Fic post (OMG, I know)
I'm participating in the bujold_fic Winterfair exchange. Have some sardonically schmoopy Duv/Delia. Happy New Year!
Title: A Nice Tall Planet
Written for: magglenagall
Prompt: Duv and Delia, a secret weekend retreat at the Koudelkas' beach home shortly after the events in Memory.
Rating: barely PG-13
Word Count: 3200
ETA: epinephrine, thanks Pixelfish.
"And don't make a list," Delia said.
Duv looked down at his hand, which was in fact holding a stylus and tidily inscribing the standard field-agent-two-days-autumn-season-nonhostile-territory packing list. He crossed out "extra stunner power packs" and looked up into Delia's blue eyes. Not quite as stunningly blue over the comconsole, but still enough to knock him to his knees.
"Why not?" he said. "Am I mistaken as to the... nature and duration of the invitation?" Did you not, he rephrased in his head -- language clear enough for a fast-penta interrogation if not for a courtship -- did you not just ask me to spend the night with you?
"Let's be spontaneous," Delia said, with that little sardonic twist to her dulcet tones that had stopped his heart the first time she used it on him. "I know you can be, if you try hard enough."
That was last night. Something about being released from prison and a possible death sentence: the last time he'd felt quite that spontaneous he'd been beating up a pair of interfering Cetagandans in London. He watched Delia watching him remember, her lips curving up. That generous mouth, open against his; her hands tight in his as he begged her to marry him. And Vorkosigan's driver watching it all in the mirror, no doubt.
No regrets.
"This spontaneity," he said, "would it be a cover for unapproved, not to mention illicit activities?" He tapped the list. "Leave no evidence? In other words," he lowered his voice, "you're asking me to accompany you to your parents' beach house when in fact your parents have no idea that we'll be there?"
"Are you trying to sound like one of my uncles?"
"Not at all." His tone dropped even lower and... purred at her; where the hell had that come from? He enjoyed the facial expression it provoked; would it work more than once? "The last thing I wish to be at the moment is your uncle." Though God knew he was old enough.
"So do you honestly think," she said, and yes, she was still giving him the same look, "that if I say I'm at Tasha Vormarkov's planning outfits for the Betrothal all weekend, my da is nevertheless going to break into your flat and discover a list with handcuffs, massage lotion and vid camera on it? And suspect the worst?"
"I didn't put--" He glanced down again: restraints were part of routine field agent kit, not listed separately. Massage lotion -- not a bad thought.
"ImpSec," said Delia dryly. "We put the 'Oi!' in paranoia."
"My plan for the weekend, in fact, involved" -- a lot of drinking -- "deciding whether I am still ImpSec."
"Duv Galeni, you are more ImpSec than anyone I know except--" She stopped, then lifted her chin and went on with what he knew she'd meant to say. "Except Simon Illyan."
"Point taken. Taken, carried off screaming, and held at gunpoint until it confesses. I thought maybe" -- he hadn't -- "you were going to say 'Except Miles.'"
"Oh, Miles." She dismissed him with a wave of her hand. "He did get you out, though; you have to admit that."
"I owe him... a great deal."
"Well, I saved his life when I was seven, or at least his ass, so we're even. And," she added, noting what must have been a gleam in his eye, "I'll tell you the story if you come with me to the beach. Unless you want me to invite Miles along and he can tell it."
"No. Thank you." He shuddered, obviously, for her benefit. "Besides, he has a report to write."
"And you don't."
"Not yet." He spread his hands out, flapping his fingers a little. "Free as a bird."
"What sort of bird would that be?" she asked, amused.
"Any kind you wish. That's not in a cage," he added.
"A falcon. Be a falcon for me," she said.
Awkwardly -- no doubt about his being in love; he would not taken anyone else's request so literally -- he gave her his best approximation of a falcon's calls, snapped at her with his beak, and showed her his fingers curved as talons. She laughed delightfully. An aristocratic sort of bird, for two commoners to be playing around with; not that there'd been falcons on Barrayar even in the Time of Isolation, nor of course ever on Komarr. If Delia asked, he'd portray a penguin. Though falcons evoked something more... skillful. Relentless. Masterful.
