“Welcome to White Haven, Your Grace,” he said, and to his credit, not a trace of his ambivalence at seeing her there colored his voice or his manner.

“Thank you,” she said, smiling at him as warmly as her emotionally battered state allowed.

“Should I announce you to Her Ladyship, My Lord?” Nico asked the earl.

“No, thank you. She’s… expecting us. We’ll find our own way, but ask Cook to put together a light supper for three, please. No, make that for five,” he corrected, nodding at the two treecats. “And make sure there’s plenty of celery.”

“Of course, My Lord.”

“And see to it that Her Grace’s armsmen get fed, as well.”

“Of course,” Nico repeated as he stood aside, then closed the door behind them, and Honor turned to LaFollet.

“I think Earl White Haven, Lady White Haven, and I need to discuss things in private, Andrew,” she said quietly. “You and Simon and Spencer stay here.”

“I—” LaFollet began an immediate protest, then clamped his jaws tight.

He should be used to this by now, he told himself. The Steadholder had made great strides in accepting that it was his job to keep her alive whether she liked it or not, but the old stubbornness still reasserted itself at times. At least if it had to do it right now, White Haven was probably about as safe a place as she could be. And even if it hadn’t been, he thought, looking at her exhausted face, he wasn’t about to argue with her. Not now.

“Of course, My Lady,” he said.

“Thank you,” Honor said softly, and looked at Nico.

“Take care of them for me, please,” she asked, and the retainer bowed more deeply still.

“I’d be honored to, Your Grace,” he assured her, and she smiled one last time at her armsmen and then turned to follow White Haven down a wide, stone-floored hallway.

She had a vague impression of deeply bayed windows set in the immensely thick walls—of tasteful paintings, bright area rugs and throws, and furniture which managed to merge expense and age with comfort and utility—but none of it really registered. And then White Haven opened another door, and ushered her through it into a crystoplast-roofed atrium which must have been twenty or thirty meters on a side. That wasn’t very large for Grayson, where the need to seal “outdoor gardens” against the local environment created enormous greenhouse domes, but it was the largest atrium she’d ever seen in a private home in the Star Kingdom.

It also seemed younger than much of the rest of the estate, and she looked sharply at White Haven as a spike in his emotions told her why that was so.

He’d built it for Emily. This was her place, and Honor felt a sudden, wrenching sense of wrongness. She was an intruder, an invader. She had no business in this peaceful, plant-smelling space. But she was here, now, and it was too late to run, and so she followed White Haven across the atrium to the splashing fountain and koi pond at its heart.