Archive of Our Own

Tej made a third failed attempt to read the same sentence, and set down her viewer. Ivan Xav’s pacing around the jumpship cabin was disrupting her focus; she wasn’t going to get any further until he settled down.

“Whatever’s eating you,” she told him, “you’d better tell me before you drive us both out of our minds.”

Ivan Xav stopped, sighed, and ran his hands through his hair. Then he walked back and forth a couple more times—not a particularly long path, given the cabin’s dimensions—this time with an expression that meant he was trying to sort out what he wanted to say. Satisfied that this type of pacing was at least more productive, Tej waited patiently.

Finally he said, “By’s answer was awfully short, don’t you think? I mean, for him.”

“Sure.” It was true; Byerly’s communiques were usually wordy to the point of excess, overflowing with witty commentary and descriptive asides. This particular missive, on the other hand, had consisted only of the salient part—Yes, with an attachment containing the details of the commercial jumpship he’d booked a berth on for transit to Beta Colony. Barring any delays he would arrive on-planet two sidereal days after they did, traveling from the other direction. Tej and Ivan were headed home from their one-year posting to Zoave Twilight, and By was coming from Barrayar to meet them. “But that’s not such a bad thing in this instance, is it? You already went over the details before.”

“At length. Repeatedly,” Ivan Xav said, aggrieved. “You remember, the first time I brought it up he practically wrote me an essay in response. With footnotes. All about what a terrible idea it was.”

“You talked him around, though. He wouldn’t have spent the money and a six-week round trip”—not to mention fourteen wormhole jumps, ugh, though at least Byerly didn’t get jump sick—“going to Beta Colony if he hadn’t decided. And even if he’d changed his mind en route, his tightbeam would have reached us by now.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Ivan strode over to one of the cabin’s armchairs, and flung himself moodily into it. “I’m still afraid he’ll panic at the last minute. And—he did protest a lot, at first. Did I twist his arm too much, d’you think? What if he doesn’t really . . .” He trailed off, staring morosely up at the ceiling. Then he burst out, “Damn it, you think I’d at least get a better response to a marriage proposal when it’s not because Immigration is trying to break down the door!”

Tej grinned, despite herself. It hadn’t felt like a laughing matter then, but it had certainly turned out all right—which probably applied here, too.

With surety, she said, “He wouldn’t have agreed to marry you if he didn’t want to.” Even setting aside the fact that Byerly was a high-level civilian agent for ImpSec Domestic Affairs—a position he surely hadn’t achieved through docility—Tej had gotten to know him quite well, in the three years between Ylla and Zoave Twilight. By had escaped his banishment to Jackson’s Whole and returned to Vorbarr Sultana even before they had, slipping back into his old role as town clown informant without so much as a gurgle; when Ivan Xav had returned to Ops to serve out the rest of his twenty and start diplomatic training they’d soon run into each other again, and a year after that By had wound up in their bed.

Where he’d remained a regular presence right up until Ivan Xav had been sent off to complete his diplomatic apprenticeship at the Barrayaran embassy on Zoave Twilight, forced to leave him behind. That had been a year ago, but two years of having Byerly Vorrutyer for a lover had been more than enough to assure Tej that he didn’t make up his mind lightly, and also that he was thoroughly stuck on Ivan Xav. “Look,” she went on, “maybe he was too nervy to say anything more, but you made your deal. He bought the tickets. You have to trust that he’ll be there, if you trusted him enough to ask.”

“Right. You’re right.” Ivan Xav frowned at his feet. “It’s just that he’s so . . . what if he doesn’t trust us? I mean, we left him. Alone, on Barrayar, just to take this assignment. Sure, it would’ve kept me from starting my ambassadorial career if I hadn’t, and Gregor insisted—so did By, come to that. And we spent the past year trying to figure out how to fix things so that he could come with us, but . . .”

“And we did,” Tej pointed out, reasonably. “He took that seriously, don’t you think? He knows you didn’t give up on him.”

“Yeah. Yeah, but . . .” Ivan’s hands opened and closed atop the arms of his chair, helpless frustration. “What if he was panicking then, when he said yes? Maybe he thought he had to, so we’d still want him when we came back. That’s just the sort of stupid idea that he’d come up with, inside that twisty Vorrutyer brain.”

She tilted her head. “Are you afraid that he won’t show up, or that he’ll show up against his will? I think you’re the one panicking, now.” She hopped up lithely up from her own chair—God, but she couldn’t wait to get to Beta, where she’d finally have enough room again for her full calisthenics routine—and deposited herself in his lap, snaking an arm around his neck. “Relax. He’ll be there, and if he tries to talk himself out of it you can remind him why he agreed to come. Or remind him that he doesn’t have to, if it comes to that, but I really don’t think it will.” She kissed his cheek. “You can be very persuasive, Ivan Xav.”

He let out a breath, and relaxed slightly against her. “Well, I’ve been learning from the best, y’know. And I don’t mean old Vorjiang, either.”

Tej smirked at that. She wasn’t the daughter of Baron Cordonah for nothing, after all.

And what they intended to do on Beta Colony was a very important Deal.

When they met Byerly at the Silica spaceport some four days later, Ivan’s first thought was that he’d been right to worry.

