“Of… Of course, Milady,” the steward husked. “She didn’t have to—” His voice broke, and Allison smiled mistily at him.

“Of course she didn’t ‘have to,’ Mac. She wanted to. Just as she wanted to leave Miranda twenty million.” Miranda inhaled sharply, but Allison went on calmly. “There are some other minor stipulations, but those are the important ones. Willard will bring all the official documentation with him, of course.”

“She was a remarkable woman,” Benjamin said softly.

“Yes, she was,” Allison agreed. Silence lingered for several seconds, and then she drew a deep breath and rose.

“And now, since this was a ‘supper’ invitation, I imagine we should get on to the supper in question! Are we ready, Mac?”

“I believe so, Ma’am.” MacGuiness shook himself and rose. “I’ll just go check to be certain.”

He opened the library doors, then paused and stepped back with a wry grin as a quartet of treecats came through them. Jason and his sister Andromeda led the way, but Hipper and Artemis trailed along behind, keeping a watchful eye on them. The ’kittens scurried forward, with an apparently suicidal disregard for the possibility of being trodden on, but Allison wasn’t particularly worried. She had been initially, but treekittens had incredibly fast reaction speeds, and somehow they always managed to be somewhere the foot wasn’t at the moment it came down.

Now she watched them stop and sit bolt upright as they caught the emotions of the Protector’s daughters. The ’kittens’ ears pricked sharply, their green eyes intent, for it was the first time they’d tasted the emotions of human children, and their tails twitched. Artemis plunked down and watched them with a maternal air, and Allison’s earlier comments to Katherine flickered back through her brain. There were a great many similarities between treecat and Grayson notions of child rearing, she reflected. And a good thing, too. The Peeps hadn’t said a word about it, but every member of Honor’s extended family—human and ’cat alike—knew Nimitz had not survived her. More often than not, ’cats suicided when their adopted humans died, yet that was almost beside the point here. For the Peeps to hang Honor, they had to have killed Nimitz first; it was the only way they could have—

Allison’s thoughts broke off abruptly as something jabbed at the corner of her attention and pulled her up out of the bitter memories. She blinked, attention refocusing on the library as she tried to figure out what her subconscious had noticed, and then her eyes widened. Artemis was watching the ’kittens as the Mayhew children swarmed forward—suitably cautious after a sharp word from Elaine but still bubbling with delight—to greet the ’kittens. That was hardly surprising, for Honor had told Allison how the children had loved Nimitz, and these were ’kittens. Brand new, cuddly, wonderful ’kittens!

But if Artemis was watching with amused affection, Hipper wasn’t. He was crouched on all six limbs, leaning forward almost like a human sprinter poised in the blocks before a race, with his tail straight out behind him. Only the very tip of that tail twitched in quick, tiny arcs; aside from that, he was motionless, and he wasn’t even glancing at the ’kittens. His grass-green eyes were locked on the Mayhews.