He was suddenly very quiet and still. But he turned and looked at her.
“Why?”
“Because it is for your safety, for the good of Theos, and because it is my wish.”
“Your wish—and whose else?”
“My brother’s.”
There was a moment’s silence. She saw signs of a new sternness about the closely-drawn lips, the steel-grey eyes, from which a momentary tenderness seemed to have vanished.
“It is true, then, what I hear,” he said, slowly. “Your brother has deserted the King?”
The change in her mood matched his. She drew herself up and looked at him with flashing eyes and uplifted head.
“My brother will not continue his allegiance to a sovereign who proposes to raise a tradesman’s daughter to the throne of Theos, and who has offered an insult to our family.”