White Haven hadn't. It had grown much larger over the years, yet it was what it was. It refused to be anything else, and if at first glance it might seem that newer, more modern estateslike Harrington Housewere grander and more magnificent, that was only at first glance. Because White Haven had what those new and splendid homes' owners simply couldn't buy, however hard they tried. It had history. It had lawns of ankle-deep sod, pampered by generations of gardeners, and Old Terran oak trees a meter and a half through at the base, which had made the journey from Old Earth herself aboard the sublight colony ship Jason four centuries earlier. It had thick, soft Terran moss and immensely dense hedges and thickets of crown blossom and flame seed that draped around stone picnic tables, gazebos, and half-hidden, stone-flagged patios, and it sat there, whispering that it had always been here and always would be.
There were places on Grayson, like Protector's Palace, which were even older and possessed that same sense of ancientness. But Protector's Palace, like every other Grayson building, was a fortress against its world. Part of that world, and yet forever separate from it. Like Honor's own parents' house on Sphinx, though on a far larger scale, White Haven wore its age like a comfortable garment. That made it something she understood, and if White Haven was a fortress in its own way, its defenses were raised against the maddening pressure of human affairs, and not against its planet.
Despite all that had happened to finally drive her to this place, Honor sensed the living, welcoming presence of Hamish Alexander's home, and a part of her reached out to it. Yet even as she yearned towards its shelter, she knew it could never be hers, and a fresher, bleaker wave of resignation washed through her as Simon Mattingly landed the limo gently on the pad.
Hamish climbed out of his seat, cradling Samantha in his arms, and his slightly strained smile invited her to follow him from the limo. She was grateful to him for sparing her pleasantries which neither of them needed, and she managed to return his smile with one of her own.
Like him, she carried Nimitz in her arms, not in his usual place on her shoulder. She needed that extra contact, that sense of additional connection, and she clung to it as she walked towards a side door with White Haven while LaFollet, Mattingly, and Hawke followed at her heels.
The door opened at their approach, and a man who radiated a subtle kinship to James MacGuiness looked out with a small bow of greeting.
"Welcome home, My Lord," he said to White Haven.
"Thank you, Nico." White Haven acknowledged his greeting with a smile. "This is Duchess Harrington. Is Lady Emily in the atrium?"
"She is, My Lord," Nico replied, and bestowed another, more formal bow on Honor. His emotions were complex, compounded of his deep loyalty to the Alexander family, and to Hamish and Emily Alexander in particular, and an awareness that there was no truth to the vicious stories about Hamish and Honor. She tasted his sympathy for her, but there was also a sharp edge of resentment. Not for anything she'd done, but for the pain others had brought to people for whom he cared, using her as the weapon.
"Welcome to White Haven, Your Grace," he said, and to his credit, not a trace of his ambivalence at seeing her there colored his voice or his manner.
"Thank you," she said, smiling at him as warmly as her emotionally battered state allowed.
"Should I announce you to Her Ladyship, My Lord?" Nico asked the earl.
"No, thank you. She's...expecting us. We'll find our own way, but ask Cook to put together a light supper for three, please. No, make that for five," he corrected, nodding at the two treecats. "And make sure there's plenty of celery."
"Of course, My Lord."
"And see to it that Her Grace's armsmen get fed, as well."
"Of course," Nico repeated as he stood aside, then closed the door behind them, and Honor turned to LaFollet.
"I think Earl White Haven, Lady White Haven, and I need to discuss things in private, Andrew," she said quietly. "You and Simon and Spencer stay here."
"I" LaFollet began an immediate protest, then clamped his jaws tight.
He should be used to this by now, he told himself. The Steadholder had made great strides in accepting that it was his job to keep her alive whether she liked it or not, but the old stubbornness still reasserted itself at times. At least if it had to do it right now, White Haven was probably about as safe a place as she could be. And even if it hadn't been, he thought, looking at her exhausted face, he wasn't about to argue with her. Not now.
"Of course, My Lady," he said.
"Thank you," Honor said softly, and looked at Nico.
"Take care of them for me, please," she asked, and the retainer bowed more deeply still.
"I'd be honored to, Your Grace," he assured her, and she smiled one last time at her armsmen and then turned to follow White Haven down a wide, stone-floored hallway.
She had a vague impression of deeply bayed windows set in the immensely thick wallsof tasteful paintings, bright area rugs and throws, and furniture which managed to merge expense and age with comfort and utilitybut none of it really registered. And then White Haven opened another door, and ushered her through it into a crystoplast-roofed atrium which must have been twenty or thirty meters on a side. That wasn't very large for Grayson, where the need to seal "outdoor gardens" against the local environment created enormous greenhouse domes, but it was the largest atrium she'd ever seen in a private home in the Star Kingdom.
It also seemed younger than much of the rest of the estate, and she looked sharply at White Haven as a spike in his emotions told her why that was so.
He'd built it for Emily. This was her place, and Honor felt a sudden, wrenching sense of wrongness. She was an intruder, an invader. She had no business in this peaceful, plant-smelling space. But she was here, now, and it was too late to run, and so she followed White Haven across the atrium to the splashing fountain and koi pond at its heart.
A woman sat waiting there. Her life support chair hovered a half-meter off the atrium floor, and it turned smoothly and silently on its counter grav to face them.
Honor felt her spine stiffen and her shoulders straighten. Not in hostility or defensiveness, but in acknowledgment and...respect. Her chin rose, and she returned Lady Emily Alexander's regard levelly.
Lady Emily was taller than Honor had expected, or would have been, if she'd ever stood on her two feet again. She was also frail, the antithesis of Honor's slimly solid, broad shouldered, well muscled physique. Where Honor was dark haired and dark eyed, Lady Emily's hair was as golden blond as Alice Truman's, and her eyes were a deep and brilliant green. She looked as if a kiss of breeze would lift her out of her chair and carry her away, for she could not have weighed over forty kilos, and her long-fingered hands were thin and fragile looking.