Miles in Love - Lois McMaster Bujold [240]
"Nobody, dammit, but—but—" He swallowed, and prepared to run down the drill one more time. "Madame Vorsoisson is . . . is . . ." Why was this getting harder to explain with practice, instead of easier? "Is in formal mourning for her late husband. I have every intention of declaring myself to her when the time is right. The time is not right. So I have to wait." He gritted his teeth. René was now leaning his chin on his hand, his finger across his lips, and his eyes alight. "And I hate waiting," Miles burst out.
"Oh," said René. "I see."
"Is she in love with you too?" asked Tatya, with a furtive fond glance at her husband.
God, the Vorbrettens were as gooey as Gregor and Laisa, and after three years, too. This marital enthusiasm was a damned contagious disease. "I don't know," Miles confessed in a smaller voice.
"He told Mark he's courting her in secret," Martya put in to the Vorbrettens. "It's a secret from her. We're all still trying to figure that one out."
"Is the entire city party to my private conversations?" Miles snarled. "I'm going to strangle Mark."
Martya blinked at him with manufactured innocence. "Kareen had it from Mark. I had it from Ivan. Mama had it from Gregor. And Da had it from Pym. If you're trying to keep a secret, Miles, why are you going around telling everyone?"
Miles took a deep breath.
Countess Vorbretten said demurely, "Thank you, Lord Vorkosigan. My husband and I would be pleased to come to your dinner party." She dimpled at him.
His breath blew out in a, "You're welcome."
"Will the Viceroy and Vicereine be back from Sergyar?" René asked Miles. His voice was tinged with political curiosity.
"No. In fact. Though they're due quite soon. This is my party. My last chance to have Vorkosigan House to myself before it fills up with the traveling circus." Not that he didn't look forward to his parents' return, but his head-of-the-House role had been rather . . . pleasant, these past few months. Besides, introducing Ekaterin to Count and Countess Vorkosigan, her prospective future parents-in-law, was something he wished to choreograph with the utmost care.
He'd surely done his social duty by now. Miles rose with some dignity, and bid everyone farewell, and politely offered Martya and Olivia a ride, if they wished it. Olivia was staying on with her friend the Countess, but Martya took him up on it.
Miles gave Pym a fishy look as the Armsman opened the groundcar canopy for them to enter the rear compartment. Miles had always put down Pym's extraordinary ability to collect gossip, a most valuable skill to Miles in his new post, to Pym's old ImpSec training. He hadn't quite realized Pym might be trading. Pym, catching the look but not its cause, went a bit blander than usual, but seemed otherwise unaffected by his liege-lord's displeasure.
In the rear compartment with Martya as they pulled away from Vorbretten House and swung down toward the Star Bridge, Miles seriously considered dressing her down for roasting him about Ekaterin in front of the Vorbrettens. He was an Imperial Auditor now, by God—or at least by Gregor. But then he'd get no further information out of her. He controlled his temper.
"How do the Vorbrettens seem to be holding up, from your view?" he asked her.
She shrugged. "They're putting up a good front, but I think they're pretty shaken. René thinks he's going to lose the case, and his District, and everything."
"So I gathered. And he might, if he doesn't make more push to keep it." Miles frowned.
"He's hated the Cetagandans ever since they killed his da in the war for the Hegen Hub. Tatya says it just spooks him, to think the Cetagandans are in him." She added after a moment, "I think it spooks her a little, too. I mean . . . now we know why that branch of the Vorbrettens suddenly acquired that extraordinary musical talent, after the Occupation."
"I'd made that connection too. But she seems to be standing by him." Unpleasant, to think this mischance might cost René his marriage as well as his