In a few hours, if he played his cards right, he could be in bed with this woman. Not that, minus the last bit of sense he'd possessed and the chaperonage of Martin Kosti, he wouldn't have pressed for that outcome last night; not that she was innocent enough to have intended anything less by her invitation; not that he hadn't already asked her to marry him, but...
"Delia, are you sure about this? About the weekend? Your... reputation? I wouldn't want to..." Falcons were also fiercely protective, he suspected; after all, they'd lent their eyes to ImpSec, via Horus. He felt, not for the first time, that he was attacker and defender at once, though he was usually operating on a larger scale than one Barrayaran virgin. She was a virgin, wasn't she? He could hardly ask.
"Wouldn't you?" she asked, danger signs flashing from the blue eyes. "Wouldn't you want to, Duv?"
"Yes," he breathed.
"Good. Pick me up at Tasha's at two?"
"Tasha knows where you're going?"
"She's sworn not to tell. And she's a Vor, you know. Convenient."
"But in... an emergency..."
"What emergency are you anticipating? And if you do want people to know... this isn't a secured comconsole I'm on. And unless General Allegre is suffering a fit of conscience, you're probably still on ImpSec's watch list. Do you win points if I tell you exactly, in detail, how much I want you to pick me up at Tasha's at two?"
"How about one-thirty?" said Duv, baring his teeth at her in a smile. She grinned back and cut the transmission.
Duv looked down at the packing list and carefully crossed out "pajamas." Then he X'ed out the entire page, and triple-shredded it.
*
After all these years, he still wasn't quite used to the differences in scale between Komarr and Barrayar. Not so much the geography; he'd traveled enough to be used to how vast some distances were, though any journey could be plotted and anticipated using maps and simple equations. The flight to the eastern seaboard was relatively short, for which he was glad, since Delia spent it in queenly silence, which he supposed was unusual for her. She roused herself to give him a final set of directions, but he couldn't help worrying that she'd had second thoughts. There were differences of scale in personal journeys, too; perhaps he'd been self-centeredly fixated on his own struggles with status and identity, on the distance he'd come to get here. When she took his hand, jumping out the lightflyer's door to land gracefully on the tarmac, she was touching Komarr. And a man, one he hoped she was planning to share her life with. That was a long way to reach, as well.
But it was the size of the house that floored him. "This is your little beach house?" he said, looking up at three stories of pale-stained wood in modern, organically-designed style. It looked like it had washed in with the tide, perched itself on stilts and started growing windows.
Delia laughed. "It was smaller, once. I can remember the old house; I don't think the others can. But four daughters, you know, and lots of entertaining. I've watched a bunch of Ministers and a few Vor lords track sand into the carpets."
"Miles?"
"Of course. His whole family." Force-screened windows, then, thought Duv. Not that Commodore Koudelka didn't rate those on his own. "We have plenty of beds," Delia added.
He tore his eyes away from the house and took in the look she was giving him. Do you want to keep on about Miles, or do you have something better to talk about?
Plenty of beds. "I want you to show me all of them," he said.
*
They made it as far as the third bedroom before giving in to the power of suggestion. She'd started the tour out slowly with the public rooms on the main floor, including a kitchen gleaming white with up-to-date devices -- "and this is where Kareen smeared a fistful of mashed beets when she was eleven months old; look, you can still see the stain" -- and a grand-but-casual dining room -- "Count Vorvolk spilled his wine there" -- and the huge hearth where Ivan Vorpatril had once "rescued" a burning log representing a nerve-disruptored soldier and left black marks on a valuable wool rug. Duv had time to note Delia's perhaps-obsession with imperfections, neither a celebration nor a judgment but a need to acknowledge, and then they were gazing at Commodore and Madame Koudelka's broad bed, frilly curtains and exercise equipment, and then an extensive guest suite for the Very Important, with painted seascapes and a marvelous view, and then up a back stair to another room in which he registered only some very well-dressed dolls, and a pink blur at the window, poor angle of fire from below, the stairs creaked amply for warning--
"Delia--" She was in his arms. Eager, delicious, kissing, touching, the shape of her, so beautiful, so warm, so tall...
