Irresistible Forces

She didn't sleep her way to the top by a long shot, and they're half-wits who say so.' She grinned briefly. ' That was just a perk. Some might say his, but I'd say hers.'

Roic's eyes crossed, trying to unravel this. 'Y'mean m'lord was lovers with her, 't —' He cut off the too not quite in time, and flushed. It seemed m'lord's covert ops career was even more… complicated than he'd ever imagined.

Taura cocked her head and regarded him with crinkling eyes. 'That's my favorite shade of pink, Roic. You are a country boy, aren't you? Life's uncertain out there. Things can go down bad, fast, anytime. People learn to grab what they can, when they can. For a time. We all just get a time, in our different ways.' She sighed. 'Their ways diverged when he took those horrible injuries that bounced him out of ImpSec. He couldn't go back up, and she wouldn't come down here. Elli Quinn's got no one but herself to blame for any chances she threw away. Though some people are born with more chances to waste than others, I'll admit. I say, grab the ones you're issued, run with them, and don't look back.'

'Something might be gaining on you?'

'I know perfectly well what's gaining on me.' Her grin flashed, oddly tilted this time. 'Anyway, Quinn might be more beautiful, but I was always taller.' She gave a satisfied nod. Glancing at him, she added, 'I guarantee Miles likes your height. It's sort of an issue with him. I know recruiting officers in three genders who would swoon for your shoulders, as well.'

He hadn't the least idea how to respond to that. He hoped she was enjoying the pink. 'M'lord thinks I'm a fool,' he said glumly.

Her brows shot up. 'Surely not.'

'Oh, yeah. You have no idea how I screwed up.'

'I've seen him forgive screwups that put his guts on the bloody ceiling. Literally. You'd have to go some to top that. How many people died?'

If you put it in that perspective… 'No one,' he admitted. 'I just wished I could have.'

She grinned in sympathy. 'Ah, one of those kinds of screwups. Oh, c'mon, tell.'

He hesitated. 'Y'know those nightmares where you find yourself walking around naked in the town square, or in front of your schoolteachers, or something?'

'My nightmares tend to be a bit more exotic, but yeah?'

'So, no lie, there I was… Last summer, m'lord's brother Mark brought home this damned Escobaran biologist, Dr. Borgos, that he'd picked up somewheres, and put him up in the basement of Vorkosigan House. An investment scheme. The biologist made bugs. And the bugs made bug butter. Tons of it. Slimy white stuff, edible, sort of. We found out the biologist had jumped bail back on Escobar — for fraud, no surprise — when't' skip-tracers they'd sent to arrest him showed up and talked their way into Vorkosigan House. Naturally, they picked a time when almost everyone had gone out. Lord Mark and the Koudelka sisters, who were in on the bug butter scheme, got in a fight with them when they tried to carry off Borgos, and the house staff waked me up to go sort it out. All in a tearing panic — wouldn't even let me grab my uniform trousers. I'd just got to sleep… Martya Koudelka claims it was friendly fire, but I dunno. I'd just about pushed the whole mess of 'em out the front door when in walks m'lord with Madame Vorsoisson and all her relatives. He'd just got engaged and wanted to make a good impression on 'em all… It was an unforgettable one, I guarantee. I was wearing briefs, boots, and about five kilos of bug butter, trying to deal wit' all these screaming, sticky maniacs…'

A muffled sound escaped from Taura. She had her hand over her mouth, but it wasn't helping; little squeaks still leaked out. Her eyes were alight.

'I swear it wouldn't a' been half so bad if I'd had my briefs on backwards and my stunner holster on frontways. I can still hear Pym's voice…' He mimicked the senior armsman's driest tones: ' 'Your weapon is worn on the right, Armsman.' '

She laughed out loud then, and looked him up and down in somewhat unsettling appreciation. 'That's a pretty amazing word picture, Roic.'

Despite himself, he smiled a little. 'I guess so. I dunno if m'lord's forgiven me, but I'm right sure Pym hasn't.' He sighed. 'If you see one of those damned vomit bugs still around, squash it on sight. Hideous bioengineered mutant things, kill 'em all before they multiply.'

Her laughter stopped cold.

Roic reran his last sentence in his head and made the unpleasant discovery that one could do far worse things to oneself with words than with dubious food products, or possibly even with needlers. He hardly dared look up to see her face. He forced his eyes right.

Her face was perfectly still, perfectly pale, perfectly blank. Perfectly appalling.

I meant those devil-bugs, not you!

He managed to stop that idiocy on his lips before it escaped to do even more damage, but only just. He couldn't think of any way to apologize that wouldn't make it worse.

'Ah, yes,' she said at last. 'Mles did warn me that Barrayarans had some pretty ugly issues about gene manipulation. I just forgot.'

And I reminded you.

'We're getting better,' he tried.

'Good for you.' She inhaled, a long breath. 'Let's go in. I'm getting cold.'

Roic was frozen straight through. 'Um. Yeah.'

They walked back to the gate in silence.

Roic slept the day around, trying to force his body back onto the boring night shift cycle that by the duty roster was to be his junior armsman's fate this Winterfair. He was quite sorry to thus miss seeing m'lord take his galactic guests and a selection of his in-laws-to-be on a tour of Vorbarr Sultana. He'd have been fascinated by what the two disparate parties made of each other. Madame Vorsoisson's family, the Vorvaynes, were solid provincial Vor types of the sort Roic had always regarded as normal to the class, before he'd taken up his duties in Vorkosigan House's high Vor milieu. M'lord, well… m'lord wasn't standard by anybody's standard. The four Vorvayne brothers, though dutifully pleased with their widowed sister's upward social leap, plainly found m'lord an unnerving catch. Roic wished he could see what they would make of Taura. He melted into sleep with a vague scenario drifting through his reeling brain of somehow imposing his body between her and some undefined social insult. Maybe then she would see that he hadn't meant anything by his awful gaffe…

He woke at sunset and made a foray down to Vorkosigan House's huge kitchen, below stairs. Usually m'lord's genius cook, Ma Kosti, left delectable surprises in the staff refrigerator and was always looking for a good gossip, but tonight the pickings were slim and the personal attention nonexistent. The place was plunged into final preparations for tomorrow's great event, and Ma Kosti, driving her harried scullions before her, made it plain that anyone below the rank of count, or perhaps emperor, was very much in the way just now. Roic fueled up and retreated.

At least the kitchen did not have to deal with a formal dinner atop all the rest. M'lord, the count and countess, and all the guests were off to the Imperial Residence for the Winterfair Ball and midnight bonfire, the heart of the festivities marking solstice night and the turning of the season. When they all decamped from Vorkosigan House, Roic had the vast place to himself, but for the rumble from the kitchen and the servants rushing about completing the last-minute decorations and arrangements in the public rooms, the great dining room, and the seldom-used ballroom.

He was therefore surprised, about an hour before midnight, when the gate guard called him to code open the front door. He was even more surprised when a small car with government markings pulled up under the porte cochere and m'lord and Sergeant Taura climbed out. The car buzzed off, and its passengers entered the hall, shaking the cold air out of their outer garments and handing them off to Roic.

M'lord was dressed in the most elaborate version of the brown and silver Vorkosigan House uniform, befitting a count's heir attending upon the emperor, complete with custom-fitted polished riding boots to his knees. Taura wore a close-fitting, embroidered russet jacket, made high to the neck where a bit of lace showed, and a matching