As John brought up the fact that Crow and Penelope weren’t courting yet again, the thief curled his lip irritably. He wished the knight would stop reminding him of something he’d always been a little ashamed of about himself already. It wasn’t like he didn’t want to court her. If it had been up to him, he would have started courting her a long time ago, but it just wasn’t that easy. There were too many obstacles in the way for him to give her the treatment she deserved. Of course, he didn’t believe he was disrespecting her in any way by sleeping together outside of wedlock, since she had made it quite clear that she wanted to be intimate with him too, but he did wish he could give her all the same things that a man of a higher status could.

[i]But I might be able to soon.[/i] Crow blinked as the realization hit him abruptly. As soon as he accepted his father’s offer, there would be nothing standing between them anymore, and he would be able to court her properly for the first time. He still doubted that it was a good idea to come public about their relationship, since almost every noble in the inner kingdom despised him—he didn’t want to ruin her name by letting any of them discover that they were together until he had a better reputation—but it was better than nothing. The thought caused a faint smile to tug at his lip.

However, his brief moment of excitement was quickly interrupted as John turned to address him again. The knight’s scathing words made him grit his teeth in annoyance. It was really starting to grate on his nerves how often Penelope’s father compared him to Albin. His father’s selfish decision to abandon his mother had nothing to do with him. Unlike the king, he actually [i]cared[/i] about the woman he was intimate with, and he wasn’t just using her for his own pleasure. He wished that John could put his own traditions aside long enough to see that.

“Would you quit with the comparisons already? I told you; I’m nothing like my father,” Crow snarled. He paused, taking a moment to reign in his temper before going on. He didn’t want to make an already bad situation worse by raising his voice at Penelope’s father. Even though the knight was frustrating him, he knew he was just doing so out of concern for his daughter. As annoying as it was, he couldn’t hold that against him.

He also knew he needed to give John a reason to believe him.

Taking a calming breath, the thief continued in a more level-headed tone, “I do care about Penelope, and I can prove it.” He turned his head to look at her, his expression softening as he met her gaze. “I’ve decided I’m going to take my father’s offer so we can be together, and she’ll lose nothing.”