He’d never meant to do either of those things, and even now, he hadn’t committed a single intentional act to betray either of them. Indeed, the rest of the universe probably wouldn’t even consider that he had, for nothing had ever happened between him and Honor, after all. But he knew, and it wounded him deep inside, where his concept of himself lived, in a way his affair with Theodosia never had, for this time he had no excuse. No fresh and bleeding wound which demanded healing. There was only the bewildering knowledge that somehow, without ever meaning to, he had found himself desperately in love with two totally different yet equally magnificent women… and that one of them was forever an invalid and the other was dead.

And God how it hurt.

The sleek shape of a pinnace appeared suddenly beyond the armorplast, drifting through the silent vacuum towards the buffers, and he sucked in a deep breath and shook himself. He reached up and removed the earbug, dropping it into a pocket, and straightened his tunic as Benjamin the Great’s bugler took his place and the honor guard snapped to attention.

The pinnace settled delicately into the buffers, the umbilicals swung up and locked, and the personnel tube ran out to the hatch, and Hamish Alexander, Thirteenth Earl of White Haven, grinned crookedly as he watched the Navy side party muster under the eyes of a harassed, semi-frantic Grayson lieutenant. It wasn’t every day that the First Space Lord of the Royal Manticoran Navy and the Chancellor of Her Majesty’s Exchequer paid a visit on a neighboring star system in the middle of a shooting war, and Benjamin the Great’s crew was determined to get it right.

And so was White Haven. He had that much left, at least, he told himself. The job. His duty. Who he was and what he owed. In that much, he was like Emily and Honor. Neither of them had ever been able to turn their backs on duty, either, had they? So he could at least try to prove himself worthy of the two extraordinary women who meant so much to him, and he gave himself a sharp mental shake.

You do have a habit of experiencing these moments of personal self-revelation at… inopportune moments, don’t you, Hamish? his brain told him mockingly, and the corners of his mouth turned up in a wry, humorless smile.

Many, many years ago, as a fourth-term midshipman, a senior tactical instructor had taken a very young Hamish Alexander aside after a simulator exercise had come unglued. It hadn’t been Hamish’s fault, not really, but he’d been the Blue Team commander, and he’d felt as if it had been, so Lieutenant Raoul Courvosier had sat him down in his office and looked him straight in the eye.

“There are two things no commander—and no human being—can ever control, Mr. Alexander,” Courvosier had said. “You cannot control the decisions of others, and you cannot control the actions of God. An intelligent officer will try to anticipate both of those things and allow for them, but a wise officer will not blame himself when God comes along and screws up a perfectly good plan with no warning at all.” The lieutenant had leaned back in his own chair and smiled at him. “Get used to it, Mr. Alexander, because if one thing is certain in life, it’s that God has a very peculiar sense of humor… and an even more peculiar sense of timing.”