"Asaro, Catherine - Irres" - читать интересную книгу автора (Asaro Catherine)

She rubbed the back of her neck. "Would you? Then I think I could. Try, that is."

He escorted her to her door, past m'lord's dark and empty suite. When he clasped her hand briefly, she clasped back. He swallowed, for courage.

"Dirty pearls, eh?" he said, still holding her hand. "Y'know& I can't speak for arty other Barrayarans& but I think your genetic modifications are beautiful."

Her lips curved up, he hoped not altogether bleakly. "You are getting better."

When she let go and turned in, a claw trailing lightly over the skin of his palm made his body shudder in involuntary, sensual surprise. He stared at the closing door and swallowed a perfectly foolish urge to call her back. Or follow her inside& He was still on duty, he reminded himself. The next monitors check was overdue. He forced himself to turn away.



The sky outside was shifting from the amber night of the city to a chill blue dawn when the gate guard called Roic to code down the house shields for m'lord's return. As the armsman who'd been called out to chauffeur drove the big car off to put away, Roic opened one door to admit the hunched, frowning figure. M'lord looked up to recognize Roic, and a rather ghastly smile lightened his furrowed features.

Roic had seen m'lord looking strung-out before, but never so alarmingly as this, not even after one of his bad seizures or when he'd had that spectacular hangover after the disastrous butter bug banquet. His eyes stared out from gray circles like feral animals from their dens. His skin was pale, and lines of tension mapped the anxiety across his face. His movements were simultaneously tired and stiff, and jerky and nervous, a spinning exhaustion that could find no place of rest.

"Roic. Thank you. Bless you," m'lord began in a voice that sounded as though it were coming from the bottom of a well.

"Is m'lady-to-be all right?" Roic asked in some apprehension.

M'lord nodded. "Yes, now. She fell asleep in my arms, finally, after the ImpSec doctor left. God, Roic! I can't believe I missed the signs. Poisoning! And I fastened that death around her neck with my own hands! It's a damned metaphor for this whole thing, that's what it is. She thought it was just her. I thought it was just her. How little faith in herself, or me in her, to misidentify dying of poison for dying of self-doubt?"

"She's not dying, is she?" Roic asked again, to be sure. In this spate of dramatic angst, it was a little hard to tell. "The bit of exposure she got isn't going to have any permanent effects, is it?"

M'lord began to pace in circles around the entry hall, while Roic followed vainly trying to take his coat. "The doctor said not, not once the headaches pass off, which they seem to have done now. She was so relieved to find out what it really was she burst into tears. Go figure that one out, eh?"

"Yeah, except that " Roic began, then bit his tongue. Except that the crying jag he'd inadvertently witnessed had occurred well before the poisoning.

"What?"

"Nothing, m'lord."

Lord Vorkosigan paused at the archway to the antechamber. "ImpSec. We must call ImpSec to take away all those gifts and recheck them for "

"They already came and collected them, m'lord," Roic soothed him, or tried to. "An hour ago. They say they'll try't' get as many as possible cleared and back before the wedding guests start arriving come midafternoon."

"Oh. Good." M'lord stood still a moment, staring into nothing, and Roic finally managed to get his coat away from him.

"M'lord& you don't think your Admiral Quinn sent that necklace, do you?"

"Oh, good heavens, no. Of course not." M'lord dismissed this fear with a startlingly casual wave of his hand. "Not her style at all. If she were ever that mad at me, she'd kick me downstairs personally. Great woman, Quinn."

"Sergeant Taura was worried. I think she thought this Quinn might a' been, um, jealous."

M'lord blinked. "Why? I mean, yes, it's almost exactly a year since Elli and I parted company, but Ekaterin had nothing to do with that. Didn't even meet her till a couple of months later. The timing's pure coincidence, you can assure her. Yeah, so Elli turned down the wedding invitation she has responsibilities. She got the fleet, after all." A small sigh escaped him. His lips screwed up in further thought. "I'd sure like to know who knew enough to steal Quinn's name to smuggle that hellish package in here, though. That's the real puzzle. Quinn's connected to Admiral Naismith, not to Lord Vorkosigan. Which was the sticking point in the first place, but never mind now. I want ImpSec to put every available resource on to tearing that one apart."

"I believe they already are, m'lord."

"Oh. Good." He looked up, and his face grew, if possible, more serious. "You saved my House last night, you know. Eleven generations of Vorkosigans have narrowed down to the choke point of me, this generation, this marriage. I'd have been the last, but for that chance no, not chance that moment of shrewd observation."