“Faile!” Straightening so fast he nearly yanked another button loose, he took her shoulders and turned her to face him. “You are not going to spy on Rand, do you hear me?” She put on a dogged look, mouth drawing down, eyes narrowing—she practically reeked of stubbornness—but he could be dogged, too. “Faile, I want to see some of that obedience you were boasting about.” As far as he could see, she did what he said when she good and well pleased and otherwise not, and forget whether he was in the right or not. “I mean it, Faile. I want your promise. I’ll be no part of anyb—”

“I promise, my heart,” she said, placing her fingers over his mouth. “I promise I will not spy on Rand. You see, I am obedient to my lord husband. Do you remember how many grandchildren my mother said she expects?”

The sudden change of direction made him blink. But she had promised; that was the important thing. “Six, I think. I lost count when she started telling us which were to be boys and which girls.” Lady Deira had had some startlingly frank advice on how this was to be achieved; thankfully he had missed most of it from wondering whether he should leave the room till she finished. Faile had just nodded away as though it was the most natural thing in the world, with her husband and her father there.

“At least six,” she said with a truly wicked grin. “Perrin, she will be looking over our shoulders unless I can tell her she can expect the first soon, and I thought, if you ever managed to undo the rest of my buttons. . . .” After months of marriage she still blushed, but that grin never faded. “The presence of a real bed after so many weeks makes me forward as a farmgirl at harvest.”

Sometimes he wondered about these Saldaean farmgirls she was always bringing up. Blushes or no blushes, if they were as forward as Faile when he and she were alone, no crops would ever be harvested in Saldaea. He broke off two more buttons getting her dress undone, and she did not mind a bit. She actually managed to tear his shirt.