Probably.

“There might be some argument over why she kept silent in that particular case,” the countess went on. “My own belief is that at least part of it was that she was still too young to have developed enough self-confidence to believe her charges would be believed. But it’s also highly probable that she believed any scandal would hurt the Navy, and she wasn’t prepared to put what had happened to her personally above the good of the Service. That’s certainly been the sort of attitude she’s displayed repeatedly since, at any rate. If she can find a way to remove herself from a situation in which what she needs conflicts with her duty or with what someone else needs without transgressing her personal code, she’ll take it. She did that before the First Battle of Yeltsin, when she pulled her squadron out of Yeltsin’s Star because she thought her presence was undermining Courvoisier’s efforts to bring Grayson into the Alliance.”

Her tone remained conversational, her expression bland, as she ignored Houseman’s sudden grimace. The Second Lord’s ugly look of remembered hatred (leavened with more than a little fear) was probably so involuntary he didn’t even realize he’d let it show, High Ridge reflected.

“If the bigots who’d been giving her grief had done the same thing to anyone else under her command,” the countess continued, “she would have come down on them like the wrath of God. She isn’t exactly noted for moderation, you know. But their bigotry and resentment were directed at her, and she wasn’t prepared to risk blowing Courvoisier’s mission by insisting they treat her with the same respect she would have demanded for someone else. So instead, she backed away and took herself out of the equation.”

“It sounds almost as if you admire her, Georgia,” Descroix observed, and the countess shrugged.

“Admiration doesn’t really come into it. But belittling an opponent out of spite when you’re trying to formulate a strategy against her is stupid.”

This time Houseman actually stirred physically beside her, like a man on the brink of bursting out in protest, but she ignored that, too, and went on speaking directly to Descroix.

“Besides, if you want to look at it from the right angle, what she did in Grayson was to run away from a problem rather than confront it squarely, which is arguably a sign of weakness, not strength. And apparently she did the same thing the first time she realized she and White Haven were straying into forbidden territory. She ran away from the situation—and him—by assuming her squadron command early, which was how the Peeps came to capture her, of course. And she quite clearly did it again on Hades, when she refused to send a courier ship back to the Alliance as soon as she captured one.”

“Excuse me?” Janacek blinked at her in surprise. “You’re saying she ‘ran away’ from Hades?”