He caught sight of By before By saw them, and to his practiced eye By looked tense and unhappy, shoulders hunched against the weight of his bag and rolling valise. He was little changed from the last time Ivan had seen him in Vorbarr Sultana, well-groomed and well-dressed, but the dark blots beneath his eyes were new, and a vaguely hunted air hung about him. One got the distinct impression that By hadn’t slept much during his three-week journey, for all that he tolerated jumpship travel just fine.

Ivan swallowed a knot of panic, and called out to him, waving. Tej spotted in him at the same moment, and bounced on her toes, waving both arms over her head. “Byerly!”

The change in By’s demeanor the moment he heard his name was pronounced: his eyes widened, his shoulders lifted, and as soon as his gaze landed on them in the crowd he strolled towards them with a posture of casual ease, his smile so natural that if Ivan hadn’t just finished cataloguing his haggard appearance he’d probably have been convinced. He was reminded all over again that By was good at what he did; that By, like any number of Ivan’s frighteningly driven relations, was one of those people who felt that possessing a skill carried with it an obligation to use it, and did.

As soon as By was in range Tej cried, “Oh, it’s so good to see you!” and leapt forward to hug him.

By accepted this with good grace, catching her with only the mildest, “Mind the suit!” When Tej released him Ivan stepped up, and grasped Byerly’s hand, defaulting without thinking to his best aide-to-the-ambassador style.

By’s eyebrow quirked, and he drew out a laconic, “Good evening, Lord Ivan,” with the faintest emphasis on the Lord. The skepticism in his tone could have crumbled nations.

At which point Ivan woke to what he was doing, and hauled By in for a bone-crushing hug.

For a for an instant By was rigid against him, and then all the tension seemed to drain from him at once. His breath huffed against Ivan’s shoulder, and Ivan felt it when By released his valise, hands twitching up to clutch Ivan’s back. By didn’t speak; probably he couldn’t, with Ivan squeezing him so tightly. Certainly that was the only thing Ivan could think of that could prevent Byerly Vorrutyer from making an acerbic remark.

Well. Maybe not the only.

Ivan pulled back, and—because after all this was Beta, and because he’d wanted to do it so very badly the last time he’d seen By at a spaceport, back at VBS Main—took By’s face in both hands, and kissed him.

It was a dizzying moment, as much from the heady fact of being able to do it in public as from how sharply Ivan’s body remembered the one pressed against it. By responded instantly, and Ivan suddenly recalled everything he’d been missing for the past year, everything, the prospect of having to wait made newly and acutely unbearable.

Both of them were a trifle breathless by the time he stepped back. Byerly gave a fastidious twitch of his cuffs and his collar, and said, “Why, Ivan. One almost gets the impression you missed me,” mouth curving in a pleased smile.

“I did. We did. Come on, give over your bag.” Without waiting for an acknowledgment, Ivan lifted it from By’s shoulder. By certainly wasn’t likely to fight him for the privilege of carrying his overstuffed luggage, though he’d probably needle Ivan for being so unusually obliging.

Indeed, By’s mouth twitched, but for once he refrained from comment. Instead he held out his arm to Tej as though they were at a formal reception, and sauntered alongside as Ivan led the way out to the bubble-car station, launching into a stream of chatter on the subject of jumpship cabins, food, and fellow passengers, with an extended digression about his lengthy layover on Escobar.

Tej made encouraging noises at the appropriate places, while Ivan threw increasingly worried glances in By’s direction. By’s patter was as smooth as ever, but Ivan didn’t think he was imagining the tension gathering in By’s shoulders, pinching the corners of his eyes and mouth.

They caught the first available bubble-car at the station, at which point By’s fingers started to drum uncharacteristically against his knee, though of course he didn’t stop smiling or talking. The conversation was kept forcibly light by the gaggle of Betans who piled in after them, talking loudly over each other.

Ivan kept an eye on him as they sped through the subterranean streets, aware of how wound up Byerly had to be to be showing it even this much. By was wired, his tension resonating inside of Ivan.

Upon reaching the Barrayaran embassy they disembarked, Ivan handing By and Tej out of the car. He explained on the way in, “They’ve given us a guest suite in the diplomatic housing complex, routine courtesy for transiting diplomatic staff. Especially convenient for us—I got the consul to agree to see us tomorrow morning before they open, to provide the confirmation of our existing marriage.”

“Efficient of you.” By’s smile, by this stage, looked painfully pasted-on.

Further discussion was suspended by the security check at the complex entrance, where a pair of expressionless Service-uniformed guards scanned their persons, their documents, and By’s luggage, finally waving them through. A lift-tube and a couple of hallways brought them to the suite door.

By’s nervous energy erupted to the surface the moment they made it inside. He paced away into the suite almost before the door had slid shut behind them, saying, “Listen, I’ve been thinking,” in a tone that suggested he’d been working hard not to say it sooner.

That Ivan had been expecting this didn’t make it any better. Alarmed, he said, “Don’t tell me you’ve come up with some reason not to go through with it now.” He dropped By’s bag next to the door; it was a measure of By’s preoccupation that By didn’t even glance towards it. “I mean, er. You’re already here.” Behind him Tej toed off her shoes, and went to sling herself over the back of the sofa, folding her arms atop the cushions to watch.