She pulled back a little and gave him one of those sardonic looks, spoiled by flushed cheeks. "Tall."
He'd said at least the last word aloud. "Yes. Splendidly. No crick in my neck."
"Taller than Laisa."
Shit. "You know about that?"
"Word gets around."
"It was a..." What had it been? A false step? A mistake? Honestly... not. He might have been kissing her now, and it would have made him happy, just not... not this. Excitement. Need. Rightness. "All I can say," he managed, "is that Gregor Vorbarra can have the crick in his neck," and his lips met Delia's again. No bending, no bowing, an amazing equality of passion; he was, what, eight years short of twice her age, certainly more sexually experienced, though not by as much as one would have--
They were on the bed; he didn't think it had been his idea. White bedspread striped with pink, some kind of silky fabric; he was going to leave a stain, probably part of the tour from now on... clothes were vanishing... he got control of himself long enough to hiss out a warning about protection... more ImpSec than anyone I know... points of data, too, as she murmured back something reassuring about Aunt Cordelia... ah, Betans... he was Komarran, just as galactic, just as... shit, she wouldn't expect anything exotic...
"Yes," she whispered.
Breath-stopping panic; he hadn't said that aloud? Sex was like fast-penta, and he hadn't been gifted with any allergies. "Yes?" he said, heart in his throat.
"Yes, I will marry you. In case you were wondering." She ran a finger down the length of his nose and outlined his upper lip. "I didn't actually answer you last night."
"I noticed that. I'm... very glad to have your reply."
Her mouth quirked. "So that's settled, then."
"Yes. Quite."
"Sorry to interrupt." She shifted a knee just... exquisitely... "Do you think you can remember where--"
"Oh yes."
*
Long, long naked length of torso, hip and thigh: his hand made the journey in one sure, possessive caress, and Delia sighed. "Madame Galeni," she said. "One of my best decisions ever. That was... mmm."
"We live to serve."
She laughed. "Are you keeping your job, then? I do think my da would prefer an employed son-in-law."
"I could find work elsewhere."
"As good as Head of Komarran Affairs? Oh, they wouldn't go against an Imperial Auditor's suggestion, now would they?" she added when he made doubtful noises. "And you realize this is a very strategic marriage we're embarking on. Don't worry, I know that's not why you--"
"I love you. More than... any planet you care to name. You are my planet."
"A nice tall planet."
"Planet of the Amazons," he said, taking his survey of land masses once again. "Are we in your room?" he asked a moment later, blinking his way out of another luxurious kiss.
"No, Olivia's. I never cared for pink. Some of the dolls are mine, though. Unauthorized borrowing."
"We could repatriate them."
"Leave no evidence, hm? It was a long time ago, anyway. I'm a little beyond dolls now. Are you hungry?"
"Dreadfully."
"There'll be something to heat up in the kitchen. Get dressed."
There was a kind of stew in foil packets, better than Service issue. At Delia's suggestion, they took it and some blankets outside onto the darkening beach, snuggling up to gather the last of the day's warmth at the base of the dunes. It was much warmer here than in the capital, but too cool, Delia assured him, for swimming. "I didn't pack a bathing costume anyway," he said. She raised an eyebrow at him.
He fed her the last forkful of potato and put the packet aside. "So," he said, "how are your family going to feel about this? Me?"
"We're already past the 'but Delia, don't you want to hold out for a Vor' comments, and--"
"You could have a Vor if you--"
"I don't want a Vor. You're an officer; that's status enough. You've come to the personal attention of both the current and former heads of ImpSec."
He snorted. "Not perhaps by the usual method--"
"If you wanted to play it safe you should have run screaming from Miles Vorkosigan the first time you saw him. Oh, I said I'd tell you how I saved his sorry ass. This dune we're leaning on? Don't walk up it."
"Why not?"
