A woman sat waiting there. Her life support chair hovered a half-meter off the atrium floor, and it turned smoothly and silently on its counter grav to face them.

Honor felt her spine stiffen and her shoulders straighten. Not in hostility or defensiveness, but in acknowledgment and… respect. Her chin rose, and she returned Lady Emily Alexander’s regard levelly.

Lady Emily was taller than Honor had expected, or would have been, if she’d ever stood on her two feet again. She was also frail, the antithesis of Honor’s slimly solid, broad shouldered, well muscled physique. Where Honor was dark haired and dark eyed, Lady Emily’s hair was as golden blond as Alice Truman’s, and her eyes were a deep and brilliant green. She looked as if a kiss of breeze would lift her out of her chair and carry her away, for she could not have weighed over forty kilos, and her long-fingered hands were thin and fragile looking.

And she was still one of the most beautiful women in the entire Star Kingdom.

It wasn’t just her face, or her eyes, or her hair or bone structure. Anyone with her wealth could have had those things, in these days of biosculpt and cosmetic gene therapy. It was something else. Some inner quality she’d been able to transmit to the camera during her actress days, yet one which was infinitely stronger in person than it could have been through any electronic medium. It reached out to anyone who came near her, and as Honor felt it, magnified and multiplied through her link to Nimitz, she understood precisely why Nico was so devoted to his Countess.

“Emily,” White Haven’s deep voice was deeper even than usual, “allow me to introduce Duchess Harrington.”

“Welcome to White Haven, Your Grace.” The voice was a husky shadow of the warm, almost purring contralto which had reached out to so many HD viewers, but it retained more than a ghost of its old power. The countess held out one delicate hand—the only one she could move, Honor realized, and stepped forward to take it.

“Thank you, Lady White Haven,” she said softly, and her thanks were deep-felt and genuine, for there was no anger, no hatred in Lady Emily’s greeting. Sadness, yes—a vast, bottomless sorrow, and a weariness which almost matched Honor’s own. But not anger. Not at Honor. There was anger, a deep, seething rage, but it was directed at another target. At the men and women who had callously used her, just as surely as they’d used Honor or Hamish, for political advantage.

“You’re not as tall as I expected from the talk show circuit and news reports,” Lady Emily observed, with a faint smile. “I expected you to be at least three meters tall, and here you are, scarcely two and a half.”

“I think we all look taller on HD, Lady White Haven.”

“So we do.” Lady Emily’s smile grew broader. “I always did, at any rate,” she went on, and her tone and emotions alike were barren of any self-pity for those vanished days. She cocked her head—the only thing, besides her right arm, that she could move—and gazed up at Honor thoughtfully.