“I read your statement of the fifteenth with considerable interest, Your Grace,” Prince had observed on camera. “I noted that you acknowledge a ‘close personal and professional relationship’ with Earl White Haven.”

“Actually,” Honor had corrected calmly, fingers stroking Nimitz’ ears as he lay in her lap and looked far calmer than he was, “I didn’t ‘acknowledge’ anything, Minerva. I explained that I have a close personal and professional relationship with both Earl White Haven and his brother, Lord Alexander.”

“Yes, you did.” Prince had accepted the correction gracefully. “Would you care to take this opportunity to explain that a bit more fully for our viewers?”

“Of course, Minerva.” Honor had looked directly at the live camera and smiled with the ease she had learned to project. “Both the Earl and I support the Centrist Party, and Lord Alexander, since Duke Cromarty’s death, has been the leader of that party. Given the Centrists’ majority in the Commons and the dominance of the current Government’s parties in the Lords, it was inevitable that the three of us should become close political allies. In fact, that relationship has been the subject of speeches and debates in the Lords for almost three T-years now… as has the strength of our opposition to the High Ridge Government’s policies.”

“But the thrust of the present controversy, Your Grace,” DuCain had observed, “is that your relationship with Earl White Haven goes beyond a purely political alliance.”

“And it does,” Honor had admitted calmly. “Earl White Haven and I have known one another for over fifteen T-years now, ever since the Battle of Yeltsin. I’ve always had the deepest professional respect for him. As, I believe, just about anyone not blinded by petty jealousy and personal animosity must.”

DuCain’s eyes had flickered with amusement at her none-too-veiled reference to Sir Edward Janacek, and she’d continued in the same calm tone.

“I’m pleased to say that after our initial meeting at Yeltsin’s Star, and particularly in the three or four years preceding my capture by the People’s Navy, professional respect had the opportunity to turn into personal friendship, as well. A friendship which has only been deepened by how closely we’ve worked on a political basis in the Lords since my return from Hades. I regard him not simply as a colleague but as a close personal friend, and neither of us has ever attempted to suggest otherwise. Nor will we.”

“I see.” DuCain had glanced at Prince, handing the focus smoothly back to her, and she’d nodded understanding of her own.

“Your statement also denied that you were anything more than friends and colleagues, Your Grace. Would you care to expand on that?”

“There isn’t a great deal to expand upon, Minerva.” Honor had shrugged. “The entire present furor amounts to no more than the repetition and endless analysis of unsubstantiated allegations from a completely unreliable source. A man, not to put too fine a point upon it, who makes his living from sensationalism and is none too shy about creating it out of whole cloth when reality doesn’t offer him a sufficient supply. And who refuses—out of ‘journalistic ethics’—to ‘compromise his integrity’ by naming his sources, since, of course, they spoke to him only on conditions of confidentiality.”