It was some minutes yet to return home from Nisa’s knitting.

Was she telling him to kill her? That sounded an awful lot like she was telling him to kill her. Or maybe he had already been thinking about it, ever since she’d invited Malachi over. No. Longer than that, even if all it had been was a fantasy. He hated that his immediate inner answer wasn’t ‘no’, and thus he kept his gaze ahead and kept walking.

Well, that and he could still see said silhouette of Nisa’s next ‘challenge’, taking a corner in the opposite direction.

He stared when she detailed all the ways she didn’t notice. Stared still when she grazed his involvement with the constabulary.

“Fortunately for you,” he said evenly, his own fingers looping at the end of her sleeve in the way she usually hung on to his jacket, “I still care.”

And fortunately for him, she had made a decent liar of him.

Nisa didn't comment or attempt to keep the others in their company. It was rare to have time alone with Aslan and she'd keep it until they returned home unless he made another excuse to leave.

When be grabbed her sleeve, she stopped and looked at him. She was silent for a moment, her mind suspicious and believing.

"You know I'd never hurt you." She said at last and then continued to walk. True, that didn't count all the friends and loved ones who'd been killed or abandoned him due to her choices. Physically she wouldn't hurt him. And things she'd almost said had danced on her tongue but was silenced. She didn't try to hurt him anyway.

"Are you still going to try to marry me off again?" She was certain the moment she was out of his life, he'd suddenly find the time to be home more.

Unfortunately for Aslan, there was still a sliver of truth to words he couldn’t necessarily feel.

Aslan looked right back when she claimed she would never hurt him. He supposed it was back to the lies. At least when she’d been talking about how much she didn’t care, he could react to what was actually there rather than puzzle over could-have-beens.

When she asked a pressing question that seemed to be weighing on her mind, he lifted the captured wrist to look at her hand.

“The last one didn’t even leave a tan line.”

Was that the correct hand for the wedding ring? Who knew.

“If I marry you off … I get to pick the-” guy he didn’t like enough to die over it “-lucky man, and take a lover for three whole weeks before you’re back and staining the floors again,” he teased.

For a moment, there was a shade of the older brother who was a jubilant jerk when he won pool. That was also the same brother who threw dirt in Mehmet’s eyes to win an argument.

“Or do you have a better alternative?”

Nisa arched a brow, as he lifted her wrist. "That is the wrong hand." Not that it mattered, nothing remained of that ring. She honestly didn't even remember where it was anymore. Did she throw it out or sell it?

His question though about her marriage had her raise her brow. "You are like father. You have terrible tastes. Give me a choice between three, if you give me more I will give you an extra week."

Did he have a lover? She wouldn't have been surprised he'd keep them from her. Still, this moment made her smile a more genuine smile than perhaps he could remember, or her.

"Also, they must like my maid. But not too much. She is very pretty, but hands off." She grinned and held out a hand to shake on the deal.

He let her hand go and raised his in surrender.

“It’s the engagement hand,” he rationalized.

Aslan scoffed at her criticism, but didn’t refute it. Father had had the Family Legacy in his sights; Aslan was looking at this chiefly in regards to feeding a log into a wood chipper.

He started to lower his hand to shake hers, but then yanked it up out of reach when she mentioned the maid. Not just any maid: the pretty maid.

“The lover gets to live as long as the pretty maid,” he counter-offered.

Should he really be gambling a life on his sister’s newest favorite maid? Fuck no. Made him all the giddier for it.

Nettie ahh'd but then scowled when he took away his hand and changed the deal. Not maliciously at him, but at his cleverness in changing the deal. She took a moment to think it over.

"I won't lose a good maid over your bad taste. Tell me about this lover, since you must have someone in mind and I won't let you change lovers during the time. Also, if they are abusive or insufferable you have one week to remove them yourself if you agree they are too bad for me to deal with. Otherwise, I'll not harm them."

She held out her hand to him.

What on earth had the maid done to get in such good esteem with Nisa? … Never mind, he really didn’t need those mental images. Or those mental images. Did she have to be a murderer and a sexual being, too? Ech.

“We can’t all have your maid, Nisa,” he teased. “Besides, I respect dibs.”

Allah Allah. She’d guessed right on that part, but could he throw her off?

“You will definitely find her-” yes, ‘her,’ there was no way he was painting a target on his actual paramour, “insufferable, but I find your maid unsettling. I still can’t tell whether it was a terrible dream or I woke up to her staring at the end of my bed once. Besides – a gentleman cannot kiss and tell.”

His hand hovered by hers.

“She is unmarried, does things most men would have to pay for, and her family would never approve of me. Think twice about the unmarried beauties.”

Nisa rose a brow and looked amused for the briefest of moments. "That wasn't what I was referring to. I don't want to kill her because I hate your choice so much. I really did not think you would go after Briar. She just doesn't seem to be the type I've seen you hang around when you were sociable."

Her hand waved him off. "That isn't fair, she was probably surprised you were actually home. And she isn't the most socially aware, but she is conscious of attempting to be polite and not being in the way. Even more important, she is loyal and I find her more trusting than just about any maid I've had. So..."

She frowned in thought as he described this girl. She sounded like a woman who slept around who came from at least decent family.

"She sounds like someone using you for a good time. You can't break the deal just because she's using you, brother. If she is, I may kill her, since I think that counts to my terms. And you better have good men in mind for me or I will be more insufferable than this woman you want in your life."

She held out her hand to him to shake.

Aslan let himself laugh.

“She sounds a little like me.”

Which was exceedingly weird, if he ignored the part where he flew back to Malachi after he’d implied he’d kill and eat him mid-blow.

Yeah. He had no room to judge … until Nisa had the audacity to extoll how ‘she’ was using him. Of course he was using him. That was all he dared make room for with Nisa’s knife-hand in his life. He lowered his hand.

“Nisa – we’re not middle class any more. A nice marriage with someone who would stick around is not in the cards for a man of my means. I’m lucky I get paid most weeks without having to rough it in a workhouse. Besides – if she’s happy to demean herself on me, that makes two of us.”

And they were lucky he took full advantage of tourist season’s pockets.

“Father never should have married you off without your input. If you get three tries – so do I.”

Would Malachi last two decoys before Aslan figured out what rules she could be held to, if any? Allah knew. It was nice to fantasize, though.

Nisa shrugged slightly at his comment and then frowned when he lowered his hand. "I haven't said anything about her other than she is using you. I am just trying to look out for you. I do think you could find a nice woman, but so many are just used as pieces for their family to get money or connections." Her face immediately soured as that had been her marriage. "If you like her, fine. I will be far more lenient to her than anyone but I do have my limits. And I will talk to you before anything happens so it can be corrected. I am being very kind for your sake."

She shook her head. "He should have. That man was spineless and his father was a true monster. Don't make that mistake again." She asked and thrust her hand at him again to shake. "And we never agreed to three lovers. I may give you three, but then I should get something extra in the deal with each new lover you get."