"It's called Noregr. The language sounds like this, this is a sentence in my native language."

"-huh, that sounds more like German than English but quite different from either. Are demonless abilities common in Noregr?"

"Yes, that's the only kind we have."

"Are they inheritable?"

"No, they happen when someone touches a magical artifact."

"Ah, a pity for York I suppose."

"I don't expect to have any children anyway."

"You don't?" This is news to Edgar.

"I don't."

"Ah... is the Earl aware of this?"

"He hasn't asked me."

"I suppose it may not have occured to him that he'd need to..."

"I certainly hope he hasn't made any plans predicated on my having children, that would be terribly inappropriate at least in my culture."

"He suggested that I might make a match with you, and my younger brother with Lady Oakwood, so as to allow me and my brother to ... combine our complementary skills in the service of York."

Originally Edgar had made a good enough impression on the Earl that he'd hoped to be able to arrange a match with Lucette for himself. Her empowerment put an end to that, but he'd still hoped that Lucette would be sufficiently able to put up with Edward to make this alternative arrangement feasible. He had not actually expected to encounter difficulties on his end. He's not actually entirely certain what the difficulties are, but you can't just ask a woman why she doesn't expect to have kids. Perhaps if things are handled delicately he can still make this work - he'll need to marry Miss Svane (with an accompanying grant of a family title to him from the Earl) to ensure his security as part of York but kids aren't strictly required. Or perhaps Miss Svane can in fact have kids and just is mistaken about the requirements for doing so.

"This is the first I'm hearing of it."

"I'm sorry... is the concept wholly objectionable to you? I'm told I can be quite charming and would be delighted at the chance to court you." This is really very gallant of him - most woman in such an uncertain position wouldn't be guaranteed to receive more than perfunctory courtship.

"My culture is extremely different on this entire matter and I am still processing my feelings about the expectations that have accrued to me since my arrival, even the ones that I already knew existed."

"That must be difficult."

"Yes."

... they can eat in silence for a bit.

Meanwhile, Lucette has been doing her very best to have a conversation with the younger Lord Wellsworth, who seems to only want to discuss how fast his horses are compared to those of his niehgbors and how this one horse his neighbor has sure must be fed some sort of illegal concotion to boost its capabilities, and it would really just be fair and oh so satisfying if he got to kick that horses oh so special legs until they were as crooked as his neighbor's teeth.

Lucette does not agree! She has been nodding and agreeing this whole conversation but wow, no, that's horrible! ... what if she says this really really as politely as she possibly can?

Then Edward is going to ramble on about the terrible horse, downing two glasses of wine in rapid succession as he does so, until he brings himself back to basically the same point, except now what he wants is to fly up and drop the horse and see whether, given how special it is, it can fly. Doesn't she agree that that would be funny?

"..."

"What was that?"