“No. Yes. No, but—Ivan—” By sank his fingers into his hair, rifling it from its state of artful disarray. Ivan was almost diverted by the thought of how long it had been since he’d run his own hands through it, only By’s obvious agitation keeping him from pursuing the daydream. The last time he’d seen By so ruffled had been on the too-memorable night prior to Dono’s confirmation as Count, which—wasn’t reassuring. “Have you actually considered the repercussions? I mean, really considered them? Because I remain unconvinced that you fully appreciate just how much trouble this is going to bring you.”

“Of course I have!” Ivan was almost offended. “We’ve already had this discussion, remember? Several times, by my count.”

“And yet your epistolary replies left something to be desired with regard to assuring the reader, viz., me, that you’d actually thought through the ramifications.” By’s expression was caught between exasperation and an odd blankness that Ivan interpreted clearly as terror. “Shall I outline them to you again? Just for the sake of completeness, of course.”

Ivan crossed his arms, mulishly. “Try me.”

“All right.” By’s eyes glinted feverishly in the dim suite. The only light came from the long polarized window along one wall, overlooking one of the jagged desert canyons within which Silica lay. “First, let’s consider the Jacksonian angle. We’ll be lucky if there aren’t prices on our heads the day the news reaches the Whole. As soon as Shiv finds out about this he’ll no doubt decide that you’re neglecting your promise to take good care of his daughter, and set out to rectify the situation. Dramatically.”

“Dada likes you,” Tej reminded him. “Better than he likes Ivan Xav, even. He says you can deal like a real Jacksonian, when you put your mind to it.” High praise, coming from Shiv Arqua. “And the Baronne won’t care enough to mind, unless I go crying to her.”

Ivan frowned briefly at that—the Baronne’s laissez faire attitude towards Tej still didn’t sit right with him, for all that he’d chafed for decades under stifling concern from his own mother—but supported this with, “Also, they’re all back on Cordonah Station, dozens of jumps away. Gregor’s not cruel enough to order me posted to the same planet as my in-laws. Or insane enough.” Appointing a son-in-law of House Cordonah as the Imperium’s official representative to the Consortium would be a surefire way to cause an interplanetary incident.

“So we’ll have several weeks in which to anticipate our bloody end before the bounty hunters arrive. How very pleasant for us.” By made a sharp throwaway gesture. “Fine! By all means, let’s move on to the Barrayaran repercussions, which quite impress on their own. The scandal back home shall be epic. Homeric in proportion.”

“So what?” Ivan fired back. “You’ve been through enough scandals before. You know they’re survivable.”

“Not while on ImpSec’s shit list, Ivan!” By’s hands clutched in the air in frustration. His eyes were very wide. “Allegre will be furious—”

“Allegre will be thrilled, once he realizes it’ll give you an airtight cover for being posted to wherever I’m posted. He’ll just reassign you to Galactic Affairs, where he damn well knows you’ll be of more use to the Imperium than you would be in Vorbarr Sultana, in a few more years.” A reality that had been much on By’s mind, Ivan knew. Pretty soon By would be too old to be taken into the confidences of the young and dissolute, and where would he be then? He couldn’t act as a handler—ImpSec used only their own for that—and his hard-earned reputation would do him no favors with the older generation of troublemakers. “Besides, you’re a civilian. Even Allegre can’t order you not to marry.”

“Funny you should mention that, Ivan, because, next up, the Emperor will be furious—weren’t you the one who said never to blindside the man? What do you call forcing stodgy old Barrayar to swallow a three-way Betan marriage between two high Vor and a Jacksonian, then?”

“It was bound to come up among the Vor eventually! There’s even precedent already. I looked it up, while we were away. I mean,” Ivan turned sheepish, “I had Kareen Koudelka look it up. Discreetly. Obviously you can’t access Barrayaran civic records from half-way across the galaxy. But it’s come up before! With galactics visiting from off-planet, you know. One party gets hospitalized, so they have to sort out next-of-kin, allow visiting rights for both spouses, that sort of thing. The Imperium has to honor off-world marriages. We’re trying to get people to emigrate to Sergyar, remember? Can’t be scaring off potential colonists by refusing to accept their family ties. We have to have, y’know, a comity doctrine.”

Byerly had actually stopped pacing at that, eyebrows climbing progressively higher as Ivan spoke. Ivan cleared his throat, a little awkwardly; he really was starting to sound like Miles. He pressed on, “Look, the point is, just because it’s the first time it’s happening among the Vor doesn’t change the basic facts. The old codgers on the Council of Counts may grumble, but nobody’s going to stop us, all right? If I were a count or a count’s heir, maybe, but I’m not. Hell, I’m not even considered a serious contender for the succession anymore, thanks to Tej’s supposed connections to the haut.”

“I still don’t understand that,” Tej put in. “It’s not like House Cordonah is actually friendly with Cetaganda. Grandmama practically declared war on the Star Crèche, when she immolated that gene library.”

By, apparently recovering sufficiently to find his tongue, tried, “Your mother,” in last-ditch desperation.

Ivan grimaced. He wasn’t looking forward to that conversation either, but, damn it, he was a grown man; he would deal with it.

Firmly, he said, “I’ll handle things with Mamere,” and then—before Byerly could speak again—crossed the room towards him in three short strides, and seized him by the upper arms. “By. I don’t care, all right? I don’t care about my, my reputation, or what anyone is going to say. I’ll admit I’m not thrilled about being the hottest topic of gossip in Vorbarr Sultana for the next year, but we won’t even be on-planet to hear most of it. We’ll be wherever I get posted next, and you’ll be with us. And even if Gregor doesn’t post me somewhere else, if he kicks me out in disgrace”—even Byerly snorted at that one—“then it’ll still be the three of us, together. Which is what I want, By.”

