Jole followed her glance to the archway, where a very short, slightly hunched, dark-haired man in his early forties, swinging a cane, strolled through accompanied by a tall, dark-haired woman of similar age. “We thought you’d like it!” Miles said heartily, although Ekaterin’s apologetic expression, unseen by him over his head, didn’t exactly endorse this assertion.
“Hello, Mother,” continued Miles, making for Cordelia. Any attempt at a familial hug of greeting was blocked by the rioting children, one now hanging off each of her arms. And nor did Cordelia, smiling rather tightly back, seem quite in the mood to return such a gesture.
Mood. Yeah, he could kiss their evening’s anticipated mood goodbye, Jole supposed. Forlorn hope, wasn’t that the term for a doomed struggle? As the blood slowly returned to his brain from warmer regions, it occurred to him what a surprise this surprise was. Was sometimes-Lord Auditor Vorkosigan making some secret inspection of behalf of his master Emperor Gregor? Miles couldn’t be engaged in a dangerous investigation on Sergyar, or he’d hardly have brought his family along. Unless he was dropping them here on his way to elsewhere. But if they’d traveled by official, even if unscheduled, government fast courier, Jole should damn well have heard about it from the moment the ship made Sergyar local space, and he hadn’t. Could the surprise be for him or his? He still had burning memories of that thrice-damned military theft ring they’d uncovered several years back. “Well, hello, Count Vorkosigan. Countess.” He managed a polite nod and smile. “I trust you had an uneventful journey. How did you travel?”
Ekaterin answered, “We came on the regular commercial passenger ship. For a welcome change, this isn’t for work, only for family, so it didn’t seem right to tap the Imperial Service for a lift.” Her smile at him felt more genuine than her spouse’s. “The children seemed to enjoy it very much more than being cooped up on a courier. They met rather a lot of interesting prospective colonists.”
“Interrogated them to within an inch of their lives,” Miles confirmed. “I should rent the team out to ImpSec, I think.”
“Oh, Da,” said Helen, and rolled her eyes. Alex’s mouth just tightened a fraction.
So, they’d reached the Oh-Da stage. A few years back, both elder twins had clearly thought their Da hung the moons. Puberty must be imminent.
Jole’s slightly malicious smile faded, as he considered what only the family meant to Cordelia, mother to a key Barrayaran count and foster-mother to an emperor. Could, for example, Emperor Gregor have sent Lord Auditor Vorkosigan to find out if the Vicereine of Sergyar had gone insane?
She’s not insane, Jole wanted to protest. Just Betan!
Now, there was a reflection to keep to himself.
“Is Nikki with you also?” he inquired politely of Ekaterin. Son of her first marriage, now almost…what, twenty? No, more.
She shook her head. “Too caught up with school to tag along, he said. I gather things are getting intense, since he graduates soon.”
“Already?” said Jole.
“Yes, I know.” She smiled wryly at him, swaying a little as the toddlers kneecapped her. She bent to hoist one up; the other clung to her trouser leg and stared in suspicion at Jole.
“Well. I would seem to be redundant to need here, this evening,” he excused himself. “Enjoy the family reunion, Cordelia.”
She cast him a strained smile and only a slight eye-widening of anguish. “We’ll have to reschedule our conference. I’ll try to call you later.” She dispatched Armsman Rykov, now hovering unobtrusively, for a car and driver to convey Jole back to the base. No one tried to urge him to stay.
Under the cover of escorting him out, she managed to get the door closed between them and her family.
“You didn’t seem all that surprised by this visitation,” he observed.
“No, only appalled.” She grimaced. “I didn’t think they’d just show up like that. I’m so sorry.”
He read this as a statement of fact rather than an apology; he nodded ruefully.
“I sent them all a vid message the first week you went upside, you see. Told Miles about his sisters. It was time.”
Jole did a quick time-speed-distance calculation in his head, allowing margin for shifting six kids, a wife, and an entourage. A rapid response in force, it would seem. “And, um…about his brothers?”
She shook her head. “Not yet. I did tell Gregor, in strict confidence.”
“Yet not Miles?”
“It’s not wholly my tale the way the girls are. Have I your permission to mention them? Or would you rather wait and tell him yourself, or what?”
He hesitated, sorely tempted to let her do the hard part. “I doubt you’ll have much chance for a private talk tonight with the kids cavorting about. Let’s wait a little.” He added after a moment, “It’s hard to see how one would explain the boys without explaining…more history than Aral saw fit to apprise him of.”
“If we had been open from the beginning,” she said rather fiercely, “this would be a non-problem right now.”
He touched a consoling finger to her lips. “There would doubtless have been other problems.”
Her smile twisted. “Conservation of tribulation?”
“There’s a law of nature for you.” Explaining to Miles how Jole had come to be the father of his three frozen half-brothers had seemed much less daunting when the damned fellow had been a string of wormhole jumps away. “Don’t let them exhaust you. You’ve had a long day.”
“You had a longer one.”
He could only shrug agreement. Yet half an hour ago, he hadn’t been a bit tired. As the Vicereine had so eloquently summed it up, crap.
Then the groundcar arrived, and he’d lost his chance even for a kiss goodnight. He squeezed her hand and retreated.
Chapter Ten
As Cordelia had foreseen, it was quite late by the time six overexcited and overtired children had at last been tied to their beds, or at least kissed goodnight and threatened with dire retribution if they popped up one more time. It took teamwork by four adults—Cordelia, Miles, Ekaterin, and the armsman’s daughter they’d brought along to help wrangle the kids in exchange for a generous stipend and the chance for an exciting trip offworld.
“We could have stunned them,” Cordelia wheezed, as the last door closed. “We have stunners…”
Their fond Da, who had actually been less use in the calming-down part than Cordelia had hoped, said, “Tempting, but Ekaterin would object.”
“No, I wouldn’t,” said Ekaterin faintly.
Indeed, she looked tired. Miles looked…wired, but that was his default mode. Cordelia considered just bagging the smoking remains of the evening and sending them to bed, too.
“Well!” said Miles, with a somewhat rehearsed-sounding cheeriness. “Now the grownups can sit down and talk.”
A mental review of all the times a worrisome Miles had been so remarkably elusive to her in his younger days paraded through Cordelia’s memory; she suppressed it. Forgive, forget. Well, try, anyway. She led them out to her favorite nook in the back garden, instead, pausing in the kitchen to snag a bottle of wine and three glasses, because the day staff had all gone home. In the soft shadows and low, colored lights they dragged the padded chairs around a small table, and she let Miles open and pour. His glass got a splash; hers, he filled nearly to the top before handing to her. Ekaterin’s glass was delivered half-full, or perhaps half-empty; after a wry hesitation, she topped it up herself.