♡.ObsessivelyHers.♡

You hadn’t batted an eye at his affairs. Women of varying stations, varying discretion. That particular issue had never troubled you much, as he was a stiff lover and distant husband. The real problem that settled quietly into your chest, the kind you never quite named aloud, was simpler and more painful than that.

He had wanted a child so badly, and when she finally came, he didn’t want her at all.

Maybe because she was a girl? Or because she was working, and he had always hated work? The endless nights of doing everything alone had left you ample time to muck around in this misery.

You supposed it didn’t matter. 

So you had raised her. You had stayed inside for nearly two years while she was small and terrified of everything beyond your arms. You had named her yourself, Lisette, because he had no desire to name her. You had made yourself into sufficient parent, even when the house felt very large and very quiet, and you were not certain you were doing any of it correctly.

She had turned out rather wonderful, all things considered. 

Which was precisely what made this so complicated.

Because how, exactly, does a mother explain to a five-year-old the intricacies of Mary Geoise?

The walk home was the longest of your life, and Lisette’s joy was unquenchable. 

Lisette skipped beside you, entirely unbothered, her hand swinging in yours with the easy pleasure. A happy one, as she had solved all her problems and moved on. She had said her piece. She had received her answer. As far as she was concerned, the matter was settled, and supper was next. 

She was getting a father, a respectable older man, who fit the bill. One who spoke to her and looked at her politely, whom she didn’t need to hide when he was around? 

For her, you conceded, the idea of a father was more of an awaiting concept than the husband you had buried. When you told Lisette he had passed away, she hadn’t cried or even noticed any difference, as she had always clung to the notion that something better was coming, which made Commander Shamrock’s little declaration the perfect storm.

And you’d have to be the rain to dampen her joy. But you just couldn’t bring yourself to do it right now, as Lisette’s little dancing walk seemed to light up the cobblestone with unusual happiness.

You, by contrast, had not yet located your ability to speak.

The maid walked a careful three steps behind you both, face admirably blank, which you appreciated more than you could say. She understood by experience that acknowledgment would probably only make your anxiety worse.

Lisette had no concerns.

“Mama.”

“Not right now, Lisette.” You said firmly.

“But—”

“Lisette.”

She accepted this with a small huff and resumed skipping.

The townhome came into view, and you felt your shoulders drop half an inch, relief threading through the tension still coiled in your chest. Inside. You needed to be inside, where there were walls and closed curtains and no one to watch your tormented expressions while you dismantled the last several hours piece by piece.

And you were almost safe, had just reached the front step, when your neighbor’s door opened. 

Saintess Resseaux appeared on her stoop like woman who had been waiting behind her curtain for some time, her expression arranged into a smile resembling casual surprise.

“Oh, Lettie! Lisette! What a coincidence.”

It was not a coincidence.

“Saintess Resseaux,” you said pleasantly. “Good evening.”

“No, good evening to you, my dear.” You knew that second she had definitely heard what happened. “I was just saying to my husband,” she continued, descending one step with the momentum of someone who had no intention of letting you pass, “what a lovely afternoon it was. Did you collect Lisette from school yourself?”

“I did.” You said tightly. 

“And how was it? Anything interesting?”

Your smile did not waver. “Perfectly ordinary.”

Her eyes sharpened. But even denied a direct answer, she was already recalibrating.

Lisette opened her mouth.

You squeezed her hand.

She closed it.

“Well,” Saintess Resseaux said, tone lifting with determined brightness, “do give my regards to—”

“Goodnight,” you said warmly, firmly, and stepped inside.

The maid closed the door.

Your front hallway was dim and quiet, smelling of beeswax and the faint lingering warmth of the afternoon. The few maids you had would be nearly done with their day, just awaiting to help you both undress and dine.

You stood very still for a moment, back almost to the door, listening to the silence settle.

Then Lisette tugged your hand.

“Mama.” She looked up at you with great patience, as though you were the one who needed managing. “Does Sainty Chubby know I got us a father?”

She called all the female adults Sainty something demeaning or other. Unfortunately, she had probably heard her late father say such a thing.

“Lis—” You stopped. Started again. “Honey, we can’t call Saintess Resseaux chubby—or tell her about what happened. It was very bold of you, my love, but Commander Shamrock may have misunderstood what you were asking.”

She stared at you.

“I asked if he was going to be my dad,” she said slowly, in the careful tone of someone repeating themselves to a person who had not been paying attention. “And he said yes.”

“Yes, but—”

“He said yes, Mama.”

“He may have been humoring you. Adults sometimes say things to be kind without—”

“He didn’t look like he was being kind.” She frowned, working through it. “He looked like he was saying yes.”

“Lisette—”

“He went like this.” She dropped into a solemn crouch, mimicking him with startling accuracy, then looked up at you with round, serious eyes. “And then he said yes.”

