[It did put her a bit at ease. Mary had no reason to believe Asami would go running to Esther about things. And there was a lot regarding the succession that Mary simply didn't want her sister to ask about. There were many things Esther didn't know about, couldn't know about and Mary wouldn't let her know about if she had her say. She didn't like lying to her sister.]

Thank you. And I've always known. My mother was a lover of Crown Prince Gilbert before he married; I never really spent time with him only getting to see him from a distance just like everyone else. By the time I was old enough to grasp the things I heard whispered around my mother and myself, he had wed Victoria.

He was assassinated when I was seven in the White Rebellion... my mother killed herself when I was eight.