I watched my mother's face carefully as her words hung in the air between us. For once, the usual venom was absent when she mentioned my father.
"And this concerns me how?" I asked, leaning back in my chair.
Lady Rowena sighed, smoothing her skirts in a nervous gesture I rarely saw from her. "I thought you should know. They've been meeting regularly."
"Mother, my father's liaisons haven't been our business since your divorce," I pointed out. "Why does it trouble you?"
She looked away, her profile sharp against the morning light streaming through my study window. "It shouldn't. And yet..."
I studied her with new understanding. Despite everything—the bitter arguments, her schemes, the imprisonment I had subjected her to—she was still a woman who had spent decades as Lysander Thorne's wife. Such bonds didn't disappear simply because papers were signed.
"You still care for him," I observed, my voice softer than I intended.