You pressed your fingers to your temple.

“He is a very important man,” you tried carefully. “He was probably just—”

“So is he too busy to be my dad?”

“That’s not—”

“Because I don’t need him every day.” She straightened, entirely reasonable. “Just sometimes. Like the father parade at school. Rosette’s papa only comes sometimes, and she still gets to put his name on the banner.”

“It isn’t about the banner—”

“I already practiced writing his name for one.”

You stared at her.

She stared back, patient and immovable, five years old and utterly certain she had solved a problem you were making unnecessarily complicated.

This was your fault, you realized distantly. You had raised her to speak clearly, stand straight, and say what she meant without apology. You had praised her for exactly this quality not three weeks ago, when she had told a boy at school, to his face, that his drawing of a horse looked like a very sad table.

You had no one to blame but yourself.

“Bath,” you said strictly. “Supper. Bed.”

“And then will you tell me—”

“Bath,” you repeated. “Supper. Bed.”

She went, but she went pouting, shuffling down the hall with dramatic weight. Like she had been denied an item entirely reasonable, fully intending to resume the conversation at the earliest opportunity.

You stood alone in the hallway for another moment, the quiet packing in around you. Somewhere beyond your walls, the story was already moving, already shaping itself into irreversible choas. You could feel it the way you felt all bad things, a twisting in your gut.

Why? Why had Shamrock Figarland done this? 

You pressed two fingers to your temple and exhaled slowly. What the hell were you supposed to do? You, a newish widow with a small daughter and a modest townhome, are suddenly being linked to the most desirable bachelor in all of Mary Geoise. A man whose name alone made women abandon their better judgment at the door.

Half of them would hate you.

The other half would want to be friends—warmly, eagerly, with invitations to luncheons and squeezes of the hand and that particular brand of affection that was really just proximity to what they actually wanted. And then, once they had extracted whatever usefulness the association offered, they would hate you, too, but with better information.

You had managed, up until today, to be largely unremarkable. Forgettable in the most comfortable sense of the word. The kind of woman who received polite nods at gatherings and was never the subject of anything more than mild, passing interest.

That was over.

You stared at the carpeting in your hallway, listening to the distant sounds of your daughter protesting the temperature of her bath, and tried very hard to locate anything resembling a plan.

Nothing came.

Not to your mind, anyhow.

The only thing you could do tonight was exactly what you had instructed Lisette to do. Bath. Supper. Bed. One foot in front of the other, the same as always, because the world did not pause for personal catastrophe, and neither could you. The dishes still needed to be cleared. The candles still needed to be snuffed. Your daughter still needed to be dried off, fed warm food, and coaxed into her nightgown before she fell asleep sitting upright at the table as she occasionally did when she had decided she was not yet tired.

Tomorrow would be its own disaster. Tonight was still manageable.

You pushed off the wall and went down the hall.

Lisette was sitting in the tub with the expression of a martyr, arms crossed, chin lifted, deeply aggrieved by the injustice of bathwater that was, by any reasonable measure, perfectly fine.

“Too cold,” she informed you. “The maids did it again. Rosette gets to hit them when they do that.”

“We don’t hit our maids,” you said, rolling up your sleeve and reaching for the soap. “And they were following my instructions. You’re not a piece of bacon.”

“But it’s too cold.”

“It’s warm.”

“Too cold. I like hot!”

“Lean forward and I’ll add more. But I don’t want you to cook yourself.”

She did, grumbling, and you began working the soap through her hair with practiced fingers while she continued her grievances at the wall.

“Old daddy hit the maids.”

You had no real answer to the hitting. Your late husband had hit the slaves. The maids, too. And rarely, when he had drunk more than was wise, you. You had always assumed it was the way of most husbands, even composed, well-regarded ones. Maybe especially men like that—like the men of House Figarland. Holy Knights and those who relished the human hunt tournaments.

“We don’t hit people,” you said, with enough finality that she blew a raspberry but let it go.

She was quiet for a moment, which with Lisette always meant she was building toward a point.

“Mama.”

“Mm.”

“Do you think all daddies hit?”

You paused, then frowned.

“Some do.”

She considered this with great seriousness. “Would Commander Shamrock?”

“I don’t know, love.”

“The Commander has big hands,” she said, as though this were relevant data. “But he seems like he won’t.”

You said nothing.

She wasn’t wrong, you thought, before you could stop yourself. Commander Shamrock did have wonderfully large, wide hands. The kind that looked capable and firm and—

You stopped that thought firmly and dropped it somewhere it could not do any damage.

You would not. You could not afford to soften, not even for a fraction of a second. Not with the amount of turmoil that man had caused in a single afternoon. Not with the conversations that still lie ahead of you, with your daughter, with your acquaintances, with whoever came knocking at your door tomorrow morning, who’d read the papers. You would not allow yourself to think warmly about a handsome man who had, with one word, dismantled your careful, unremarkable life.

