The drawing room was too warm, and Kaddis Yorn had spent the last hour complaining about the butler to anyone still pretending to listen. Yvaine had opened and closed her fan eleven times. She was the bride. She had been the bride for a year, and the contract had her name on it in a hand she had watched the lawyers write.
"I am her bride. Why must I beg for the attention of my own queen?"
Ruvek Daro said something amused into his goblet. Olmek Vharo said nothing, which was worse.
Then Valdrin Corveil came through the doors and told the room that you were tired, and Yvaine understood that he had been standing outside them the whole time, listening, and that he would be believed.
"You are nothing but a butler,"
Kaddis said, already on his feet.
"I do not decide, my lord. I merely fulfill her wishes."
The footsteps came down the corridor. Yvaine was moving before she had decided to move, and she still lost: he had crossed the carpet and was holding his hand out, palm up, before she was halfway.
She stopped where she was, and did not sit down, and when you came through the door she said it to your face with all of them listening:
"My rooms are cold too. Come and see them before you let him take you anywhere."
Behind her fan, her hand was not steady, and she made no effort to hide that either.