Miles in Love (74 page)

"Ah . . ."

"Morning?"

"Not
morning
," By protested faintly.

"Early," insisted Dono.

"I'll . . . seewhatIcando," Ivan managed at last.

Dono's face lit. "
Thank
you!"

The extraction of this reluctant promise had one beneficial side-effect: the Vorrutyers proved willing to let their captive audience go, the better for Ivan to hurry home and call Emperor Gregor. Lord Dono insisted on detailing his car and a driver to take Ivan the short distance to his apartment, thwarting Ivan's faint hope of being mugged and murdered in a Vorbarr Sultana alleyway on the way home and thus avoiding the consequences of this evening's revelations.

Blessedly alone in the back of the groundcar, Ivan entertained a brief prayer that Gregor's schedule would be too packed to admit the proposed interview. But it was more likely he'd be so shocked at Ivan breaking his rule of a low profile, he'd make room at once. In Ivan's experience, the only thing more dangerous to such innocent bystanders as himself than arousing Gregor's wrath was arousing his curiosity.

Once back safely in his little apartment, Ivan locked the door against all Vorrutyers past and present. He'd beguiled his time yesterday imagining entertaining the voluptuous Lady Donna here . . . what a waste. Not that Lord Dono didn't make a passable man, but Barrayar didn't
need
more men. Though Ivan supposed they might reverse Donna's ploy, and send the excess male population to Beta Colony to be altered into the more pleasing form . . . he shuddered at the vision.

With a reluctant sigh, he dug out the security card he'd managed to avoid using for the past several years, and ran it through his comconsole's read-slot.

Gregor's gatekeeper, a man in bland civilian dress who did not identify himself—if you had this access, you were supposed to know—answered at once. "Yes? Ah. Ivan."

"I would like to speak to Gregor, please."

"Excuse me, Lord Vorpatril, but did you mean to use this channel?"

"Yes."

The gatekeeper's brows rose in surprise, but his hand moved to one side, and his image blinked out. The comconsole chimed. Several times.

Gregor's image came up at last. He was still dressed for the day, relieving Ivan's alarmed visions of dragging him out of bed or the shower. The background showed one of the Imperial Residence's cozier sitting rooms. Ivan could just make out a fuzzy view of Dr. Toscane, in the background. She seemed to be adjusting her blouse. Ulp.
Keep it brief. Gregor clearly has better things to do tonight.

I wish I did.

Gregor's blank expression changed to one of annoyance as he recognized Ivan. "Oh. It's you." The irritated look faded slightly. "You never call me on this channel, Ivan. Thought it had to be Miles. What's up?"

Ivan took a deep breath. "I just came from meeting . . . Donna Vorrutyer at the shuttleport. Back from Beta. You two need to see each other."

Gregor's brows rose. "Why?"

"I'm sure she'd much rather explain it all herself. I have nothing to do with this."

"You do now. Lady Donna's calling in old favors, is she?" Gregor frowned, and added a bit dangerously, "I am not a coin to be bartered in your love affairs, Ivan."

"No, Sire," Ivan agreed fervently. "But you want to see her. Really and truly. As soon as possible. Sooner. Tomorrow. Morning. Early."

Gregor cocked his head. Curiously. "Just how important is this?"

"That's entirely for you to judge. Sire."

"If
you
want nothing to do with it . . ." Gregor trailed off, and stared unnervingly at Ivan. His hand at last tapped on his comconsole control, and he glanced aside at some display Ivan could not see. "I could move . . . hm. How about eleven sharp, in my office."

"Thank you, Sire."
You won't regret this
seemed a much too optimistic statement to add. In fact, adding anything at all had all the appeal of stepping over a cliff without a grav-suit. Ivan smiled instead, and ducked his head in a little half-bow.

Gregor's frown grew more thoughtful still, but after a moment of further contemplation, he returned Ivan's nod, and cut the com.

_E
katerin sat before the comconsole in her aunt's study, and ran again through the seasonal succession of Barrayaran plants bordering the branching pathways of Lord Vorkosigan's garden. The one sensory effect the design program could not help her model was odor. For that most subtle and emotionally profound effect, she had to rely on her own experience and memory.

