Miles in Love - Lois McMaster Bujold [325]
He led them up to "his" floor, back to the cheerful sunny room in which he'd fed her that memorable luncheon. When they reached the Yellow Parlor, he seated her and Nikki on the delicate primrose sofa and himself on a straight chair across from them. There were lines of tension around his mouth she hadn't seen since Komarr. He leaned forward with his hands clasped between his knees and asked her, "How and when did it come to you?"
She gave a, to her ears, barely coherent account of Vormoncrief's intrusion, corroborated by occasional elaborations from Nikki. Miles listened gravely to Nikki's stammering recital, attending to him with a serious respect which seemed to steady the boy despite the horrifying nature of the subject. Although he did have to suck a smile back off his lips when Nikki got to a vivid description of how Vormoncrief acquired his bloody nose—"And he got it all over his uniform, too!" Ekaterin blinked, taken aback to find herself receiving exactly the same look of pleased masculine admiration from both parties.
But the moment of enthusiasm passed.
Miles rubbed his forehead. "If it were up to my judgment, I'd answer several of Nikki's questions here and now. My judgment is unfortunately suspect. Conflict of interest doesn't even begin to cover my position in this." He sighed softly, and leaned back on the hard chair in an unconvincing simulation of ease. "The first thing I would like to point out is that at the moment, all the onus is on me. The backsplash of this sewage appears to have missed you. I'd like to see it stay that way. If we . . . don't see each other, no one will have pretext to target you with further slander."
"But that would make you look worse," said Ekaterin. "It would make it look as if I believed Alexi's lies."
"The alternative would make it look as if we had somehow colluded in Tien's death. I don't see how to win this one. I do see how to cut the damage in half."
Ekaterin frowned deeply. And leave you standing there to be pelted with this garbage all alone? After a moment she said, "Your proposed solution is unacceptable. Find another."
His eyes rose searchingly to her face. "As you wish . . ."
"What are you talking about?" Nikki demanded, his brows drawn down in confusion.
"Ah." Miles touched his lips, and regarded the boy. "The reason, it seems, that my political opponents have accused me of sabotaging your da's breath mask, is that I want to court your mother."
Nikki's nose wrinkled, as he worked through this. "Did you really ask her to marry you?"
"Well, yes. In a pretty clumsy way. I did." Was he actually reddening? He spared her a quick glance, but she didn't know what he saw in her face. Or what he made of it. "But now I'm afraid that if she and I continue to go around together, people will say we must have plotted together against your da. She's afraid that if we don't continue to go around together, people will say that proves she thinks I did—I'm sorry if this distresses you—murder him. It's called, damned if you do, damned if you don't."
"Damn them all," said Ekaterin harshly. "I don't care what any of those ignorant idiots think, or say, or do. People can go choke on their vile gossip." Her hands clenched in her lap. "I do care what Nikki thinks." Rot Vormoncrief.
Vorkosigan raised an eyebrow at her. "And you think this version wouldn't come around to him too, the way the first one did?"
She looked away from him. Nikki was scrunching up again, glancing uncertainly from adult to adult. This was not, Ekaterin decided, the moment to tell him to keep his feet off the good furniture.
"Right," Miles breathed. "All right, then." He gave her a ghost of a nod. She was shaken by a weird inner vision of a knight drawing down his visor before facing the tilt. He studied Nikki a moment, and moistened his lips. "So—what do you think of it all so far, Nikki?"
"Dunno." Nikki, so briefly voluble, was drawing in again, not good.
"I don't mean facts. No one has given you enough facts