Rhiane cast a glance at Luke as he suggested she was 'eager' to meet her exes, then chased it with an insincere offer to stay behind and a thinly veiled accusation she might use the time to 'rekindle old flames.' It was strange to hear the jealousy in his tone. For as possessive as we was in Tobias's presence- unnecessarily so- he had failed to make any emotional confession of feelings. She was the one who had declared [i]she[/i] wanted [i]him[/i], but he did not reciprocate this vocally at the time, and still had not. Anelle was the closest he had come to admitting anything, and that was only in that he rebuffed the other woman's overt flirting, reassuring her that his fling with the image manager was in the past. The crown prince wanted her eyes to remain affixed on him and him only, and acted with romantic attachment, but would not put into words that thoughts that traveled through his mind. If pressured by Gerard, she wouldn't be able to say with certainty that he wouldn't lose interest, that he wouldn't return to his playboy ways, that his infatuation was not manufactured by convenience alone.

Certainly the fact she was being compensated for being his betrothed soured his view of their situation. No one liked to think money had to be exchanged for someone to agree to be their partner. As unpalatable as the notion was, even more so was the knowledge he was with her by force, that he had to be implanted with a device to keep him close initially. Rhiane had put faith in an individual that loathed her low birth, that insulted her peers, and continued to deny that the death of her mother and brother had been at all preventable. She ought to hate him just as much, if not more, than he despised her, but she had managed to bridge the divide. Until he made his own figurative leap, it was hard to have sympathy for his plight.

"Is there something else I should flaunt?" she teased mercilessly, confident it would be weeks, months, years, if he ever conceded that their relationship was beyond a mutually beneficial physical and political arrangement. "How many at your engagement ball have you had a tryst with? If there were none, I've still met two of your exes, one of whom I have to work with, and that assumes you and Sophia are not entangled and in contact," the princess elect pointed out. "I never saw the need to sleep with a man more than a few times," she pointed out. Luke seemed to ignore her philosophy of treating intercourse like a transaction, presuming that love was unattainable, but it colored many choices in her history. "You've undoubtedly been with both those women more times than I've been with all the men you might meet tonight added together."

"I'm just looking forward to seeing people I know," she genuinely stated as she stepped forward and ran her fingers through his hair. "The people in the nobility, the palace, the staff are [i]your[/i] people, something they never fail to let me know or feel. It's nice to have people that want to shake my hand and argue about who has the best seed for planting this year, or what methodology of irrigation is best for the crops, or if the local merchant's prices are a rip off or a sign of a turn in the economy. Hell, it's just nice to have people ask for my opinion on something without being patronizing," the former peasant sighed. Interviews centered on favorite colors, or fashion, or her engagement, not on matters of national importance. Whenever the topic landed on a difficult subject it was because she guided it in that direction, because she proactively broached it, not because anyone gave her credit for having intelligence or relevance.

Except Tobias. Tobias cared about what she thought, how she felt, what she dreamed of, what she wanted for her country. He dared to see her as more than a puppet. When he inquired about what she'd do about the rebellion, he had listened and not scoffed at her response. Had the royal cousin been heir to the throne, had he wielded power, she believed he'd still manage to involve his future wife in his affairs, appeal to her passions, and sincerely honor her. The more that Luke brought up his relative, the more she compared them, and the more she wondered what the passive, stoic, reserved bodyguard would do if they were the couple instead.

"Piero will keep us from becoming a spectacle, but I won't have him keeping everyone from saying hello. I promise not to be stolen away," Rhiane professed with an upheld hand, imitating a solemn vow. "There are plenty of people I [i]haven't[/i] slept with and that won't be utterly starstruck."