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She hesitated to ruin the conciliatory mood by bringing up a certain princess. But she really did want to know what had happened. “Did everything work out then, with Liliana?”

“You were right,” he said quietly. “I should have sent someone to be with her.”

“Oh, no. What happened?”

“When I told my mother that Lili hadn’t seemed to take the news of our marriage well, she rushed off to comfort her. Lili wasn’t in her rooms. Lili’s attendant said that she’d fled in tears.”

“Omigod. She’s missing, then?”

“No. They found her shortly thereafter. She simply turned up, looking somewhat disheveled, or so I was told, and insisting she was perfectly fine.”

“Turned up?”

“One of the servants found her in the hallway between Maximilian’s apartments and Alexander’s. She claimed she’d simply gone for a stroll.”

“A stroll?”

“That’s what she said.”

“Is she friends with your brothers? Did she talk it out with one of them?”

“Not possible.”

“Why not?”

“Max is with his children, at his villa. And Alex and Lili have never gotten on, not since childhood.”

“That doesn’t mean he might not have been kind to her, if he saw that she was upset.”

“Sydney, he’s hardly come out of his rooms since he returned from Afghanistan. But you’re right, of course. Anything is possible. Perhaps she talked to him, though no one told me that she did.”

“But … she’s all right, then?”

“Yes. She did end up confiding in my mother. And in the end, Lili promised my mother that she is perfectly all right and that no one is to worry that her father’s famous temper will be roused. Lili said she had finally realized that she and I were not right for each other, after all. She told my mother to wish me and my bride a lifetime of happiness. My mother believes that Lili was sincere in what she said.”

“Okay. Well. Good news, huh?”

“I believe so, yes. Lili departed yesterday morning for Alagonia. King Leo has not appeared brandishing a sword or insisting on pistols at dawn, so I’m going to venture a guess that renewed animosity between our two countries has been safely averted.”

“I’m so glad. I have to admit, I was worrying—that Liliana might have done something crazy, that her father might have taken offense. And then, when you never called, I only worried more.”

“I’m a complete ass.”

“Do you hear me arguing? Just tell me you’re coming back here to me by Tuesday or Wednesday, as promised.”

“Sorry. I can’t do that.” He said it teasingly.

Still, her heart sank. She tried to think of what to say, how to frame her disappointment in words that wouldn’t get them started fighting all over again.

And then he said, “I’ll be there tomorrow.”

She felt deliciously breathless. “Oh, Rule. Say that again.”

“You do miss me.” The way he said that made her heart be

at faster.

“Oh, yes, I do,” she fervently agreed. “I want to have time with you. I want you near me. Here we are, married. We’re going to spend our lives together, yet in many ways we hardly know each other.”

Source: www.allfreenovel.com
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