Carlyle turned to Dominic, hot. “You knew, didn’t you? All of this?”

Dominic needs to work on hiding his smiles. “Come, this is good news. Thou art a prince, and, with Ganymede childless, next in line to be the Duke. If thou’rt acknowledged thou mayest use one of thine uncle’s lesser titles. I looked it up for thee: Count of Laval is the obvious choice, but thou couldst make a case for Marquis de Royan.”

Carlyle glared, the true blue diamond sharpness of a scion de la Trémoïlle finally awakening in his eyes. Yes, reader ‘his’; this is the moment for which I was commanded to use ‘he’ for Carlyle. Such are the deplorable laws of aristocracy that a bastard niece might matter little to the Duke, but a nephew, with a nephew comes inheritance, and barbarian blood upon the ducal throne.

If Dominic had another taunt, MASON silenced it with the raising of his merciful right hand. “Cousin Foster,” he began again, “I understand you have been to this house before. You know what is practiced here. Madame and those employed here know how to lure people into their moral palette, as well as their sexual palette. The Merion Kraye affair was a stock, archaic tragedy dredged back from darker ages, but stock, archaic dramas are why people come here, and they choose it knowingly.”

“And you just let Madame do this to people?” the sensayer half shouted.

“I am the law in Alexandria,” MASON pronounced, “not here. Madame and those within this house are Blacklaws. Members who patronize Madame’s establishment do indeed break laws sometimes, as Kraye did by committing assault, against the laws of Europe, but for the residents of the house itself, only the Eight Black Laws stand here. If here Madame wields sex as a weapon, Romanova has no Universal Law to contradict. If here affairs of honor are resolved by dueling, and those who refuse the combat, as Kraye did, are expelled from the establishment, Romanova has no Universal Law to contradict. To ask me to intervene is to ask my Empire to raise its hand against Romanova; this you do not want, for a thousand reasons.”

That fear—a thousand times the scale of petty Seven-Ten lists—made the Cousin pause.

“Exactly!” Ganymede confirmed. “This is a civilized house. My sister did nothing wrong. It was that monster Kraye—that criminal—who brought the poison, Kraye who broke the law, assaulted my sister, and tried to destroy her, and my family honor!”

“That isn’t true!” Casimir Perry could hold back no more.

Ganymede’s eyes flashed murder. “What would you know, Outsider?”

“What do I know?” Perry seethed. “I know the two of you conspired to ruin an innocent man. I know Hotaka Andō paid a king’s ransom for your services, bought you from Madame, set you up in the outside, built your mansion at La Trimouille, arranged your art contacts, your political career, all in return for what you did. I know that whore lying on the sofa over there is not the pure, virginal victim you all pretend. I know Madame knew it all, let it all happen, may even have planned it all themself. And I know that child is not my son!”