She put her bare toes on Duv's. "This area hasn't been terraformed much. No point, since Earth plants wouldn't hold the sand together any better. There's a whole network of native Barrayaran something-like-grasses through here; they slice your feet open nicely if you don't stick to the paths. But the really nasty one is witchburr; it's only about an inch tall and matches the sand perfectly." She sounded as though she were describing a society lady's dress. "Miles is deathly allergic to it. Which wouldn't have mattered, since Sergeant Bothari carried an ampule of epinephrine everywhere. When you insist on hiding out from your bodyguard half a kilometer down the beach, though--"
Duv glanced in the direction of her gesturing arm. There were a few other houses on this stretch of coast, he'd noticed while landing, but well spread out; none of them had lights on tonight. "You followed him?"
Delia paused before answering. "I was seven. At that point I was fascinated by Miles. He seemed so... grown-up. At thirteen, heh. Though I was already taller than him. He thought I was an utter nuisance, unless he could get me to march around with my sisters... Kareen was just toddling. The drill team, junior version. Anyway... people like Miles go into convulsions when they step on witchburr. I might have been taller, but I don't think I could have carried him that far. Which is what I told him to keep him out of the dunes."
"It worked?"
"He does have some sense of self-preservation. On occasion." They listened to the gentle whoosh of the waves for a moment, and then Delia said, "You know why I love you?"
"Why?"
"One of the reasons. Because you see me. Delia, not one of a set of blondes, not part of the Koudelkas and their connection to history. Not the second-best thing to marrying a Vor since there's a lack of girls the right age and they're all spoken for. Though my parents were pretty strategic about that too. Four of us may have been a strategy too far, though."
"Martya's very attractive. But I can't imagine mixing you up. Or settling for her if you hadn't wanted me."
Delia leaned into his shoulder. "I will be honored to be your wife, Duv. And I'll do a good job at it. I do know all the right people."
"That... helps. I think we're both realistic enough to know that it does." He kissed her cheek. "I love your realism."
"And no cricks in the neck."
"That as well."
"We are all realists in the Koudelka and Droushnakovi clans. Therefore, no one will object to my cunning and sensible plans for marriage. For long. How about your family?" She stroked his hand and added, before he could say anything, "I know they're dead. It's still important to you."
"No, it's not."
"Duv." He refused to answer; she nudged him and tried again. "Duv. David."
Every muscle tightened. "How the hell did you...? Ah. Word gets around."
"I do know all the right people."
"My family," he said, wondering just how much she'd heard, and how long he'd be able to keep from telling her the rest, "would have hated the very thought of you. Which as far as I'm concerned equals many points in your favor. Not that I'm keeping score. But possibly the only thing I could have done worse, in their eyes, was to marry... Miles Vorkosigan."
Delia giggled. "He's much too short for you."
"Much."
She sobered. "I won't call you that again, then."
"No. I... think I'd like it if you did. Sometimes. We won't use it in our wedding vows, though."
"I'll have to use Cordelia, I suppose," she sighed.
"Oh, of course, you're... it's a fine name."
"Yes, but... thoroughly taken. I like being Delia. Especially," she snuggled into his shoulder again, "at the moment." They were silent for a time, listening to the waves hush against the sand, and then she shivered.
"Cold? Darling?" he added experimentally.
"A little. Let's go in. There'll be some hot chocolate in the kitchen." She got to her feet and held out her hand for his. He took it and rose, wondering at a world in which you could leave an enormous house empty and return, certain that there would be hot chocolate in the kitchen; but it was not that different, in essence, from the certainties he'd had... not at Delia's age, but as a child. His father had liked peppermint tea and chocolate biscuits (two of them, the kind with a layer of creamy stuff between) when he got home after... blowing things up, in one sense or another. But the tea and the biscuits had always been there. His mother had kept the supply fresh, later on. They didn't sell that brand of biscuits on Barrayar. Just as well.
Hot chocolate, and maybe some wasteful and astonishingly lovely burning of wood in that grand fireplace, and then to bed. Delia's bed, this time. He bet her curtains were blue. And then... don't make a list.
"Watch your feet," whispered Delia. "Stay on the path."
