Miles in Love - Lois McMaster Bujold [353]
Vassily said uneasily, "I'm sure your uncle and aunt are very kind—after all, they took you and Nikki in—but I'm given to understand they are both rather unworldly intellectuals. Possibly they do not understand the dangers. My informant says they haven't been guarding you at all. They've permitted you to go where you will, when you will, in a completely unregulated fashion, and come in contact with all sorts of dubious persons."
Their unworldly aunt was one of Barrayar's foremost experts on every gory detail of the political history of the Time of Isolation, spoke and read four languages flawlessly, could sift through documentation with an eye worthy of an ImpSec analyst—a line of work several of her former graduate students were now in—and had thirty years of experience dealing with young people and their self-inflicted troubles. And as for Uncle Vorthys—"Engineering failure analysis does not strike me as an especially unworldly discipline. Not when it includes expertise on sabotage." She inhaled, preparing to enlarge on this.
Vassily's lips tightened. "The capital has a reputation as an unsavory milieu. Too many wealthy, powerful men—and their women—with too few restraints on their appetites and vices. That's a dangerous world for a young boy to be exposed to, especially through his mother's . . . love affairs." Ekaterin was still mentally sputtering over this one when Vassily's voice dropped to a tone of hushed horror, and he added, "I've even heard—they say—that there's a high Vor lord here in Vorbarr Sultana who used to be a woman, who had her brain transplanted to a man's body."
Ekaterin blinked. "Oh. Yes, that would be Lord Dono Vorrutyer. I've met him. It wasn't a brain transplant—ick! what a horrid misrepresentation—it was just a perfectly ordinary Betan body mod."
Both men boggled at her. "You encountered this creature?" said Hugo. "Where?"
"Um . . . Vorkosigan House. Actually. Dono seemed a very bright fellow. I think he'll do very well for Vorrutyer's District, if the Council grants him his late brother's Countship." She added after a moment of bitter consideration, "All things considered, I quite hope he gets it. That would give Richars and his slandering cronies one in the eye!"
Hugo, who had absorbed this exchange with growing dismay, put in, "I have to agree with Vassily, I'm a little uneasy myself about having you down here in the capital. The family so wishes to see you safe, Kat. I grant you're no girl anymore. You should have your own household, watched over by a steady husband who can be trusted to guard your welfare and Nikki's."
You could get your wish. Yet . . . she had stood up to armed terrorists, and survived. And won. Her definition of safe was . . . not so very narrow as that, anymore.
"A man of your own class," Hugo went on persuasively. "Someone who's right for you."
I think I've found him. He comes with a house where I don't hit the walls each time I stretch, either. Not even if I stretched out forever. She cocked her head. "Just what do you think my class is, Hugo?"
He looked nonplused. "Our class. Solid, honest, loyal Vor. On the women's side, modest, proper, upright . . . ."
She was suddenly on fire with a desire to be immodest, improper, and above all . . . not upright. Quite gloriously horizontal, in fact. It occurred to her that a certain disparity of height would be immaterial, when one—or two—were lying down . . . "You think I should have a house?"
"Yes, certainly."
"Not a planet?"
Hugo looked taken aback. "What? Of course not!"
"You know, Hugo, I never realized it before, but your vision lacks . . . scope." Miles thought she should have a planet. She paused, and a slow smile stole over her lips. After all, his mother had one. It was all in what you were used to, she supposed. No point in saying this aloud; they wouldn't get the joke.
And how had her big brother, admired and generous if more than a little distant due to their disparity of age, grown so small-minded of late? No . . . Hugo hadn't changed. The logical conclusion shook