“My Silence,” Mars corrected low.

Farah made a discreet noise of alarm.

“And we won’t be going to Bower Manor,” Mars finished, only for Silence, who sat next to her husband in the manner she often sat in the times True had seen her around her father, or really anybody, except True.

Silently.

She had been much more animated in Firenze.

She was retreating into herself again.

And Mars wasn’t helping.

In fact, True worried Mars being Mars and not guiding her to an understanding of who he was and why he was that way was the reason she was doing it.

Now his cousin turned her head and stared at her husband’s bearded jaw with a mutinous expression, before she wiped it clean and reached to the teacup in front of her.

Yes, Mars was not doing any guiding whatsoever.

Farah made another quiet noise of alarm.

True squeezed her hand.

“And where will you take my daughter?” Johan asked Mars, as if Mars was making off with her, instead of married to her.

True had never given much thought to Johan, except to think in a vague way he wasn’t very likable and in a not-vague way he was a thoroughly poor father.

Now, True studied him.

And he did not like what he saw in the way Johan glared at his son-in-law.

“It isn’t so far. We’ll go back to the sand,” Mars returned. “My queen should be amongst her people. They should come to know her. It’s autumn. The crocus bloom in the north. We can visit my saffron field.”

“She is amongst her people,” Johan retorted.

Farah made a strangled noise.

Damn it.

Mars appeared curiously, and alarmingly, like he’d grown four inches simply seated in his chair as his eyes blazed fire across the table at his father-in-law.

“Silence, haven’t the tenants left Cord Cottage?” True called.

His cousin looked to him.

“I’m sorry?” she asked quietly.

“Cord Cottage,” he repeated. “It’s vacant, is it not?”

“Yes, it is, my prince,” Johan answered for his daughter, giving demonstration to one of the varied reasons why Silence had been silent much of her life. “Why do you mention it?”

“It’s spacious and it’s well-appointed,” True answered. “One of the reasons you haven’t found tenants to occupy it, I assume. It’s costly. It also has a carriage house where Mars’s Trusted can lodge. And land, for his men to camp. And it’s but five kilometers from Bower Manor. Silence and Mars can stay there. The newlyweds can have privacy, Silence can be home, in a manner, and they would be close enough to have dinner with you and Aunt Vanka once a week or so.”

“It’s more like seven kilometers,” Johan corrected.

“All the better,” Mars stated expansively, leaning back in his chair, doing so draping his arm around the back of Silence’s. “This we shall do.”

“I haven’t offered it,” Johan spat Mars’s way.

“I have,” True said.