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Armsman Roic had spread the word through the below stairs portions of Vorkosigan house: Lady Helen was bringing home a suitor to meet her parents. Given the Count's probable reaction, Roic not only thought it fair to see the staff warned to lie low and make everything from breakfast through the potentially sticky dinner run smoothly, but he took it upon himself to warn the newer members of just how intensely they could expect Lord Auditor Count Miles Vorkosigan to be banging off the walls. Particularly since he had come up with almost no duties for the day that required his attention.
Since Pym's retirement, Roic had become the senior of the Count's many keepers, and by far the most experienced in predicted and occasionally curbing his habits. As expected, by the time breakfast was over, Count Vorkosigan was descending on the kitchens to "check on a few details." Then to the cleaning staff to "make sure all was in order." Then out on the grounds, stabbing the dirt with his walking stick as he went, to "give the place a little once over."
It never ceased to amaze Roic how much energy it took to keep up with one short Vor lord who had, when you really stopped to look at it, been crippled in the course of his duties three separate times, and yet somehow never let it even slow him down. Admirable, from a distance. Hard on the shoes up close.
The countess was willing to help, at least as far as getting her count headed outside for a walk in her garden, for which Roic only needed to keep perimeter security well in hand. By early afternoon, however, Roic found himself thinking longingly of clogging Vorkosigan house's drain, just to give the hyperactive little git something to demolish. Doctor Borgos somehow remained absent, just when he might have been of some inadvertent use. At least he wouldn't be at dinner.
Finally, the middle of the afternoon, the appointed hour, arrived. Roic was frazzled enough by then to consider it a relief rather a source of increased concern. Hell, let the boy be worried; all I have to do is clean up whatever splatter is left.
Lord Ezar Vorrutyer came to the door with Lady Helen on his arm. The traditional image would probably have been for a golden haired young woman and a dark young man, but the reversal of the colorings still showed both to excellent effect. Lord Vorrutyer was uncommonly handsome, taking after his mother in coloring and height, though occasional flashes of his father's intensity came through as well. Lady Helen had on a flowing Vor gown, rather more formal than her usual style but more comfortable than her nervous suitor.
And despite all his elegance and poise, Roic could tell the boy was indeed nervous. Not without cause. There was probably a reason that the Vorkosigan armsmen had been instructed to line the hall for this arrival, and Roic didn't think simple welcome was it.
The incoming couple paused in the door. Lord Vorrutyer looked rather daunted. Lady Helen merely looked surprised, then suspicious, so Roic stepped forward promptly.
"Lord Vorrutyer, welcome to Vorkosigan house. I am instructed to show you through to the library. Lady Helen…?" He made her name a question, which effectively gave her an opportunity to countermand his order. She didn't, of course, but Roic could see that her acknowledgement cooled her potential ire at her father setting up an elaborate piece of theatre. When did he not arrange the world as a stage?
Roic led them into the library and the armsmen scattered to alert the household to get moving and batten down the hatches. Now that they were safely placed, it was Roic's job to alert the count and countess himself.
He rapped at the door of their suite, to which the countess had managed to persuade her husband to retreat briefly. The count's call of "Yes?" was instantaneous and perhaps a little breathless. Probably pacing, Roic judged. Unless the countess had had to resort to extreme measures to get him to retreat, in which case it would take them both a little longer to get out. He glanced at his chrono to time it.
"M'lord Vorrutyer and Lady Helen are here."
Roic hadn't quite finished the sentence when the door opened, so at least everyone within was fully clothed. Roic was extremely relieved to see that his wife had dissuaded him from the suggestion that he should wear his house uniform, military insignia and Auditor's seal not forgotten. The plain grey suit sent a much less ominous message. In any case, the count had probably been joking about that suggestion. Probably. Mostly joking.
"Excellent," said the count as he shuffle-clacked his way down the hall, hammering his walking stick in way that Roic knew to fear. "Let's get this circus rolling till we can use the momentum to squash someone."
"Do I have to fasten your seal of office around your neck so I have a handle to haul on?" The countess was just behind him. Roic judged her to be only a little less anxious than her husband, but she concealed it better. Far better. For even such an oblique and obviously facetious jibe to slip out of her was telling. Or perhaps it was simply that she had a good feel for her husband's buttons, because he slowed to wait for her as Roic swung in behind them.
"I'm not going to try to scare the boy off," the count promised with an admirably straight face, since Roic was fairly certain this was a bald faced lie.
"Just don't do anything that will upset his parents." The auditor seemed to consider this standard of behavior and grudgingly awarded it an approving nod.
"Yes, dear," he replied with suspiciously smug meekness. It tickled Roic's fancy, in private moments like this, that despite two decades of marriage, there was a little piece of the short Miles that still found Ekaterin's tolerance of him astonishing.
They arrived in the library to find the young couple holding hands and wisely not attempting to neck. Lord Vorrutyer offered a deep bow and spoke with all the respect and deference a prospective Barrayaran father-in-law could hope for, even one so highly placed as Lord Auditor Count Miles Vorkosigan. "Sir" and "My lord" and "Countess" and "Ma'am" were much included in the conversation. It was circumspect, but uterine replicators were mentioned with approval and Lord Vorrutyer's social position with concern.
