"That's... a scary thought," Honor admitted softly, her smile just a bit tremulous. "One I'm really looking forward to, you understand, but still scary after so long. And I have to go back to Trevor's Star the day after tomorrow. I'll feel awfully guilty if we're all wrong and this blows up in everyone else's face while I'm off with the fleet and out of range!"
"If we wait until you can hang around to absorb your share of any slings and arrows, we'll never get it announced," Emily pointed out. "Eighth Fleet is eating up every minute of your time." She pouted. "It was bad enough when the Navy was only seducing one of my spouses away from me!"
"Hey, if you can't take a joke, you shouldn't follow the Fleet, girlie," Hamish said with a wicked grin, and Emily gurgled a laugh.
"I bet you say that to all your dirt-side dollies, spacer!" she growled.
"If we can return this conversation to a somewhat less salacious basis," Elizabeth said severely, eyes twinkling, "I have a suggestion."
"Which is?" Honor asked, ignoring Hamish and Emily as Emily reached out and smacked him on the head with her working arm.
"Which is that we can probably defuse at least some of any adverse public reaction if we make the announcement the right way."
"Which is?" Honor repeated.
"You three were already invited to tonight's state dinner," Elizabeth said. "It was going to be one of those boring but necessary evenings, full of ambassadors and toasts and looking confident for the newsies and HD cameras. And I'll be honest with you, looking confident is more necessary than usual at the moment."
Her expression darkened once more, and Ariel's ears flattened in reaction to her mood shift.
"What happened to you at Solon, Honor, and what the Peeps did to us at Zanzibar, have had a measurable impact on public morale. Events in Talbott aren't helping, either. At the moment, Admiral Sarnow seems to be getting on top of the situation in Silesia, but that butcher Nordbrandt is killing hundreds of people in Split. And what happened when the Peeps tried to assassinate you also has to be factored into the mix."
"My read is that the assassination attempt mainly pissed people off," Hamish said.
"It certainly did," Emily agreed. "And if you think people were 'pissed off' here in the Star Kingdom, you don't even want to know how Grayson reacted! It was bad enough when they thought the Peeps had executed you, Honor-this is even worse, in a way. At the same time, though, all kinds of rumors are flying. In fairness to Lieutenant Mears and his family, I authorized the release of the information that he was acting under some form of compulsion. But the fact that we can't suggest how the compulsion was exerted is contributing to a climate of suspicion. Or fear, perhaps. After all, if the Peeps got to him, who else can they get to?
"At any rate, anything that pushes morale upward is very much worthwhile, and I think having your marriage announced here at Mount Royal, by me, with all the appropriate hoopla, ought to have a sort of festive effect. You three are probably among the dozen or so most popular public figures in the Star Kingdom right now, and that's going to more than compensate for anyone who might suspect Hamish and Honor were... dallying with one another before you actually were."
"Politics," Honor sighed, then laughed a trifle sadly.
"What?" Hamish asked.
"I was just recalling a discussion with Admiral Courvoisier before we deployed to Grayson for the first time," Honor said, shaking her head.
"Politics are always important at our level of responsibility, Honor," Elizabeth told her. "That doesn't necessarily make this a sordid decision."
"I wasn't trying to suggest it does. It's just that it gets so fatiguing sometimes."
"That it does. On the other hand, sometimes I get to combine things I genuinely want to do with political considerations. Of course, it works the other way around, too, sometimes. More often, I usually think. In this case, though, I have a belated wedding gift for the three of you."
Honor regarded the Queen warily. At the moment Elizabeth's idea of what she was "due"-especially after Solon-would leave an unpleasant taste in her mouth.
Elizabeth looked back at her as if the Queen were the empath, then reached under her chair and pulled out a small, flat case.
"Nothing excessive," she reassured her vassal with a slight smile. "I just asked Broughton & Stemwinder to make these up for me."
She handed the case to Emily, and Honor walked over so that Emily's life-support chair was between her and Hamish. Emily looked up at both of them, then looked back down and ran her finger across the raised, intertwined "B" and "S" crest of the firm which had been jewelers to the House of Winton for over three T-centuries.
She opened it, and Honor drew a deep breath as she saw the three rings nestled into the velvet interior. They were Grayson-style wedding bands, larger and heavier than the Manticoran norm, and exquisitely wrought, if not quite in the pure Grayson style. On Grayson, men's wedding rings were traditionally of yellow gold and women's of silver, but all three of these bands were made up of three interwoven strands, one each of yellow gold, white gold, and silver. They carried the Harrington Steading key on one side and the rampant White Haven stag on the other, and the flat-topped bezels bore the traditional circle of diamonds, each centered by a different semiprecious stone.
"I checked," Elizabeth said. "Honor, you were born in October, old-style. Hamish, you were born in March, and Emily was born in August. That makes your birthstones opal, jade, and sardonyx. So I had these made for you. They aren't quite Grayson, and they aren't quite Manticoran, just as the three of you no longer belong to just one of us."
"They're beautiful, Elizabeth." Emily looked up with bright eyes. "Thank you."
"As gifts go, they're small enough for people who mean as much to me as you do," Elizabeth said simply. "And these are from us-from Elizabeth and Justin, not the Crown."
Honor reached into the case and removed the opal-crested ring. She held it, glittering in the sun, gazing down at it for a few seconds. Then she tried it on the third finger of her left hand.
It was a bit large, and she felt a flicker of surprise. Elizabeth had obviously taken pains to get this gift right, and it shouldt have been easy for her to get Honor's ring size, given that Honor's father had the exact dimensions of her prosthetic hand. But then she felt Elizabeth's eyes on her and sensed the Queen's waiting watchfulness. She thought about it for a moment, then removed the ring from her left hand and tried it on her right.
It fit perfectly, and she held it up, looking past it at Elizabeth.
"If you want it resized, it won't be a problem, Honor," Elizabeth told her. "But I think I know you pretty well by now, and it occurred to me that you might want to wear it on your flesh-and-blood hand."
"I think you're right," Honor said slowly, lowering her hand and looking down at it. She'd never been one to wear much jewelry, but that ring looked perfect, and she smiled. Then she took it back off and handed it to Emily.
"Please, Emily," she said, holding out her hand as well. "On Grayson, the senior wife gives the wedding band to her junior. I know that, as Elizabeth says, we're not really Manticoran or Grayson anymore, but it would mean a lot to me."
"Of course," Emily said gently, then looked up at her husband. "Hamish, would you help me?"
Hamish smiled at both of them, then reached down, gently holding Honor's wrist as Emily slid the ring back onto her finger. Emily gazed at it, then looked back up.
"It looks good there, doesn't it?" She moved her gaze to Elizabeth. "And I think I'll have mine resized for my right hand, too."
"No need," Elizabeth told her. "It already is."