And they were also lovers. Among other things.

“Don’t tell me that you’re surprised by their tactics, Cathy,” he rumbled in a voice so deep it appeared to come from somewhere just south of his toenails. It was a remarkably mild voice, given the speaker’s obvious distaste for what it was saying. “Against someone like Harrington?” He laughed with absolutely no humor at all. “She’s probably the one person they hate more than they hate you right now!”

“But this is so despicable, even for them, Anton,” Lady Cathy shot back. “No, I’m not surprised—I’m just pissed off. No, not pissed off. I’m ready to go out and start removing body parts from the assholes. Preferably ones they’re particularly fond of. Painfully. With a very dull knife.”

“And if you can figure out a way to do it, I’ll be delighted to help,” he replied. “In the meantime, Harrington and White Haven are just going to have to fight their own battles. And it’s not exactly as if they don’t have anyone they can call on for support while they do.”

“You’re right,” she admitted unhappily. “Besides, our track record isn’t all that good, is it?” She grimaced. “I know damned well that Jeremy expected us to do better than we did, given what you managed to hack out of those idiots’ files. I hate disappointing him—disappointing all of them. And I don’t much like failing at anything, myself.”

“You want me to believe that you expected them to just roll over?” he asked, and there was a hint of a twinkle in the dark eyes.

“No,” she half-snarled at him. “But I did hope that we’d get more of the bastards nailed!”

“I understand what you’re saying. But we did get convictions for over seventy percent of the names on my list. Given the timing, that’s actually better than we had any right to expect.”

“And if I’d come straight home by way of the Junction the way you’d wanted to, the timing wouldn’t have mattered,” she grated.

“Woman, we’ve been over this,” Anton Zilwicki said in a voice as patient as his beloved mountains. “Neither one of us could have foreseen the Cromarty Assassination. If it hadn’t been for that, we’d have been fine, and you were perfectly right about the need to get Jeremy off Old Earth.” He shrugged. “I admit that I haven’t spent as many years as deeply committed to the Anti-Slavery League as you have, but it’s grossly unfair of you to blame yourself for spending three extra weeks getting home.”

“I know.” She stopped her pacing and stood gazing out the window for several taut moments, then drew a deep breath, straightened her shoulders, and turned to face him.

“I know,” she repeated more briskly. “And you’re right. Given the fact that that asshole High Ridge was in charge of the Government by the time we got home, we did do very well to get as many convictions as we did. Even Isaac admits that.”