Bujold, Lois McMaster - Miles Vorkosigan 10 - A Civil Campaign by Lois Mcmaster Bujold

Author:Lois Mcmaster Bujold
Language: eng
Format: epub

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Ekaterin returned slowly to the garden table, and sat again. She pulled the envelope from her left inner pocket, and turned it over, staring at it. The cream-colored paper had impressive weight and density. The back flap was indented in the pattern of the Vorkosigans' seal, pressed deeply and a little off-center into the thick paper. Not machine embossed; some hand had put it there.

His hand. A thumb-smear of reddish pigment filled the grooves and brought out the pattern, in the highest of high Vor styles, more formal than a wax seal. She raised the envelope to her nose, but if there was any scent of him lingering from his touch, it was too faint to be certain of.

She sighed in anticipated exhaustion, and carefully opened it. Like the address, the sheet inside was handwritten.

Dear Madame Vorsoisson, it began. I am sorry.

This is the eleventh draft of this letter. They've all started with those three words, even the horrible version in rhyme, so I guess they stay.

Her mind hiccuped to a stop. For a moment, all she could wonder was who emptied his wastebasket, and if they could be bribed. Pym, probably, and likely not. She shook the vision from her head, and read on.

You once asked me never to lie to you. All right, so. I'll tell you the truth now even if it isn't the best or cleverest thing, and not abject enough either.

I tried to be the thief of you, to ambush and take prisoner what I thought I could never earn or be given. You were not a ship to be hijacked, but I couldn't think of any other plan but subterfuge and surprise. Though not as much of a surprise as what

happened at dinner. The revolution started prematurely because the idiot conspirator blew up his secret ammo dump and lit the sky with his intentions. Sometimes those accidents end in new nations, but more often they end badly, in hangings and beheadings.

And people running into the night. I can't be sorry I asked you to marry me, because that was the one true part in all the smoke and rubble, but I'm sick as hell I asked you so badly.

Even though I'd kept my counsel from you, I should at least have done you the courtesy to keep it from others as well, till you'd had the year of grace and rest you'd asked for. But I became terrified you'd choose another first.

What other did he imagine her choosing, for God's sake? She'd wanted no one. Vormoncrief was impossible. Byerly Vorrutyer didn't even pretend to be serious. Enrique Borgos? Eep. Major Zamori, well, Zamori seemed kindly enough. But dull.

She wondered when not dull had become her prime criterion for mate selection. About ten minutes after she'd first met Miles Vorkosigan, perhaps? Damn the man, for ruining her taste. And judgment. And... and...

She read on.

So I used the garden as a ploy to get near to you. I deliberately and consciously shaped your heart's desire into a trap.

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