On a soft summer evening, a border of scrubwire would emit a spicy redolence that would fill the air for meters around, but its color was muted and its shape low and round. Intermittent stands of chuffgrass would break up the lines, and reach full growth at the right time, but its sickly citrus scent would clash with the scrubwire, and besides, it was on the proscribed list of plants to which Lord Vorkosigan was allergic. Ah—zipweed! Its blond and maroon stripes would provide excellent vertical visual interest, and its faint sweet fragrance would combine well, appetizingly even, with the scrubwire. Put a clump there by the little bridge, and there and there. She altered the program, and ran the succession again.
Much better
. She took a sip of her cooling tea, and glanced at the time.

She could hear her Aunt Vorthys moving about in the kitchen. Late-sleeper Uncle Vorthys would be down soon, and shortly afterwards Nikki, and aesthetic concentration would be a lost cause. She had only a few days for any last design refinements before she began working with real plants in quantity. And less than two hours before she needed to be showered and dressed and onsite to watch the crew hook up and test the creek's water circulation.

If all went well, she could start laying her supply of Dendarii rocks today, and tuning the gentle burble of the water flow around and over and among them. The sound of the creek was another subtlety the design program could not help her with, though it had addressed environmental noise abatement. The walls and curving terraces were up onsite, and satisfactory; the city-noise-baffling effects were all she'd hoped for. Even in winter the garden would be hushed and restful. Blanketed with snow broken only by the bare up-reaching lines of the woodier scrub, the shape of the space would still please the eye and soothe the mind and heart.

By tonight, the bones of the thing would be complete. Tomorrow, the flesh, in the form of trucked-in, unterraformed native soils from remote corners of the Vorkosigan's District, would arrive. And tomorrow evening before Lord Vorkosigan's dinner party, just for promise, she would put the first plant into the soil: a certain spare rootling from an ancient South Continent skellytum tree. It would be fifteen years or more before it would grow to fill the space allotted for it, but what of that? Vorkosigans had held this ground for two hundred years. Chances were good Vorkosigans would still be there to see it in its maturity. Continuity. With continuity like that, you could grow a
real
garden. Or a real family . . .

The front door chimed, and Ekaterin jumped, abruptly aware she was still dressed in an old set of her uncle's ship knits for pajamas, with her hair escaping the tie at the nape of her neck. Her aunt's step sounded from the kitchen into the tiled hall, and Ekaterin tensed to duck out of the line of sight should it prove some formal visitor. Oh, dear, what if it was Lord Vorkosigan? She'd waked at dawn with garden revisions rioting through her head, sneaked quietly downstairs to work, and hadn't even brushed her teeth yet—but the voice greeting her aunt was a woman's, and a familiar one at that.
Rosalie, here? Why?

A dark-haired, fortyish woman leaned around the edge of the archway and smiled. Ekaterin waved back in surprise, and rose to go to the hallway and greet her. It was indeed Rosalie Vorvayne, the wife of Ekaterin's eldest brother. Ekaterin hadn't seen her since Tien's funeral. She wore conservative day-wear, skirt and jacket in a bronze green that flattered her olive skin, though the cut was a little dowdy and provincial. She had her daughter Edie in tow, to whom she said, "Run along upstairs and find your cousin Nikki. I have to talk to your Aunt Kat for a while." Edie had not quite reached the adolescent slouch stage, and thumped off willingly enough.

"What brings you to the capital at this hour?" Aunt Vorthys asked Rosalie.

"Is Hugo and everyone all right?" Ekaterin added.

"Oh, yes, we're all fine," Rosalie assured them. "Hugo couldn't get away from work, so I was dispatched. I plan to take Edie shopping later, but getting her up to catch the morning monorail was a real chore, believe me."

Hugo Vorvayne held a post in the Imperial Bureau of Mines northern regional headquarters in Vordarian's District, two hours away from Vorbarr Sultana by the express. Rosalie must have risen before light for this outing. Her two older sons, grown almost past the surly stage, presumably had been left to their own devices for the day.

"Have you had breakfast, Rosalie?" Aunt Vorthys asked. "Do you want any tea or coffee?"

"We ate on the monorail, but tea would be lovely, thank you, Aunt Vorthys."

Rosalie and Ekaterin both followed their aunt into her kitchen to offer assistance, and as a result all ended up seated around the kitchen table with their steaming cups. Rosalie brought them up to date upon the health of her husband, the events of her household, and the accomplishments of her sons since Tien's funeral. Her eyes narrowed with good humor, and she leaned forward confidingly. "But to answer your question, what brings me here is you, Kat."

"Me?" said Ekaterin blankly.