This, at last, seemed to get through. Something pained and earnest flickered across By’s face, and his eyes closed; he slumped in Ivan’s grip. “Chivalrous of you, Ivan,” he said, very quietly. “Not a modicum self-preservation, I’ve always said.”

“I’ve got plenty of self-preservation,” retorted Ivan. “I just want the people I care about preserved, too.” Which includes you, you contrary bastard. “I want you. We want you, and the last five times we talked about this you wanted us, too.” In a smaller voice, he added, “Didn’t you?”

By’s dark eyelashes lifted, and Ivan was suddenly faced with those Vorrutyer eyes at close range, beautiful and bottomless. Byerly searched for something in his face, and perhaps found it; after a moment he said, “Yes. I did. I do.”

It was Ivan’s turn to slump. “Good,” he said, relieved, “good,” and leaned to press a kiss to By’s mouth for good measure. Hadn’t he just proposed to him, after all? Maybe not for the first time, exactly, but the first time in person, the first time he’d been able to watch By’s face when he did it. And By had said yes—panicked a little first, but said it all the same.

Ivan was going to hold him to that.

By’s lips were yielding, warm, and Ivan didn’t want to stop—not now that it was just the three of them, with a locked door and nowhere to be until morning. Byerly was solid beneath his hands, unmistakably present, and Ivan ached with how close he was, his body yearning for everything that had come rushing back to him at the spaceport. He wanted to press By into the bed, to touch him and fuck him until By forgot himself, until he stopped thinking so hard.

Ivan pulled back, and held By at arm’s length. “Come to bed with us.”

Tej drifted up alongside—Ivan hadn’t seen her get off the couch, but her timing was perfect. She slid her arms around By’s shoulders, and said, “Yes, do. You know how Ivan Xav missed you.” The top buttons of her blouse, Ivan saw, were already undone.

By noticed, too. His hand lifted, and for a moment Ivan though he might tug at that tantalizing gap in the fabric, but instead he merely curled a lock of Tej’s hair around his fingers, and said, “Is that right? And here I was convinced that Ivan preferred his life to be boring.” His kept his eyelashes low.

Ivan sighed wistfully. “I do.” Boring was good; boring was safe, and certainly better for their collective longevity. “But that’s a sacrifice I’m prepared to make.”

“Well, in that case.” Byerly smiled, languid and gleaming with satisfaction. When he met Ivan’s eyes Ivan felt a rush of heat, settling into a low pull in his belly. “I suppose I must grant you the opportunity to prove your intentions.”

“Oh, we will.” Ivan turned him towards the bedroom. Tej took By’s arm, and together they steered him into it.

They spent the evening proving their intentions, assiduously. Several times, just to make sure.

Afterward Ivan Xav went out to check whether there were any 24-hour eateries nearby that delivered to the diplomatic complex, while Tej and By stayed in bed.

By lay on his back, watching the ceiling; Tej lay on her side and watched him, appreciating his slim naked form. He wasn’t as primally attractive to her as Ivan Xav—By was far narrower in the shoulders, and skinny where Ivan Xav was athletic, tending scrawny rather than lean—but she enjoyed the contrast, the tender vulnerability of him beneath his clothes. When he stretched out like this his stomach dipped into a soft hollow, quite unlike Ivan’s hard muscle, and thirty minutes ago Tej had licked her way up the trail of dark hair there, intensely aware of the tremulous care with which By’s hands had alighted on her shoulders, her hair.

Years ago, Rish had shared the observation that By’s hands were the most honest part of him, shy on the draw but capable of a heart-wrenching candor that a woman as foolish as Tej might fall in love with. Well, her odd-sister had been right; over the past two years the warmth that filled Tej’s chest at the thought of Ivan Xav had expanded, and she’d found that there was room there for Byerly Vorrutyer, too. Of course he belonged to Ivan Xav first—Tej didn’t need to see how By arched for Ivan Xav to know that—but that didn’t bother her. Even if his hands were sometimes still shy, she liked how By fit into their lives; liked his scathing wit and his hidden good heart, and most of all the white-hot way Ivan Xav reacted to him, sparking at the proximity. This—the three of them in one bed, the three of them planning to go down to the registry office tomorrow—felt right, all the way down to her bones.

(She did wonder, still, what Rish would think when she found out. Neither Rish nor By had been forthcoming about how things ended between them, though generally Tej was disinclined to worry about it overmuch; Rish had had her shot, if she’d wanted him, and anyway By was obviously in the right place.)

But By was pensive again, something clearly encroaching on his postcoital bliss. Tej scooted nearer, and said, “Something’s got your brain going,” tracing a finger along his shoulder. And, because it never hurt to reinforce good performance by a sexual partner with positive feedback, “I thought that was very good.” From the sweet way he’d whimpered when she put her mouth on him, he’d thought so, too.

He looked over at her, and gave her a lazy By smile—she’d learned to recognize them, over the past few years. This one was cheshire-like and slightly salacious, a pretty distraction. He bent his neck slightly, the tiniest hint of a bow. “As did I. You’ve outdone yourself, Lady Tej.”

