“Oh, they do,” Victoria said seriously, “but they usually phrase it differently, snide comments, backhanded compliments, or anonymous statements to the press. I actually prefer your direct approach.”

“You might be the first person to ever tell me that.”

“And you’re certainly the first person to ever throw rocks at my window, so maybe we’re even.”

“Not even close, sister,” Sophia said quickly. “I wanna know the rest of this inheritance saga. What happens if your dad were to die tomorrow?”

Vic grimaced. “Like I said, he’s impressively healthy. I have the utmost hope and even a relatively reasonable expectation that he lives to be a hundred.”

“Not trying to be morbid about your pop, but you know what I mean, right?”

“I do. And I’d love to give you some definitive answer. Honestly, I might be willing to murder another human right here, right now if that would provide some certainty on the future of inheritance laws and my life.”

“How very Macbeth of you,” Sophia said, totally loving the darkness of that comment.

“The Thane of Cawdor has nothing on me. At least he knew what his succession of peerage was.”

“Come again?” Sophia asked, finding she actually did want to understand the answer.

“The laws governing how titles get passed down are called the ‘succession of peerage.’ My father was the only son of an only son, and his closest great uncle had no children who survived long enough to procreate. It’s possible the government could find someone way back in my family tree to oust me from the estate along with my younger sister, but they’d have a hard time making a definitive claim.”

“What if they can’t do it?”

“Then it’s possible the government could oust my sister and me from the estate and reclaim everything, either to dissolve the title and sell the land, which has happened a few times, or hand it over to some royal nephew or something, which has happened many times.”

“Wait, either way you’re homeless?”

“We’d not be cast into the streets or anything. We have other properties in private holdings.”

Of course you do, Sophia thought, but managed not to say so.

“But to say we’d be out of the only home our family has known for centuries would be accurate.”

“All because you were born with lady parts instead of a penis?” A familiar tick of indignance rose inside her.

“To put it bluntly.”

“And until it happens, your very existence is just . . . what? A walking legal time-bomb?”

“I try not to think of it that way, but yes, it’s my reality. Every time the phone rings in the middle of the night, I steel myself for the news that my mere biology has brought an end to eight hundred years of history.” She lifted her glass again in mock salute.