"Lucas is the good one," Phillipa murmured, giving a slight shrug of her shoulder. She wasn't bad, she knew that, and nothing like her mother. It wasn't easy to think of herself as good, though. It was complicated.
"I know he does, and I hate that," she said, her frown deepening. "I know he puts up with a lot of shit to keep them from sinking their claws into us, and it makes me so angry. He's protective, I'm protective, Lucas... is young, and sweet, but he's the same. We have to be, had to be. Someone needed to, so we are for each other." She glanced over at Ginny. "It's good he has you. He needs someone who doesn't let him take everything so seriously, who makes him laugh and forget there's anything else out there. Marcus may put up with a lot from them, but I can't see him agreeing to a shit marriage. Not when he's kept me out of so many. And if for some reason he went completely dumb and did, there's no way I'd let him go through with it."