Miles, Mystery & Mayhem - Lois McMaster Bujold [82]
The Barrayaran party collected drinks and began a slow circuit of the rooftop garden's walks, comparing views. They also collected stares, from the elderly ghem and haut scattered about; but none came up to introduce themselves, or ask questions, or attempt to start a conversation. Vorob'yev himself was only scouting, so far, Miles thought, but the man would surely pursue the evening's opportunities for contact-making soon. How Miles was to divest himself of the ambassador when his own contact turned up, he was not sure. Assuming this was where his contact was to meet him, and it wasn't all just his hyperactive imagination, or—
Or the next assassination attempt. They'd rounded some greenery to see a woman in haut-white, but with no haut-bubble, standing alone and staring out over the city. Miles recognized her from the heavy chocolate-dark braid falling down her back to her ankles, even at this three-quarters-turned view. The haut Vio d'Chilian. Was ghem-General Chilian here? Was Kety himself?
Ivan's breath drew in. Right. Except for their elderly hostess, this was the first time Ivan had seen a haut-woman outside her bubble, and Ivan lacked the . . . inoculation of the haut Rian. Miles found he could view the haut Vio this time with scarcely a tremor. Were the haut-women a disease that you could only catch once, like the legendary smallpox, and if you survived it you were immune thereafter, however scarred?
"Who is she?" whispered Ivan, enchanted.
"Ghem-General Chilian's haut-wife," Vorob'yev murmured into his ear. "The ghem-general could order your liver fried for breakfast. I would send it to him. The free ghem-ladies can entertain themselves as they please with you, but the married haut are strictly off-limits. Understood?"
"Yes, sir," said Ivan faintly.
The haut Vio was staring as if hypnotized at the great glowing dome of the Celestial Garden. Longing for her lost life, Miles wondered? She'd spent years exiled in the hinterlands at Sigma Ceta with her ghem husband. What was she feeling, now? Happy? Homesick?
Some movement or sound from the Barrayarans must have broken her reverie, for her head turned toward them. For a second, just a second, her astonishing cinnamon eyes seemed copper-metallic with a rage so boundless, Miles's stomach lurched. Then her expression snapped into a smooth hauteur, as blank as the bubble she lacked, and as armored; the open emotion was gone so fast Miles was not sure the other two men had even seen it. But the look was not for them; it had been on her face even as she'd turned, before she could have identified the Barrayarans, blackly dressed in the shadows.
Ivan opened his mouth; Please, no, Miles thought, but Ivan had to try. "Good evening, milady. Wonderful view, eh?"
She hesitated a long moment—Miles pictured her fleeing—but then answered, in a low-pitched, perfectly modulated voice, "There is nothing like it in the universe."
Ivan, encouraged, brightened and moved forward. "Let me introduce myself. I'm Lord Ivan Vorpatril, of Barrayar. . . . And, uh, this is Ambassador Vorob'yev, and this is my cousin, Lord Miles Vorkosigan. Son of You-know-who, eh?"
Miles winced. Watching Ivan babble in sexual panic would normally be entertaining, if it wasn't so excruciatingly embarrassing. It reminded Miles painfully of—himself. Did I look like that much of a fool, the first time I saw Rian? He feared the answer was yes.
"Yes," said the haut Vio. "I know." Miles had seen people talk to their potted plants with more warmth and expression than the haut Vio turned on Ivan.
Give it up, Ivan, Miles urged silently. This woman is married to the first officer of a guy who maybe tried to kill us yesterday, remember? Unless Lord