<em>"You don't want another rooster in your henhouse."</em><br/><br/>Tehr shook his head and then explained, "That's not it at all.  In fact if you've a rooster of your own who wants a place to live, I'm open to that.  I hold no exclusive claim over any of the women in my household.  They are all free women, strong and intelligent, and they can choose to bed whomever they like.  In fact, I think it would be very good for my sister to have a gentleman in the house who might be invited to her bed chambers once in a while.  We both know that I am not appropriate for such a task."  Secretly however Tehr still lusted after Christina, but it would be best to keep those urges in check.<br/><br/>"The problem is that Daus, this particular rooster, had, in the past, been quite pushy with Angelique.  Now I enjoy strong women myself, but Angelique was raised to be a servant.  Basically her whole life has been learning how to bow her head, how to serve.  While she's a strong woman in her way, she had a little difficulty constantly saying no to her cousin.  From all rumors that I've heard, he's not a bad rooster at that.  But the happiness of my friend Angelique is important to me.  She has been a friend of mine for most of my life, and an on again off again lover for several years."<br/><br/>Tehr smiled as her fingertips brushed his arm, and he let her speak.  He frowned at the mention of the Goldmanes being rather misogynistic.  That could be a problem in a house with so many strong women.  He couldn't imagine Tera or Christina dealing with rudeness from the guards.  Especially since he offered to make Christina the head of his guard.  He waited till she was done explaining the Orchard family before he spoke again.<br/><br/>"I trust your judgement on these things, but a misogynist sounds like someone who wouldn't be a good fit in my household.  Maybe if we could find a Goldmane who is married and would bring his wife.  I find that a married man loses the ability to be truly sexist.  In addition, if you have fledgling outriders, we have a carriage house above the stable.  It's big enough that I imagined a small family might live there, someone who could be the stable keeper.  But there's no reason why the stablemaster couldn't also be an outrider.  Hewthorne Hall is a little further from the current Wynt Manor house, but there's no reason the riders couldn't take their mounts to your compound every now and then to socialize with the other war dogs.  Now, mind you, I'm not looking to fill out my house with halfling servants in any regard.  Even one or two to help run the house and two or three to help guard the gate would be a huge boon."<br/><br/>He turned and took her hand.  Kissing it he looked at her and smiled, "Like I said however, I do trust your judgement."  Then almost as if on queue his stomach rumbled, and he looked a little shocked but he tried to smile around it.  "Sorry, I guess you and I worked up an appetite with our 'ride' earlier eh?"