The Vorkosigan Companion - Lillian Stewart Carl [116]
to Barrayar and her family, whom she hasn't told about her relationship with Mark, and also worrying about how she will afford her next year at the Betan university. At the same time, Ivan Vorpatril is having his own problems; besides being drafted to help his mother Alys with any of the thousand and one jobs that need doing in preparation for the Emperor's wedding, he's also feeling the acute shortage of Barrayaran brides, courtesy of the previous generation's mania for male children, to the extent that choosing their babies' sexes has created a serious gender imbalance. Working with Ekaterin almost every day, Miles manages to keep his true feelings from her, but can't keep quiet to anyone else, extracting a promise from Ivan to stay away from her, and telling everyone in earshot about his cunning plan. Miffed, Ivan keeps his promise, but sets another man, Lieutenant Alexi Vormoncrief, to woo her instead, figuring his lack of personality won't make him a serious threat, but will shake up Miles a bit. It does shake Miles, for when he next sees Ekaterin, she is tensely entertaining not one, but three gentlemen, Alexi, a ne'er-do-well named Byerly Vorrutyer, and a Major Zamori. Miles immediately puts his plans for a dinner party into high gear. Meanwhile, Ivan is entangled in even more problems of his own; first, Vormoncrief becomes quite taken with Ekaterin, to the point of proposing marriage, which was not what Ivan had in mind at all. Second, one of his former paramours, Lady Donna Vorrutyer, is contesting her late brother's estate passing to his brother Richars, a cold, cruel man. To stop it, she has gone to Beta Colony and has changed herself into a man—completely. Ivan introduces the new Lord Dono to Gregor, who lets him press his claim to the estate. Meanwhile, Mark, Enrique, Kareen, and Ekaterin have been choosing sites for their expanding butter bug business. Miles's carefully planned dinner party disintegrates into a shambles, from the unexpected Lord Dono making an appearance, to the use of bug butter as a last-minute ingredient in several dishes, to Enrique engineering the Vorkosigan House crest on the backs of his latest batch of butter bugs—and then accidentally releasing them throughout the household. The evening comes to a sudden and terrible end when Simon Illyan lets the cat out of the bag by asking Ekaterin how Miles's courtship is progressing. Since Miles hadn't even hinted of pressing his suit to her, she feels that he has lied to her about the garden commission, and was just using it to get close to her. Storming out, she runs smack into Aral Vorkosigan, followed by his wife, both of whom have just come back from Sergyar in time to see a distraught young woman fleeing their house, with Miles in desperate pursuit. Crushed, Miles retreats into the house to take advice from his parents, who advise making his true feelings known, and the sooner the better. Mark also had an inadvertent revelation come out at the dinner party which let Kareen's parents know of their relationship, and not in the tamest way either. Forbidden from seeing her, Mark is also not at his best. Ivan is still tied up with wedding preparations, and now has to juggle his involvement with the Lord Dono estate claim, which will be going to the Council of Counts in the next few days. Miles teams Dono with René Vorbretten, another lord who is suffering a challenge to his own right to rule, owing to the discovery that he is one-eighth Cetagandan, as a result of one of his ancestors' actions during the Cetagandan invasion, to work together, and strengthen each other's claims. Meanwhile, the events of the dinner party have spread throughout Vorbarr Sultana, and some of the conservative Vor lords, who have also been talking about what happened on Komarr, are spreading the rumor that Miles killed Tien to get Ekaterin. Threatened by Richars with a murder charge unless Miles votes for his confirmation as count, Miles decides to ensure that Richars doesn't claim the title. Lieutenant Vormoncrief, meanwhile, has been trying to gather support after