She’d known. He hadn’t told her, but he’d never had to, and she’d welcomed him with that smile which could still light up a room… still melt his heart within his chest. They’d never discussed it directly, for there’d never been a need to. The information, the knowledge, had been exchanged on some profound inner level, for just as she’d known he had run away, she’d known why… and the reason he had come back.

And he’d never run away from her again. There had been a handful of other women over the last forty-odd years. He and Emily were both from aristocratic families and Manticore, the most cosmopolitan of the Star Kingdom’s planets, with mores and concepts quite different from those of frontier Gryphon or straitlaced Sphinx. The Star Kingdom had its licensed professional courtesans, but ninety percent of them were to be found on the capital planet, and White Haven had availed himself of their services upon occasion. Emily knew that, just as she knew that all of them had been women he liked and respected but did not love. Not as he loved her. After all these years, it was she with whom he still shared everything except the physical intimacy which they had lost forever. His brief affairs hurt her, he knew—not because she felt betrayed, but because it reminded her of what had been taken from them—and because of that, he was always discreet. He would never let them become public knowledge, never allow even the hint of a possible scandal to expose her to potential humiliation. But he never tried to hide the truth from her, for he owed her honesty, and “crippled” or not, she remained one of the strongest people he had ever known… and the only woman he loved or had ever loved.

Until now. Until Honor Harrington. Until in some inexplicable fashion, without his ever realizing it, professional respect and admiration had changed somehow, crept inside his guard and ambushed him. However he’d given himself away, revealed at least a little of what he felt, he would never, ever have done anything more than that. But he couldn’t lie to himself now that she was dead, and what he’d felt for her had been nothing at all like his friendship for Theodosia or the discreet professionals with whom he’d dealt over the years.

No, it had been far worse than that. It had been as deep and intense—and as sudden—as what he’d first felt for Emily all those decades ago. And so, in a macabre sort of way which no one else in the entire universe would ever realize, he’d betrayed both of the women he’d loved. Whatever he’d felt for Honor hadn’t changed the way he felt about Emily; it had been separate from Emily, or perhaps in addition to his love for his wife. Yet letting himself feel it had still been a betrayal that, in many ways, was far, far darker than his affair with Theodosia had ever been. And by letting some hint of his feelings slip, he had driven Honor off to die.