A Rising Thunder

doing anyway. It just happens that what I choose is what Mac thinks I ought to be doing at any given moment. I’m always perfectly free to change my mind or refuse to go along with him.”

“Sure you are.” Emily’s chair reached them, and Faith and James swarmed forward. They were too big now to climb into their uncle’s lap, but he wrapped his arms around them, and Emily smiled at him. “Was Honor this mendacious as a child?”

“Mendacious?” Benton-Ramirez y Chou repeated thoughtfully after depositing welcoming kisses on his niece and nephew. He cocked his head, considering the word, then shrugged. “I wouldn’t say mendacious so much as able to…creatively reconstruct her world at need, let’s say.”

“Yes, and she got it from her uncle,” Allison Harrington interjected.

“Well from someone with the same genetic package, at least.” Benton-Ramirez y Chou smiled sweetly at his twin. “For that matter, Alley, you’re the geneticist. You know nurture trumps nature in cases like this. So much as I’d like to, I don’t really think I can honestly claim the credit.”

“Oh, stop it, both of you.” Honor shook her head. “Whatever my faults may be — and I’m sure they’re legion — I don’t think either of you is brave enough to let Mac’s dinner get cold, either. So why don’t we all just head back and let the two of you finish threshing out who’s to blame for the dreadful way I turned out over supper?”

“My goodness, you really are a superior strategist, aren’t you?” her uncle replied. “Who would’ve thought it?”

Chapter Thirteen

The bedside com’s rippling attention signal was quiet and discreet, almost apologetic, yet Honor’s eyes opened instantly.

It was still dark outside the bedroom windows, but just the faintest edge of dawn gilded the horizon. It brought back memories, that knife-edge of light. Memories of sleepy Sphinxian dawns, before the Queen’s Navy had gifted her with that instantaneous transition between sleep and awareness. Memories of a younger Honor Harrington who now seemed incredibly far away…and far more innocent than the woman looking out those windows this predawn morning. For just an instant, as she saw that glow kiss the eastern sky, she wished she were still that teenaged girl looking out her bedroom window at the four hundred-year-old greenhouse and the ancient, ninety-meter crown oak, its bark carved with Stephanie Harrington’s initials and the name “Lionheart.” The girl who’d never worn the uniform, who had no blood upon her hands, no burden of beloved dead, and for whom the universe was a new, unstained promise on the horizon.

That edge of grief, that flare of loss, flashed through her, sharper than a razor and crueler than winter, in the instant the chimes roused her. It struck her in that first moment, before her defenses were back in place, and she clenched internally. But then, almost before the razor had cut, she felt another presence. Two more presences: the loving glow from the sleeping ’cat on his bedside perch, and the warm, deeply breathing presence at her back, arms wrapped protectively about her even in sleep.

They were there with her, Nimitz and Hamish. They were there for her, just as they always would be, reminders that the universe was filled with even more love than loss.

Then the chimes sang again, and she patted the hand on her ribs.

“Um?” a voice uttered indistinctly.

Unlike Honor, Hamish Alexander-Harrington seldom woke without a struggle. Or, rather, he had an ability (which Honor frequently envied but had never managed to acquire) to turn the Navy’s hardwired “Wake Up Now” switch off and then on again as needed. At the moment, he clearly had it in the “off” position, and she patted his hand again, harder.

“Wh’ zat?”

He didn’t sound any clearer, so she jabbed with a reasonably gentle elbow.

“Urruuff!”

That got his attention, and she smothered a giggle as he twitched awake.

“One of us has to take that call,” she observed, still gazing out the windows as the com chimed yet again.

“So?” His voice was still soft-edged with sleep, but she tasted his amusement an instant before his lips nuzzled under her braid to nibble the nape of her neck with slow, teasing thoroughness. “And you’re telling me this exactly why?” he inquired between gentle nips.

“Because the com is on your side of the bed,” she told him severely. “And because—stop that!”

“Stop what?” he asked innocently, and she sighed as the hand she’d patted earlier cupped her breast. “Oh. You mean stop this?”

“No…I mean, yes!”

She laughed and twisted in his arms, turning to face him and putting her own arms around him. She kissed him thoroughly while the com continued patiently (and with steadily rising volume) to chime for their attention.

“I don’t think you really do mean that,” he told her.

“That’s because you’re a wicked, evil fellow who knows me entirely too well.” The severity of her tone was somewhat undermined when she paused in mid-sentence to kiss him again, and she felt Nimitz’s and Samantha’s silent laughter as they roused on their perches.

“And it’s also because I’m a weak, easily distracted person who hasn’t had nearly enough time to do this sort of thing in the last few months,” she continued. “But Mac or Spencer wouldn’t let calls through at this ungodly hour — especially not since they both know I’m a weak, easily distracted person who hasn’t had nearly enough time to do this sort of thing in the last few months — if it weren’t important. So”—she drew back languorously, then poked suddenly with a rigid forefinger—“answer the com!”

“You realize you’re going to pay for that later,” Hamish said as he sat up, rubbing his rib cage.

“I’m looking forward to it,” she told him with a smile, then reached out to touch the side of his face. “And thank you,” she said softly.

“Thank me?” He raised a quizzical eyebrow. “Thank me for what?”

“For being you…and for being here.”

His blue eyes softened, and he cupped a palm over the hand still on his cheek.

“You’re welcome, Your Grace. And it works both ways, you know.”

She nodded, wishing he could taste her emotions as clearly as she tasted his.

You know, that’s sort of unreasonable of you, she told herself as he punched the “audio only” accept key. How many people are lucky enough to have what you already have with him and Emily? I know it’s human nature to always want more, but let’s not get too greedy, okay?

“Yes?” Hamish said.

“I’m sorry to disturb you, Milord,” James MacGuiness’ voice responded.

“That’s all right, Mac. I think we were about to get up anyway.” Hamish gave Honor a wicked, laughing look, then glanced at the time and grimaced. “For that matter, I’ve got that early meeting at Admiralty House, and I need to be in the air in the next couple of hours.”

“I know, Milord. In fact, that’s one reason I went ahead and woke you. Doctor Arif’s on the com for Her Grace, FTL from Sphinx. And I think Her Grace should probably take the call before you leave, Milord.”

“I beg your pardon?” Hamish frowned at Honor, who shrugged.

She had no idea why Adelina Arif might screen her this early, or why MacGuiness thought Hamish should be part of the conversation, but…

“Ask her to hold a few more seconds, please, Mac,” she said, raising her voice.

“Of course, Your Grace,” he replied, and Hamish muted the com.