She wasn’t about to be diverted. “And yet you’re still thinking hard about something. Usually after good sex people nap. So . . . what’s on your mind?”

An odd scent of—confusion? Surprise? lingered around him. She hadn’t been able to smell him during the argument—ever since Jackson’s Whole he’d taken to wearing strong perfumes around her, having found out from the other Arquas about her superior senses—but in the wake of their exertions she could smell him just fine, and detect the strange note among the greater feeling of postcoital satisfaction.

His gaze wandered back up to the ceiling, his smile fading. Tej waited; if By had to think his response over then he was probably going to tell the truth, because he never hesitated before a lie. Finally he said, “I’m thinking . . . that five years ago our dear Ivan would have cared a great deal more about the repercussions.”

Tej hummed thoughtfully. “He’s spent a lot of time away from home, these past few years. I think being posted away let him grow, without anyone putting him in a box.” And me, too. “He’s gotten a taste for being who he wants to be, instead of what everybody expects.”

“Ivan, untrammeled. An arresting thought.” A lift of By’s brows. “I’m afraid the only taste I gained on my sojourn to Jackson’s Whole was one for not being on Jackson’s Whole—no offense to your dear relations, of course.” Tej shrugged, think-nothing-of-it. “But I believe I know what you mean. As grateful as I was to return to Vorbarr Sultana after my exile, I found myself more tired of my old role than I recalled.”

Tej remembered Ivan Xav suggesting as much to her, following his first run-in with By after they returned from Ylla. I think By’s sick of always playing the clown. Ivan Xav’s brows had been drawn down in worry. I mean, he’s past forty, now—getting trashed every other week can’t be that fun anymore. And all everyone knows about him is that he’s an untrustworthy scoundrel with too many vices, because no one can know what he really does. I think—I think he really hates it, sometimes.

Rish had said something like that to her, too, come to think, speaking of Byerly’s commitment to his job. He won’t give it up, no matter how much he despises the work. Or his subjects. Or himself. Tej suspected Byerly had built up rather a lot of loathing for the person he pretended to be, enough that some of it spilled over onto the person he was.

So . . . how much was that well-concealed self-loathing at the root of his earlier panic? A lot, probably. Marrying him would create problems for Ivan Xav, and what did Ivan Xav get in return, from By’s perspective? Someone By didn’t even like.

The insight made something twist painfully in her chest, and she reached abruptly over to take By’s hand, making him blink in surprise. Fiercely, she said, “Ivan Xav means it, when he says causing a mess back home matters less to him than having you with us. And then we’ll go somewhere else, and you won’t have to play that role anymore.”

“No? And what role shall I play instead?” By’s tone was mild, but there was a bitter note in his scent.

“Whatever one you like. Or that your General Allegre likes. So long as you’re our husband first.” Tej squeezed his hand. “It’s like Ivan Xav said. We want you.” She tossed her head, mock-seriously. “And we’ve gotten pretty good at getting our way.”

This got a snort out of him, to her relief. She’d started to worry that he was so wound up as to have swallowed his usual humor. He smiled again, this time slow and flirtatious—another mask, perhaps, but one that concealed being affected, instead of that dreadful uncertainty from before. “I can see that,” he purred. “It’s very impressive, the Vorpatrils taking charge.” The smarm faded. “You’re right, of course. He has changed. It’s just difficult to reconcile this Ivan with the one who was so averse to the slightest whiff of social strain that he used to greet me by trying to shut the door in my face.”

“Did he really.”

“Oh, yes. His stated preference has always been to duck the line of fire.”

“Unless it’s aiming at someone he loves.” She stretched to kiss By’s cheek, as much to give him a chance to control his reaction as to affirm the words. His scent spiked tellingly with something soft, if maybe a little embarrassed. “That was always true, I think.”

“So it was.” His reply was a murmur.

And then the door opened, and the object of their affections was back, tossing his comlink on the dresser.

“I,” Ivan Xav announced proudly, “tracked down an all-night curry restaurant. They’ll be delivering in half an hour—the night-shift man downstairs has been warned.”

“Such heroics, Ivan. You’re a veritable knight in shining armor.” By’s tone was bone-dry, but Tej saw the way he looked at Ivan Xav, like somewhere deep down he was thinking something much less ironic. Yeah, she thought warmly. Of course he’ll go the extra mile for you.

With great dignity, Ivan Xav said, “You’re both welcome to repay me while we wait.”

He flopped back on the bed, and crawled to take up his place between them. The scent she caught from By as the three of them met in the middle was complex, but warm.

She rather thought it was love.

In the morning they all trekked down to the embassy for the early meeting with the consul, as promised. The consul checked their identification, took their statements (plus By’s, as witness to the original ceremony) and issued the document confirming Ivan and Tej’s marriage. The process took all of three minutes, followed by another fifteen while the consul finished processing the certificate on his console.

As he worked he explained that this was one of the primary functions served by the embassy here on Beta, providing Barrayaran travelers and expats with documentary evidence of contracts that were purely oral back home. “Meticulous people, the Betans.” He also looked like he wanted very badly to ask what they meant to use the certificate for, but was too polite to actually ask. Ivan ruthlessly didn’t enlighten him.

This done, they called a bubble car, and whisked off to the North Silica Licensing and Registry Office.

