“You know perfectly well that you haven’t been imposing on anyone Mother. But if you want the house, of course you’re welcome to it. For that matter, I’ve told you before; it’s yours and Daddy’s now. I spend every minute I can here at White Haven, anyway, and it makes a lot more sense for you and the twins to use the house than for it to just stand empty.”

She shrugged, although “stand empty” was a highly inaccurate description of her Jason Bay mansion’s normal state. It was fully staffed at all times, whether she herself was in residence or not. For that matter, it was Harrington Steading’s embassy on Manticore, and its official functions never shut down. But the true reason she’d avoided the cliff-top mansion since coming home from Haven were all the memories it held of Andrew and Miranda LaFollet, of Farragut, and of Sergeant Jeremiah Tennard. Eventually she’d have to return, she knew, but she wasn’t prepared to confront all those reminders just yet.

And Mother knows that, too, she thought. But if she thinks Daddy’s healed enough to go home—as far as Landing, at least, even if he’s not ready for the freehold yet—that’s got to be a good sign. And she’s right, having Uncle Jacques along will help a lot. Besides, it really is more home for them than it is for me. That’d be true even if I hadn’t married Hamish and Emily, given how much time I spend completely off-world.

“That’s settled, then,” Allison said. “I’ll screen M— I mean, I’ll have Mac screen the staff to warn them we’re coming home.”

It was such a brief pause, and so quickly corrected, that only Honor and Nimitz caught the way she’d almost slipped and said “Miranda.”

“Well, it would appear it’s a good thing the two of you have finished settling my fate,” Jacques said with a smile. “I see we’re about to be descended upon by what I believe is technically called a thundering herd.”

He pointed to the small group (or perhaps not so small as all that, actually) spilling out of the house’s French doors, and Honor tasted the way the alertness of the posse of armsmen (and one armswoman) scattered around the terrace spiked, as they, too, noticed the newcomers.

They were more focused than ever, those guardians, after the Yawata Strike and Anton Zilwicki’s briefings about nano-programed assassins, and she tasted her uncle’s cold, grim approval of their alertness.

Once, she knew, he’d found watching her learn to put up with her personal armsmen amusing, even though he’d understood (better than her parents, really) why that sort of security was necessary. Yet today she sensed no amusement in Jacques Benton-Ramirez y Chou’s mind-glow as he gazed at that protective, green-uniformed cordon.