"I only wish I'd been there when she was born," Honor said softly.
"I know." Emily reached out and patted her on the thigh. "I guess not all aspects of technology are really progress. I mean, once upon a time the only people who had to worry about not being there when babies were born were the fathers. The mothers were always there."
"I hadn't really thought about it quite that way," Honor said.
"I had," Hamish said, coming out of the house behind them. James MacGuiness, Miranda LaFollet, and Farragut followed him, and Hamish raised his right hand, flourishing the beer steins in it proudly.
"Had what?" his senior wife asked as he reached them and bent to give each of them a quick kiss.
"Thought about whether or not it was really progress," he said, plunking the steins down and watching as MacGuiness carefully poured them full of Old Tilman.
"I got to be there for both of them," he continued, "and that was good. But I was really pissed at the Admiralty for sending Honor off at that particular time. In fact, I was so pissed I decided to take it up personally with the First Lord. The conversation was a little confusing."
"You're always a little confused, dear," Emily told him, watching as he and Honor sampled their beers.
"Nonsense!" he said briskly. "I'm always a lot confused."
"Well, don't confuse the babies," Honor advised.
"Lindsey won't let me," Hamish pouted, and Honor looked across at the nanny in surprise.
"Lindsey won't let you? That sounds suspiciously like she's become a permanent fixture!"
"I have, Your Grace," Lindsey said with a smile. "Unless you'd rather not, of course. Your mother told me you were going to need help, especially with your schedule, and since-as she rather charmingly put it-she had me 'nicely broken in,' she'd feel better if I was available to you and Lady Emily."
"Well, of course I'd rather! But can Mother really spare you from the twins?"
"I'll admit I'll miss them," Lindsey acknowledged, "but it's not like I won't see a lot of them, is it? And your mother has Jenny, not to mention their tutors and their armsmen, to help keep an eye on them. Even a pair of seven-year-olds is going to find it difficult to wear all of them down."
"If Mother is sure about this, I'm certainly not going to argue!"
"And if you'd been foolish enough to do so, Hamish and I would have hit you smartly over the head and confined you somewhere until you came to your senses," Emily said tranquilly.
"Spencer wouldn't have let you," Honor retorted.
"Spencer," Miranda said, settling into an unoccupied chair, "would have helped them. And if he hadn't, I would have."
Farragut leapt up into her lap with a bleek of satisfied agreement, and Honor laughed.
"All right. All right! I surrender."
"Good," Emily said. Then she looked at Hamish. "Was the carnage at Admiralty House very extreme when Honor failed to arrive on schedule?"
"Not really." Hamish swallowed more beer and laughed. "I just got off the com with Tom Caparelli. From what he had to say, Elizabeth was completely in agreement with Honor. She hadn't realized how late Honor was running, and she said something about star chambers, oubliettes, bread and water, and headsmen for anyone who dragged Honor away from Katherine before tomorrow morning."
"Not just from Katherine, I hope," Emily said with a lurking smile, and Hamish chuckled.
"Probably not," he agreed. "Probably not."
"Welcome back aboard, Admiral," Captain Houellebecq said quietly as RHNS Guerriere's side party dismissed behind Lester Tourville.
"Thank you, Celestine."
Tourville met Houellebecq's blue eyes levelly as he shook her hand. He was well aware of the questions behind his flag captain's attentive expression, but he was less certain he had the answers to them all.
Uncertainty and shock were two emotions he was unaccustomed to feeling, but they summed up his own initial reaction to the Octagon briefing handily. He'd known Lovat had been an unmitigated disaster, and the personal loss of so many friends-including Javier Giscard and the entire company of Sovereign of Space-had hit home with excruciating force. But his worst nightmares had fallen short of the new weapons capabilities the Manties had revealed. The reports on those had brought back other nightmares, of the days when he and Javier had watched Operation Buttercup rumbling down upon them as they waited to defend the same star system where Javier had just died.
And then, hard on the heels of that shattering news, had come Tom Theisman's proposed operation. If nothing else, it showed an impressive audacity, even if it was based on the logic of desperation. Still, if Theisman's assumptions about the availability of the new weapons was valid-and Op Research's conclusions matched those of the Secretary of War on that head-then this all or nothing throw of the dice might just work.
Of course, it might not, too. And although he'd regained his mental balance, questions about the proposed operation's mechanics and basic assumptions were still rattling around inside his own brain.
"Molly," Houellebecq said, reaching out to shake Captain DeLaney's hand in turn. "I see you managed to get the Admiral back home again, after all."
"It wasn't easy to drag him away from Nouveau Paris' nightlife," DeLaney replied, with a smile which looked almost natural, and Houellebecq returned it before switching her attention back to Tourville.
"Everyone's waiting in the briefing room, as you requested, Admiral."
"In that case," Tourville said heartily, "let's get down to it."
"Of course, Sir. After you." Houellebecq stepped back half a pace and waved one hand at the lifts.
"Be seated," Tourville said briskly before the assembled staffers and flag officers could climb more than halfway to their feet. They settled back obediently, and he strode to his own place at the head of the table. He seated himself, followed by Houellebecq and DeLaney, and gazed out over their assembled faces.
"Our next meeting is going to be just a bit larger than this one," he said after a moment. "We're going to be rather substantially reinforced over the next week or so."
"Reinforced, Sir?" Rear Admiral Janice Scarlotti asked.
Scarlotti was a short, sturdy, no-nonsense brunette, and Tourville felt the corners of his eyes crinkle in a smile. She'd obviously heard the same rumors as everyone else. Unlike his other officers, however, she'd never heard of tact, and she'd plainly been waiting to pounce.
"Yes, Janice," he said patiently. "Reinforced. As in additional ships assigned to our order of battle."
"I gathered that, Sir," Scarlotti replied, apparently completely oblivious to his irony. Personally, Tourville suspected she was fullyy aware of it. She was much too smart and competent to be as totally socially clueless as she chose to appear. Of course, there had been the old Shannon Foraker....
"What I was wondering," Scarlotti continued, "is exactly what sort of reinforcements we're going to receive?"
"According to the Octagon's latest numbers, we're going to be reinforced to a total strength of something over three hundred of the wall," Tourville said calmly.
More than one of the officers around the table sat back in his or her chair as the number hit them squarely between the eyes. Even Scarlotti blinked, and Tourville smiled thinly.
"I'm well aware of the sorts of rumors which have been circulating around the fleet," he said. "Some of them have been so wild as to be outright ridiculous. For example, the one that says we're going to launch a direct attack on the Manticoran home system in response to Lovat. The very idea is preposterous."