Cordelia's Honor - Lois McMaster Bujold [35]
"I'd like that very much. Will your ship be returning to Barrayar soon?"
"Not for some time, I'm afraid. You're in for a long period as a prisoner. But when we return, in view of the escape of your ship, there should be no reason to continue your internment. You should be freed to present yourself at the Betan embassy, and go home. If you wish."
"If I wish!" She laughed a little, uncertainly, and sat back against her hard pillow. He was watching her face intently. His posture was a fair simulation of a man at his ease, but one boot was tapping unconsciously. His eye fell on it, he frowned, and it stopped. "Why shouldn't I wish?"
"I thought, perhaps, when we arrive on Barrayar, and you are free, you might consider staying."
"To visit—where you said, Bonsanklar, and so on? I don't know how much leave I'll have, but—sure, I like to see new places. I'd like to see your planet."
"Not a visit. Permanently. As—as Lady Vorkosigan." His face brightened with a wry smile. "I'm making a hash of this. I promise, I'll never think of Betans as cowards again. I swear your customs take more bravery than the most suicidal of our boys' contests of skill."
She let her breath trickle out through pursed lips. "You don't—deal in small change, do you?" She wondered where the phrase about hearts leaping up came from. It felt far more like the bottom dropping out of her stomach. Her consciousness of her own body shot up with a lurch; she was already overwhelmingly conscious of his.
He shook his head. "That's not what I want, for you, with you. You should have the best. I'm hardly that, you must know by now. But at least I can offer you the best that I have. Dear C—Commander, am I too sudden, by Betan standards? I've been waiting for days, for the right opportunity, but there never seemed to be one."
"Days! How long have you been thinking along these lines?"
"It first occurred to me when I saw you in the ravine."
"What, throwing up in the mud?"
He grinned at that. "With great composure. By the time we finished burying your officer, I knew."
She rubbed her lips. "Anybody ever tell you you're a lunatic?"
"Not in this context."
"I—you've confused me."
"Not offended you?"
"No, of course not."
He relaxed just slightly. "You needn't say yes or no right now, of course. It will be months before we're home. But I didn't want you to think—it makes things awkward, your being a prisoner. I didn't want you to think I was offering you an insult."
"Not at all," she said faintly.
"There are some other things I should tell you," he went on, his attention seemingly caught by his boots again. "It wouldn't be an easy life. I have been thinking, since I met you, that a career cleaning up after the failures of politics, as you phrased it, might not be the highest honor after all. Maybe I should be trying to prevent the failures at their source. It would be more dangerous than soldiering—chances of betrayal, false charges, assassination, maybe exile, poverty, death. Evil compromises with bad men for a little good result, and that not guaranteed. Not a good life, but if one had children—better me than them."
"You sure know how to show a girl a good time," she said helplessly, rubbing her chin and smiling.
Vorkosigan looked up, uncertain of his hope.
"How does one set about a political career, on Barrayar?" she asked, feeling her way. "I presume you're thinking of following in your grandfather Prince Xav's steps, but without the advantage of being an Imperial prince, how do you get an office?"
"Three ways. Imperial appointment, inheritance, and rising through the ranks. The Council of Ministers gets its best men through the last method. It's their great strength,