By was subdued, stark contrast to his nerves the day before; the activities of the previous night had seen to that, as had dragging him out of bed shortly after dawn. Ivan and Tej bracketed him in the back seat, and plotted where they might get breakfast (“And coffee,” yawned By, “in prodigious quantities, if you don’t mind”) as the bubble car took them several station-like city blocks over.

Despite the early hour, the registry office proved to be already busy, with anyone entering required to take a number and get in line. Ivan thought wistfully of how easy it had been to hopscotch the queue at the Barrayaran embassy—this morning’s before-hours appointment had only taken firing off a message to the consul upon arriving topside—and pulled a flimsy with a printed number from the dispenser on the way in.

Inside the hallway led to a long room with large trees in a terrarium along its center, branches reaching up to where morning light spilled through the vaulted glass ceiling. The space was hushed, filled with the murmuration of groups of waiting Betans, as well as those already at the booths lining one side. Ivan, Tej, and By made their way to a long padded bench, pausing to let past a group whose number had just been called.

“It’s all so orderly,” Tej commented, fishing her wallet out of her coat and then dropping the coat on the bench. (She’d lost the round of rock-paper-scissors back in the car for who would go to fetch breakfast.) “Back home a marriage between the children of any of the Houses involves a Deal, and endless negotiation, but grubber marriages—I suppose they have ceremonies, but there’s no one to register with. Though they’d want to inform their employing house.”

Ivan had never thought about how things worked for Jacksonian proles. “Sounds more similar to Barrayaran marriages than to Betan ones.”

“Only worse,” put in By, reminding Ivan anew that By had spent almost two years on Jackson’s Whole, “because marriage there doesn’t net the participants spousal privileges, unless one’s employer happens to grant them. It fuels competition, especially among the Houses Minor—benefits for the family are a good way to attract more hands—but the absence of a centralized government incentivizes sticking with one’s current House, since a marriage conducted while in the employ of one is likely to take several years of employment before being recognized by another. Can’t be handing out benefits to a spouse without bona fide evidence that the matrimony is ongoing, after all.”

Ivan shuddered. It all sounded very . . . corporate, yeah. No wonder By hadn’t wanted to stick around; whether Vorbarr Sultana town clown or ImpSec galactic agent, By was still Vor. Somewhere beneath all those layers of flimflam he had an unbending sense of honor, no less real for being buried.

Tej waggled her fingers at them and disappeared back down the hall, promising to return with sustenance. (“And coffee, yes, By.”)

Ivan frowned at his shoes, reminded by the discussion of something that had been nagging at him ever since he and Tej had first come up with this plan. Quietly, he said, “I’m sorry, you know, that we can’t . . . I’d like to do it properly, like I did with Tej.” And, before By could make some acerbic comment about the nature of that wedding, “With an oath, I mean. But it needs to be inarguable, like we talked about. We couldn’t think of any other way to make it stick.”

“I know.” By’s murmur was equally low, barely audible over the room’s quiet chatter. “I don’t mind, Ivan. I know you mean it, whether it’s your breath and voice or a piece of Betan paper. It’s the consequences that count.” His mouth twitched. “And you’ve made your stance on those quite clear.”

“I better have,” groused Ivan. But it warmed him, knowing that By understood.

Still. It would have been nice, to speak those words to By and know that they were binding—not that they would have been, on Barrayar, even if Ivan weren’t married already, and what did it say about Barrayaran marriage that the system itself could make you forsworn? A shared delusion, Aunt Cordelia liked to say. Perhaps it was.

So long as Ivan got to share it with both Tej and By.

By, meanwhile, gave him a sideways look. “So what do you intend to do about your mother, and other assorted illustrious relatives? I wouldn’t mind a real answer, now that you’re not trying to persuade me of your gallantry.”

Ivan let out a noisy breath. “Honestly? I was thinking about requesting to be assigned as far away as possible, as soon as possible.”

“Ah, but look on the bright side. Once Lady Alys finds out you’re married to me, she’ll stop harassing you both about grandchildren. She wouldn’t want them to grow up under such a bad influence.”

“Huh! I hadn’t considered that.” Ivan’s brows rose, then drew down. “Though I’d be pretty damn well offended, actually, if Mamere thought that way about you. Not that she would, I don’t think. She knows you, doesn’t she? She’s one of the few people in Vorbarr Sultana who’s actually aware of what you do for a living. She’ll flip, but . . . she’ll get over it.”

Byerly tilted his head, acknowledging this possibility. “And the others? Starting with old Illyan, I suppose.”

“Um.” The truth was, Ivan had no idea how Simon would react. He hadn’t particularly figured Simon into what would be waiting for them at home, one way or the other. His mother would have whatever opinion she had regardless of Simon’s presence, and a decade of being Lady Alys’s gentleman friend hadn’t made Simon any more likely to intrude on Ivan’s personal life.

One thing, however, was certain. “Simon will be ironic.” The upside, Ivan supposed, was that if he was tragically cut down by a pointed eyebrow raise from the former Chief of ImpSec he wouldn’t have to deal with the rest of his family. He spent a moment dwelling on this rosy scenario, then went on, “Tante Cordelia won’t mind, at least. And Uncle Aral doesn’t usually care what I do.” Also, both of them were safely distant on Sergyar, and therefore incapable of grilling him in real time. “Miles . . .” Ivan trailed off, suppressing a wince. Much as he loved Miles, he couldn’t think of anyone he wanted to talk to about this less.