“Mama.”

You blinked.

Lisette had twisted around to look at you, soap be damned, her small face tipped up with an expression of deep, personal concern.

“You went away,” she said. “Like before. Like you would when old daddy was home.”

“I’m right here.”

“Your eyes went away.” She studied you with unsettling focus. “Were you thinking about the Commander?”

“Head forward,” you said.

She turned around, but she was smiling. You could tell by her shoulders.

“Is he going to come for supper?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because we don’t know him.”

“But he’s my dad.”

“Lisette—”

“He said yes.” She twisted to look at you, affronted, soap sliding dangerously close to her eyes. “He said yes in front of everybody. Rosette heard. Everyone heard. He promised

“Head forward,” you said.

She turned back around, nose held high as her pride.

Another stretch of quiet. You worked through a tangle with more patience than you felt, and she winced dramatically but held still.

Then, very small, almost to herself, she said, “I just want a nice one, Mama.”

Your hand slowed.

“I know, my love.”

“Rosette’s daddy carries her on his shoulders.” She paused, thinking it over. “He could, too. He’s tall. Old daddy never did.”

Pain quietly caught in your chest.

“Rinse,” you said gently, and tipped the cup. “And I love you more than the sun and the moon and the stars and every daddy in the whole Holy City. You don’t need another person to love you, kay?”

Lisette squeezed her eyes shut against the water, then shook her head like a small wet dog, spattering you thoroughly from collar to cuff.

“Okay, Mama.” She twisted around, blinking water from her lashes, perfectly solemn. “I love you more than flowers and candy.”

“That’s very high praise.”

You smiled despite yourself, reaching for the towel.

“Come on then,” you said, wrapping it around her and lifting her out in one practiced motion, her small, damp weight settling against you. “Honey bread and hot chocolate. Special treat, just for tonight.”

She pulled back to look at you, eyes wide, delight overtaking everything else in an instant—fathers, commanders, bathwater injustices, all of it gone.

“With the thick honey? Not the runny kind?”

“The thick kind.”

She threw both arms around your neck.

You both ate the bread with honey at the small kitchen table, Lisette’s feet swinging freely beneath her chair, chocolate cooling in her cup while she talked about Rosette and the new teacher, and a boy named Pip who had said that she found deeply incorrect. You listened, nodded, offered the appropriate sounds of agreement, and felt the day slowly lose some of its brightness.

Then you sent her to wash her teeth and go to bed.

Your intention was to throw yourself across your own bed and be entirely done with the day. That intention was thwarted when Beth found you just outside your bedroom door, hands folded, wearing the careful expression of someone delivering unwelcome news.

"Apologies, Mistress, but there is a guest."

You blanched, something you did not often do, but quickly straightened to recover it.

Please let it not be Shamrock Figarland. Or worse, one of your sisters, who would have heard by now and descended without warning or mercy.

"Who is it?"

Your maid's brows furrowed slightly. "I am unsure, Saintess. She did have a family crest, but I couldn't place which—"

The tension in your shoulders loosened a fraction. A woman, then. You had no shortage of family members capable of barging in unannounced, but your maids knew them all on sight. All six sisters, your single brother, and anyone who had ever passed through the Marcus household with any regularity. If Beth couldn't place her, she wasn't family.

So. A stranger. An unknown crest. Someone who had heard what you said today and moved quickly enough to arrive at your door before you'd had the chance to properly dread the consequences.

That strangled it considerably, and none of the options were appealing.

Your expression must have said as much, because Beth cleared her throat delicately.

"No worries, Beth." You smoothed your dress and set your shoulders. "Have Arnold and Antony wait outside the door, and ask Ness to stay with Lisette until she's asleep."

She slipped off to see to it, and you made your way downstairs, already composing yourself for whatever scene awaited.

You walked into the sitting room and very nearly walked straight back out.

A woman of perhaps sixty sat at your table, spine immaculate, hands folded neatly in her lap. The Figarland family crest was stitched in gold across the breast of her uniform, unmistakable even in the low light. 

So Shamrock Figarland had made his next move. You would give him this much: he was quick. Even if he remained constitutionally incapable of taking a hint.

She looked up when you entered.

You looked at her.

"Saintess." She rose, inclining her head with crisp formality. "Forgive the intrusion at this hour. I am Joanna. I serve as Housekeeper to the Figarland Family."

"I see." You crossed to the chair opposite and did not sit. "What brings you here at this hour, Joanna?"

Her eyes widened a fraction at the use of her name. They often did. Servants tended to expect stiffness from the higher houses, but you had never found much use for it.

"It is unorthodox, my lady," she agreed, her tone hinting that things were about to change, and for good reason. "But my Master is eager to move forward with arrangements. He wished to begin before tomorrow's papers complicate matters further."

