It's touching when leader becomes married in absentia (7)

I haven't cracked this one yet — but the brilliant team at Fifteensquared have:

When K (king – leader) – or ‘leader’ could simply indicate the initial letter – becomes ‘m’ (married) we get ‘missing’ (in absentia) – but the clue seems the wrong way round: I can’t quite fit ‘in absentia’ into the surface reading kiss = touch as in snooker, for instance