"Just keep me close," he said. "I'll walk in your footsteps."
Title: A Nice Tall Planet
Written for: magglenagall
Prompt: Duv and Delia, a secret weekend retreat at the Koudelkas' beach home shortly after the events in Memory.
Rating: barely PG-13
Word Count: 3200
ETA: epinephrine, thanks Pixelfish.
"And don't make a list," Delia said.
Duv looked down at his hand, which was in fact holding a stylus and tidily inscribing the standard field-agent-two-days-autumn-season-nonhostile-territory packing list. He crossed out "extra stunner power packs" and looked up into Delia's blue eyes. Not quite as stunningly blue over the comconsole, but still enough to knock him to his knees.
"Why not?" he said. "Am I mistaken as to the... nature and duration of the invitation?" Did you not, he rephrased in his head -- language clear enough for a fast-penta interrogation if not for a courtship -- did you not just ask me to spend the night with you?
"Let's be spontaneous," Delia said, with that little sardonic twist to her dulcet tones that had stopped his heart the first time she used it on him. "I know you can be, if you try hard enough."
That was last night. Something about being released from prison and a possible death sentence: the last time he'd felt quite that spontaneous he'd been beating up a pair of interfering Cetagandans in London. He watched Delia watching him remember, her lips curving up. That generous mouth, open against his; her hands tight in his as he begged her to marry him. And Vorkosigan's driver watching it all in the mirror, no doubt.
No regrets.
"This spontaneity," he said, "would it be a cover for unapproved, not to mention illicit activities?" He tapped the list. "Leave no evidence? In other words," he lowered his voice, "you're asking me to accompany you to your parents' beach house when in fact your parents have no idea that we'll be there?"
"Are you trying to sound like one of my uncles?"
"Not at all." His tone dropped even lower and... purred at her; where the hell had that come from? He enjoyed the facial expression it provoked; would it work more than once? "The last thing I wish to be at the moment is your uncle." Though God knew he was old enough.
"So do you honestly think," she said, and yes, she was still giving him the same look, "that if I say I'm at Tasha Vormarkov's planning outfits for the Betrothal all weekend, my da is nevertheless going to break into your flat and discover a list with handcuffs, massage lotion and vid camera on it? And suspect the worst?"
"I didn't put--" He glanced down again: restraints were part of routine field agent kit, not listed separately. Massage lotion -- not a bad thought.
"ImpSec," said Delia dryly. "We put the 'Oi!' in paranoia."
"My plan for the weekend, in fact, involved" -- a lot of drinking -- "deciding whether I am still ImpSec."
"Duv Galeni, you are more ImpSec than anyone I know except--" She stopped, then lifted her chin and went on with what he knew she'd meant to say. "Except Simon Illyan."
"Point taken. Taken, carried off screaming, and held at gunpoint until it confesses. I thought maybe" -- he hadn't -- "you were going to say 'Except Miles.'"
"Oh, Miles." She dismissed him with a wave of her hand. "He did get you out, though; you have to admit that."
"I owe him... a great deal."
"Well, I saved his life when I was seven, or at least his ass, so we're even. And," she added, noting what must have been a gleam in his eye, "I'll tell you the story if you come with me to the beach. Unless you want me to invite Miles along and he can tell it."
"No. Thank you." He shuddered, obviously, for her benefit. "Besides, he has a report to write."
"And you don't."
"Not yet." He spread his hands out, flapping his fingers a little. "Free as a bird."
"What sort of bird would that be?" she asked, amused.
"Any kind you wish. That's not in a cage," he added.
"A falcon. Be a falcon for me," she said.
Awkwardly -- no doubt about his being in love; he would not taken anyone else's request so literally -- he gave her his best approximation of a falcon's calls, snapped at her with his beak, and showed her his fingers curved as talons. She laughed delightfully. An aristocratic sort of bird, for two commoners to be playing around with; not that there'd been falcons on Barrayar even in the Time of Isolation, nor of course ever on Komarr. If Delia asked, he'd portray a penguin. Though falcons evoked something more... skillful. Relentless. Masterful.
