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me?”
    “Always.”
    He came to her and enfolded her in his lean arms, holding her close as he used to do so often when she was a child. When he took her by the shoulders and stepped away a little, he gazed at her admiringly. “You are a beauty, just like your mother.” There was sadness in his eyes when he spoke of his lost queen. “She looked forward so eagerly to your wedding day.”
    Lili kept her smile in place, though her father’s image blurred a little to her misty eyes. “I feel she is watching over us, blessing us. I do, Papa.”
    He touched her cheek, laid his hand lightly against her upswept hair. “She always planned a large, royal wedding for you, a wedding of state, a thing of pomp and glory, at D’Alagon.” D’Alagon was the Alagonian royal palace. It stood proudly on a hill above the capital city and port of Salvia. “I hope you’re not too disappointed, my little love, to have your wedding in secret, to wear a day dress, to marry here in Montedoro rather than at home.”
    She leaned close to him and whispered in his ear, “It’s never the wedding, Papa. You know that. It’s the marriage that matters.”
    His green eyes turned dark and stormy and a muscle twitched in his square jaw. “He’d better treat you well or I’ll have his head on a pike.”
    She straightened his collar. “Papa, stop it. Alex is...troubled. But he’s a good man at heart.” As she said the words, she took comfort from realizing she believed them.
    Her father held her close again. “Be happy, my little love.”
    She thought of her groom again, of his shadowed eyes, his brusque, harsh ways. To be happy with Alex wasn’t going to be easy. Still, she promised her father, “I will, Papa. Happiness is something one chooses. And I do choose it. Gratefully.”
    * * *
    Lili married Alex at 10:00 a.m. in the St. Catherine of Siena Chapel at the palace. A trusted palace priest performed the ceremony. In attendance were only their immediate family members and several stone-faced, silent members of Alex’s Covert Command Unit. Alex’s men were assigned to guard the entrances and make certain that no one outside saw what was taking place within.
    Later, a low-key family luncheon was held in the sovereign’s private apartment. Everyone seemed subdued, Lili thought. Even her usually loquacious father was quiet. Thoughtful.
    Lili was content enough with her wedding day. The main thing was that she and Alex had reached a workable agreement in the hours before dawn. She had hopes that they might forge a real union as time went by. He stayed at her side through the meal. His eyes were guarded, his words few.
    But then, he’d always been the quiet one, the scholar of the family, as serious and grim as his twin Damien was lighthearted and full of fun. From early childhood, Alex had wanted to be a writer, a journalist. He and Damien got their degrees from America, at Princeton, as their older brothers Max and Rule had done before them. Damien barely got through, but Alex was at the head of his class. He published early, a number of scholarly articles on Montedoran history, on the future of his people in the modern world.
    Then he’d decided he wanted to write about Afghanistan. His American friend, Devon Lucas, the one who died while they were prisoners there, had somehow been involved in that decision. The story, at least as it had been told to Lili, was muddy at best. Three weeks into his stay in Afghanistan, Alex and his friend had vanished without a trace. He was gone for so long. They all assumed that both men must have died. But somehow, Alex had survived and made it home. And when he returned, the intense, brooding scholar had been replaced by a hardened warrior.
    After the luncheon, Alex went off to work. She wasn’t sure exactly what he did, but the activity occurred in the training yard not far from the palace and no doubt involved much sweating and displays of manly strength. Lili spent a couple of hours with her new