White Haven allowed his smile to become an equally faint frown. "Should I understand, then, that you intend to be no more than a figurehead? That you're going to delegate your Grayson responsibilities to someone more qualified than yourself?"
"No, Sir, you should not." Honor felt herself flush at the carefully metered sting in his voice. "I accepted the position, and whether I knew what I was doing at the time or not is beside the point. It's mine now, and any officer who's ever commanded a Queen's ship understands responsibilities. I have no choice but to learn my duties to Grayson and discharge them to the very best of my ability, and I intend to do so." White Haven's eyes softened, and she went on in a quieter voice. "But the prospect frightens me, Sir, and I'd rather not assume still more responsibility and make still more decisions in our own House of Lords at the same time."
"I'd say that indicates you'd vote a great deal more responsibly than many of our present peers," White Haven said seriously, and her blush turned darker. The earl's title dated back to the Star Kingdom's founding, yet her own ennoblement meant that, technically, she was his equal. It made her feel uncomfortable, like a little girl dressing up as an adult woman, and she squirmed in her chair.
"The operative point, however," White Haven went on after a moment, "is that Her Majesty wants you seated there, and she isn't especially pleased with Duke Cromarty for having delayed this long. I understand she expressed herself quite, um, forcefully on the subject."
Honors blush turned scarlet at the thought, and he chuckled.
"You may as well give in gracefully, Captain. Unless you want to explain your reservations to Her Majesty?"
Honor shook her head quickly, and White Haven laughed out loud.
"In that case, I think we can treat the subject as closed. At the same time, it would be wiser to wait until the declarations clinched before we throw another log on the fire, and sending you off to Grayson will let us delay until after Young's seated and the votes are counted."
Honor stared down at Nimitz's ears and nodded. Personally, she would have preferred delaying it permanently. White Haven smiled at the crown of her bent head and reclaimed his wineglass, sipping at it to give her a moment to adjust to the news, and silence stretched out between them, only to be shattered by the quiet buzz of the admittance signal from the cabin hatch.
"Ah!" White Haven glanced at his chrono and spoke briskly as Honor looked up. "Captain Goldstein and company, right on schedule. Never forget, Dame Honor, that admirals demand strict punctuality on all social occasions."
Honor smiled at the change of subject. "I believe they mentioned something to that effect at the Academy, My Lord."
"I always knew the Academy was good for something, Milady." White Haven smiled back and stood as the signal buzzed once more. "And now that we've got the political claptrap out of the way, I hope you're prepared to tell us all firsthand what happened in Hancock." His smile turned into a grin. "What really happened. I think you'll find you're among friends here."
CHAPTER TWELVE
"I'm going to be feeling mighty sorry for myself for the next couple of months," Paul Tankersley murmured as the shuttle approached the waiting heavy cruiser. "Especially at night," he added wickedly.
Honor blushed and looked around quickly, but no one was close enough to overhear. The dozen diplomats with whom they shared the Foreign Office shuttle had chosen seats near the front of the passenger compartment, more than willing to leave the two naval officers alone. Now they sat chatting quietly among themselves while the cruiser grew in the visual display, and she sighed in relief, then grimaced at him.
"You're as bad as my mother," she scolded. "Neither of you have a scrap of self-restraint. Or even common decency, for that matter."
"I know. That's why I liked her so much. In fact, if she were just a little taller—"
Tankersley broke off with a chuckle as Honors elbow dug into his ribs, but her right cheek dimpled uncontrollably. She and Paul had found time for only a single, one-day visit to Sphinx, but her parents—and especially her mother—had greeted him with open arms. Allison Harrington was an emigrant from the Sigma Draconis System's Beowulf, and Beowulf's sexual mores were very different from straight-laced Sphinx's. Her daughter's total lack of a sex life had baffled Doctor Harrington almost as much as it worried her, and she would have been ready to welcome any male with approximately the right number of appendages. When she saw the quality of the male Honor had actually found and realized how deeply they loved one another, she'd none too figuratively clasped him to her bosom. Indeed, at one point Honor had almost feared Allison's half-T-century of acculturation might slip and result in an offer that would have shocked even Paul. It hadn't happened, but she couldn't help wishing a bit wistfully that she could have seen his reaction if it had.
"You just stay away from Sphinx till I get back, Paul Tankersley," she said severely. Nimitz looked up from her lap with a soft, bleeting laugh, and Tankersley laid a hand on his breast and tried to look innocent.
"Why, Honor! Surely you don't think—"
"You don't want to know what I think," she interrupted. "I saw how the two of you snuck off into the corner. Just what were you whispering about, anyway?"
"Oh, lots of things," Paul said brightly. "She did surprise me a couple of times, though—and not just with that bare-bottomed baby holo of you. Did you know Beowulfans don't believe in tubing babies?"
Honor felt herself blush again, much more brightly, but this time she couldn't quite smother a gurgle of embarrassed delight. One of the diplomats glanced over his shoulder, then turned away again, and Paul's eyes brimmed with laughter as he looked up at her.
"Yes," she said after a moment, "I believe I did know that."
"Really?" He grinned at her refusal to rise to the holo bait and shook his head. "Hard to believe an itty-bitty little thing like that carried you to term. Seems like an awful lot of work to me."
"Are you casting aspersions on my size? Or just suggesting it was wasted effort?"
"Oh, heavens, no! Neither of those would be tactful—or safe, now that I think about it." Paul's grin broadened, then faded into a more serious expression. "But, seriously, that must have been quite a chore on Sphinx."
"It was," Honor agreed. "Beowulf's gravity's higher than Manticore's, but it's still about ten percent lower than Sphinx's. Daddy was more than ready to have me tubed, only Mother wouldn't hear of it. He was still in the Service at the time, and they didn't even have the cash to fit the house with grav plates, either, but she's a stubborn little thing."
"I knew you got it from somewhere," Paul murmured. "But what I can't understand is why she was so insistent. It certainly isn't what I would have expected out of someone from Beowulf."
"I know."
Honor frowned and rubbed the tip of her nose, considering how best to explain the apparent incongruity. Beowulf led the explored galaxy in the life sciences and boasted its most advanced genetic engineering facilities, especially in applied eugenics. The rest of humanity had virtually abandoned the entire field for over seven hundred T-years late in the tenth century of the Diaspora, after the specialized combat constructs, bio weapons, and "super soldiers" of Old Earth's Final War had wreaked unbelievable carnage on the mother world. Some historians insisted that only the Warshawski sail and the relief expeditions mounted by other members of the recently formed Solarian League had saved the planet at all, and the Sol System had needed almost five T-centuries of recovery before it regained its preeminent place in the galaxy.