Her head was still spinning with the intensity of the kiss when Luke returned to his game and loudly dedicated it to his 'lady love.' Rhiane had been both teasing him and testing her boundaries in equal measure. Thus far she had admitted her feelings, or come close enough he was aware she was struggling to keep herself emotionally distant, but he had yet to make any concessions. The crown prince was a proud man that had his mother's bias against commoners. Not only that, rumor was that he was a playboy, quickly growing tired of his lady friends and seeking out a new lover relatively frequently. She had tempered her expectations appropriately. It was entirely within the realm of possibility he would never reciprocate anything beyond the physical, that he might growing increasing distant or resentful due to their arrangement, that their opposing personalities and differing social classes would doom any intimacy of the flesh or otherwise. 

Riding the high of his victory and inebriation, however, her betrothed gave her hope. No matter how small the kernel was, she reasoned that being drunk didn't alone create affection, that it brought to the surface what was already there. What was even more encouraging than his enthusiasm was his fixation. Not once had he caught him with a lingering gaze on another patron of the establishment. While she was arguably the most visually striking woman in the room, the other women were not all eyesores, and could have been his "type" more than she was. That he drunk enough to be amorous but remained "faithful" was either a testament to the fact he liked her, despite himself, and that she was special to him... or it was simply a miracle. As a person who thought religion was a total sham, she was apt to trust the former hypothesis over the latter. For another night she could dare to dream that she could be more than a partner in a lavish publicity stunt.

"Never thought I'd see the day that Rhiane Black would get married," one of her friends at a nearby table teased. There had been bets during the last few weeks as to whether or not the pair actually had any chemistry. Public events had them showing perfunctory levels of romance. While this might have convinced the masses, to those that new her well, and all the proposals she had rejected, they were less certain that she would have a relationship that was anything more than a professional exchange.

"I'm sorry I was too much for any of you to handle," she countered back cheekily, earning her some chuckles.

The conversation was quickly derailed as the game began and Rhiane found herself once again trying to enlighten some of her acquaintances about the finer points of economics. She was by no means and expert, and did not have the education of her fiance, but she had taught herself quite a great deal about her niche of the farming world. If the palace were to allow her to pursue tutoring, something she had not even bothered to request, she could have gone much farther in the world. The princess elect lacked the book smarts or dedication to studying that others had, but she was intelligent, and could have pursued a degree in business and done splendidly. Now the very notion she anticipated being unilaterally by her future mother-in-law, who wouldn't see the need in giving the breeding stock classes, and who would be apprehensive about the social repercussions, both from the aristocrats that enjoying looking down on a peasant and would want to keep her in her place, and from the media who would be eager to spread the news of bad grades as a stain on the sovereignty.

She was in the midst of making a passionate argument about the tangible cost of time, irrigation, fields, and seeds, versus the yields advertised by manufacturers and what could be proven by evidence, and doing verbal calculations of apple types and their profitability, when she felt a familiar arm snake around her waist. A blush alighted on her cheeks that got more attention than her wealth of information. One or two men looked on with obvious envy, having hoped Luke might disappear for the rest of the evening and give them a chance to try to win a night with the darling of the kingdom. For bachelors and maidens it was almost painful to see how happy the pair were with one another, oblivious to how the other thought, or how transparent their actions were.

"Where should we go?" Rhiane whispered to him conspiratorially, enamored by his possessive zeal. "It must be quite a drive to whatever hotel our image manager has picked out for us," she coyly complained, "so we won't have as much time as if we went somewhere closer." The closer options she referenced would not be up to her standards- her home, where she had a smaller bed and smaller room, not to mention disapproving male relatives nearby, or the bed and breakfast managed by Terzo, clean and nice, but not prepared for the exorbitantly wealthy.