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this.”
    He eyed the offering with grave mistrust. He’d heard the gate bell ring, but hadn’t thought much of it at the time.
“Please
do not tell me that’s another of Lavina’s cream puddings.”
    Breena set the bowl on his worktable. “Aye, brother, it is. With honeyed figs this time.” She gazed at Marcus thoughtfully. “Do you think perhaps she wants a portly husband?”
    Marcus swore under his breath. “Is she still here? Is Mother demanding I greet her?” Rhiannon never allowed him the luxury of avoiding a female visitor.
    “Luckily for you, Father took Mother to town to visit Morwenna and her new babe. They were gone when Lavina arrived. I told her you’d gone to town as well, but I’m not sure she believed me—she gave a
very
hard look across the yard to the forge. If there’d been smoke curling over the roof, she would have marched out here to investigate.”
    Marcus rose abruptly. “Why can’t the woman understand I don’t wish to marry her?”
    “Perhaps because you haven’t told her?” Breena suggested with characteristic sarcasm. “Really, Marcus, even I had begun to think you were considering the idea. You’re never anything other than friendly to her.”
    “What else am I to be? Rude? It’s not as if I dislike her. It’s just that I don’t wish to marry her. She looks at me as though I were her next meal.”
    Breena burst out laughing. “Oh, come now, Marcus, don’t pretend to be the shy virgin lad. You know what to do with a woman.” Her tone turned a shade darker. “You and Rhys certainly spend enough time at that broth—”
    “Stop,” Marcus interrupted, holding up a hand, as if such a gesture could halt one of Breena’s tirades. “Stop talking now, Bree. I will
not
discuss brothels with you.”
    He frowned. “In any case, one has nothing to do with the other. Brothels are entertainment; marriage is … not. Getting married would change my life.”
    “For the better, in my opinion. Ever since Clara chose Owein over you, you’ve barely glanced at a respectable woman.”
    Marcus was silent. True, Clara Sempronia had declined his offer of marriage in favor of a Druid handfasting with Rhiannon’s younger brother, Owein. Breena had latched onto the idea that Marcus was still brooding over the rejection, and Marcus hadn’t denied it. But the truth was, he hardly thought of Clara these days. An entirely different woman filled his mind.
    He turned away. “I’m not interested in marrying. At least,” he amended, “not right now.”
    “Lavina is pretty, and kind, and intelligent. You could do far worse.” She stuck a finger in the bowl and brought a dollop of cream to her lips. “And you must admit, she makes a lovely pudding.”
    “Once she realizes I’m not going to marry her, she’s liable to leave out the figs in favor of belladonna,” Marcus grumbled.
    Breena laughed and pushed the bowl toward him. Marcus ignored it. He watched as his sister crouched to retrieve several balled-up sheets of papyrus he’d thrown on the floor.
    “Leave those,” Marcus told her.
    She only shook her head as she gathered the trash and pitched it into a barrel he’d reserved for that purpose. “Really, Marcus, the pig barn is neater. How can you think while surrounded by such clutter?”
    “I
like
clutter. Neatness stifles my imagination.”
    “I suppose you must be right, since you seem to thrive amidst chaos.”
    “Just as you thrive in Father’s library.”
    She crawled under the worktable for another crumpled drawing. When she resurfaced, Marcus snatched it out of her hand and tossed it in the air. Breena jumped to catch it, but missed. The wad landed on the ground and bounced under the worktable, coming to rest very close to its original position.
    “See? That drawing knows where it belongs, even if you don’t.”
    Breena laughed then, and he laughed with her. The vast difference in their preferences for neatness was a long-running joke between them.
    Still smiling,