“Not from me,” he hastened to reassure her, and then chuckled humorlessly. “The last thing you and I need right now is to give the scandalmongers more ammunition!”

“True,” she agreed, and smiled with a flash of what might have been genuine amusement. But the smile disappeared almost as quickly as it had come, and she cocked her head at him. “If not from you, then from whom?” she asked, and he drew a deep breath.

“From my wife,” he said very, very softly.

Honor never moved, yet in that instant it was as if he could feel her emotions, sense the way she flinched inside as if from an unexpected blow. She stared at him, and he wanted to reach out and take her in his arms. But he couldn’t, of course.

“I know it sounds bizarre,” he went on, instead, “but I promise I haven’t lost my mind. In fact, the invitation was Emily’s idea. Very few people realize it, but the truth is that she’s probably even better at picking political problems apart and finding answers than Willie is. And right this minute, Honor, you and I need all the help we can get. She knows that… and she wants to offer it.”

Honor couldn’t take her eyes from his face. She felt as if the training remote had just punched her in the belly all over again. The totally unexpected “invitation” had hit her like a pulser dart, and behind the shock was another emotion: fear. No, not fear—panic. He couldn’t be serious! Surely he must realize by now why she’d so persistently avoided ever meeting his wife, and that had been before the Government ’faxes began their systematic demolition of her life. How could he even ask her to face Emily Alexander now? When his own emotions shouted at her that he knew exactly how she felt about him? And that she knew exactly how he felt about her? The countless layers of betrayal inherent in their love and all the pain and devastation the press accounts had heaped upon them wrapped themselves about her, clinging to her like some strangling shroud, and yet underneath it all she could taste his need for her to accept his “invitation.”

She was drowning, crushed under the intensity radiating from them both, and she closed her eyes and fought for some fragile semblance of calm. It was impossible. This time, she couldn’t step away, couldn’t throttle back her sensitivity and awareness, couldn’t close the circuit down. The uncontrolled cataract of their emotions crashed back and forth, doubling and redoubling, almost like some bizarre feedback effect, and her thoughts were coated in ceramacrete. She felt Nimitz, swept along with her like some ancient whaler from Old Earth, careening on a “Nantucket sleigh ride” as her emotional turmoil dragged him after her like a sounding whale, seeking escape from the harpoon’s anguish in the depths, and there was nothing she could do about that, either.

And at the bottom of that tide race, there was Hamish. There was always Hamish, the source of so much pain because of what should have been so wonderful. The man who’d finally accepted the knowledge that she could feel exactly what he felt, know precisely how deeply he loved her. And who knew she also knew precisely how deeply he still loved his wife, how exquisitely his own sense of having betrayed both Honor and Emily by letting himself love them both tormented him. And how desperately he wanted her to accept his impossible suggestion.