The word landed oddly. "Arrangements?” You queried. 

"For the engagement, Saintess. Between yourself and Commander Figarland."

You stared at her.

"I think there has been a misunderstanding," you said. "There is no engagement."

Wrinkles shifted in Joanna's expression. No surprise. More the careful neutrality of having been briefed to expect exactly this and instructed on how to proceed regardless.

"I am merely here at my Master's request." She reached into the fold of her coat and produced an envelope, setting it on the table between you with quiet precision. Your name written across the front in clean, unhurried script, not a single smudge. "He sends his regards and asked that I deliver this personally."

You stared at it.

Then you looked back at her.

You picked it up.

You did not open it.

"Joanna," you said pleasantly, "I want to be very clear with you, because I suspect you are a sensible woman and I would hate to waste either of our time. Whatever this letter contains, I bear you no ill will. You are doing your job. I respect that enormously—"

She said nothing. Waited.

"However." You set the letter back down on the table. "I would not want you to make a return journey tonight under any false impression. I am not engaged to Commander Figarland. I have not agreed to be engaged to Commander Figarland. Whatever he believes has occurred, I assure you, it has not."

Joanna's expression remained composed. Admirably so.

"I understand," she said.

"I'm glad we understand one another."

"Shall I tell him you refused to read his letter?"

You paused.

It was a good question. Delivered without impertinence, in the same even tone as everything prior. But it had weight. Refused to read was a different story than has not yet read. One closed a door. The other left it standing open, which was almost certainly why she had phrased it precisely that way.

You looked at the envelope. Your name, written in that unusually pretty hand, careful and unhurried. Surely not his. What man paid such close attention to penmanship? And surely, despite his surprise proposal, Shamrock Figarland did not know you well enough to know that you had never once in your life been capable of leaving a letter unread, no matter how much you resented its arrival.

"No," you said, after a moment. "You may tell him I received it."

Something faint crossed her face before it smoothed away.

"Very good, Saintess." She rose, hands folded. "I will see myself out. I apologize again for the lateness of the hour."

"Antony will show you to the door," you said, and Antony, appearing as if summoned from thin air, did precisely that.

The sitting room went quiet.

You stood there for a long moment. Then you sat down in the nearest chair, picked up the envelope, and turned it over in your hands. The Figarland seal pressed into dark red wax on the back, clean and perfect, without a single smear as though someone had taken care with it. As though someone had thought you might notice.

Which was a preposterous thing to think about a man you had spoken to fewer than five times in your life, most of those occasions shared with your husband.

Your husband, who had laughed the first time, caught you at your writing desk after the wedding. You were bent over a letter to your youngest sister, and he’d not been gentle about explaining what he thought of women who fancied themselves literary, and your letters. He’d called your shy stutter an embarrassment in front of company and a liability in private. Who had, on more than one occasion, made good on his promises about what happened to wives who did not correct their deficiencies in a timely manner.

He had been a thorough teacher, you would give him that.

He had not, however, been successful. You had learned, over the course of that marriage, how to be many things you had not previously been. Quieter. Very careful. Quicker to read a room and slower to speak in it. You had folded yourself down into a smaller shape and held it there for years, because it was that or something worse.

But you had never stopped writing the letters. You had simply learned to hide them better.

And you had never, not once, been able to leave a precious letter unread.

You were aware that opening it would be, in some sense, a concession. That whatever was inside had been written with intention, and that intention was almost certainly aimed at you.

You were also already tired, and the sitting room was very quiet, and the wax was already broken, and the letter was in your hands.

You opened it.

The letter was a single page. No greeting beyond her name at the top. No closing sentiment beyond his signature at the bottom.

In between, a list.

~

Saintess ‘Lettie’,

The following terms are offered without condition or negotiation. They are presented for consideration only.

Upon the solemnization of marriage between Saintess Lettie Marcus and Commander Shamrock Figarland, the Figarland Family hereby pledges the following:

Article I. Protection: The full political standing, military authority, and allied resources of the Figarland Family are to be extended without reservation over the person of Saintess Lettie Marcus and the child Lisette Marcus. Any party seeking to act against the interests, holdings, reputation, or persons of either will be considered as acting against the Figarland Family and treated accordingly under all applicable laws and alliances.

Article II. Property: All assets, properties, and holdings currently registered under the estate of the late Sheamus Marcus are to be transferred solely and irrevocably into the personal keeping of Saintess Lettie Marcus. Said holdings will not be absorbed into Figarland communal property, nor subject to Figarland oversight, nor accessible to any Figarland interest without the consent of the aforementioned.

Article III. Financial Independence: A private household account to be established in the sole name of Saintess Lettie Marcus, funded in full on a quarterly basis by the Figarland estate, disbursed without condition. No accounting of said funds to be rendered to any member of the Figarland Family.

