He said it with such restrained violence, she shuddered. “Yes. The way she looked when she was holding that gun on Brie. That’s when I realized palaces weren’t just fairy tales. I’m sure you’re all glad she and Loubet and Deboque are in prison.”

“And will remain there. But Deboque has pulled strings from behind bars before.”

“Has there been more? Bennett and I have spoken of it, but—”

“Bennett needs lessons in discretion.”

She flared, swallowing a retort as one course was cleared and another served. “He didn’t reveal any state secrets. We were simply remembering once—just as you and I are now—that Deboque had been in prison but had arranged for Brie’s kidnapping through her secretary and your father’s minister of state. He said he’d be uneasy as long as Deboque was alive. I told him it was nonsense, but maybe I was wrong.”

“To be a public figure is to be uneasy.” It was simpler to accept that than to remember his own feeling of helplessness, of watching his sister struggle through her trauma and pain. “The Bissets have ruled Cordina for generations. As long as we do, we make enemies. All of them are not, cannot be, in prison.”

There was more. She sensed it but knew better than to try to make Alexander open up to her. If she wanted to know, when she wanted to know, she would go to Bennett. “It sounds like commoners have the advantage, Your Highness.”

“Yes.” With a smile she didn’t understand, he picked up his fork.

* * *

They dined companionably enough, more companionably than Eve would have imagined. He didn’t relax. She wondered about that as they eased through courses toward dessert and coffee. He was pleasant, polite—and on edge. She wanted to help, to ease away the tension so obvious in the set of his shoulders. But he wasn’t a man to accept help from an outsider.

He would rule one day, and had been born to do it. Cordina was a small, storybook country, but like a storybook, it had its share of intrigue and unrest. What he’d been destined to do didn’t sit on him lightly. Her background and upbringing made it difficult to comprehend, so that often, perhaps too often, she saw only the unbending outer layer.

At least they hadn’t argued, Eve thought as she toyed with dessert. Actually, one didn’t argue with Alexander; one just fumed and batted against a stone wall.

“That was lovely. Your cook only improves with time.”

“He’ll be pleased to hear it.” He wanted her to stay, just to sit and talk about anything that wasn’t important. For the last hour he’d nearly forgotten the pressure he was under. It wasn’t like him, but the thought of going up to his rooms, to his work, was unappealing. “If you’re not tired—”