"We met two years ago when I was attending the Fine Arts university on Jardeen. I was younger and a lot more naïve then than I am now. I thought we were desperately in love and would get married as soon as I finished school and would live happily ever after, and all that."
"And it didn't turn out that way?"
"I had to make that promise to Daddy and when I wrote to Val about it, he seemed to approve. He didn't suggest I renounce the proxy marriage when the time was up, or anything. He just wrote that I knew what I wanted to do. He seemed relieved to be free to go ahead with his political career."
"I see," he said, and then, "you don't feel bad about it, do you, Lyla?"
"Feel bad? I wouldn't marry Val Boran if he was the last man on Vesta! Even Lord Narf isn't as self-centered as he is!"
"You don't have to marry Narf either," he said. "You know that."
She looked down at the ground and said in a dead voice, "I made a promise."
"Rockford told me that your father never really knew Narf—that on the few times they met, Narf put on the act of being a refined gentleman, very respectful toward the king's daughter."
She did not answer and he said, "Is that the way it was?"
"Yes. That's the way it was. But how could I tell Daddy, as he lay dying?"