"Oh, yes, because marrying a Betan doesn't seem like hard work at all. Haven't you heard that all Betans are mad perverts?"

A pine needle gets flicked at her half-mad, half-perverted face.

"But, yes, this is rarified blood in my veins indeed." He lifts his eyebrows ironically. "My father was the youngest son of the Count - fecund man, Pierre, six children in all. So if I had when I was younger knocked off all my cousins - which I would never do, since there's actually one I like - although Dono was Donna back then, so he could have been left alive without problem, never mind - I could have actually sat in the Council myself. The horror."