Goneril raised her eyebrows. "Your care?" she asked, suspiciously. "I hope that's his sentiment and not yours."

He rolled his eyes. "Neither of our sentiments, actually. He was just concerned, the same as your mother. I don't think he's going to bother you about it or try to interfere with you or anything like. Whatever he may be to you, he still feels he's your brother and wants to be sure you're all right."

She grimaced. "I'm still suspicious about this," she admitted. "I...well. I don't particularly trust my brother, or the countess." She shrugged. "So."

She tilted her face down to look at him, and gave his hands a squeeze. "How did it go?"

He gave her hands a reassuring squeeze in return. "It went fine. He wasn't awful, he didn't tell me horrible things you did when you were ten, he didn't threaten my life. He asked me about my family and we talked a little about that. Found out that my sister Col is, apparently, our family's him. Mostly he wanted to know how serious all this was and if we had any plans after we went our separate ways." He raised his eyebrows at her. "To be honest, I'd like to talk about that a little more myself. But we get you warmed up first."

She bit her lip. "Fine, fine, I'll go inside," she agreed, looking a little abashed, but still cheerful. "I know we need to talk about it. I...I'm glad he wasn't awful. Well. I suspect that's mostly because I wasn't interesting enough to be embarrassing when I was ten. I think every family has one of those, don't they?"

He passed a hand before her face to bring her back to his height before they went on. "Sorry," he said cheerfully. "It's the one thing I can't get past."

She laughed, and rubbed her arm against his. "I can't get past it, either, so I don't mind. It's...it's not an attraction thing. It's just logistical."

He patted her arm. "Your brother is also worried about your younger sister," he added more soberly. "I suspect in more ways than one. He feels he didn't watch out for her and doesn't want to be responsible for you, too."

She twined her arm with his. "I'm not my sister," she said quietly. "We're all worried about her. She...Mira doesn't like things that are certain. She runs away from them. Which seems odd to me, but...I suppose she feels trapped."

"I don't think you have to be worried about the same things your sister should be," he said. "But there are still a lot of things we don't know about one another. That's most of what he tried to tell me."