Article IV. Guardianship: Full and undivided legal guardianship of the child, Lisette Marcus, to remain exclusively with Saintess Lettie Marcus, inviolable under any circumstance. The child will not fall under Figarland authority, jurisdiction, or obligation without the explicit written consent of her guardian.

Article V. The Child Lisette: The child Lisette Marcus will not be obligated to marry under any condition, at the request of any Figarland interest, or as consideration to any allied family, at any point. Should the child wish to marry of her own volition, that wish will be honored. Should she not, that also will be honored, without exception, for the duration of her life.

Article VI. Inheritance: Should the child, Lisette Marcus, choose to take the Figarland name, her adoption of it will carry full and equal inheritance rights to any second-tier blood member of the Figarland Family. This will be written without amendment into the Figarland estate documents and witnessed by no fewer than three independent parties.

Article VII. Private Residence: A private suite of rooms within the Figarland residence to be designated solely for the use of Saintess Lettie Marcus and her children. All keys to said rooms are to be held exclusively by her.

Article VIII. Terms Required of Saintess Lettie Marcus: In consideration of all terms set forth herein, the following is required of Saintess Lettie Marcus upon solemnization of the marriage:

That she take the Figarland name in full, and be recognized under it in all legal, political, and social capacities henceforth. This includes the reasonable attendance of social engagements in the capacity of wife to Commander Shamrock Figarland, as the duties of his position and station require.

That she concedes the right to divorce or separation, said union to be recognized as binding and permanent under the full weight of applicable law.

That she give reasonable consideration to the bearing of future heirs to the Figarland name. This is not demanded as a condition of the above terms, nor is failure to produce issue grounds for the withdrawal of any article herein.

All terms set forth herein are binding upon signing and will be enforceable under the full weight of Figarland's legal counsel, and co-signed by the sitting council at Pangaea Castle.

Commander S. Figarland

~

You read it twice.

Then you set it down, very carefully, on the arm of the chair.

The audacity of it. The implicit freedom of it. The way it had been constructed by someone who understood, with discomfiting accuracy, exactly what a woman in your position would need to see in order to take it seriously. Not flattery. Not sentiment. Terms. Binding, witnessed, and co-signed at Pangaea Castle.

The fire had burned low while you were not paying attention. The room was darker than it had been, and quieter, and you sat in it for a long time without moving.

You had been married. You knew what men promised before and what they became after. You had a small and thorough education in the distance between written words and lived ones.

And yet.

You picked it up and read it a third time.

And that was when a thought snagged.

Because the terms themselves made a cold, straightforward kind of sense. What didn't make sense was the man behind them. Shamrock Figarland. You had spoken to him fewer than five times in your life, most of those occasions unremarkable, all of them brief. No correspondence. No particular history. Nothing that would explain a document of this scope, this specificity, this evident care.

So why?

The obvious answer was that Sheamus had planned it. Some arrangement was made between them, some promise extracted before the end.

But you turned that thought over and found it didn't fit either man. Sheamus had not been a man who made provisions, and he had certainly not been a man who could tolerate the thought of another stepping into his place, however cold and empty that place had been. He hadn't loved you. But he had been possessive in the way he valued things without caring for them, and would sooner see his family go to ruin than pass willingly into someone else's hands.

He would never have arranged this.

Which meant Shamrock Figarland had done it entirely on his own.

You looked down at the letter.

Just what kind of man, you thought, writes a document like this? And for whom? You were not, by any reasonable accounting, an obvious choice. You were past the age when women were considered most useful for the purposes of a dynasty. You had a child by another man. Your health had not been robust even before that pregnancy, and the pregnancy itself had not been kind, and anyone who moved in the same social circles as you had at least heard the outline of it.

You could not easily give him children. You both knew that.

So why the clause about heirs at all, if not as a courtesy? Why phrase it as a request rather than a condition, unless he already knew the answer was likely to disappoint him?

Unless—

You sat up slightly.

Unless he already had one.

It was not impossible. Shamrock Figarland was not a young man; he had never married, and men in his position and with his appetites did not always go without consequence. There were rumors, vague ones, the kind that circulated in drawing rooms and died before they could be confirmed. Nothing you had ever paid particular attention to.

But a bastard child needed a mother far more urgently than a commander needed a wife. And a bastard child needed legitimacy. A name. A household that functioned.

He had been very specific about Lisette. Very careful. He had even extended the offer of his name to her, though she would never stand as his heir for obvious reasons. He had approached the subject of her gently, with a consideration that did not read as performance.

The kind of consideration, perhaps, of a man who already knew what it was to have a child that the world was not inclined to be kind to.

You took a slow breath and set the letter down.

