Adrian picked up the list of betrothal gifts, since no one else in the room seemed willing to look at it twice.
He scanned it and turned to Charlotte. "What’s the problem here? Two thousand silver coins, two pairs of gold bracelets, two pairs of malachite bracelets, two sets of rose gold hair ornaments, and fifty rolls of brocade. That’s the whole list. The rest is small stuff, nothing that should cause this much fuss."
"That’s all?" Charlotte let out a short, humorless laugh. "This household can’t scrape together a thousand coins right now, let alone two thousand."
"That’s not possible." Adrian looked between the two women. "Who’s managing our finances? Do we not have money coming in at all?"
"I manage the finances," Cassandra said, her voice even.
He turned to her. "Then where is it?"
"Yes, where is it?" Charlotte cut in before Cassandra could answer, her tone sharp enough to draw every eye in the room. "Do you think we’re some wealthy pack family with silver stacked in every corner? Valor Estate was given to your grandfather by the old Alpha because he was a senior commander, nothing more than that. Your father and your uncle together don’t clear two thousand coins a year in salary and stipends combined. And you, you’re a fourth-ranked warrior. Do you bring home more than your own father does?"
"The estate my grandfather left should still generate something," Adrian said, though the certainty in his voice had already started to slip.
"It does. It’s nowhere near enough to run a household this size." Charlotte crossed her arms. "Your mother’s daily medicine costs three coins a dose. The pill she takes every third day costs five more on top of that. Every one of those coins comes out of Cassandra’s dowry. Every single one, Adrian, not the estate’s income."
Adrian stared down at the list in his hand as if it had personally wronged him. When he set it back on the table, he did it harder than it needed.
"So what you’re really telling me is that you don’t want to spend the money on this. Fine. I’ll find the gifts myself. I’ve earned merit on the battlefield. The Alpha will see to it that I’m rewarded."
"You already used that same merit to win the right to marry Aurora." Charlotte’s eyes didn’t soften even a little. "If the two of you love each other as much as you claim, why does she need gifts at all? Go and ask her yourself. Tell her to want less from this family."
Rebecca cleared her throat before anyone could respond to that. "It’s a marriage granted by the Alpha himself. We can’t afford to look poor in front of the Yates family, not with something this important. It isn’t as though we truly cannot manage the gifts and the coin, not if everyone here is willing to help."
She turned to Cassandra with a warm smile and motioned her closer, as though what she was about to ask cost her nothing at all. "Cassandra, dear, why don’t you cover it for now? Once the household is steadier, we’ll pay every coin back. What do you say to that?"
Serena scoffed from her seat by the window. "Mother, we’re all one family here. Why even speak of paying her back? I’m sure my sister-in-law wouldn’t mind giving us ten thousand coins outright, would you, Cassandra?"
"Serena, that is no way to speak of your sister-in-law." Rebecca’s voice carried the shape of a scolding without any real weight behind it. "She has done so much for this household over this past year. The least any of us can do is show her a little gratitude for it."
She let that settle in the room for a moment, then turned back to Cassandra with the matter already decided in her mind. "Well then, that settles it. I know this is difficult for you, dear, truly I do. Once Aurora arrives, you’ll need to set some rules for her early on, so she understands exactly who runs this house and who she answers to."
Every eye in the room turned to Cassandra, Adrian’s included. He held her gaze for only a moment before looking away first. The mark from yesterday’s slap still sat between them, and he clearly could not bring himself to ask her for anything right now, not even with his own mother doing the asking on his behalf.
Cassandra said nothing at all.
Charlotte broke the silence for her. "Besides the money, should Cassandra provide the jewelry and ornaments as well?"
"Of course she should." Rebecca’s smile never wavered. "You don’t mind that, do you, Cassandra?"
Charlotte gave her the smallest shake of her head, a quiet warning not to agree to any of it. Cassandra had never planned to agree in the first place, but she was grateful for the gesture all the same, a small kindness in a room otherwise full of open hands.
"It wouldn’t be right for me to pay for this," she said, her voice calm and unhurried. "This is a household expense, and the household should cover it, not me alone."
Rebecca’s smile dropped away like a mask sliding off her face. "Cassandra, you’re being difficult about this. Why draw a line between yourself and the rest of us now, of all times? We’re family, aren’t we? And it’s only a loan in the end. We’ll return every coin the moment things improve for us."
Cassandra turned to Adrian instead of answering her directly. "What do you think, Adrian?"
He opened his mouth, then closed it again without a single word coming out. How was he supposed to ask his own wife to hand over her dowry so that he could marry another woman with it? Whatever pride still lived in him balked hard at the thought, and it showed plainly in the tight line of his jaw.
Before he could find any kind of answer, Rebecca spoke for him instead. "Cassandra, this decision belongs to you and you alone. You’re his wife, after all. His affairs are your affairs, and a married couple shares one household between them, don’t they?"
"You’re right, Mother." Cassandra’s eyes stayed fixed on Adrian as she said it, calm and unshaken. "In that case, Adrian, if you would like to borrow the money from me, all you need to do is ask me yourself."