With a laugh, Eduard stepped between them to take the hammer from her. “Marien, Lord. It’s good to see you.”
His wife cast him an odd look, a mix of relief and irritation he couldn’t quite interpret. “Eduard,” she said, spitting the nails into one hand. Her voice was cool, distant. Not at all the reception he had expected. “You’re alive.”
“As is Reza,” he confirmed with a nod. “And you! Where are your guests? Have the servants returned? Did the crop survive?”
Marien raised a hand to her forehead. “So many questions.” She sighed and didn’t quite look at him when she answered. “My guests are gone. You were right, someone came for Leonie. I packed the whole lot of them into the carriage and shooed them away. Damn chattering socialites. The window blew in and you’d have thought the house imploded, the way they shrieked. Good riddance.”
Eduard laughed, carefree in the face of his wife’s cynicism. “And the servants?” he asked, nodding at the woman beside them. “Anuba, is it?”