"However you are the only man in this room, or indeed within thirty paces, who I must concern myself with." Cat had never been one to pay attention to gossip or the lives of others. She was too busy with her own life, her own children and, now, with her own husband. Her first husband may not have been ideal for many reasons, but at least he had never flounced bastards around the castle as though it were normal, and Elgar doubtfully even had a bastard to his name. How could the Creator have allowed two such different men to be born to the same parents? The same way they gave my mother Eilidh and I. Inclining her head in response to someone else - she did not even know who, some bit from Empyrean or the like whose colors she didn't know - Cat kept her smile on her face only because she had perfected it years ago. People did not like a frowning lady, as she had been told many times.
It was tested when he mentioned that boy again. Cat had thrown as close to a fit as she had since leaving Stannard when her request that the boy be replaced with someone more fitting was denied. There had been time to train another, she was not stupid about these things, but Karanteg had insisted otherwise. He could deny it all that he wanted, but he was attached to that boy for the Watchers knew what reason. "No," she gritted out past teeth that didn't want to open. "Not that boy. The girls I only just saw with the rest of the servants. I let the matter of your squire drop under the assumption that he was the only one who would be joining us. You have no concern at all for how it makes us look to have you trailing bastard children to court, do you?"