“Your rarefied auditorial cousin was raised by Countess Vorkosigan. He hardly batted an eye at Dono, as I recall—you truly expect him to object to us?”

“Not really.” Even if Miles did seem to be turning into old Count Piotr at an alarming rate. “He won’t mind that you’re a man, and it’s not as though he can judge your line of work. No,” Ivan sighed, “he’ll just be furious that I didn’t tell him.”

“Mm.” The edge of By’s mouth curved up. “On the other hand, you’ll have finally achieved your long-stated goal of surprising your coz.”

“For which he will repay me tenfold by demanding to know how long I’ve been interested in men, how long this has been going on, and why we didn’t tell him before, with questioning your intentions for an encore. No, thanks. I’d just as soon skip being the subject of a hostile interrogation.”

“And let all those refresher courses they put you Ops fellows through go to waste?” Byerly eyed him curiously. “Does he always take such remarkable umbrage at not being kept informed of the details of your personal life?”

“It’s not that he cares about my personal life. It’s that he thinks he knows everything there is to know about me, and will take it as a personal slight when he finds out he doesn’t.” Ivan brooded, not sure how to explain his cousin’s sense of the proprietary. Stifling a flare of frustration, he nearly added, You’re lucky you’ve got no family to tell, but managed to snap his mouth shut in time to stop the stupidity from escaping.

Lucky wasn’t the word for that, no.

Instead he ventured cautiously, “So . . . what about you? Is there anyone you’d like to tell, other than Dono?” There, that was about as delicately as he could possibly pose the question of whether By had any intention of telling his sister.

“As delighted as Richars would no doubt be to receive a note from me in prison, I think I shall refrain.” Ivan—decided to let that one go. “Dono, at least, can be counted upon to be happy for me. Granted, it will be rather less of a shock to him.”

Of course; Dono was just about the only person back home who knew about By’s relationship with Ivan and Tej, and—given his own experience with Beta Colony—was perhaps even capable of envisioning why By might go there to meet them. Oh, Dono was bound to be scathing, his sense of humor unchanged from the days of Lady Donna, but the bulk of his evil glee could be counted upon to be in their favor, directed at everyone else.

Plaintively, Ivan said, “I meant everything I said last night. But is it so wrong that I want to skip the part where they’re all variously appalled and teasing, and go straight to the part where you being married to me and Tej is just a fact of life? I don’t want to have to defend you, dammit, or put up with jokes. Even friendly ones.” Or have his psyche picked apart as though it were a team sport. “They’ll think that just because it’s a shock to them they’ve got some kind of familial right to question your honor, and I don’t . . .” He shook his head, helplessly. “I’d rather just get off-planet. The nice thing about keeping it secret was that it was just—ours. What we wanted it to be. And it will be again, just as soon as we’re posted to somewhere else.”

“Assuming your gambit works.”

“It will.” Ivan’s thoughts drifted wistfully to the two years he and Tej had spent on Ylla. “God, but I hope they send me somewhere sunny, for the next one. Our embassy on Zoave Twilight is practically at the south pole.”

“And this is the business you’re so determined to drag me into? Cruel of you.”

“No worse than Vorbarr Sultana in winter, and it’s not as though ambassadorial duties involve much dashing around outside. Except that one gala they held in their capital gardens, I suppose . . .” Thinking of gardens sparked a cheering notion. “You know, I’ll bet Ekaterin will be happy for us, and without grilling me on my sexual history, or the details of your character. Maybe she’ll even help keep Miles in check.” Ivan brightened considerably. “If she keeps him off me long enough, we might actually get away clean.”

“You make it sound like a heist, Ivan.” But By’s eyes laughed warmly at him.

Tej, appearing from the hallway just in time to hear this, asked, “What are we stealing?” She was laden with paper bags and a tray of paper coffee mugs, both emitting enticing aromas. One of the latter was handed carefully down to By as she weaved around their legs to her seat, By grasping the mug like a drowning man clutching a life preserver.

Ivan answered, “Byerly. We’re stealing Byerly,” and accepted a coffee mug of his own, along with a paper box that proved to contain several large warm croissants. “Have I mentioned how much I love you recently?” he asked Tej. “Because I do. So much.”

By inhaled over his coffee, eyes closed. After a bolstering sip, he said, “As do I. Really, Ivan, you might have skipped all the convincing you did last night, and simply waited to demand my answer until after Tej plied me with caffeine on an early morning. For this, I would’ve married you both in a heartbeat.”

“That’s because she’s an adept of the Jacksonian art of the Deal,” Ivan informed him. “We send her in last, to make sure your mind stays made up.” He bit into a croissant. The outside was crunchy without crumbling, and the inside was dense and delicious, still hot from the oven. It was plainly a sign of Beta Colony’s greater sophistication that a civic office could have such a good cafe across the street.

Tej grinned. “That’s right. You’ve got to bring in the best to deal for the best.” She settled on her end of the bench and began to unpack her own breakfast, nodding towards a group in the opposite corner. “Did you see, we’re not the only trio in line? There’s another one like us, just over there.”