No. You were building a story out of inference and wishful thinking, and you knew better than that. You had a document, not a man, and a document could be written by anyone with enough legal counsel and enough motivation. Whatever Shamrock Figarland wanted, he wanted it badly enough to produce this. And men who wanted things badly enough were dangerous, because wanting had a way of curdling into taking, and there was not a man in Mary Geoise who had proven himself the exception to that particular rule.

He was too interesting besides. Too deliberate. Too handsome in that severe, unsmiling way that you had always, privately and to your great misfortune, found more compelling than you should have.

You knew what men like that were. You had married one. You had the years to prove it.

No. What you needed was someone old. Someone outside the city, ideally, someone settled and unremarkable and entirely uninterested in you beyond the social convenience of a wife. Someone who would let you live quietly, as you had been trying to live for years now, without incident or interest or letters written in flawless, calculated penmanship.

Because men who wrote letters like that were liars. In your experience, the more beautiful the hand, the worse the man behind it.

You folded the letter. Set it aside.

You had learned that lesson already, and you would not be learning it again.

The Temple of Shangara was quiet at this hour, which was the way Shamrock Figarland preferred it.

Night had long been his favorite time of day. The city faded to nothing, the moon sat low and unhurried over the rooftops, and the hour before bed was the lone hour that belonged entirely to him. He had, he would readily concede, very few desires. The demands of his position had seen to that over the years, had worn down anything extravagant or impractical until only the essentials remained.

But the things he did want, he wanted with a depth that had nothing casual about it.

Chief among them, and longest held, was this:

He had known for some time who his wife should be. He had known it with the quiet, settled certainty of a seasoned strategist who had looked at a problem from every angle and arrived always at the same answer. 

The difficulty had not been the knowing. The difficulty had been the waiting, and the discipline required to wait without overreaching, without doing anything that might complicate a situation already complicated enough.

You had been married. So he had waited.

He was not, by nature, an impatient man. He was precise, and thorough, and capable of holding a course when the course was correct, but patience for its own sake had never come easily to him. What had made the waiting bearable was the knowledge that moving too soon would have cost him everything, and he was not a man who moved when the odds were not in his favor.

But it had come, and he made his long-desired move, and that was considerably more than he’d been able to say until now.

He had not expected perfection from the first move. That was not how he played.

Part of your considerable charm, he had long since concluded, was that you did not swoon. Would not throw yourself at the first gesture, however generous, or however well constructed he presented himself. He had counted on that, in fact. The easier path had been offered because you deserved the option of it, but he had not built his power on easy paths, and he did not intend to start now.

His next move was considerably surer.

Because what did a widow want, above all else? Not flowers. Not flattery. Not the vague promise of a comfortable life with a presentable man. What a widow with a daughter wanted was security. Permanent, documented, legally unassailable security. For herself, yes, but more than that, for the child.

The Marcus family had no shortage of heirs. Legitimate ones, illegitimate ones, the various results of a long and distinguished history of poor decisions. Lisette would inherit nothing from that line that was not already contested six ways over.

The Figarland line, by contrast, was thin. Deliberately so. He had kept it that way. And an adopted daughter, properly documented, properly elevated as his own, would want for nothing. Would be touched by nothing. Would live, for the remainder of her life, as though she had been born to great joy and power.

As little Lisette always should have been. As you should have been married to.

There were very few women, in his estimation, who could look at that and walk away from it. He was fairly hopeful, though not yet entirely certain, that you were not among them.

He was still at his desk, waiting for Joanna’s return, when a familiar face appeared in the doorway. One he had hoped would be gone for considerably longer. One he had, in fact, made specific arrangements to ensure would be elsewhere this evening.

Evidently, those arrangements had not held.

“So,” Sommers Shepherd said, folding himself against the doorframe with ease, looking like he had decided he was staying regardless of whether he had been invited. The grin on his face was enormous and entirely without shame. “Tormenting widows is your thing. I’ll be honest with you, little Shamrock, I had my doubts. I genuinely thought you might be a eunuch. Or weirder. But here we are.” He gestured broadly at nothing in particular. “You Figarlands are always so interesting in your preferences.”

Shamrock did not look up from the document in front of him. “You’re back already.”

“Very slick of you,” Sommers said, entirely unabashed, dropping himself into the nearest chair with the boneless ease of a man who had never once been made to feel unwelcome anywhere. “Send me off right when you decide to start a scandal. Killed a few people, maimed some others, came back, and what do I find? Romance. Gossip! You sitting here looking like a man who’s done nothing wrong.” He spread his hands. “Were you even going to tell me? Or just elope quietly and send a note after the fact? I can’t imagine the Supreme Commander would allow that.”

Shamrock raised a single brow. “As far as I am aware, my father has a standing dislike of you. It’s doubtful he’d send you an invitation regardless.”

