Initially Rhiane didn't recognize that there was anything wrong. While neither herself nor Luke were necessarily in the running for any Academy Awards, he was not a novice of the courts, and thus his own performance was not glaringly obvious as an act. The princess elect didn't erroneously believe that he was sincerely smitten with her, but she also had no reason to know he was annoyed, frustrated, or irritated. When she turned around and he congratulated her on doing well she thought only of the words. Because she had done well, if not in the exact manner the queen had requested, his praise seemed honest. Everything had gone according to her plan. Nothing in his visage betrayed his inner emotions and so she was buoyed by the compliment. Ms. Viscomi might have her reservations about the tactics employed but this was the first time that she had felt the rush of success since the contest concluded.

It would admittedly take some time before Ms. Viscomi, Queen Camilla, or Prince Luke himself would fully appreciate her strategy. They would not be convincing rebels to become loyalists, not yet, but she had not alienated the masses during her interview. Many believed the poor were idiots or at least ignorant. Inn many ways there was a nugget of truth considering the low education of the poverty-stricken, but peasants also heard the voices of the crown enough to recognize it instantly, and they were familiar with the dissonance between it and their own. There was no one in the palace attuned to the way the common folk thought and spoke as much as Rhiane. They could try to mimic it but their results would pale in comparison. With the princess elect not changing her tone, with remaining consistent with her answers and beliefs from prior to the engagement ball, and not repeating a script that would have been foreign on her lips, she had accomplished something great: she planted the hope that she was a representative of the people in the castle.

Whether or not they would keep faith in what Rhiane potentially represented remained unseen. She was not herself convinced how much she wanted to help the image of the royal family. Protecting her own image was self-preservation; being a puppet could make her fall into disfavor, be smeared in media, and make her position as princess elect moot. Being killed for being a useless pawn was less concerning than the fact her father and brother might not be paid beforehand. But that was where her investment ended. If Queen Camilla or any of her relatives (beside herself after marriage) incited the coup was not her concern. Not only did they not ask her for her help or opinion, she was quite aware she was seen only as a tool, and that they demeaned her behind her back. Luke himself valued his pet dog that proceeded her more than he did his fiancee.

But Rhiane [i]wanted[/i] to be swept into a fantasy of being kindly acknowledged.

When she spotted the bouquet of roses in Luke's arms her eyes opened with wonder. Perhaps he did not know- and considering he didn't read a sentence of her history this was almost certainly the case- but no one had ever presented her with flowers before. There were wildflowers that grew in some of the fields on the edge of the forest near her town. On a couple of occasions she and her brothers had plucked several, wrapped them up with twine, and given them to their mother with childish innocence. Rhiane herself had never been a recipient of this sort of gesture, however. She had no children, she had no spouse, her father and brother would have looked odd doing such a thing, her informal brother-in-law would have found it an inappropriate romantic overture, and she had avoided any sort of emotional entanglement. If she had dated around, even for a year or two in her youth, she would have had the pleasure. It was a common enough gift. Rhiane's fear of love, fear of a broken heart, fear of adoring someone and then losing them, had kept her away from anyone men that would maybe buy her a drink before they went to bed to satisfy primal desires.

For a moment, as she reached forward and took the present, she forgot that Luke barely tolerated her presence being thrust on him. There was a genuine grin as she gingerly cradled him in her own arm the fragrant blooms. Cannolis were not the only bribe he could utilize to make her more compliant (though he had not actually given her the cannolis yet). Some gits would have less effect than others, and this one was not even obtained of his own doing much less with any affectionate thought, but she still had a thinly veiled glee of a child on Christmas morning. A few of the production staff glancing over smiled to themselves at her jubilant expression.

Excitement took a back seat to confusion and then paralyzing fear as Luke closed the distance between them and kissed her. To their captive audience it had the appearance of Rhiane simply being surprised and stunned, though from how rigid she was under his grasp the heir to the throne might know she found this 'distracting' in a negative way. Had he not been brief she would have backpedaled from his reach without considering the repercussions. There was good reason she was opposed to public displays of affection: she was not used to anything mildly romantic, thus she could not perpetuate them in a charade, and they knocked her off her proverbial game. As it was she was frozen long enough to not do anything except stand there like a statue as she hated him for knowledge of her weakness. Her heart betrayed her mind as it thudded in her chest. Hopefully Luke was not rewarded with the insight that she was prone to his charms on occasion much to her chagrin.

Once she had been led out of the parlor, however, she tried to move away from him, onlookers in the hallway be damned, as there was a flash of anger even fatigue could not subdue. "What do you think you're doing?" she hissed. "That wasn't necessary!" the princess elect objected even as she clutched her bouquet to her chest. One had enamored her, one had provoked her. The ordinary woman would have been provoked by the roses that were nothing more than a prop and enchanted by a kiss; Rhiane, however, was nothing if 'not the norm.'