She chewed her lip, gaze stabbing back and forth between them. “I think… I think…” She breathed out, a snake hiss. “The loss of your father has clearly unbalanced your reason, Morgan. And I believe it is not unheard of, in times of distress, for a man to seek solace in common female flesh. I will not judge you for it. No. I will forgive you. Especially since no-one need know of this… lapse. You can send this slut packing and we need never mention it again.”

“If I send any slut packing, Maris, that slut will be you,” he said, out of patience. “Do you imagine I fucked you for any reason but filial duty? Do you think I don’t know who it was sent you into that closet? It was business, Mage Garrick. And it happens I’ve decided to take my business elsewhere.” With a snap of his fingers he swung wide the foyer doors. “You showed yourself in. You can show yourself out.”

She stood before him an ice maiden, still and cold as winter. And then, without another word, she left.

“That was unkind, Morgan,” Barl said, pressing her hand to his back. Hot and heavy it rested there, thawing his own icy rage. “You can’t blame her for being hurt.”

He waved the doors shut. “She wasn’t hurt, Barl. She was insulted. Maris Garrick never loved me.”

“But I do,” Barl whispered. Sliding her hand around him, she passed it softly over his face. “And I always will. So no more frowning, Lord Danfey.” Her other hand slipped inside his tunic, shivering his skin. “Let’s eat, shall we, and then get back to work. We’ve incants to finish, and a shopping list to compile.”

He let her tug him to the stairs leading down to the kitchen, where they’d taken to eating their meals so there’d be less cleaning up for Rumm. Her loving comfort was a balm to his frostbitten soul. Thanks to Maris Garrick, their idyllic respite from the world would soon end. He could hate the bitch for that, if for nothing else.

But I don’t care who she tells, or how hard she stamps her feet. There is no law in Dorana that compels a mage to wed. A handfast is simply a promise… and promises are broken every day.

Heart sunk almost as far as her silk slippers, Venette cast a resigned look at her husband.

“You’d best go, Orwin,” she murmured. “I’m sure Maris will feel better with only another woman for company.”

Orwin nodded. “Indeed,” he said, thankful, and made his escape.

She rolled her eyes. Typical. And then forgot him as she turned her attention to Maris.

Distraught, too angry to weep, though doubtless tears would come, the girl was batting her way around the town house parlour like an exotic moth trapped in a jar.