She was too late. The master bath's palatial shower's door clicked shut, and she slid to a halt as he smiled at her through it.
'Looks like I get the first shower,' he said complacently. 'Unless, of course, you'd care to...?'
He flipped the shower door open, just a crack, and Honor laughed and let the kimono slip back off her shoulders to the floor.
They were, indeed, late to breakfast.
Given the fact that Andrew LaFollet and her other armsmen knew exactly why Honor had been to Briarwood, the colonel had clearly decided there was no longer any point in pretending he didn't also know exactly what was going on. Hamish's reaction the first time he'd opened the door of his suite and found LaFollet standing guard outside it had not been one of unalloyed amusement. He'd had the good sense not to make an issue of it, however, and it was certainly much more convenient for Honor to no longer have to go scurrying through the back hallways every morning.
There were, however, some things not even an armsman could protect a steadholder from, and she and Hamish peeked through the dining room door cautiously when they finally got there.
Emily sat in her life-support chair, parked in her normal place, with a steaming cup of coffee in front of her. But she looked up quickly at their arrival, and Honor's smile disappeared instantly.
Nimitz jerked upright on her shoulder, and Samantha did the same on Hamish's, as both treecats tasted what Honor already had. Hamish couldn't, but the quickness and unanimity of the other three's reaction wasn't lost upon him.
'Emily?' Honor stepped quickly through the door, her voice concerned, all humor in abeyance. 'What is it?'
'It's-' Emily started to speak quickly, then stopped herself. 'It's not good,' she said after a moment, the words coming less rapidly, sounding much more like her. 'I'm afraid,' she showed her teeth in a humorless smile, 'we're not quite as finished with the newsies as we'd hoped.'
Honor moved across to Emily's chair, her appetite disappearing, despite her enhanced metabolism. She pulled back one of the dining room chairs, turning it to face Emily, and sank into it. Nimitz slid down into her lap, gazing at Emily as intensely-and anxiously-as Honor herself, and she felt Hamish stepping up close behind her even before his hand came down on her shoulder.
'It leaked,' she said flatly.
'I think you could say that,' Emily agreed with poison-dry humor. Her right hand flipped a 'fax viewer onto the table. 'You remember our good friend Solomon Hayes, I'm sure.'
The sinking sensation in Honor's midsection intensified abruptly. She glanced up over her shoulder at Hamish, then drew the viewer in front of her and keyed it.
She wasn't at all surprised when it lit with the current day's Landing Tattler. Nor was she surprised that the display was centered on Solomon Hayes' gossip column. It wasn't the first time she'd found herself the object of Hayes' interest, and white-hot anger glowed as she remembered the smear campaign High Ridge and his cronies had used Hayes to open.
Her eyes ran down the text, and her lips tightened. Normally, Hayes touched on several victims in each of his maliciously barbed columns. And he was also normally careful to couch his accusations and veiled insinuations sufficiently obliquely to avoid anything which might be actionable under the Star Kingdom's stringent libel laws.
This time, the entire column was devoted to only a single topic, and there was nothing oblique about it at all. Especially not about its three concluding paragraphs.
'... to sources at Briarwood,' she read, 'Duchess Harrington was attended by Dr. Illescue, Briarwood's senior physician, who personally oversaw the tubing of her son seven weeks ago. Despite all inquiries, it was impossible to determine who the father might be. Indeed, sources indicate the Duchess has specifically declined to declare paternity.
'That, of course, is her unquestioned legal and moral right. Nonetheless, those of us in the press must inevitably find ourselves speculating on her reasons for availing herself of that right. Certainly it's only natural for a military woman, facing all the risks of naval combat, to be concerned about the future. To assure herself and her loved ones of a child. Still, one must wonder just why she felt it necessary to proceed in that perfectly reasonable project with such secrecy. One might almost say clandestinely.
'And yet another, clearly coincidental yet interesting, tidbit has come to our attention. We feel confident that all of Lady Emily Alexander's myriad fans and well-wishers will be delighted to learn that Countess White Haven has also availed herself of Briarwood's services. According to the same sources, her child will be born within less than two months of Duchess Harrington's.'
'That son-of-a-bitch,' Hamish hissed behind her as he read it over her shoulder. 'That goddamned, worthless, cowardly, mealy-mouthed piece of-'
He chopped himself off with a physical effort Honor could literally feel, and walked across to sit on Emily's other side.
'I wonder who his 'sources' might be?' Honor mused in a tone whose lightness fooled no one.
'Actually,' Emily said, 'you might not want to leap to any conclusions in that regard.' Honor look at her, and Emily snorted. 'It doesn't take an empath to guess which road you're headed down, Honor, given what your parents had to say about their history with Illescue. And you might even be right. But I've had a little longer to think about this than you two have, and there are several rather odd things about this particular column.'
'Beside the fact that this time he laid his sights on just one target-well, two targets?' Hamish put in.
'As a matter of fact, yes. The biggest difference between this one and his usual style is that he's very specific. He gives the exact day you were actually at the Center, Honor. And he also gives the correct date for our second child's birth. He wouldn't do that unless he was entirely confident of his facts, knowing what the three of us would do to him in court if he didn't have them right. But he specifically mentions Dr. Illescue by name, and if Illescue were his source, he wouldn't have provided that particular snippet of information. There's no reason he has to, and the one thing he's never done is give up his sources.'
'That's because half the time he doesn't have any sources,' Honor half-snarled.
'That's not really fair,' Emily observed. 'Solomon Hayes is a loathsome, disgusting, toad-like gigolo who homes in on vicious gossip and rumors like a near-buzzard homing in on carrion. Three-quarters of his 'news' comes from bored, wealthy women with the moral fiber of Old Earth alley cats in heat, at least half of whom have scores of their own to settle. But he usually does have a source. The thing that lets him survive is that most of the time there's at least a core of truth to the rumors he spreads. Distorted, exaggerated, or deliberately twisted, perhaps, but still there. That's what made him so damnably effective when High Ridge and North Hollow used him against you before. Salaciousness has always sold 'faxes, and a lot of people take Hayes lightly because of that. But the truth is, he's actually a very dangerous enemy, with much more power than many people assume, precisely because he does have that reputation for knowing what secrets he's spilling so gleefully.'
Her tone was almost dispassionate, but it wouldn't have fooled anyone who could see the fire in her green eyes.
'You may be right,' Hamish said after a moment. 'No, scratch that. You're almost certainly right-you usually are about things like this, love. Unfortunately, that doesn't give me any ideas about what to do about this. Aside from hiring an assassin, at least.'
'If we want to go that route, we don't need any assassins,' Honor said grimly.
'Somehow, I suspect challenging him to a duel and then shooting him smartly between the eyes, however satisfying, might not be precisely the best way to handle the situation,' Emily said dryly. 'Not that we couldn't make a tidy fortune selling tickets to the event.'
'Ha! The instant you challenge him, he'll emigrate to Beowulf!' Hamish growled. 'They don't allow duels there.'
'I think perhaps we can leave that pleasant fantasy out of our considerations?' Emily suggested just a bit tartly, and her husband muttered something she chose to take as agreement.
'The thing that bothers me the most,' Honor said, her eyes troubled, 'is how explicitly he's linked you and me, Emily. Well,' she smiled almost naturally, 'that and the fact that I didn't really want to know whether it was a boy or girl just yet.'
'The question in my mind,' Emily said thoughtfully, 'is whether he genuinely believes Hamish is also the father of your child, Honor, or if he included the linkage only as a way to remind his readership about his earlier allegations about the two of you. Does he know something, or is he simply using innuendo to take a swipe at the
