And as the years have gone by and I never married, it has been spoken of, between our two families, that I would need to marry soon due to the laws that control my inheritance. That Lili would be a fine choice in any number of ways.”
“What ways?”
He suppressed an impatient sigh. “Ways of state, you might say. Over the years, there has been conflict, off and on, between Montedoro and Alagonia.”
“Wars, you mean?”
“No. Small states such as ours rarely engage in wars. In Montedoro, we don’t even have a standing army. But there has been discord—bad feelings, you could say—between our two countries. The most recent rift occurred because King Leo, Lili’s father, wanted to marry my mother. My mother didn’t want to marry him. She wanted to rule Montedoro and she wanted, as much as possible, to protect our sovereignty. If she’d married a king, he could so easily have encroached on her control of the throne. Plus, while she’s always been fond of King Leo, she didn’t feel she could love him as a husband. And she wanted that, wanted love in her marriage. She managed to avoid a situation where Leo might have had a chance to propose to her. And then she met my father.”
“Don’t tell me.” At least there was some humor in her voice now. “It was love at first sight.”
“So my mother claims. And my father, as well. They married. King Leo is known for his hot temper. He was angry and even went so far as to put in place certain trade sanctions as something of a revenge against my mother and Montedoro for the injury to his pride. But then he met and married Lili’s mother, an Englishwoman, Lady Evelyn DunLyle. The king loved his new wife and found happiness with her. He gave up his vendetta against my mother and Montedoro. Leo’s queen and my mother became fast friends. Though Queen Evelyn died a few years ago, relations between our countries have been cordial for nearly three decades and we all think of Lili as one of our family.”
“You’re saying that if you’d married the princess, it would have bolstered relations between your countries. But now that you’ve essentially dumped her, if she goes crying to her father, your country and her country could end up on the outs again.”
“I have not dumped her.” He felt his temper rising, and quickly restrained it. “A man cannot dump a woman he’s never been with in any way. I swear to you, Sydney, I have never so much as kissed Liliana, except as a brother would, chastely, on the cheek.”
“But she thinks you’re going to kiss her for real. She thinks you’re going to be with her. She thinks that she’ll be married to you before the twenty-fourth of June.”
“Yes.” He said it resignedly. “I believe she does.”
“You realize that’s kind of pitiful, don’t you? I mean, if you’ve never given her any sort of encouragement, why would she think that you’ll end up proposing marriage—unless she’s a total idiot?”
“Lili is not an idiot. She’s a romantic. She’s more than a little … fanciful.”
“You’re saying she’s weak-minded?”
“Of course not. She’s a good person. She’s … kind at heart.”
Sydney shook her head. “You strung her along, didn’t you?”
“No. I did no such thing. I simply … failed to disabuse her.”
“Come on, Rule. She was your ace in the hole.” Those green eyes were on him. He had the rather startling intuition that she could see inside his head, see the cogs turning as he tried to make excuses for what he had to admit was less than admirable behavior. “You never encouraged her. But you didn’t need to encourage her. Because she’d decided you were her true love and she’s a romantic person. You figured if you never met anyone who … worked for you, as a partner in life, you could always marry Lili when your thirty-third birthday got too close for comfort.”
“All right.” He threw up both hands. “Yes. That’s what I did. That is exactly what I did.”
She gave him a look that seared him where he sat. “And it was crappy what you did, Rule. It was really crappy.”
“Yes, Sydney. It was … crappy. And I feel accountable and I want to apologize to her in person.”
“I should hope so.” She huffed out a disgusted breath.
And then there was silence. He stared straight ahead and hated that she was angry with him.
And by God, if she was angry over Lili, what was he in for when she found out about Trevor?
He couldn’t stop himself from pondering his own dishonesty. About Trevor. About Lili. He was beginning to see that he wasn’t the man he’d believed himself to be. That he was only an honest man when it suited him.
Such thoughts did not make him proud.
Plus, he found himself almost wishing he’d told her another lie just now, given her some other excuse as to
why he had to go back right away to Montedoro. He hated this—the two of them, so late on their wedding night it was already the next morning, sitting side by side on the edge of their marriage bed, not looking at each other.