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But he opted not to share that nugget of ancient law with her. Because it made sense to wait, to create a scene that could be extensively photographed and beamed around the world. To make sure valley artisans made a dress that was worthy of a queen.
To make sure that she was already considered a queen before he made it clear to everyone that she would be the next one here.
Yet her response showed him that the question was not idle at all. Her cheeks bloomed a new red. And she looked as guilty as if he’d caught her in the middle of a desperate act.
“I’m shocked,” he drawled. When, in truth, he was charmed. Captivated. It should have worried him more than it did. “Do you truly imagine you can scheme against me?”
“You said I had a month. It’s been two weeks. Barely.”
“I said the wedding would be in a month and so it shall be.” She made as if to argue and he shrugged. “You knew the choices before you, Delaney. Perhaps I should remind you that at any time I can make my claim upon you. We do not need to plan a wedding at all.”
“No,” she said hurriedly, and maybe there was something wrong with him that he took such pleasure in the panic in her gaze. “I want to plan it. That’s all I meant.”
“You’re a liar, little one.”
But he couldn’t muster up the sense of outrage that should have accompanied a statement like that. He, who prized honesty so dearly. There was something about the genuine distress in her blue eyes that made it impossible.
“Cayetano,” she said, sounding as if she was working very hard to consider each word carefully. Or maybe she wanted to taste his name as much as he liked to taste hers. “I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. I’m not lying. Or I don’t mean to lie. But you want me to accept two overwhelming things, and you want that acceptance immediately.”
She paused, as if waiting for him to argue, but all he did was incline his head.
Delaney let out a shaky breath, then continued. “One overwhelming thing is that I’m not the person I thought I was my entire life. That instead, I’m this completelyotherperson, who is meant to live in places like this and has to worry aboutartful conversationas a potential weapon of diplomacy when what I know is corn. And the other is your apparent belief that it’s perfectly reasonable to marry a total stranger. It’s only been fourteen days, Cayetano. That’s not enough time. For acceptance. For anything.”
He settled in against the railing, studying her lovely face. She didn’t need the cosmetics she wore, but he liked the way they enhanced her natural beauty. The truth was, he liked every version of her that he’d encountered so far. Including this one tonight.
The one who spoke of needing more time when the Signorina reported that she came to her daily lessons eagerly. And enjoyed herself, by all accounts. Almost as if she’d already accepted more than she wanted to admit.
To herself.
“And what amount of time do you imagine it would require for you to make yourself easy about both of these things?” he asked her.
She dropped her arms and opened her palms to the sky. “A year? Five years? A lifetime?”
“I sympathize.” And the strange thing was that he did. But it would not save her. “And yet you must know that these things cannot wait.”
“Maybe not forever.” Her voice was a whisper. Her eyes had gone big in the lantern light as she pled her case. “But surely they can wait a little while.”
The strangest sensation washed over him then, more shocking to him than if he’d suddenly lost his footing and plummeted over the steep side of the castle walls. It was something about how plaintive her voice was. Or how wide her eyes were. Maybe it was her voice. All of it. None of it. How could he tell?
Maybe it was the simple fact of her, so unlike any other woman he’d ever known, with her talk of dirt and calluses on the one hand and her interest in his bloody feelings on the other. When what he was used to was simpering and flattery and attempts to spend more time in his bed than he wished. From women who apparently failed to comprehend that he was actually a man, flesh and blood and possessed of a few stray thoughts that did not involve the cause.
His own people had never seen into him like this woman did.
No one ever had.
It should have been dizzying. Perhaps it was. Perhaps that was this new sensation inside—a kind of mad intoxication that would lead to peril, whether he toppled over the walls or lost himself the way his parents had.
But he rather thought instead it was something far more curious.
There was a part of him that wanted to give her time. That wanted her to find her way into this. To meet him here.
Yes, they were strangers. Yes, this was swift, and there were a thousand reasons not to marry in haste and only one reason to go ahead—a reason that had nothing to do with her, save a trick of DNA and a careless hospital.
Yet the part of him that wanted to give her time was the part that didn’t care about any of that. It cared that at the root of it all, he wanted her.
He had set eyes on her in that yard, before he’d even exited his car, and he’d wanted her.
The way normal men must want, he’d thought at the time. With so much desperation and uncertainty when he should have been filled instead with purpose. Because she was the answer to generations of prayers.