Sommers snorted. “He has a standing dislike of everyone, that’s hardly the point.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, grin sharpening into a deliberate smirk. “The point is that you, Shamrock Figarland, have apparently decided to marry. Without telling any of us. After years of sitting over there being deeply uninterested in every woman in Mary Geoise.” He paused. “Which one is she?”

Shamrock returned to his document.

“None of your business.”

“Killingham,” Sommers called, without turning around, “he won’t tell me which one. You will though, right?”

From somewhere further down the corridor came Killingham’s voice, immature and deeply amused. “Already did, you ass.”

Sommers turned back to Shamrock with an expression of a man whose evening had just improved considerably. “Fine, fine, spoilsport. So, your Saintess.” He said it slowly, like he was tasting it. “Is that Marcus woman with the stutter and the daughter?”

“This is none of your business, Sommers,” Shamrock said lightly. 

“It is!” He pointed, openly accusing. “You took Killingham and Gunko, and you know they aren’t half as great as I am. You took Killingham over me, Shamrock. Killingham.”

Shamrock set his pen down with a precise click. “The pair of them have experience around children, and were already scheduled to return to the school. The last time you visited, you gave the children nightmares. Three of them refused to attend lessons for a week.”

“I mean.” Sommers paused, in the manner of a man genuinely reconsidering his position and finding it sound. “They needed to toughen up.”

“They are six.”

“Exactly.” He gestured as though this proved his point entirely. “Prime age for it. You all coddle them, that’s the problem.” He leaned back, apparently satisfied with this conclusion, before the gleam returned to his eye. “—Regardless. The Saintess. How long?”

Shamrock picked his pen back up.

“That,” he said, “is genuinely none of your business.”

Sommers grinned. “Long time, then. Just like your daddy.”

“Is this your way of asking for more work?”

Sommers opened his mouth. Closed it. Looked briefly at the ceiling in the manner of a man performing a rapid internal calculation.

“No,” he said.

“Then I suggest you find somewhere else to be before I change my mind.”

Sommers unfolded himself from the chair with considerably less urgency than the situation called for, straightening his coat with great dignity. “I’m going,” he said. “I’m going. But for the record, I think it’s very romantic. In a cold, slightly threatening sort of way.” He paused in the doorway. “Very you, actually.”

Shamrock said nothing.

“I’ll send Killingham in.”

“Do not send Killingham in. Or I’ll make both of you go on patrol.”

But Sommers was already gone, and from down the corridor came the distant, distinct sound of him saying something vulgar he absolutely should not have been saying, followed by Killingham’s low laugh, followed by silence.

Shamrock looked at his document.

He had not written a single word in the last ten minutes, and this did not appear to be changing. He set the pen down. Laced his fingers together on the desk. Looked at the wall in front of him, which had nothing to say for itself.

But he wasn’t to remain in peace.

He knew the footstep before the figure appeared. Had known it since childhood, had learned early to distinguish it from every other set of footsteps in every building his father had ever occupied. 

Garling Figarland closed the door behind him without looking at it.

He did not sit immediately, but took a moment to look over Shamrock, as if taking extra care of what he wanted from this visit. Then he settled into the chair across from the desk like he was taking a throne, and regarded his son with an expression that gave away precisely nothing.

The silence between them was not uncomfortable. It had never been. Garling was never anything less than fond of him, and they were too alike for silence to carry menace.

“Sommers is in irritating form this evening,” Garling said, at last.

“Sommers is always in irritating form.” Shamrock exhaled. “He considers it a point of personal pride. And he has been working for years to find some gossip to harass me about.”

“If the Great One wasn’t so intent on keeping him,” Garling said, with a sharpness that suggested this was not the first time he had entertained the thought, “we might both find some peace. I didn’t move to discharge him before, but if he continues to—”

Shamrock waved a hand. “He is just powerful enough to be useful. Personal preferences are always cast aside for the benefit of the Great One.” He paused. “As we both know.”

Garling’s expression shifted slightly at that. Not much. Just enough.

“Yes,” he said, after a moment. “As we both know.”

His father’s eyes moved to the desk. To the letter set beside Shamrock’s hand, and the broken Figarland crest seal lying next to it. He looked at both for a moment longer than was strictly necessary.

“Is something preoccupying your thoughts? Other than Sommers.”

Shamrock linked his fingers together. “A few minor things.”

Garling paused before humming.

“Minor things—such as the current rumors currently reaching even the Five Elders?”

Shamrock sighed. 

“Have you come to chide me, or are you giving me permission?”

“Neither,” his father clarified. “I’m just curious. A fresh widow with a small child, both of whom you have apparently decided to pursue out of the blue and with extensive legal documentation and your very best wax seal.” His eyes moved briefly back to the desk. “I do find the contrast of your sudden urgency striking. Given that you have had, by my count, several years in which to do something about this, and elected instead to do nothing, I am very curious indeed."

“I was being patient.”

“Were you?”

