I may be a bit dumb, but why couldn't Theodore protect her if she was his fiancée?
And thanks for not dropping this!
No political power at the time, and remember her brother had to trade their territory to that POS to get a WHITE MARRIAGE to prevent his sister from being married off for the sake of "making mage babies" (It's likely without their parents to throw whatever political weight they had, they were vulnerable to the WHIMS of the state. Asswipe was used because being a non-mage, he'd have no reason to expect a child from his sister, and he knew the man salivated stealing from thier family! For now he thinks he won, but looking at how he stopped caring about running his territory and left it to Chloe, it's easy to see he won't be able to take care of it! The greatest blow is if they get the Territory back, meaning what he did to get it from them was "all for nothing" LOL Ass deserves it)