To my satisfaction, Rufus seemed to have a good mood going with the younger Herschel twin. I was worried about him since he had been completely fixated on swordplay lately. Ruby had a particular talent for getting conversations moving, so it had been the right choice to seat her next to him. I hoped Sapphire would forgive me for this, or at least stop shooting me angry glares every minute or so.

  I have to look after both the emotional and physical well-being of the squires, Sapphire! Please understand.

  His obsession with his career at least was paying dividends. While I didn’t think he’d be the first from his batch of recruits to be knighted, he was a strong contender for the #2 slot. The first-place candidate simply had an advantage in terms of age and experience. The elder Lord Florentine would be proud.

  Helian noticed where I was looking and elbowed me. “If Evan’s mother asks me about this, I’m telling her it was entirely your fault.”

  I smiled. “It’s fine, Helian. For that matter, what about Rosa?”

  “What my lady-in-waiting does in her own time is her business… and it’s not as if I orchestrated that. If anything, I tried to discourage them. She’s a bad influence on Marie. I’m still concerned they’re going to get into trouble so big I can’t dig them out of it.”

  “Don’t worry so much. Those two won’t kick off an uprising until they’re absolutely certain they’ll succeed.”

  Ruby turned and (realizing that I was watching the group) gave me an exaggerated salute. Sapphire swatted her on the hand.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  Helian turned to look at me. “That reminds me. How did you end up adopted, anyway? Another part of your scheme? Blackmail?”

  I shook my head. “No. It was Selene’s idea, believe it or not. Mother had been trying to find a successor for a while, and it suddenly became urgent, so they picked me.”

  “Urgent? How so?”

  “The King’s order to detain Atropa could only be delivered by someone of sufficient rank, and Mother couldn’t go. So, she decided to request His Majesty’s permission to adopt me while she was begging him for the order. He forced her to sign away one of her gold mines, apparently… though now that she took over Coroban’s title and lands she doesn’t really need it.”

  In the end, the king had decided to promote one of his only remaining trustworthy vassals into Coroban’s seat because he couldn’t come up with a better choice. I had a long way to go before he would approve of me as the new countess, so for the time being both titles formally belonged to her, even if she had made managing the county my problem.

  I had the impression that His Majesty viewed her as a problem child, since up until this point she had been connected to the deaths of a duchess, a marchioness, and at least two barons. The incident with Helian had done her no favors, but after she interceded on Mother’s behalf it was written off as a disagreement between a mother and a daughter-in-law.

  On that note, it seemed that the king was concerned that the birth rate was going to decline as a result of the many couples taking advantage of his new relaxed marriage policies. He was worried over nothing though, in my opinion. Even if none of the people at tonight’s party seemed to be in a hurry to have children…

  “Helian, have you thought about having kids?”

  She choked on her wine. “Uh… not recently? And mostly in my nightmares. You realize how painful it is, right? And how little sleep we’d get after the child is born?”

  “I see your point. Though we already don’t get much sleep, do we?”

  Helian groaned and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Promise me you’ll never discuss this topic with your mother…”