In a few hours, if he played his cards right, he could be in bed with this woman. Not that, minus the last bit of sense he'd possessed and the chaperonage of Martin Kosti, he wouldn't have pressed for that outcome last night; not that she was innocent enough to have intended anything less by her invitation; not that he hadn't already asked her to marry him, but...
"Delia, are you sure about this? About the weekend? Your... reputation? I wouldn't want to..." Falcons were also fiercely protective, he suspected; after all, they'd lent their eyes to ImpSec, via Horus. He felt, not for the first time, that he was attacker and defender at once, though he was usually operating on a larger scale than one Barrayaran virgin. She was a virgin, wasn't she? He could hardly ask.
"Wouldn't you?" she asked, danger signs flashing from the blue eyes. "Wouldn't you want to, Duv?"
"Yes," he breathed.
"Good. Pick me up at Tasha's at two?"
"Tasha knows where you're going?"
"She's sworn not to tell. And she's a Vor, you know. Convenient."
"But in... an emergency..."
"What emergency are you anticipating? And if you do want people to know... this isn't a secured comconsole I'm on. And unless General Allegre is suffering a fit of conscience, you're probably still on ImpSec's watch list. Do you win points if I tell you exactly, in detail, how much I want you to pick me up at Tasha's at two?"
"How about one-thirty?" said Duv, baring his teeth at her in a smile. She grinned back and cut the transmission.
Duv looked down at the packing list and carefully crossed out "pajamas." Then he X'ed out the entire page, and triple-shredded it.
*
After all these years, he still wasn't quite used to the differences in scale between Komarr and Barrayar. Not so much the geography; he'd traveled enough to be used to how vast some distances were, though any journey could be plotted and anticipated using maps and simple equations. The flight to the eastern seaboard was relatively short, for which he was glad, since Delia spent it in queenly silence, which he supposed was unusual for her. She roused herself to give him a final set of directions, but he couldn't help worrying that she'd had second thoughts. There were differences of scale in personal journeys, too; perhaps he'd been self-centeredly fixated on his own struggles with status and identity, on the distance he'd come to get here. When she took his hand, jumping out the lightflyer's door to land gracefully on the tarmac, she was touching Komarr. And a man, one he hoped she was planning to share her life with. That was a long way to reach, as well.
But it was the size of the house that floored him. "This is your little beach house?" he said, looking up at three stories of pale-stained wood in modern, organically-designed style. It looked like it had washed in with the tide, perched itself on stilts and started growing windows.
Delia laughed. "It was smaller, once. I can remember the old house; I don't think the others can. But four daughters, you know, and lots of entertaining. I've watched a bunch of Ministers and a few Vor lords track sand into the carpets."
"Miles?"
"Of course. His whole family." Force-screened windows, then, thought Duv. Not that Commodore Koudelka didn't rate those on his own. "We have plenty of beds," Delia added.
He tore his eyes away from the house and took in the look she was giving him. Do you want to keep on about Miles, or do you have something better to talk about?
Plenty of beds. "I want you to show me all of them," he said.
*
They made it as far as the third bedroom before giving in to the power of suggestion. She'd started the tour out slowly with the public rooms on the main floor, including a kitchen gleaming white with up-to-date devices -- "and this is where Kareen smeared a fistful of mashed beets when she was eleven months old; look, you can still see the stain" -- and a grand-but-casual dining room -- "Count Vorvolk spilled his wine there" -- and the huge hearth where Ivan Vorpatril had once "rescued" a burning log representing a nerve-disruptored soldier and left black marks on a valuable wool rug. Duv had time to note Delia's perhaps-obsession with imperfections, neither a celebration nor a judgment but a need to acknowledge, and then they were gazing at Commodore and Madame Koudelka's broad bed, frilly curtains and exercise equipment, and then an extensive guest suite for the Very Important, with painted seascapes and a marvelous view, and then up a back stair to another room in which he registered only some very well-dressed dolls, and a pink blur at the window, poor angle of fire from below, the stairs creaked amply for warning--
"Delia--" She was in his arms. Eager, delicious, kissing, touching, the shape of her, so beautiful, so warm, so tall...
