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full-grown sons-in-law to manage the estate for him so that Domenic could take his place in Council, and two daughters to live here and bear him company. At last he said Leonie had made it clear that   I needed no blessing to marry, but he bade you come to take his blessing.”
    Andrew was still angry. “If the old tyrant thinks I give a damn for his blessing, or his curse either—” hebegan, but Damon laid a hand on his wrist, interrupting him.
    “Andrew, this means he will accept you as a son in his house, and for Callista’s sake I think you should accept it with such grace as you can. Callie has already lost one family when she chose, for your sake, not to return to Arilinn. Unless you hate him so much you cannot dwell in peace under his roof…”
    “I don’t hate him at all,” Andrew said, “but I can care for my wife in my own world. I do not want to
    come to him penniless, accepting his charity.”
    Damon said quietly, “The charity, Andrew, is on your side, and mine. He may live many years, but hewill never again set foot to the ground. Domenic must take his place in Council. His younger son is a childof eleven. If you take Callista from him, you leave him at the mercy of such strangers as he can hire for aprice, or distant kinsmen who will come through greed to see what bones they can pick. If you remainhere and help him manage this estate, and give him the companionship of his daughter, you bestow farmore than you accept.”

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    Thinking it over, Andrew realized that Damon was right. “Still, if Leonie wrung consent from himunwillingly…”
    “No, or he would never have offered his blessing,” Damon said. “I have known him all my life. If he still grudged you consent, he would have said something like take her and be damned to both of you. Would he not, Callista?”
    “Damon is right: he is terrible in anger, but no man to hold a grudge.”
    “Less so than I,” Damon said. “With Esteban, it is one flare of anger, then all’s well, and he will take you to his heart as readily as he kicked you a moment ago. You may quarrel again—you probably will—he is harsh-tempered and irritable. But he will not serve you up old grudges like stale porridge!”
    When Damon and Ellemir had gone Andrew looked at Callista and said, “Is this truly what you want, mylove? I don’t dislike your father. I was only angry because he had bullied you and made you cry. If youwant to stay here…”
    She looked up at him, and the closeness came over them again, the old touch that had drawn themtogether before they met, the touch so much more real to him than the hesitant and frightened physicaltouch which was all she could ever permit. “If you and Father could not have agreed, I would havefollowed you anywhere on Darkover, or anywhere among your Empire of the stars. But only with suchgrief as I could never measure. This is my home, Andrew. The dearest wish of my heart is that I shouldnever leave here again.”
    He raised her fingertips gently to his lips. He said softly, “Then it shall be my home too, beloved.
    Forever.”

    By the time Andrew and Callista followed the other couple into the main house they found Damon and Ellemir seated side by side on a bench beside   Dom   Esteban. As they came in Damon rose and kneltbefore the old man. He said something Andrew could not hear, and the Alton lord said, smiling, “Youhave proved yourself a son to me many times, Damon, I need no more. Take my blessing.” He laid hishand for a moment on Damon’s head. Rising, the younger man bent and kissed his cheek.
    Dom Esteban looked over Damon’s head with a grim smile. “Are you too proud to kneel for myblessing, Ann’dra?”
    “Not too proud, sir. If I offend against custom, in this or anything else, Lord Alton, I ask that you take it
    as ignorance of what is considered proper, and not as willful offense.”
    Dom Esteban gestured them to a seat beside Damon and Ellemir. “Ann’dra,” he said,