[ He's quiet a long moment. It's a bold question. It's an insane question. He'd learned years ago never to ask how others saw him, because sometimes the answer would come back honest. And people were cruel, people were spiteful - you never looked handsome, reflected in someone else's eyes.

No. That's not true. Sometimes you had a little sister who looked at you and saw a hero under all the filth and grime. But sweet little fools like his Nadine, who had stars in her eyes and would forgive her big brother anything, were...vanishingly few in number. Contempt was more common by far than grace. ]

I love only one monarch. I'm monogamous in only one aspect of my life, but I keep to it. So I do not love you as a Lord of Men.

[ He leans in, then, and smooths a kiss against her high brow. ]

But as my righteous Lakshmi...Who's to say?