Of course you did, LaFollet thought dryly. After all, it was obviously your bounden duty to get this critical information to her as rapidly as possible… in person.

Nimitz glanced at the armsman over White Haven’s shoulder, and his ears flicked in obvious amusement as he tasted the colonel’s emotions. LaFollet stuck out a mental tongue at the ’cat, and Nimitz’s grass-green eyes danced devilishly, but he declined to do anything more overt.

“Thank you,” Lady Harrington told the Earl, and her tone was just as casually serious as his was, as if she were totally oblivious to the shared amusement of her ’cat and her henchman. Which she most certainly wasn’t, LaFollet reminded himself, and forced his unruly thoughts back under control. Fortunately, the only thing she could sense through her link to Nimitz was emotions, not the thoughts which had produced them. Under most circumstances, she was capable of deducing approximately what those thoughts must have been with almost frightening accuracy, but in this instance, that ability seemed to have deserted her. Which, the colonel reflected with much less amusement, probably reflected the intensity with which she refused to face what was actually happening between her and White Haven.

“It may take a while,” the Earl warned her. “What does your schedule look like for the rest of the afternoon?”

“I have an evening guest lecture over at the Crusher, but that’s not until after dinner, and I’ve already finish-polished my notes for it. Until then, I’m free. I have a small clutch of papers I really ought to be reading and grading, but they’re all extra-credit electives, and I can probably afford to let them slide for a single afternoon.”

“Good.” White Haven glanced at his chrono. “I hadn’t thought about it until you mentioned dinner, but it’s just about lunchtime. Could I buy you lunch somewhere?”

“No, but I’ll buy you lunch,” she countered, and LaFollet felt a fresh sinking sensation as he saw the way her eyes suddenly danced even more devilishly than Nimitz’s had. White Haven arched a questioning eyebrow, and she chuckled. “You’re here on the Island, Hamish, and whether Janacek likes it or not, you are a flag officer. Why not let me com ahead to Casey and reserve one of the flag dining rooms for lunch?”

“Oh, Honor, that’s evil,” White Haven said with a sudden huge grin, and LaFollet closed his eyes in profound agreement. Casey Hall was the enormous cafeteria right off the Quadrangle. Its main dining hall was capable of seating almost a third of Saganami Island’s entire student body simultaneously, but it also boasted smaller, much more palatial dining rooms for more senior officers. Including fifteen or twenty small, private rooms reserved for admirals and very senior captains of the list and their guests on a first-come, first-served basis.

“Janacek will fall down in a frothing fit when he hears you and I had lunch together in the very heart of what he’d like to consider his own private domain,” the Earl continued. “Especially when he figures out I came straight from Willie’s after discussing what he and High Ridge had to say at the briefing this morning.”