Marian had chosen these things. Which meant she’d be comfortable living with them. If she was pleased, that was enough to satisfy him.

Then he remembered the last thing Saetan had said. “What’s the exception?”

“Ah,” Saetan said. “You’re going to have to dig in your heels about this one.”

They retreated to an empty room. When Saetan called in the last piece of furniture, Lucivar just studied it, trying to figure out why this was different from the rest.

“What is it?” he finally asked.

Saetan lifted a finger. Doors and drawers opened. “It’s a sewing cabinet. To store supplies. Marian enjoys weaving in her free time, and she’s used to sewing most of her own clothes. She wanted this but couldn’t afford it—”

“She can buy anything she damn well wants to,” Lucivar growled.

Saetan nodded. “You know that, I know that, and Jaenelle knows that. Marian hasn’t figured it out yet, and I think her status as a lowly housekeeper is being reinforced on a regular basis.”

His growl deepened, and he turned on his father. “She isn’t a lowly anything. She’s a warm, caring woman with her own talents and her own skills and just because she earns a wage for using those skills—”

The chilling anger in Saetan’s eyes stopped him. Something had pricked the High Lord’s temper in the last two days. It simmered below the surface, tightly leashed, but it was going to explode. Soon.

His mind raced, thinking of the way Marian retreated from him some days, using the position of housekeeper as a wall between them. Saetan must have brushed against that same wall, but the High Lord, who had a far keener understanding of women than his son did, had realized what reinforced that wall. Since she lived in Ebon Rih, who would keep telling Marian she was nothing but a lowly—

His eyes locked with Saetan’s, and seeing the answer, he swore softly, viciously, while his temper soared.

“I’ll take care of it,” Saetan said too softly. “You shouldn’t tangle with your mother over this.”

“Why not?” Lucivar snapped. “She loves me because I’m her son and hates me because I’m an Eyrien warrior, so we’re not exactly cordial with each other.” And that love, he remembered bitterly, had been skewed enough that she’d given him away and he’d grown up believing he was a half-breed bastard, fighting, always fighting, for a place within Eyrien society.

“I will deal with this, Lucivar.”

A father’s command. Besides, Lucivar knew with chilling certainty how he’d respond if Luthvian used her particular kind of Craft to harm Marian in any way, and knowing she had already tried to poison with words what he was trying to build . . . It was better if he stayed away from his mother for a while.