"Can't you imagine why?"

Ekaterin wondered if it would be rude to say,
No, how should I?
She compromised with an inquiring gesture, and raised eyebrows.

"Your father had a visitor a couple of days ago."

Rosalie's arch tone invited a guessing-game, but Ekaterin could only think of how soon she might finish the social niceties and get away to her work-site. She continued to smile dimly.

Rosalie shook her head in amused exasperation, leaned forward, and tapped her finger on the table beside her cup. "You, my dear, have a very eligible offer."

"Offer of what?" Rosalie wasn't likely to be bringing her a new garden design contract. But surely she couldn't mean—

"Marriage, what else? And from a proper Vor gentleman, too, I'm pleased to report. So old-fashioned of the man, he sent a Baba all the way from Vorbarr Sultana to your da in South Continent—it quite bowled the old man over. Your da called Hugo to pass on the particulars. We decided that after all that baba-ing rather than do it over the comconsole someone ought to tell you the good news in person. We're all so pleased, to think you might be settled again so soon."

Aunt Vorthys sat up, looking considerably startled. She put a finger to her lips.

A Vor gentleman from the capital, old-fashioned and highly conscious of etiquette, Da bowled over, who else could it be but—Ekaterin's heart seemed to stop, then explode.
Lord Vorkosigan? Miles, you rat, how could you do this without asking me first!
Her lips parted in a dizzying mixture of fury and elation.

The arrogant little—! But . . . he to pick
her
, to be his Lady Vorkosigan, chatelaine of that magnificent house and of his ancestral District—there was so much to be done in that beautiful District, so daunting and exciting—and Miles himself, oh, my. That fascinating scarred short body, that burning intensity, to come to
her
bed? His hands had touched her perhaps twice; they might as well have left scorch marks on her skin, so clearly did her body remember those brief pressures. She had not, had not dared, let herself think about him in that way, but now her carnal consciousness of him wrenched loose from its careful suppression and soared. Those humorous gray eyes, that alert, mobile, kissable mouth with its extraordinary range of expression . . . could be hers, all hers. But how
dare
he ambush her like this, in front of all her relatives?

"You're pleased?" Rosalie, watching her face closely, sat back and smiled. "Or should I say, thrilled? Good! And not completely surprised, I daresay."

"Not . . . completely."
I just didn't believe it. I chose not to believe it, because . . . because it would have ruined everything . . .

"We were afraid you might find it early days, after Tien and all. But the Baba said he meant to steal a march on all his rivals, your da told Hugo."

"He doesn't have any rivals." Ekaterin swallowed, feeling decidedly faint, thinking of the remembered scent of him. But how could he imagine that she—

"He has good hopes for his postmilitary career," Rosalie went on.

"Indeed, he's said so."
It's all kinds of hubris
, Miles had told her once, describing his ambitions for fame to exceed his father's. She'd gathered he didn't expect that fact to slow him down in the least.

"Good family connections."

Ekaterin couldn't help smiling. "A
slight
understatement, Rosalie."

"Not as rich as others of his rank, but well-enough to do, and I never thought you were one to hold out for the money. Though I always did think you needed to look a bit more to your own needs, Kat."

Well, yes, Ekaterin had been dimly aware that the Vorkosigans were not as wealthy as many other families of Count's rank, but Miles had riches enough to drown in by her old straitened standards. She would never have to pinch and scrape again. All her energy, all her thought, could be freed for higher goals—Nikki would have every opportunity—"Plenty enough for me, good heavens!"

But how bizarre of him, to send a Baba all the way to South Continent to talk to her da . . . was he that shy? Ekaterin's heart was almost touched, but for the reflection that it might simply be that Miles gave no thought to how much his wants inconvenienced others. Shy, or arrogant? Or both at once? He could be a most ambiguous man sometimes—charming as . . . as no one she'd ever met before, but elusive as water.

Not just elusive; slippery. Borderline trickster, even. A chill stole over her. Had his garden proposal been nothing more than a trick, a ploy to keep her close under his eye? The full implications began to sink in at last. Maybe he didn't admire her work. Maybe he didn't care about his garden at all. Maybe he was merely manipulating her. She knew herself to be hideously vulnerable to the faintest flattery. Her starvation for the slightest scrap of interest or affection was part of what had kept her self-prisoned in her marriage for so long. A kind of Tien-shaped box seemed to loom darkly before her, like a pitfall trap baited with poisoned love.