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tlb
Fleet Admiral
Posts: 4440
Joined: Mon Sep 03, 2012 11:34 am
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cthia wrote:It is the exception, Kuzak, that's up for discussion. Do repair that reading comprehension.
tlb wrote:After Galactic Sapper stated that there is textual evidence that Kuzak is the exception to Hamish's dalliances being with courtesans (meaning that she was not one), I checked and found it easily enough. So the hypothetical legal questions you proposed have nothing to do with what is in the books.
cthia wrote:Post it, since you found it easily enough. I like relying on my own reading comprehension.
But, Jiminy Crickets, if true, it "cheats" Kuzak out of the benefit of the doubt. I'll wager you, and Sapper, have no clue how that would make kuzak's case even worse. And I have absolutely no desire to discuss it with immature attitudes. Since, being right, since standing on the right side of morality, since wanting to be correct and sensible when I post, is now considered a liability.
I'll concentrate on wrapping up the worms in the ramblings thread. The reason I returned to the scene of the crime, er, forum.
Echoes of Honor, chapter 19: He'd come apart. He didn't know how Emily had survived his collapse, his guilt, his sense of failure. No one could change what had happened to her or make things "right," but it was his job to make things right! It was always anyone's job to make things "right" for the people he or she loved, and he'd failed, and he'd hated himself for it with a bitter virulence whose memory shocked him even now.
But he'd put himself back together again. It hadn't been easy, and he'd needed help, but he'd done it. Of course, it was an accomplishment which had come with a layer of guilt all its own, for he'd turned to Theodosia Kuzak for the help he'd needed. Theodosia had been "safe," for she'd known him literally since boyhood. She was his friend and trusted confidante, and so—briefly—she had become his lover, as well.
He wasn't proud of that, but he'd run out of strength. An Alexander of White Haven understood about duty and responsibility. An Alexander was supposed to be strong, and so was a Queen's officer, and a husband, and he'd tried to be strong for so long, but he just couldn't anymore. And Theodosia had known that. She'd known he had turned to her because he'd had to, and because he could trust her . . . but not because he loved her. Never because of that. And because she was his friend, she'd helped him find the broken bits and pieces of the man he'd always thought he was and glue them back together into something which almost matched his concept of himself. And when she'd reassembled him, she'd shooed him gently away in a gift he knew he could never hope to repay and gone back to being just his friend.
He'd survived, thanks to Theodosia, and he'd discovered something along the way—or perhaps rediscovered it. The reason for his anguish, the intolerable burden which had broken him at last, was the simplest thing in the world: he loved his wife. He always had, and he always would. Nothing could change that, but that was what had made his agony bite so deep, the reason he couldn't forgive himself for not somehow making things "all right" again . . . and the reason he'd had to turn to someone else to rebuild himself when the collapse came. It had been cowardly of him, in many ways, but he simply could not have made himself dump his weakness, his collapse on her shoulders while she coped with everything God had already done to her. And so he'd run away to Theodosia until Theodosia could heal him and send him back to Emily once more.
She'd known. He hadn't told her, but he'd never had to, and she'd welcomed him with that smile which could still light up a room . . . still melt his heart within his chest. They'd never discussed it directly, for there'd never been a need to. The information, the knowledge, had been exchanged on some profound inner level, for just as she'd known he had run away, she'd known why . . . and the reason he had come back.
And he'd never run away from her again. There had been a handful of other women over the last forty-odd years. He and Emily were both from aristocratic families and Manticore, the most cosmopolitan of the Star Kingdom's planets, with mores and concepts quite different from those of frontier Gryphon or straitlaced Sphinx. The Star Kingdom had its licensed professional courtesans, but ninety percent of them were to be found on the capital planet, and White Haven had availed himself of their services upon occasion. Emily knew that, just as she knew that all of them had been women he liked and respected but did not love. Not as he loved her. After all these years, it was she with whom he still shared everything except the physical intimacy which they had lost forever. His brief affairs hurt her, he knew—not because she felt betrayed, but because it reminded her of what had been taken from them—and because of that, he was always discreet. He would never let them become public knowledge, never allow even the hint of a possible scandal to expose her to potential humiliation. But he never tried to hide the truth from her, for he owed her honesty, and "crippled" or not, she remained one of the strongest people he had ever known . . . and the only woman he loved or had ever loved.
Wat of Honor, chapter 12: "Yes. I said that I know you and Hamish aren't lovers, and I do. I know because, frankly, I've known that he has had lovers. Not many of them, of course, but a few."
She looked away from her guest, at something only she could see, and the deep, bittersweet longing at her center pricked Honor's eyes with tears. It wasn't anger, or a sense of betrayal. It was regret. It was loss. It was sorrow for the one thing she and the man who loved her—and whom she loved, with all her heart—could never share again. She didn't blame him for seeking that one thing with others; but she bled inside with the knowledge that she could never give it to him herself.
"All of them, with one single exception he deeply regrets, have been registered courtesans," she went on softly, "but he's also respected and liked them. If he hadn't, he would never have taken them to bed. He isn't the sort of man to have casual affairs, or to 'sleep around.' He has too much integrity for that." She smiled sadly. "I suppose it must sound odd for a wife to speak about her husband's integrity when he chooses his lovers, but it's really the only word that fits. If he'd asked me, I would've told him that, yes, it hurts, but not because he's being 'unfaithful' to me. It hurts because I can no longer give him the one thing they can . . . and that he can no longer give it to me. Which is why he's never asked me, because he already knows what I'd say. And that's also why he's been so utterly discreet. He knows that no one in our circles would have faulted him for patronizing an RC under the circumstances, and that most other Manticorans would understand, as well. But he's always been determined to avoid putting that to the test. Not to shield his own reputation, but to protect me, to avoid underscoring the fact that I'll never again leave this chair. He doesn't want to humiliate me by even suggesting that I might be somehow . . . inadequate. A cripple.
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