'These contortions aren't really necessary, you know,' Hamish said reasonably, watching her slip into the kimono which had somehow ended up on the floor. 'As you just pointed out, all our people know what's really going on.'
'Maybe. No, certainly. But it's going to make Andrew feel awkward the day he finally admits to both of us what he already knows.'
'And what about you?' Hamish asked more gently, and she shrugged as she belted her sash.
'I don't really know,' she admitted. She smiled. 'Mind you, despite a few lingering spasms of guilt, I'm delighted with the way things are working out, so far, at least. And given the fact that I already know that he knows that I know that he knows-well, you get the picture. Given that, I really don't expect it to be particularly uncomfortable when the day finally comes. But I'm not quite sure.' Her smile turned wry. 'Like I told Emily, there's still a lot of Sphinx and Grayson in me, and the fact that my love-life's been remarkably similar to a nun's since Paul was killed doesn't really help.'
'I can see that,' he said, and she smiled again, pleased by the fact that neither of them felt awkward using Paul Tankersley's name. 'Still,' he continued, 'you do realize that sooner or later this is going to come out?'
'At the moment,' Honor scooped Nimitz up in her arms and held him, since her kimono lacked the specially padded shoulders built into her uniform tunics and Grayson-style civilian dress, 'I'd prefer later, if you don't mind. I don't have any idea at all how Grayson is going to react when it finds out. And given what we all went through with the Opposition trying to insist we were already lovers when we weren't, I don't even want to think about what the political press would do if the word that now we are got out.'
'Might be the best time,' he suggested, climbing out of bed and pulling on his own robe as he escorted her to the bedroom door. 'There's so much going on on the war front, and in Silesia and the Talbott Cluster, that it might even pass relatively unnoticed.'
'And just what episode in our past suggests to you that anything about a relationship between you and me could 'pass relatively unnoticed'?' she inquired tartly.
'A point,' he admitted, and drew her close to kiss her before she opened the door. 'I tend to forget sometimes what good copy 'the Salamander' makes.'
'That's one way to put it,' she said, and poked him in the navel with two fingers, hard enough to make him 'oof.' Then she slipped through the door, with a cautious glance up and down the hall to assure herself LaFollet wasn't already on his way. 'Now get yourself up and dressed,' she told him sternly, and scurried down the hall to the discreet cross passage which connected the Blue Suite to the private family section of White Haven.
She let herself into the suite the back way, and Nimitz bleeked with laughter as the terminal on the table beside the bed which hadn't been slept in chimed gently.
'Shut up, Stinker!' she said, dumping him on the bed, and he laughed harder as she accepted the com call voice-only.
'Yes?' she said.
'We're running late, My Lady,' Andrew LaFollet's voice said. He was too far away for her to actually taste his emotions, but she didn't need to in order to recognize the relief in his voice. 'Ah, this is the third time I've screened you, My Lady,' he added.
'Sorry,' she replied. 'I'll try to make up for the lost time.'
'Of course, My Lady,' he said, and she threw off her kimono once again and dashed for the shower.
'You look lovely this morning, Honor,' Emily observed as Honor stepped into the sunlit dining room with LaFollet on her heels. She wore uniform today, complete with the Star of Grayson on its crimson ribbon, and 'lovely' was not the precise adjective she would have chosen herself. 'And so well rested,' Emily continued with a certain gently malicious relish.
'Thank you,' Honor said as LaFollet pulled her chair out for her and she seated herself. 'Perhaps that's because I seem to have missed my wakeup call this morning.'
'Goodness,' Emily said placidly. 'I wonder how that could have happened? Nico is usually so efficient about these things.'
'Yes,' Honor agreed affably. 'For that matter, so is Mac... usually.'
'Oh, well, don't feel too flustered,' Emily told her. 'I screened Mount Royal and spoke to Elizabeth. I told her you and Hamish both seemed to be running a bit late this morning, and she asked me to assure you that timing isn't that critical. She just requested we screen her again when you actually leave.'
'I see.' Honor regarded her across the table for a moment, then shook her head in surrender. 'Why am I not surprised that you can snag even the Queen of Manticore in your nets?'
'You make me sound so devious, my dear,' Emily reproved her gently.
'No, not devious-just... capable.'
'I suppose I could accept that as a compliment, so I will,' Emily said graciously. 'Now eat.'
Honor looked up as one of the White Haven servants entered the dining room with a tray of food. It was a fairly typical breakfast for someone with her enhanced metabolism-a thick stack of pancakes, eggs Benedict, tomato juice, croissants, melon, and a steaming carafe of hot chocolate-and her stomach rumbled happily at the sight. But then the tray was set before her, and she felt an abrupt stab of queasiness as the smell of the food hit her.
She grimaced, and Emily cocked an eyebrow at her.
'Are you all right, Honor?' she asked, with none of the teasing edge of banter of their earlier conversation.
'Fine, fine,' Honor said, suppressing the flicker of almost-nausea firmly, and reached for her fork. 'I'm just not as hungry as usual this morning. Possibly because despite your efforts to rearrange our schedule, I'm still feeling a little flustered at the notion of arriving late for a formal audience with my monarch.'
'Only one of your monarchs,' Emily pointed out.
'True,' Honor conceded, and decided to start with the pancakes, whose aroma seemed more congenial than the scent of the eggs. Her stomach heaved rebelliously at the first bite, but it apparently decided to settle down quickly after she swallowed.
'Sorry I'm late,' a deep voice said, and she and Emily looked up as Hamish Alexander stepped into the dining room. 'I seem to have missed my wakeup call,' he added, then blinked as both women burst into laughter.
Chapter Seven
The sting ships in Winton blue and silver which had escorted them from White Haven banked gently away to either side as the armored limousine in Harrington Steading livery came in across the sparkling waters of Jason Bay and crossed the threshold into Mount Royal Palace's defensive envelope. Honor suspected that very few citizens of Landing ever really considered the fact that Mount Royal was one of the most heavily defended pieces of dirt on any of the Star Kingdom's three inhabited planets. She was aware of it primarily because of the necessary interfacing between her own armsmen, the Queen's Own, and Palace Security, and even as a serving naval officer, she'd been astonished at the amount of firepower hidden away under the various innocuous looking weather domes and secondary structures scattered over the immaculate grounds.
None of that firepower was directed at her, however, and she glanced at Hamish as Mattingly settled the limo lightly onto the semi-private pad near the old-fashioned, squat spire of King Michael's Tower. Spencer Hawke opened the passenger door and stepped out first, sweeping the immediate area in the automatic threat search of a Grayson armsman even here. LaFollet followed him, and Honor watched her personal armsman give the uniformed Army captain waiting for them a sharp glance.
When no crazed assassins hurled themselves out of the shrubbery, LaFollet stepped to one side so she and Alexander could climb out of the vehicle. Hamish was in civilian court dress trimmed in the maroon and green of the earls of White Haven, as befitted the civilian head of the Admiralty on his way to a formal meeting with his monarch, but Honor was in mess dress uniform, complete with the archaic sword that demanded. In her case, the ancient weapon was no mere prop, either, and the jeweled hilt of the Harrington Sword glittered as she settled the scabbard at her side.
'Your Grace.' The captain wore the Griffin-headed shoulder patch of the Falcons End Rangers, the Griffin- recruited battalion of the Queen's Own, and saluted sharply, then turned to Alexander. 'My Lord.'
He saluted again, and Honor chuckled mentally, wondering exactly how the Palace Protocol Office had decided
