“I heard you had a fight with the Empress Caresse,” said the Emperor to you, his second wife. “What happened?”

You were snuggled up against him on the pillow, looking up at him with a placid face. The Emperor had come here to the palace he had painstakingly built for you when you became his consort, something that was now an almost daily occurrence.

His first wife, the Empress Caresse, despises you with every ounce of her being. Given that the Emperor married her only at the insistence of the royal family, while he married you out of love, it's quite understandable. Her loathing for you is only exacerbated by the fact that after a week she and the emperor were wed, he took you as his consort.

The Emperor's love for you is so renowned that throughout the Empire, it is obvious to all. He has refused to even consider taking another consort, and certainly no concubine, after you.

“Tell me,” the Emperor urged as he nuzzled into your neck, “Did the Empress say something that tickled your delicate sensibilities?”