cthia wrote:I always wondered if Honor knew, that her armsmen knew, of her "controversial affair" with White Haven during the sensitive time she and White Haven were "cavorting" on eggshells. Or did they really allow her her pride and dignity and chance to play innocent? Like not telling her that her slip was always hanging after leaving White Haven's side.
Did Honor ever come to know how Emily's hired help loathed her? I got that impression that they secretly wished Honor would place herself in a cultivator in hopes of cultivating some common decency - the trollop. Have we had any words from the help since? It seems Honor, certainly with Nimitz around, would have known how they felt about her in short order.
I think Honor knew that her armsmen knew that Honor had a relationship with Hamish. Andrew LaFollet was no fool, and he'd known Honor long enough to know that's something she would have done... and as was explained to Spencer Hawke:
At All Costs, Chapter Thirteen wrote:"There's no reason she ought to tell me about them," Hawke said, just a bit stiffly. "She's my Steadholder. If she wants me to know something, she'll tell me."
-snip-
"Spencer," he said, "Colonel LaFollet didn't handpick you for the Steadholder's personal detail because you're an idiot. You know -- or you damned well ought to know, by now -- that no primary ever tells his armsmen everything they need to know. And, frankly, the Steadholder's worse than most in that regard. She's better than she was, but, Tester -- the things she used to do without even mentioning them to us ahead of time!"
-snip-
"The thing you have to understand, Spencer, is that there's the Job, and then there's everything else. The Job is to see to it that that lady in there stays alive, period. No ifs, no ands, and no buts. We do whatever it takes -- whatever it takes -- to see to it that she does. And it's our privilege to do that, because there are steadholders, and there are steadholders, and I tell you frankly that one like her comes along maybe once or twice in a generation. If we're lucky. And, yes, although I'm not going to tell her, I'd do the Job anyway, because I love her.
-snip-
"And, of course, we spend most of the rest of our time keeping our big mouths shut about the things we have figured out. Especially the ones she didn't tell us about. You know, the things she knows that we know that she knows that we know but none of us ever discuss with her."
"Oh." Hawke frowned. "So you're saying I'm supposed to pry into her personal life?"
"We are her personal life," Mattingly said flatly. "We're as much her family as her mother and father, as Faith and James. Except that we're the expendable part of her family... and everyone knows and accepts that. Except her."
I snipped out the actions and irrelevant, only passingly related conversation. But it's a very clear case, that her armsman always knew everything, but because they both love her and respect her, they allowed Honor the illusion that they didn't know things. But she knows that they know that she knows that they know but nobody ever openly talked about the subject.
