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‘You have a very crude vocabulary for a princess.’

‘I adapt my vocabulary to the company I’m in.’

‘It’s not a criticism. I admire your ability to call a spade a bloody shovel so colourfully,’ he admitted, thinking that whatever their marriage was, it would not be boring. His eyes sank of their own volition to her plump lips—it might be exhausting though. ‘Are you this filthy in bed?’

She blushed like a virgin and didn’t look capable of delivering a polite protest, let alone the brutal one-liners she had been.

He had not come here this evening expecting to fall in love and he hadn’t.

He’d been focused on the goal of saving his throne and his country, but after months of thinking of nothing but palace politics he was distracted, and he couldn’t see it as a bad thing. Tunnel vision had a way of depleting a man’s reserves. The knots of tension in his body had not vanished, but he now knew they were there.

‘Look, you are being honest and so will I. I’m circling the wagons… Western analogy…? My position is not impregnable—a cabal of influential people have done pretty much what they liked for many years now. A wife, the suitable sort, would help secure my position and repair my character in the eyes of the people.’

‘So, this is a straightforward political marriage?’

‘Well, it isn’t love at first sight.’ Lust maybe. ‘But I want a wife, not a sacrifice. Are you the right sort of wife, Elsie? Or is this about being the right sort of sister?’

She shielded her eyes with her lashes, dismayed at his perceptiveness.

‘You are offering yourself up in your sister’s stead.’

The truth seemed as good a response as a lie. ‘Yes, I am. My sister is in love. They are childhood sweethearts.’

‘How sweet.’

Her teeth clenched at the mockery in his voice. ‘My sister is sweet,’ she flared defensively. ‘A lot sweeter than you deserve.’

A silence followed her words.

‘There is no need for this to get personal,’ she tacked on hurriedly.

‘Most people consider marriage quite personal.’

‘Like I said already, I’m not a romantic kind of person.’

His mouth tugged up at one corner at the warning. ‘Yes, I am getting that impression,’ he mused. ‘Maybe this is a foolish question, but why did she agree to consider my proposal? Is she trying to make her lover jealous? Push him to propose?’

‘I might not be a romantic but I’d hate to be as cynical as you. She has a sense of duty. There’s a codicil in our constitution…’

‘A royal family with a codicil—that hardly makes you unique.’ It was always about asking the right question.

‘I won’t bore you with the details.’ Mainly because she could see it was a big joke to him. ‘But it could be used to…dethrone my parents unless one of us marries you.’

‘So, this marriage between our two families was foretold?’

His flippancy drew something that bordered on a low growl from her throat. ‘I’m quite sure you are the stuff of legends.’

He tipped his head in mocking acknowledgement.

‘Not you specifically, obviously,’ she cut back, frustrated to the point of screaming by his facetiousness. ‘Someone royal.’

‘And there was me feeling special.’ The mockery faded from his face, leaving the inner steely hardness just below the surface, tinged now by genuine curiosity. ‘Codicils, especially the ancient variety, are made to be broken, but I am sure you have considered that.’

‘Of course we have,’ she snapped back. ‘And maybe we could if we had time, but we don’t. Getting married is hardly a first choice, is it?’

‘I can see it must have been a shock to make this discovery.’

‘We haven’t just discovered it.’