Lois Bujold - Memory

Martya was a younger, shorter, and tawnier version of Delia, though no less striking in her own way. She wore something pale green tonight, in a shade perfectly calculated to complement Imperial dress uniforms.

As Miles neared them, Martya poked her partner and said, "Ivan, you twit, stop watching my sister. You asked me to this dance, remember?"

"Yes, but … I asked her first."

"You were too slow off the mark. Serve you right if I step on your boots and spoil the shine." She glanced aside at Miles, and added to him, "I'm going to be so glad when Delia finally picks someone, and moves out. I'm getting as tired of hand-me-down men as I am of hand-me-down clothes."

"As well you should be, milady." Miles bowed over her hand, and kissed it.

That got Ivan's attention; he repossessed Martya's hand, and patted it soothingly. "Sorry," he apologized. But his eyes shifted left for one more surreptitious glance.

Miles looked too, and spotted the bright blond head at once. Delia Koudelka was seated on one of the little sofas next to Duv Galeni; they were apparently sharing the plate of hors d'oeuvres balanced on Galeni's knee. The dark head and the blond bent together for a moment, then Delia laughed. Galeni's long teeth flashed in one of his more saturnine smiles. Galeni's knee was touching Delia's, Miles noted with unexpectedly keen interest.

A servitor with a tray of glasses circulated near. "Would you care for a drink?" Ivan asked Martya.

"Yes, please, but not that red stuff. White, please." Ivan departed in pursuit of the servitor, and Martya confided to Miles, "When I dribble it on myself, it won't show that way. I don't know how Delia does it. She never spills anything. Some days I feel like she's practicing to be Lady Alys."

Galeni hadn't mentioned he would be here—with Delia—when they'd spoken at ImpSec HQ . . . only yesterday? "How long has this been going on?" Miles asked Martya, with a jerk of his head in Galeni's direction.

Martya smirked. "Delia told our Da a month ago that Duv was going to be the one. She likes Duv's style, she says. I think he's all right, for an old fellow."

"I have style, too," Miles pointed out.

"One all your own," Martya agreed blandly.

Miles prudently decided not to follow up on that straight line. "Um . . . and when did old Duv find out?"

"Delia's working on it. Some fellows you have to hit with a brick to get their attention. Some you have to hit with a big brick."

As Miles was trying to figure out which category she thought he fell into, Ivan returned, balancing beverages. A few minutes later the first strains of music sounded from the next room; Ivan rescued Martya's gown from its rendezvous with spiced wine and bore her away for the dancing. If the civilian strangers' faces here were work-friends of Laisa's from the shippers consortium, there was quite a sprinkling of other Komarrans in the crowd. Nothing political about this party, hah. Galeni's presence, Miles suspected, must be due to Laisa's hand in the guest list. Her best old friend, of course.

Miles grazed for a time on the hors d'oeuvres, splendid as always, then drifted into the next room to listen to the music and watch the dancers. He became keenly aware that his failure to pack along his own partner left him odd man out, and not the only one; the ratio of men to women present was easily ten to nine, if not ten to eight. He cadged one or two dances with women who knew him well enough not to mind his height, such as Henri Vorvolk's Countess, but all of them were depressingly married or attached. The rest of the time he practiced his best sinister Illyanesque holding-up-the-wall pose.

Illyan himself danced past with Alys Vorpatril. Ivan, pausing beside Miles to fortify himself with a cup of hot spiced wine, stared in astonishment.

"I didn't know old Illyan could dance," he commented.

"I sure didn't know he could dance that well," Miles agreed. Ivan was not the only one doing a double-take. Henri Vorvolk's wife, watching Alys and her partner sail by, whispered some comment in her husband's ear; he looked up with a bemused smile. "I've never seen Illyan do anything like that before. I suppose he was always on-duty." Always. Dr. Ruibal had mentioned personality changes as well as cognitive changes as a possible side effect of the chip removal . . . hell, just removing that thirty-year burden of crushing responsibility could account for it.

A wisp of hair escaped Lady Alys's elaborate beflowered coiffure, and she brushed it back from her forehead. The image of her en deshabille at breakfast burst in Miles's memory, and he had the sudden sensation of being hit with a big brick. He choked on his own wine.

Good God. Illyan's sleeping with my aunt.

And vice versa, or something. He wasn't sure if he should be indignant or pleased. The only clear thought that came to him was a suddenly renewed admiration for Illyan's cool nerve.

"Are you all right?" Ivan asked him.

"Oh, yes." I think I will let Ivan figure this one out for himself. He hid an uncontrollable grin by knocking back another gulp of wine.

He escaped Ivan and retreated into the reception room. At the buffet there he ran into Captain Galeni, selecting snacks for Delia, who waited demurely nearby. She favored Miles with a little, distant wave of her fingers.

"You, ah … found a new dance partner, I see," Miles commented to Galeni's ear.

Galeni smiled, like a pleased fox with its mouth full of feathers. "Yes."

"I was going to ask her to this thing. She said she was busy tonight."

"Too bad, Miles."

"Is this some kind of skewed symmetry?"

Galeni's black brows twitched. "I don't pretend I'm above a little revenge, but I'm an honorable man. I asked her first if she thought you were serious about her. She said no."

"Oh." Miles pretended to nibble on a fruit pastry. "And are you serious about her?" He felt like a stand-in for Commodore Koudelka, demanding to know Galeni's intentions.

"Deathly," Galeni breathed, his smile, for a moment, utterly gone from his eyes. Miles almost recoiled. Galeni blinked, and continued more lightly, "With her background and connections, she'd make a superb political hostess, don't you think?" The slow smile widened. "The brains and beauty don't hurt, either."

"No fortune," Miles pointed out.

Galeni shrugged. "I can do something about that myself, if I put my mind to it."

Miles had no doubt of it. "Well . . ." It would not quite do to say, Better luck this time. "Would you, ah . . . like me to put in a good word for you with her da the Commodore?"

"I hope you won't take this in bad part, Miles, but I would really rather you didn't try to do me any more favors."

"Oh. I can see that, I guess."

"Thank you. I don't care to repeat mistakes. I'm going to ask her tonight, on the way home." Galeni nodded in determination, and abandoned Miles without a backwards look.

Duv and Delia. Delia and Duv. They made an alliterative couple, anyway.

Miles fended off queries from two acquaintances who had heard garbled rumors about his Imperial Auditor's appointment, then ducked back into the music chamber, where conversation was more difficult. His brain, inexorably, began turning over last night's data, as he leaned and watched with unseeing eyes as the dancers swirled past. Ten or so minutes of this aimless glowering, and people were beginning to stare at him; he pushed off from the wall and went to beg a dance from Laisa while there was still time. Gregor would surely claim the last couple of rounds for himself.

He was absorbed in keeping the beat to a rather fast-paced mirror dance with Laisa, and trying not to appreciate his Emperor's fiancee's well-padded figure too openly, when he caught a glimpse of Galeni through the arched doors into the reception room. An ImpSec colonel and two enlisted guards in ordinary undress greens had accosted him; Galeni and the colonel stood arguing in some fierce undertone. Delia stood a little away from them, blue eyes wide, her hand touching her lips. Galeni was stiff-backed, his face set in that blank and burning look that suggested well-suppressed but dangerous rage. What ImpSec emergency could be dire enough to send them to fetch their top Komarran analyst out of a party? Worried, he slid and dipped and turned so as to put Laisa's back to the archway.