“It isn’t, for I am livid, and it is, for I am livid, and as such, I feel quite strongly about arguing to get my way.”

They had not stopped far from each other.

But she came closer, pressing the front of her body to his, and she lifted a hand to take Piccola from his shoulder.

Her eyes were dancing through these movements, and although he enjoyed that dance, he found nothing amusing about this situation in the slightest.

And in order to communicate this to his wife, although he very much wished to wrap his arms around her, he kept them crossed.

Piccola dashed under his hair and around the back of Mars’s neck to perch on his other shoulder, stating quite clearly she did not want to be taken from her papa.

Silence let their pet have her way and rested both hands on his chest above his arms in a way, Mars did not fail to miss, she seemed not to care he was set on communicating his irritation.

He much liked that his queen showed no fear when he was angry.

And it was tremendously annoying.

“I would like, at least, my mother to have a say,” she told him quietly.

“I will grant that.”

Her face softened.

“The maids were doing as instructed,” he went on. “They are not overly skilled, but we will only remain in these lodgings for a short time. Finding, hiring and training new to be in our employ would be a waste of time for the two days we will stay in this cottage. Further, it would take from other pursuits and you having this boon to be in your element and enjoy it. You won’t be back here for a very long time. I will have a word with them. I will pay them from my own purse, something I should have done from the bloody beginning. And their loyalties should then revert to us. But in the end, this is your decision. If you don’t feel safe around them, they will be dismissed.”

“I was thinking of possibly giving Tril the run of them,” she told him. “She’ll keep them in line and watch them like a hawk.”

“This is your decision, so it will be.”

She studied him closely before asking, “How angry are you still?”

“Insanely.”

“My darling king,” she murmured, her eyes warm on him, her words treasured, even if her lips were quirking.

And suddenly, he was angry no more.

He uncrossed his arms, slid them around her and pulled her nearer.

Only then did Piccola dash down his chest to disappear in Silence’s hair.

“What did she say to you that set this off?” she asked.

“She told me we were not to be intimate around the maids. That it was not done in this realm, for servants to see us abed.”

Silence appeared baffled. “She came to tell you that?”