She started to interrupt, but he shook his head quickly.

“No, that wasn’t a highlander’s slam at all things aristocratic. And I certainly wasn’t accusing you of being the sort of overbred cretin High Ridge or even New Kiev are. I’m only saying that you have an inherited position of power. The fact that you do is obviously going to shape the way you approach problems and issues, in that you’re going to attack them from the powerbase you already have. Fair?”

“So far,” she said slowly, studying his expression with intense speculation of her own. “And this is going someplace?”

“Of course it is. Just not to someplace an aristocrat might naturally think of,” he amended with a slight smile.

“Like where?”

“Let me put it this way. We’re both in agreement that the current Government is in a position to continue to exclude you from the House of Lords, effectively indefinitely, which means that your position as a peer actually doesn’t give you any advantage at all. Put another way, the powerbase you have is all but useless under the current political circumstances. Yes?”

“That might be putting it a bit dramatically, but it’s essentially accurate,” she conceded, gazing at him in fascinated speculation.

One of the things she most loved about him was the depth of insight and analytical contemplation his controlled exterior hid from so many casual observers. He lacked her own darting quickness, her ability to isolate the critical elements of most problems almost by instinct. But by the same token, there were times that ability deserted or failed her, and when it did, she tended to try to substitute energy and enthusiasm for analysis. To batter her way through a problem, instead of taking it apart and reasoning out the best approach to it. That was one mistake Anton never made, and he often prevented her from making it, either.

“In that case, what you need is a new powerbase,” he said. “One that your current base helps you acquire, perhaps, but one completely separate from it.”

“Such as?” she asked.

“Such as a seat in the Commons,” he told her simply.

“What?!” She blinked. “I can’t hold a seat in the Commons—I’m a peer! And even if I weren’t, the one thing High Ridge isn’t going to allow is a general election, so I couldn’t run for a seat even if I were eligible for one!”

“The Countess of the Tor can’t hold a seat in the House of Commons,” Zilwicki agreed. “But Catherine Montaigne could… if she weren’t the Countess of the Tor anymore.”

“I—” She started a quick response, then froze, staring at him in shock.

“That’s what I meant about letting your inherited position of power stand in your way,” he said gently. “I know you don’t have any greater instinctive veneration for aristocratic privilege than I do—probably less, in your own way, because that’s the background you come from and you know how often anything like veneration is completely undeserved. But sometimes I think you’re still blinkered by the social stratum you grew up in. Hasn’t it ever occurred to you that since they managed to emasculate your position as a peer by excluding you from the Lords, your title’s actually been a hindrance rather than a help?”