First round.

He lowered his head slightly so he could look directly into her face. “The keep hasn’t rotated in all the centuries since it was built.” His voice had lowered, too, but his diction had lost nothing of its lethal edge. If anything that had sharpened. “Which means the west tower lies around the gallery.”

She met his dark gaze, knew better than to nod. With Variseys one never conceded the slightest point; they were the sort that, if one surrendered an inch, took the whole county. “The west tower lies that way, but your room is no longer there.”

Tension rippled through him; the muscle in the side of his jaw tightened. His voice, when he spoke, had lowered to a warning growl. “Where are my things?”

“In the ducal apartments.” In the central part of the keep, facing south; she didn’t bother telling him what he already knew.

She stepped back, just far enough to wave him to join her as, greatly daring, she turned her back on him and started strolling farther into the keep. “You’re the duke now, and those are your rooms. The staff have slaved to have everything in readiness there, and the west tower room has been converted into a guest chamber. And before you ask”-she heard him reluctantly follow her, his longer legs closing the distance in a few strides-“everything that was in the west tower room is now in the duke’s rooms-including, I might add, all your armillary spheres. I had to move every single one myself-the maids and even the footmen refuse to touch them for fear they’ll fall apart in their hands.”