“Huh,” Burle said. “Nothing wrong with the way your mother looks. First thing in the morning, last thing at night, and every hour in between, she looks just fine.”

He meant it. And because he meant it, and because she’d inherited the red hair and freckles from Devra, she’d thought the man who had been her Consort had also meant it when he said he thought she was lovely.

When he’d left, the bastard had told her what he really thought.

“Well,” Cassidy said, vanishing the handkerchief, “we’d best get to the table before Mother comes out here, don’t you think?”

“That we should.” Slinging an arm around her shoulders, Burle aimed them for the house. “I’ll say one more thing. I remember meeting Lady Kermilla when she was serving her apprenticeship in your court, and I’ll tell you this, Kitten. If those fools chose her over you, then they deserve what they’re going to get.”

“Maybe.” Probably. When she’d sent Kermilla’s evaluation to the Province Queen, she’d tried to be kind, but there had been no denying that she’d had concerns about Kermilla’s attitude toward anyone who wasn’t strong enough to fight back.

“Their loss, my gain,” Burle said. “I’ve got the two finest women in the whole Territory living in my house.”

“For a little while,” Cassidy said.

“What’s that mean?”

“I’m just visiting, Poppi. Next week, I’ll start looking for a place of my own.” A very simple place, since there hadn’t been much left of the tithes she received from Bhak and Woolskin, not after paying the court expenses and sending the Province Queen her share. That had been her income while she ruled, and the fact that there was any left was due to her careful upbringing and her mother’s firm belief that a good life didn’t have to be an expensive life.

And since it was her income and what she’d saved from the tithes was all she had, she would continue to tear up Kermilla’s letters, which all asked the same thing: how much was the former Queen of Bhak going to “gift” the new Queen?

“What do you mean, you’re getting your own place?” Burle said. “What for?”

“I’m thirty-one years old, Poppi. A grown woman doesn’t live with her parents.”

He stopped so fast he pulled her off-balance. “Why not? What can you do in your own place that you can’t do—?” His face flushed as he came to an obvious—and incorrect—conclusion about what a woman wouldn’t want to do in her parents’ house.

“Well now,” he muttered, lengthening his stride and pulling her with him. “We’ll just see what your mother has to say about that. We’ll just see.”