“Not yet,” Emily replied wryly. “In fact, I decided it was time to demonstrate my independence by coming to get you on my own. I figure I beat his summons by a clear two minutes. Maybe even three.”

“Always mistress of your own fate, I see,” Honor observed.

“Huh! You’re a fine one to talk! You think I haven’t figured out whose whim of steel really rules your menagerie?”

“Nonsense.” Honor elevated her nose. “He’s simply developed a keen appreciation for what I want to be doing anyway. It just happens that what I choose is what Mac thinks I ought to be doing at any given moment. I’m always perfectly free to change my mind or refuse to go along with him.”

“Sure you are.” Emily’s chair reached them, and Faith and James swarmed forward. They were too big now to climb into their uncle’s lap, but he wrapped his arms around them, and Emily smiled at him. “Was Honor this mendacious as a child?”

“Mendacious?” Benton-Ramirez y Chou repeated thoughtfully after depositing welcoming kisses on his niece and nephew. He cocked his head, considering the word, then shrugged. “I wouldn’t say mendacious so much as able to…creatively reconstruct her world at need, let’s say.”

“Yes, and she got it from her uncle,” Allison Harrington interjected.

“Well from someone with the same genetic package, at least.” Benton-Ramirez y Chou smiled sweetly at his twin. “For that matter, Alley, you’re the geneticist. You know nurture trumps nature in cases like this. So much as I’d like to, I don’t really think I can honestly claim the credit.”

“Oh, stop it, both of you.” Honor shook her head. “Whatever my faults may be—and I’m sure they’re legion—I don’t think either of you is brave enough to let Mac’s dinner get cold, either. So why don’t we all just head back and let the two of you finish threshing out who’s to blame for the dreadful way I turned out over supper?”

“My goodness, you really are a superior strategist, aren’t you?” her uncle replied. “Who would’ve thought it?”

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen

The bedside com’s rippling attention signal was quiet and discreet, almost apologetic, yet Honor’s eyes opened instantly.