She pulled back a little and gave him one of those sardonic looks, spoiled by flushed cheeks. "Tall."
He'd said at least the last word aloud. "Yes. Splendidly. No crick in my neck."
"Taller than Laisa."
Shit. "You know about that?"
"Word gets around."
"It was a..." What had it been? A false step? A mistake? Honestly... not. He might have been kissing her now, and it would have made him happy, just not... not this. Excitement. Need. Rightness. "All I can say," he managed, "is that Gregor Vorbarra can have the crick in his neck," and his lips met Delia's again. No bending, no bowing, an amazing equality of passion; he was, what, eight years short of twice her age, certainly more sexually experienced, though not by as much as one would have--
They were on the bed; he didn't think it had been his idea. White bedspread striped with pink, some kind of silky fabric; he was going to leave a stain, probably part of the tour from now on... clothes were vanishing... he got control of himself long enough to hiss out a warning about protection... more ImpSec than anyone I know... points of data, too, as she murmured back something reassuring about Aunt Cordelia... ah, Betans... he was Komarran, just as galactic, just as... shit, she wouldn't expect anything exotic...
"Yes," she whispered.
Breath-stopping panic; he hadn't said that aloud? Sex was like fast-penta, and he hadn't been gifted with any allergies. "Yes?" he said, heart in his throat.
"Yes, I will marry you. In case you were wondering." She ran a finger down the length of his nose and outlined his upper lip. "I didn't actually answer you last night."
"I noticed that. I'm... very glad to have your reply."
Her mouth quirked. "So that's settled, then."
"Yes. Quite."
"Sorry to interrupt." She shifted a knee just... exquisitely... "Do you think you can remember where--"
"Oh yes."
*
Long, long naked length of torso, hip and thigh: his hand made the journey in one sure, possessive caress, and Delia sighed. "Madame Galeni," she said. "One of my best decisions ever. That was... mmm."
"We live to serve."
She laughed. "Are you keeping your job, then? I do think my da would prefer an employed son-in-law."
"I could find work elsewhere."
"As good as Head of Komarran Affairs? Oh, they wouldn't go against an Imperial Auditor's suggestion, now would they?" she added when he made doubtful noises. "And you realize this is a very strategic marriage we're embarking on. Don't worry, I know that's not why you--"
"I love you. More than... any planet you care to name. You are my planet."
"A nice tall planet."
"Planet of the Amazons," he said, taking his survey of land masses once again. "Are we in your room?" he asked a moment later, blinking his way out of another luxurious kiss.
"No, Olivia's. I never cared for pink. Some of the dolls are mine, though. Unauthorized borrowing."
"We could repatriate them."
"Leave no evidence, hm? It was a long time ago, anyway. I'm a little beyond dolls now. Are you hungry?"
"Dreadfully."
"There'll be something to heat up in the kitchen. Get dressed."
There was a kind of stew in foil packets, better than Service issue. At Delia's suggestion, they took it and some blankets outside onto the darkening beach, snuggling up to gather the last of the day's warmth at the base of the dunes. It was much warmer here than in the capital, but too cool, Delia assured him, for swimming. "I didn't pack a bathing costume anyway," he said. She raised an eyebrow at him.
He fed her the last forkful of potato and put the packet aside. "So," he said, "how are your family going to feel about this? Me?"
"We're already past the 'but Delia, don't you want to hold out for a Vor' comments, and--"
"You could have a Vor if you--"
"I don't want a Vor. You're an officer; that's status enough. You've come to the personal attention of both the current and former heads of ImpSec."
He snorted. "Not perhaps by the usual method--"
"If you wanted to play it safe you should have run screaming from Miles Vorkosigan the first time you saw him. Oh, I said I'd tell you how I saved his sorry ass. This dune we're leaning on? Don't walk up it."
"Why not?"