Shamrock said nothing. Garling did not require an answer. He was not, in truth, asking a question.

Another silence settled. Longer this time. His father looked to the window, at the dark city beyond it, at the low moon that had climbed while they were not watching. There an almost meditative air about him in moments like this, when he was wielding the weight of his office and was simply a man in a chair, thinking of a time long ago. 

Shamrock had spent a considerable portion of his childhood trying to learn what his father looked like when he was genuinely surprised. He had never managed it, but he came to know this look very well.

It was the look his father got when he was thinking of his mother, and Shamrock had learned to recognize it early. A fire behind the eyes that was not quite grief and not quite fondness but lived between them. 

“I find myself thinking,” Garling said finally, like a man who had been thinking for quite some time and had decided only now to broach the subject. He paused, deliberately, the way he always paused when he wanted you to understand the pause was intentional. “Your housekeeper has spent the better part of a decade presenting you with suitable women—daughters of good families. Excellent bloodlines. Proper temperaments. Women any reasonable man would have considered himself fortunate to receive.” His gaze returned to Shamrock, level and faintly critical. “You found fault with every single one of them.”

“I found them unsuitable.”

“You found them lacking,” his father said, without heat and without particular hurry. “Which has never been the same thing, and you have always known the difference.” He let that sit a moment. “Your mother would have found this whole business exhausting.”

Shamrock straightened slightly. Garling rarely deigned to speak of the woman, and rarer still to speak of the effect she had left on him. All Shamrock had ever been given was the single portrait in his father’s private rooms, the one his father kept turned toward the wall more often than not, as though looking at it directly was a thing he had to ration.

“It seems she had very little patience for Mary Geoise in general,” Shamrock replied carefully, keeping his voice even. Any wrong word and the door would close.

“She had very little patience for foolishness,” Garling corrected, with a faint, reflexive precision, like he had built it over decades. “Which is not the same thing, though I will grant you the overlap was considerable.” Amusement swept across his face, brief and quiet, there and gone. “She would have liked your Bavette girl, I think. She always preferred collecting allies with a spark behind their eyes. Women who made men work for it.” A pause, weighted with humor. “She made me work considerably for her.”

“Indeed?” Shamrock said. “Though if I acquire my desired wife, she’ll want to know the full story. Women always want to know these things.”

Garling’s gaze returned to him, sharpening just slightly at the edges.

“Will she.”

“She strikes me as a woman who prefers complete honesty."

His father regarded him for a moment, clearly deciding how much rope to extend. “And what makes you believe I would tell it to her?”

A fair question, as he hadn’t even told the entirety to Shamrock. 

“She’d ask you directly, I suspect,” Shamrock said, “and you’d find that if you want to see your grandchildren, you’ll answer.”

Garling looked at his son, smiling wickedly. It was not quite a warning or pride, but occupied the narrow territory with impressive ease.

“You are,” he said slowly, “entirely too cocky for a man whose letter has not yet received a reply.”

“I have good reasons for my confidence. I am your son.” He retorted, “Marriage at our caliber requires a woman worthy of the effort and plotting.”

“Unfortunately, that's the nature of courtship among the elite,” Garling said, and rose from his chair.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

“How droll,” Shamrock drawled, “Did mother approve of your courtship?”

“No,” his father answered, pleasantly. “I don’t imagine your Bavette will be any kinder.”

A beat.

“I wish you had moved sooner,” Garling continued mildly, as if considering regret like a man lamenting a missed investment opportunity. “You might have had considerably more children by now.”

“Be content,” Shamrock said. “You’ll have a ready granddaughter.”

His father looked at him for a long moment as amusement crossed his face. Then Garling turned back to the window, and when he spoke again, his voice had shifted quieter and considerably more genuine.

“Indeed,” he said. “Though I will tell you that is perhaps the least surprising thing you have said to me this evening.” He gave a thin smile. “I have been aware of the situation since then. Have turned a blind eye when needed.”

Shamrock paused, as if trying to scry to what extent his father was referring to. Was he a mere watcher, or did he play some hand in the events that had come to pass?

Garling did not look at him. He appeared to find the moon tremendously interesting, mirroring his own profile.

“You knew,” Shamrock said.

“I am the Supreme Commander of the Holy Knights,” his father said, with total serenity, as if the answer entirely self-sufficient. “There is very little that occurs within Mary Geoise, or beyond her, that does not reach me eventually.” He rose, unhurried, and straightened his coat with careful precision that had always been more habit than vanity. “The more relevant question, I think, is not what I knew.” He moved toward the door. “But if your bride will accept you at all if she discovers it.”

He paused with his hand on the frame, not quite turning back.

“Don’t keep waiting too long,” he said. “She strikes me as a woman who makes decisions quickly when left alone with them.” A brief, considered pause. “Women make nonsensical decisions over children. And we Figarlands make even worse ones over our women.”