Miles Errant - Lois McMaster Bujold [81]
"Miles," Elli interrupted him gently.
"Yes?" he said breathlessly.
"You're babbling. Why are you babbling? I could listen by the hour, but it's worrisome when you get stuck on fast-forward."
"I'm nervous," he confessed. He smiled blindingly at her.
"Delayed reaction, from this afternoon?" She slipped closer to him, comfortingly. "I can understand that."
He eased his right arm around her waist. "No. Yes, well, maybe a little. Would you like to be Countess Vorkosigan?"
She grinned. "Made of glass? Not my style, thanks. Really, though, the title sounds more like something that would go with black leather and chromium studs."
The mental image of Elli so attired was so arresting, it took him a full half minute of silence to trace back to the wrong turn. "Let me rephrase that," he said at last. "Will you marry me?"
The silence this time was much longer.
"I thought you were working up to asking me to go to bed with you," she said finally, "and I was laughing. At your nerves." She wasn't laughing now.
"No," said Miles. "That would have been easy."
"You don't want much, do you? Just to completely rearrange the rest of my life."
"It's good that you understand that part. It's not just a marriage. There's a whole job description that goes with it."
"On Barrayar. Downside."
"Yes. Well, there might be some travel."
She was quiet for too long, then said, "I was born in space. Grew up on a deep-space transfer station. Worked most of my adult life aboard ships. The time I've spent with my feet on real dirt can be measured in months."
"It would be a change," Miles admitted uneasily.
"And what would happen to the future Admiral Quinn, free mercenary?"
"Presumably—hopefully—she would find the work of Lady Vorkosigan equally interesting."
"Let me guess. The work of Lady Vorkosigan would not include ship command."
"The security risks of allowing such a career would appall even me. My mother gave up a ship command—Betan Astronomical Survey—to go to Barrayar."
"Are you telling me you're looking for a girl just like Mom?"
"She has to be smart—she has to be fast—she has to be a determined survivor," Miles explained unhappily. "Anything less would be a slaughter of the innocent. Maybe for her, maybe for our children with her. Bodyguards, as you know, can only do so much."
Her breath blew out in a long, silent whistle, watching him watching her. The slippage between the distress in her eyes and the smile on her lips tore at him. Didn't want to hurt you— the best I can offer shouldn't be pain to you—is it too much, too little . . . too awful?
"Oh, love," she breathed sadly, "you aren't thinking."
"I think the world of you."
"And so you want to maroon me for the rest of my life on a, sorry, backwater dirtball that's just barely climbed out of feudalism, that treats women like chattel—or cattle—that would deny me the use of every military skill I've learned in the past twelve years from shuttle docking to interrogation chemistry . . . I'm sorry. I'm not an anthropologist, I'm not a saint, and I'm not crazy."
"You don't have to say no right away," said Miles in a small voice.
"Oh, yes I do," she said. "Before looking at you makes me any weaker in the knees. Or in the head."
And what am I to say to that? If you really loved me, you'd be delighted to immolate your entire personal history on my behalf? Oh, sure. She's not into immolation. This makes her strong, her strength makes me want her, and so we come full circle. "It's Barrayar that's the problem, then."
"Of course. What female human in her right mind would voluntarily move to that planet? With the exception of your mother, apparently."
"She is exceptional. But . . . when she and Barrayar collide, it's Barrayar that changes. I've seen it. You could be a force of change like that."
Elli was shaking her head. "I know my limits."
"No one knows their limits till they've gone beyond them."
She eyed him. "You would naturally think so. What's with you and Barrayar, anyway? You let