Starling was, at present, sitting on a bench at the edge of the great hall, attemping--rather half-heartedly--to fend off the advances of a pretty young woman who kept trying to stick the end of her long dark pigtail into his ear. Any effort of his to brush her away only resulted in her laughing and redoubling her efforts, while Starling tried to lean out of her reach. By now he was nearly lying on his side on the bench, while the girl, on her knees, hovered over him, wielding her pigtail like a weapon. "Will you cut it out?" he said, laughing. "I told you, I have a girl!"

"If you have her then why aren't you with her?" the young woman said, primly, looming ever closer.

"She's--ha-ha! She's upstairs!" He crawled a safe distance away so that he could sit up.

Marcello, coming down the hall, tried not to laugh as he saw the goings-on. He coughed, instead. "Ahem," he said, and bowed his head, unsure who the woman was. "My lady?" and then again to Starling. "Bram."

"Ah--" Starling hopped to his feet, narrowly avoiding the young lady, who nearly fell into the spot where he had just been. "My lord. Do I call you 'my lord' now? This is, ah--" He nodded to the girl, who had likewise just struggled to her feet in Marcello's presence. "Lady Darcy of Inis Toraigh."

"My lady," Marcello said, with a gracious nod. "Good neighbor for your presence at our wedding. I hope you've enjoyed yourself?" He shook his head at Starling. "We're brothers," he said. "I think you can still call me by my name. Would it be possible for me to steal you away from your charming company?"

"Ah. Of course." He turned to the lady, kissed her hand, and gave her a small nod of farewell. She, in turn, waited until his head raised before kissing him hard on the mouth, while simultaneously sticking her finger in his ear and dancing out of reach. She turned and ducked through a doorway, safe.

Starling was in full blush. He turned back to Marcello. "Um. I've only known her for about an hour."

Marcello burst out laughing. "Fifty-nine minutes too long?" he teased.

"I couldn't get rid of her! She came over and plopped herself on me lap! She's thirty years older'n me!" He turned to the doorway and added, "And I don't care if you're eavesdropping, and I don't care if you're the feckin' hereditary princess of whatever!" He turned back to Marcello, nervous. "You saw nothing," he warned.

Marcello burst out laughing again. "I'm sure Elaine will understand," he said. "Listen, is there somewhere we can go talk where we won't be...er, eavesdropped on?" He patted his pocket. "I brought you a meat pie."

Starling, who had originally come down in the honest pursuit of food, nodded. "Good neighbor. This way." He backtracked up the passage, with a quick glance through the doorway to see if the hereditary-princess-of-whatever was still in evidence. Finding nothing, he quickly moved along. "I think everyone's mostly at the front of the house, and if they're not, you can just as soon tell them to move along." He frowned suddenly. "Everything all right?"

"Fine," Marcello replied. "Well. Not fine. But nothing worse has happened than hadn't already happened before." He frowned, trying to decide if his statement actually made sense, and fished the pie, wrapped in cloth, out of his pocket, handing it over. "Listen, Bram. I need you to...well. Keep quiet about this. For now. I know you're like me, you like to talk about things to figure them out, but for now, you can talk to me, and you can talk to Niabheara about it, once I let her know what's going on."