“But you were born a princess,” Ravenna pointed out while gesturing at the footman to fill her plate. She glared at him when he stopped after a small scoop of eggs. “I’m a person, Camden, not a bird,” she told him. “Keep going until it reaches the edges.”

Rhystan saw Sarani biting back a grin. How close she and his sister become pleased him, but then Sarani had always had a knack for drawing people to her.

“So, as I was saying,” Ravenna went on, buttering a piece of toast once her plate had been piled to heaping, “you were born royal, which means you don’t just stop being royal, no matter what you concoct in that clever head of yours. One cannot run away from one’s birthright. Ask my brother here, who has been running for years, only to discover—sod it to purgatory—that he’s still a bloody duke.”

“Ravenna!” Rhystan chided.

“What?” she asked innocently. “Do stop being a milksop, Brother dearest. Mother Dragon isn’t here.”

Rhystan blinked. Did his baby sister just call him a milksop in his own house? He opened his mouth to give her a piece of his mind but stopped as Morton came to the entrance of the breakfast room with a bow.

“Begging your pardon, Your Grace, but the dowager duchess has just arrived,” his butler announced.

“Oh, hell on wheels,” Ravenna squeaked, brushing the crumbs from her chin and shoving her overfull plate toward the waiting footman. “Camden, take this, for the love of all things holy, before she sees! She’ll sack you for feeding me. Trust me, she’s done it before.”

The footman blanched and hurried to take the plate. Rhystan shook his head at Ravenna’s antics, but he had to admit, his spine went a little straighter, too. It was appalling the effect his mother had on them. He had the sudden urge to pull off his cravat, muss his hair, and smear jam on his pristine shirt.

“Thank you, Morton. Instruct the footmen to set another place in case Her Grace decides to stay,” he said instead and braced himself.

The dowager duchess swept into the room, elegantly appointed from head to toe. Besides being paler than usual, she had a fight in her eyes. By God, Rhystan had had enough and she hadn’t even spoken. He opened his mouth to say so and stopped as she lifted an imperious hand.

“Allow me to apologize.”

Rhystan swore he could hear half a dozen jaws hitting the floor—his, Sarani’s, Ravenna’s, the butler’s, and even those of a couple of the footmen. A small part of his brain wondered if she might be ill or going mad. Either was possible.