Miles in Love - Lois McMaster Bujold [324]
She got shoes on Nikki, left a message for her aunt, locked up, and followed Illyan to his car. Nikki was pale, and growing quieter and quieter.
The drive was short. As they turned into Vorkosigan House's street, Ekaterin realized she didn't even know if Miles would be there. She should have called him on the comconsole, but Illyan had been so prompt with his offer . . . . They passed the bare, baking Barrayaran garden, sloping down from the sidewalk. On the far side of the desert expanse, a small, lone figure sat on the curving edge of a raised bed of dirt.
"Wait, stop!"
Illyan followed her glance, and signaled his driver. Ekaterin had the canopy popped and was climbing out almost before the vehicle had sighed to the pavement.
"Is there anything else I can do for you, Madame Vorsoisson?" Illyan called after her, as she stood aside to let Nikki exit.
She leaned back toward him to breathe venomously, "Yes. Hang Vormoncrief."
He offered her a sincere salute. "I shall do my humble best, madame."
His groundcar pulled away as, Nikki in tow, she turned to step over the low chain blocking foot traffic from the site, and strode down into the garden.
Soil was a living part of a garden, a complex ecosystem of microorganisms, but this soil was going to be dead in the sun and gone in the rains if no one got its proper ground cover installed . . . Miles, she saw as she drew nearer, was sitting next to the only plant in this whole blighted expanse, the little skellytum rootling. It was hard to say which of them looked more desperate and forlorn. An empty pitcher sat on the wall next to his knee, and he stared in worry at the rootling and the spreading stain of water on the soil around it. He glanced up at the sound of their approaching steps. His lips parted; the most appalling thrilled look passed over his face, to be suppressed almost instantly and replaced by an expression of wary courtesy.
"Madame Vorsoisson," he managed. "What are you uh, doing . . . um, welcome. Welcome. Hello, Nikki . . ."
She couldn't help it; the first words out of her mouth were nothing she'd rehearsed in the groundcar, but rather, "You haven't been pouring water over the barrel, have you?"
He glanced at it, and back to her. "Ah . . . shouldn't I?"
"Only around the roots. Didn't you read the instructions?"
He glanced guiltily again at the plant, as if expecting to find a tag he'd overlooked. "What instructions?"
"The ones I sent you, the appendix—oh, never mind." She pressed her fingers to her temples, clutching for coherence in her seething brain.
His sleeves were rolled up in the heat; the ragged red scars ringing his wrists were plainly visible in the bright sunlight, as were the fine pale lines of the much older surgical scars running up his arms. Nikki stared at them in worry. Miles's gaze finally tore itself from her general hereness, and took in her agitated state.
His voice went flatter. "I gather gardening isn't what you came about."
"No." This was going to be hard—or maybe not. He knows. And he didn't tell me. "Have you heard about this . . . this monstrous accusation going around?"
"Yesterday," he answered bluntly.
"Why didn't you warn me?"
"General Allegre asked me to wait on ImpSec's security evaluation. If this . . . ugly rumor has security implications, I am not free to act purely on my own behalf. If not . . . it's still a difficult business. An accusation, I could fight. This is something subtler." He glanced around. "However, since it's now come to you perforce, his request is moot, and I shall consider myself relieved of it. I think perhaps we'd better continue this inside."
She contemplated the desolate space, open to the sky and the city. "Yes."
"If you will?" He gestured toward Vorkosigan House, but made no move to touch her. Ekaterin took Nikki by the hand,