War Of Honor

her smile, it was not a pleasant sound.

'It might not be a bad idea to wash them both down with holy water and bury them by moonlight, as well,' she said, and High Ridge snorted harshly. Then he looked at the other two people present.

'Your suggestion worked even better than I'd hoped it would . . . in the short term,' he told Georgia Young, abandoning any pretense that the idea had ever been her husband's. 'It took Harrington and White Haven completely out of the equation while we fought through the new budget. But it's beginning to look as if our short term victory is going to prove a long term defeat. Unless you've managed to come up with some answer to the rebound in their popularity with the proles, that is.'

Almost everyone else in the Prime Minister's paneled office turned to look at Lady North Hollow, but she returned their half-accusing glares with calm composure. Then she waved one graceful hand at the Second Lord of Admiralty, the single person who wasn't glowering at her at the moment, and smiled at High Ridge.

'As a matter of fact, Prime Minister, I believe Reginald and I may actually have come up with a solution of sorts. It's not a perfect one, but then so few things in this world are truly perfect.'

'Solution? What kind of solution?' Janacek demanded. He got the questions in before anyone else could ask, but it was a close run thing.

'I've been doing some additional . . . research on Harrington and White Haven,' the countess replied. 'It hasn't been easy. In fact, it's been impossible to get anyone inside Harrington's household or inner circle. Her security is provided entirely by her Steadholder's Guard, with backup from the Palace Guard Service, and it's the next best thing to impenetrable. Not to mention the fact that she herself seems to have a damnable ability to 'read' the people around her. I've never seen anything like it.

'Fortunately, White Haven isn't quite that tough a nut. He maintains excellent security on the sensitive materials he receives as a member of the Naval Affairs Committee, and his people are almost as loyal as Harrington's. But they're not as security conscious about, ah . . . household matters as hers are. I wasn't able to put anyone actually inside his or his wife's quarters, but I did manage to get a few listening devices into the servant's quarters. And some of his people let much more slip than they thought they did when someone asked them the right questions.'

High Ridge and Janacek looked uncomfortable at her deliberate reminder of precisely what it was she did for them. The calm, matter-of-fact way she discussed spying on their political opponents made both of them uneasy, if only because of their awareness of the consequences if they were caught at it. Such privacy violations were illegal for anyone, but the fines and even jail time violators could draw would have been minor considerations beside the devastating public opinion damage awaiting any politician who got caught actually bugging his opponents. And what would have been bad enough for any political figure would be even worse for one of the leaders of the current Government, which was supposed to be in charge of stopping anyone from committing such acts.

However uncomfortable the two Conservatives might have been, Houseman seemed unconcerned, almost as if he were oblivious to any reason why the countess' actions could be considered the least bit improper. Perhaps, High Ridge thought sardonically, because of the way the towering nobility of his intentions justified any act he might choose to commit in order to further them. As for Descroix, she actually smiled as if she thought the entire thing was some huge, slightly off-color joke.

Lady North Hollow let the silence linger just long enough to make her point. Then, having reminded them of the importance of ensuring the competence of whoever did their dirty work for them, she continued.

'The really ironic thing about it all,' she told her audience, 'is how close we came to telling the truth about both of them.'

High Ridge and Janacek looked at each other in obvious surprise, and she smiled.

'Oh, there's absolutely no evidence that they were ever actually lovers,' she assured them. 'But apparently it's not for lack of temptation. According to some of the White Haven retainers, Harrington and White Haven are pining over each other like a pair of love-sick teenagers. They may be hiding it from the public—so far—but they're suffering in truly appallingly noble silence.'

'Really?' Descroix cocked her head, her eyes calculating. 'Are you sure about that, Georgia? I mean, they do spend an inordinate amount of time together. That was what made our original strategy workable. But are you seriously suggesting that there's truly something there?'

'That's what the evidence seems to indicate,' the countess replied. 'Some of the White Haven servants are quite bitter about it, actually. Apparently their loyalty to Lady White Haven is outraged by the thought that Harrington might be scheming to supplant her. To be honest, that outrage was probably enhanced by our media campaign, and it seems to have faded back somewhat in the last few weeks. But what gave it its original legs was the fact that most of them had already come to the conclusion that whatever Harrington thought, White Haven had been busy falling in love with her for months, if not years. I realize that anything they may have said to my investigators constitutes hearsay evidence, at best, but when it comes right down to it, the servants usually know more about what's going on in any household than their masters do. Besides, the handful of . . . technical assets I managed to get inside White Haven's household pretty much confirm their testimony.'

'Well, well, well,' Descroix murmured. 'Who would ever have thought a stodgy old stick like White Haven would fall so hard after so long? His puppy dog devotion to Saint Emily always made me faintly queasy, you know. So maudlin and lower class. But this new itch of his rather restores one's faith in human nature, doesn't it?'

'I suppose so,' High Ridge said. Descroix seemed oblivious to the distasteful glance he gave her, and he moved his attention back to Lady North Hollow.

'Interesting as all this is, I fail to see precisely how it addresses our current problems, Georgia.'

'It doesn't, directly,' the countess replied serenely. 'But it suggests that we ought to bear it in mind as we examine several other considerations. For example, it's obvious that Harrington is quite concerned at the moment over the domestic Grayson response to all of this. Then there's the fact that her treecat's mate has seen fit to adopt White Haven. The White Haven servants who were already disposed to resent her had an earful to tell my investigators about that—until they dried up completely, that is. It seems that the bond between the 'cats is forcing White Haven and Harrington even closer together. At least some of the servants were convinced that the female's adoption of the Earl had been deliberately contrived by Harrington to let her worm her way into Lady White Haven's position. I don't personally think there was anything to that theory, given how hard the two of them seem to be working at pretending, even to one another, there's nothing between them. Not to mention the fact that Lady White Haven seems to be reacting to all of this extraordinarily calmly, to judge by what my monitors have managed to pick up. But however it happened, that adoption is one more source of tension and unhappiness for both of them. All three of them, really, I suppose.

'To make a long story short, My Lord, both White Haven and Harrington, but especially Harrington, appear to be under enormous emotional and, to some extent at least, political pressure, regardless of the current turnaround in the poll numbers. And I've analyzed both of their records. You can't produce enough pressure to make Harrington flinch from what she believes her duty requires of her under any conceivable set of circumstances . . . except one. You can shoot at her, blow her up, threaten her with assassination, or tell her her principles are political suicide, and she'll spit in your eye. But if you can convince her that something she wants or needs threatens to undermine what she believes her duty requires of her, that's something else entirely. She'll back away from whatever it is, even shut down completely, rather than 'selfishly' pursue her own interests. And once her emotions are fully engaged, once it's become personal for her, all of the 'Salamander's' decisiveness tends to disappear.

'What do you mean?' Descroix asked intently, and the countess shrugged.

'I mean she's not very good at putting herself first,' she said bluntly. 'In fact, it actually seems to . . . frighten her when her personal needs appear to threaten the things she believes in.'

'Frighten?' High Ridge repeated, one eyebrow raised, and Lady North Hollow shrugged.

' 'Frighten' probably isn't the best word for it, but I don't know one that would be a better fit. Her record is really remarkably clear in that regard, beginning while she was still a midshipwoman. It's common knowledge that she refused to file charges for attempted rape after a certain incident there.' She paused very briefly until her audience nodded understanding of the point they knew she probably wouldn't have made had her husband been present.

Probably.

'There might be some argument over why she kept silent in that particular case,' the countess went on.