She put her bare toes on Duv's. "This area hasn't been terraformed much. No point, since Earth plants wouldn't hold the sand together any better. There's a whole network of native Barrayaran something-like-grasses through here; they slice your feet open nicely if you don't stick to the paths. But the really nasty one is witchburr; it's only about an inch tall and matches the sand perfectly." She sounded as though she were describing a society lady's dress. "Miles is deathly allergic to it. Which wouldn't have mattered, since Sergeant Bothari carried an ampule of epinephrine everywhere. When you insist on hiding out from your bodyguard half a kilometer down the beach, though--"
Duv glanced in the direction of her gesturing arm. There were a few other houses on this stretch of coast, he'd noticed while landing, but well spread out; none of them had lights on tonight. "You followed him?"
Delia paused before answering. "I was seven. At that point I was fascinated by Miles. He seemed so... grown-up. At thirteen, heh. Though I was already taller than him. He thought I was an utter nuisance, unless he could get me to march around with my sisters... Kareen was just toddling. The drill team, junior version. Anyway... people like Miles go into convulsions when they step on witchburr. I might have been taller, but I don't think I could have carried him that far. Which is what I told him to keep him out of the dunes."
"It worked?"
"He does have some sense of self-preservation. On occasion." They listened to the gentle whoosh of the waves for a moment, and then Delia said, "You know why I love you?"
"Why?"
"One of the reasons. Because you see me. Delia, not one of a set of blondes, not part of the Koudelkas and their connection to history. Not the second-best thing to marrying a Vor since there's a lack of girls the right age and they're all spoken for. Though my parents were pretty strategic about that too. Four of us may have been a strategy too far, though."
"Martya's very attractive. But I can't imagine mixing you up. Or settling for her if you hadn't wanted me."
Delia leaned into his shoulder. "I will be honored to be your wife, Duv. And I'll do a good job at it. I do know all the right people."
"That... helps. I think we're both realistic enough to know that it does." He kissed her cheek. "I love your realism."
"And no cricks in the neck."
"That as well."
"We are all realists in the Koudelka and Droushnakovi clans. Therefore, no one will object to my cunning and sensible plans for marriage. For long. How about your family?" She stroked his hand and added, before he could say anything, "I know they're dead. It's still important to you."
"No, it's not."
"Duv." He refused to answer; she nudged him and tried again. "Duv. David."
Every muscle tightened. "How the hell did you...? Ah. Word gets around."
"I do know all the right people."
"My family," he said, wondering just how much she'd heard, and how long he'd be able to keep from telling her the rest, "would have hated the very thought of you. Which as far as I'm concerned equals many points in your favor. Not that I'm keeping score. But possibly the only thing I could have done worse, in their eyes, was to marry... Miles Vorkosigan."
Delia giggled. "He's much too short for you."
"Much."
She sobered. "I won't call you that again, then."
"No. I... think I'd like it if you did. Sometimes. We won't use it in our wedding vows, though."
"I'll have to use Cordelia, I suppose," she sighed.
"Oh, of course, you're... it's a fine name."
"Yes, but... thoroughly taken. I like being Delia. Especially," she snuggled into his shoulder again, "at the moment." They were silent for a time, listening to the waves hush against the sand, and then she shivered.
"Cold? Darling?" he added experimentally.
"A little. Let's go in. There'll be some hot chocolate in the kitchen." She got to her feet and held out her hand for his. He took it and rose, wondering at a world in which you could leave an enormous house empty and return, certain that there would be hot chocolate in the kitchen; but it was not that different, in essence, from the certainties he'd had... not at Delia's age, but as a child. His father had liked peppermint tea and chocolate biscuits (two of them, the kind with a layer of creamy stuff between) when he got home after... blowing things up, in one sense or another. But the tea and the biscuits had always been there. His mother had kept the supply fresh, later on. They didn't sell that brand of biscuits on Barrayar. Just as well.
Hot chocolate, and maybe some wasteful and astonishingly lovely burning of wood in that grand fireplace, and then to bed. Delia's bed, this time. He bet her curtains were blue. And then... don't make a list.
"Watch your feet," whispered Delia. "Stay on the path."
"Just keep me close," he said. "I'll walk in your footsteps."