And what is the Emperor going to make of that? Probably nothing, as long as it didn’t inconvenience him.

Thinking about the Emperor got her mind off Kordas for a moment, which was a good thing.

It was fine to love your brother-in-law, just don’t be in love with your brother-in-law.

A fact of which she reminded herself on a daily basis.

She turned away from the window and went to the table against the wall where wine and mead waited, poured herself a generous portion of the latter in a pewter cup, and turned to the fire.

She’d left the fire well stoked when she’d gone down to the stables, and it only needed another log put on it. That was just a matter of a moment.

She didn’t bother raising the shades over the mage-lights; the light from the fire was enough.

Cup in hand, fire going well, she slumped down into her favorite high-backed chair on the hearth, pivoted so her legs hung over the right-side arm and and her back was up against the left-side arm, leaned her head against the padded back, and contemplated the ironic comedy that was her life.

The first irony was that Kordas and Isla liked each other very much, were indeed the best of friends, but theirs had been an arranged marriage (as nearly every marriage among the nobility of the Empire was), and they weren’t in love with each other. Not even after three children. And Delia? Delia wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for the fact that she and Isla had no brothers. When their father had died, the Emperor had swooped in, assigned the Baronial title and estates to one of his sycophants, and cut Delia out completely. She’d been lucky to be allowed to take her personal belongings with her when he unceremoniously threw her out.

Could be worse. I could’ve been forced to marry the Emperor’s puppy to cement his position. Fortunately for her, he already had a wife and was disinclined to divorce her or otherwise put her away, in order to marry someone who was in many ways that woman’s inferior. Delia had gotten a good look at her while she was packing; there was no doubt she was beautiful, and probably had been the Emperor’s mistress at some point or other. She was also tall, willowy, graceful, and wealthy in her own right, all things Delia was not. The perfect trophy of a wife, a living display of the Emperor’s favor.