It went as Roic had predicted. Ekaterin was her usual unflappable and welcoming self, Helen hung on the young man's arm happily and Miles attempted to conceal his incessant fidgeting with little success. Tap the cane, tap the feet, tap the fingers, scratch the nose, scratch the knee, scratch the ear, rub the neck, rub the pants leg, back to tapping the cane. It was a never ending rotary of gestures as he noticed each, stilled it, and found another spasm unconsciously erupt.
Dinner was only memorable to the principals, the conversation tending towards the stultifying and mundane. No one was inclined to risk a breach of manners or of civility, though the Count was baited far enough to recount a few of his odder auditorial cases and their consequences. Lord Vorrutyer's interest, which was genuine as far as Roic could determine, particularly when discussing Count Vormuir and the spate of committees on reproductive laws the man had engendered (along with his hundred and eighteen daughters), went far towards easing Count Vorkosigan's nervous tension.
After dinner, Ekaterin skillfully led Helen off for a gossip while Miles gave Roic a nod, and Roic shepherded the young man back into the library and offered brandy. The Count followed shortly and Roic withdrew to a discreet distance to allow the men a chance to speak in privacy. Relative privacy. Discreet did not mean out of earshot tonight; Roic would have chewed through razor wire with his teeth to hear what the Count was about to say, not least because his own little daughter was starting to spend an inordinate amount of time giggling on the comconsole with her friends.
"So," said the Count as he settled back in an armchair low enough to let him put his feet on the floor, "you and Helen seem to be serious about each other."
"We are, sir. I certainly am." Roic admired the young man's self-possession. He was not babbling yet.
"You, ah, know you're not her first boyfriend?"
"Ah, yes, sir, we've discussed her time as a student on Beta Colony."
"Good, good." The Count stared at his brandy with some concentration, though very little drinking. "Times have changed. I don't know what the count my father would have said to suitors had I had a sister. I know what my grandfather would have said if my father had had one." His tone was wry and here he looked up slyly, gauging the young man's reaction.
"Ah, yes, given the General's reputation, I can imagine it too," Lord Vorrutyer agreed. "Well, the broad strokes at least. Would he have threatened me with his own hands, or simply had one of your rather impressive armsmen hulk at me?"
"Oh, his own hands, no question. Even when I knew him, I think there were not many men who would have dared take a liberty with the dread General Count Piotr." The count's eyes crinkled at the image and Lord Vorrutyer smiled back personably. The older man lifted his glass to indicate that he was not done, however.
"Of course, in those days, taking the honor of a Vor class woman would be a crime fit to duel over. Or have a nice little border war, scuffle with the armsmen in an alley, take your pick. Fortunately, most of us are past the days when a Vor lady's honor was equated with her virginity; my mother and my own time among a variety of galactics has certainly done enough for me not to be afraid of you or for her on that score."
Roic observed that Lord Vorrutyer wasn't really drinking either, but his thumb had begun to slide noiselessly up and down the glasses stem while Count Vorkosigan's nervous ticks had disappeared, as if transferred from one man to the other. The count put his glass down on the end table near him and tented his hands together as he leaned forward.
"Helen is a brilliant, beautiful and vivacious girl with the world at her fingertips, spreading out before her. I've no objection to her exploring it; hell, I want her to, and grow larger as she does it. I want her to have every chance I ever did and more. I love her like my own breath, better than I love my own honor. If she wants you, then I can only call you a lucky man and watch with my heart and my hope in my throat.
"But just because a Vor woman's honor is not her virginity does not mean she does not have honor, and it does not mean you cannot damage it. If your courtship fails, then it fails. But if you hurt her vision of herself, if you make of her a smaller person than she is now, if accept her oath and then sand away her spirit, grinding her between her oath and her self-respect…then you should remember that I am watching. I am a count in my own right, I have the powers of the Imperium at call through my auditor's office, I spent ten years combing the galaxy for Simon Illyan's worst nightmares and the last twenty combing for Gregor Vorbarra's. And I love my little girl."
Lord Ezar Vorrutyer was frozen in place. His smile had long since drained away and the man seemed to be shrinking in on himself. His poise was such that he hadn't actually moved the whole time, but Roic found that he was holding his own breath, and had to call it a credit to the young suitor's nerve that he hadn't wet himself. The moment held, drew out, then the Lord Auditor sat back and smiled, breaking the tension.
"Also, I'm friends with both your parents, and if you hurt my little girl, I expect you'll hear plenty from them." The laugh Lord Vorrutyer vented expelled considerably more relief than humor, but it served them both. "Now if my sense of timing hasn't totally deserted me…"
He trailed off, and the sound of a pair of feminine footsteps grew louder. The family party reconnected, there were a few more amenities and Lord Vorrutyer was shown decorously back to his groundcar. Lady Helen went upstairs, probably to gossip with her sisters, and Roic trailed the count and countess back upstairs.
"I trust you scared him sufficiently to satisfy your paranoia as to his intentions?"
"I trust so. I trust also that I scared him to your satisfaction as well."
"Ah, belike," the countess replied, mimicking one of the count's own favorite Dendarii expressions. "If it will satisfy you, I am confident I would be equally satisfied."
Miles grinned up at Ekaterin and Roic shut the door of their suite behind them. Then he flicked the off switch on his pocket audio filer. Just in case he had to prepare for his own version of that conversation sooner rather than later.