‘Why is it only the Queen’s role? Isn’t that a bit sexist?’ Jade said, pulling him out of the uncomfortable memory.
He preferred not to remember his mother, especially at this time of year.
He smiled, amused by how direct she was. ‘You disapprove?’
She stared at him. ‘Of course, if they can love your Queen, why can’t they love you too?’
‘Perhaps that’s the way I prefer it,’ he said, noting her reference to ‘your Queen’—as if that Queen was not going to be her.
He had work to do. Then again, he had always enjoyed a challenge.
‘Why would you prefer them not to love you?’ she asked.
‘Because I’m not a sentimental man,’ he answered honestly. ‘And love isn’t something I require.’
It was her turn to frown. ‘Doesn’t everyone need love?’ she asked.
The statement was so guileless, it wrong-footed him for a moment.
Should he lie? And give her some appropriate platitude? After all, he was trying to woo her into marriage. But if she agreed to this marriage, he reasoned, she needed to be aware of the limitations. He certainly did not want her to believe their union could go beyond the physical and the political.
‘Not everyone needs love, no,’ he said. ‘Some of us are self-sufficient and don’t require that kind of connection. And emotional self-sufficiency is an invaluable commodity in a monarch, wouldn’t you agree?’
Surely her own parents’ marriage and the scandalous way it had collapsed was proof of that.
Her father, King Andreas, had made as much clear to Leo all those years ago, the summer he had been in Monrova on a trade mission, just after he had acceded to the throne of Severene. That was the summer the King’s unruly younger daughter had developed a crush on him, and Andreas had first suggested a marriage to Jade.
At the time, his older daughter and heir had only been sixteen though, and Leo had baulked at the suggestion. He was not a cradle snatcher.
And in truth, the younger twin was the only one of Andreas’s daughters he’d noticed that summer, probably because she had been so persistent in trying to get his attention.
But Leo still remembered the conversation he’d had with King Andreas the evening after the younger girl had tried to kiss him. He hadn’t mentioned the incident to her father, but he had wondered if the man had discovered the truth somehow, because he had made a point of warning Leo off any entanglement with Princess Juno. At the time, Leo had found the suggestion amusing.
But he could still remember Andreas’s candid words of warning because it had spoken volumes about the failure of the man’s marriage.
‘Juno is undisciplined and reckless and she always has been. She lacks the temperament for monarchy and since she has been living in New York I’m afraid she has become as much of a problem as her mother. Take it from me, Leonardo, pick your Queen with care and with a level head. Infatuation is never a good basis under which to make those crucial decisions. I speak from bitter experience.’
It was all Andreas had said on the subject that night, but Leo knew the story of his ill-fated marriage to Alice Monroe—the beautiful young actress Andreas had met at a UN reception in New York and then married less than a month later. Alice was a media darling and their whirlwind romance and fairy-tale wedding had captivated the press the world over. But not long after their twin daughters had arrived almost exactly nine months later, the cracks had begun to show.
By the time Andreas had finally divorced his Queen eight years later and sent her packing back to New York with their younger daughter, Alice’s increasingly scandalous behaviour had come close to bringing down the Monrovan monarchy, and Leo was not surprised the man had regretted that initial infatuation.
Jade, his heir, had been the only good thing to come from it.
‘Do you really believe that being royal means you don’t need to be loved?’ Jade asked, incredulous.
‘That’s not what I said,’ he murmured, even though it was what he believed. ‘But I do believe it can be an inconvenience that is better avoided.’
Her frown was replaced by something that looked disturbingly like pity. ‘I see,’ she said and looked away.
He stiffened, annoyed. Was it him she pitied? Why? Surely she of all people must know that love—or rather infatuation, for that was the emotion people often mistook for love—had no place in a royal marriage?
The sledge glided into the palace courtyard where a line of dignitaries and the palace’s two-hundred-strong household staff waited to greet their arrival.
A young footman in the palace livery approached and opened the sled door, then unfolded the step. Bowing his head as was customary, he raised his hand to help Jade alight.
Taking his offered assistance, she bounced down from the carriage. But then to Leo’s utter astonishment, she turned her attention on the young man.
‘Hi, and thank you,’ she said.