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Vesuvius should have known that even a blizzard so intense that it had made him crash-land his plane into a Great Lake would not be enough to keep the life he’d left behind from tracking him down. He should have known that time was limited. That, of course, his men—or former men—would be hot on his heels even before they knew that his plane had gone down.

Kings were rarely permitted to simply vanish. Abdication or no abdication, Vesuvius still knew things about Liandero that no one but the sovereign should. The cabinet were not likely to simply wave him off and hope for the best.

But one of the reasons that Aeryn had always been such a problem for him was that he completely forgot…everything. When he was with her, the only thing he cared about was her.

There had been years he’d been sure that meant that she was his downfall. Now he thought he should have left the throne five years ago and saved them both from all this turmoil.

He was aware that she was not pleased with him. She didn’t have to come down the stairs and tell him so for him to understand that. He felt it. It had taken a single glance and he’d seen it all over her face.

She knew. Aeryn knew that he had his memory back and she was not happy that she’d shared what she had with him under what he was sure she considered false pretenses.

He wasn’t sure he could blame her.

But there was nothing to be done about it now. He ushered the grim-faced phalanx of officials and security specialists into Aeryn’s lovely home, which felt like a desecration. This brownstone was the monument she had built to survive the ravages of the Liandero crown. Vesuvius found himself revolted that it had even infected this one oasis that should have been safe.

He hated even more that he was the reason for that. Just as he was the reason for all of the trouble she’d had, and well did he know it.

Too well did he know it.

“Your abdication could not be kept secret,” Minister Marconi told him with his usual sourness when the officials had assembled in the living room and the security team had fanned out to get a sense of the house’s weaknesses and access points.

Josef Marconi was a holdover from Vesuvius’s father’s regime and had not liked the fact that he’d been knocked down in the order of things so that Saviero, a much younger man, could take his place. Vesuvius almost asked why Saviero hadn’t come himself on such a dramatic errand, but then he remembered. There were consequences to his abdication. And he’d known exactly how things would play out in his absence—the only way they could play out. His best friend had known too. Vesuvius couldn’t wish it otherwise now simply because it would have been more convenient for him.

Marconi sniffed. “Your death, on the other hand, we managed to keep under our hat until it could be confirmed. We are delighted, sir, to discover that despite the condition of the plane you liberated from the royal fleet, you are with us still.”

He did not sound delighted, Vesuvius noted. He almost laughed at the absurdity of it all, but he thought that would alarm them all too much. And possibly lead to interventions he did not have time for, not when Aeryn was furious with him again—and so near.

“There’s no reason to keep my abdication a secret,” Vesuvius replied easily. “I won’t be taking it back. I suspect it would not be permitted even if I did change my mind, is that not so? Constitutionally speaking?”

There was a small silence at that. He looked around the room at these men he’d known most of his life—save the one on the end, who looked like a deer in headlights. And was holding a medical bag, so Vesuvius was fairly certain he knew what the man’s role was.

He really did laugh then. “Did you chase me all this way thinking that I was going to take back the throne?” He shook his head. “It can’t happen. Even if I wanted it to, which I most assuredly do not, the die has been cast. I would be very much surprised if my sister was not already coming around to accepting the fact that she will have to walk down that aisle in the Royal Cathedral today in my place. She will have considered the situation from all angles and will understand that she must marry a groom of impeccable reputation and stalwart, unquestioned commitment to the kingdom to balance out her more exuberant youth. And that can only be Saviero, can it not?”

He had no idea if his sister would achieve anything remotely like acceptance, but that wouldn’t change the outcome. Vesuvius knew that Saviero—and the whole of the palace staff—would be impressing that upon her.

And he might as well start the process of discussing the new queen as if she had never partied her way across the planet, because that was going to be the palace’s hard line. There was no other way forward.

Again, there was another look between the men clustered together before him, none of them taking a seat because he had not seated himself, and they were steeped in so much protocol that hadn’t caught up, yet, to the fact of his abdication.

“Did you arrange all of this?” one of them demanded.

In a tone he probably wouldn’t have used in the palace, but Vesuvius welcomed that kind of thing. Because it meant that they really were taking him seriously, after all. It was evidence that they were coming to terms—slowly—with the fact that he had truly done this.

“It is less that I arranged it and more that I did not, in fact, simply swan off into the ether, leaving my kingdom to fend for itself,” Vesuvius replied, keeping his tone steady even while the other man’s was not. “I understand that an abdication might look like a dereliction of duty to the casual observer, but I assure you that in my case it is the only way that I can honor not only myself, and what remains of my personal life, but the crown itself.”

They didn’t like that. There were looks exchanged, frowns quickly wiped away.

“Do not underestimate Francesca,” Vesuvius warned them. “She will make the kingdom an excellent queen, not least because her ideas will be new, interesting, and not bogged down in ancient betrothals, political alliances, and all the rest of this age-old swamp that we swim in.” He smiled slightly. “Though I wouldn’t tell her I said that.”

“This is no laughing matter,” said the dour Marconi, somehow even more grim than before. “I suppose it is one thing to make the announcement that you made, but to then run away from the kingdom…! This is all untoward. Surely you must see that. And then to come all the way to America, of all places? The mind boggles.”

If Marconi’s mind had ever resisted boggling, at the slightest provocation, Vesuvius was unaware of it. He would have noted such an historic event for posterity.

“I,” Vesuvius said, with great deliberation and intent, “am more than happy to swear my fealty upon my knees to Her Royal Majesty, Queen Francesca of Liandero. Whatever role Her Majesty wishes me to play, even if it be no role at all, that will be my guide. It will be how I will be conducting myself in the future, entirely in accordance with her wishes.” He said that in the ringing tones of a proclamation, and he let it sit there a moment, so it could truly sink in. “What you all think of me, I must confess, is of no matter to me. You can say what you like, but I cannot promise you that I will listen to it. And as for coming here, to this particular house that has nothing to do with Liandero or the crown, that is not a topic that is open for discussion.”

This time, he made certain to make uncomfortably intense eye contact with each and every one of them before he continued. “I hope you hear me when I tell you this. Whatever it is you think you’ve come here to do, it concerns me. And only me.”

“That is to be understood, sir,” said one of the more reasonable ministers, and that set off the rest. There was a slight chorus of agreement, and terse little nods from those who could not bring themselves to claim they understood him aloud when they did not wish to lie.