Ivan followed her gaze, and realized with some surprise that she was right. “Huh.” There was an obvious intimacy in the way the three Betans—definitely locals, from their earrings and dress and expressive smiles—took up each other’s space, leaning on each other, hands touching. On closer inspection their earrings, too, proclaimed them to be in a three-way relationship, but Ivan hadn’t processed that signifier at first; he’d just seen the trio, and known.

He wondered whether he, Tej, and By were as obvious to outside observers. Or did their lack of earrings camouflage them to Betan eyes? He finished off the croissant, deep in thought.

He was still thinking on this by the time breakfast was finished, so once the containers were emptied and piled at their feet he shifted closer to By, and took his hand. Partly he did it because this was Beta Colony and he could, and partly because he found that he didn’t much like the idea of somebody looking at them and thinking By separate from him and Tej. Tej leaned comfortably against his other side, book-viewer out to pass the time.

By raised his eyebrows, but didn’t protest. Maybe he’d followed Ivan’s train of thought, or maybe he just liked holding Ivan’s hand in public, too.

From the narrow-eyed look of cat-got-the-cream satisfaction that crept over him, Ivan was pretty sure the latter was true.

Tej had just passed the halfway point in her book—a trashy romance of the sort Rish had gotten her into, all those years ago on Komarr—when their number was finally called. Ivan Xav sprang to his feet, pulling By up alongside; Tej stood on her own, and together they went to the booth.

The clerk waiting for them was a bespectacled herm with graying hair, which on a Betan put its age anywhere between forty and ninety. Obviously surprised to find itself faced with a trio of Barrayarans, it nonetheless accepted the embassy’s confirmation of their prior message without fuss, commenting only, “I’ve never processed a marriage for anyone from your planet before,” as it collected their identification and pulled up the forms for the marriage license. “I thought you Barrayarans married yourselves?”

Ivan Xav explained that this worked only if there were two parties. The clerk shook its head, presumably at the tragic backwardness of the Imperium, and started in on the license, running through the required questions for Ivan Xav. Permanent planetary address, usual occupation, previous marriages, parents’ names . . . Ivan Xav answered clearly and without hesitation, and then it was Tej’s turn. Her parents’ names had the clerk’s eyebrows climbing high up its forehead, and there was a brief hold-up while it conferred with a superior about whether they ought select Bar. as the titular contraction for the Baronne, given that the technical meaning was Baroness.

By was quiet through their rounds of questions, not even remarking on the issue of titles. He hadn’t bothered with perfume this morning—was he trying to reassure her, or was he thinking further than that, aware that she and Ivan Xav were so closely attuned that Ivan Xav would pick up her subconscious cues?—so she could tell quite clearly that By wasn’t worried, unlike Ivan Xav. In fact the prevailing emotion emanating from By was the same one as last night, a surprised-confused blend that she was starting to suspect translated as disbelief, or . . . wonder.

She didn’t miss the spike of tension from him when he had to give his parents’ names, though. By’s default ironic expression remained fixed in place, but his smile thinned, and his displeasure stung at her nose. Reaction to their unpleasant history, or professional paranoia? Given what By did for Ivan Xav’s government she thought he’d rather pull out his own teeth than hand out personal information to the Betans, but they could hardly avoid that here.

Of course, when asked for his profession he quipped, “Dilettante,” and smiled as the clerk sniffed and entered Unemployed. They probably frowned on that sort of thing here, Tej reflected, though maybe not as violently as on Jackson’s Whole. The word hardly seemed to encapsulate the strenuous level of effort By put into maintaining his social life in Vorbarr Sultana, anyway.

Finally the clerk had them check everything over, and went to run off the official document. Ivan Xav jittered, keyed up and impatient, his pheromones matching his outward nervy excitement. Tej grasped his hand, and won a flash of a smile; By, meanwhile, settled back into calm, the odd note about him resurfacing.

She was still mulling over the nature of that emotion when the clerk returned. It presented them with an ornate flimsy, the marriage license printed across the top and the unfilled marriage certificate at the bottom. “You can take this license to an officiant, or self-solemnize,” the clerk explained. “If you take it to an officiant, be sure to complete and return the certificate within thirty days, or else you’ll need a new license. If you intend to self-solemnize it’s most efficient to do it here.”

“Oh, yes!” said Tej. “We’d like to do it now. We’ve been waiting for ages.” Ivan Xav nodded vigorously.

The clerk brightened. Maybe the registry office didn’t get many people marrying on the spot? It probably helped break up the monotony. The dull atmosphere of the registry office reminded Tej strongly of the grubber job she’d had on Komarr, seven hours a day of making shipping labels and packing items for transport. She’d been seeing that damned label form in her sleep; If the registry clerk felt at all similarly about its job she suspected any change of pace was welcome.

Quickly, the clerk wrote in the date and the address of the registry office, and turned the certificate back around to them. “You’ll write your names here, then sign here,” it said, pointing to the appropriate places with its light-pen. “If you like, you have the option to change your name directly on the certificate. That’s one of the perks of doing this here in Silica habitat—we voted to incorporate name changes just last year.” This last was tinged with local pride. “With multiple partners people usually prefer to combine their names alphabetically, which in your case I suppose would be,” the clerk glanced again at the document from the consul, “ghem Estif Arqua Vorpatril Vorrutyer . . . ?”

Ivan Xav winced; By choked down what sounded suspiciously like a laugh. Tej—by now well-versed in Barrayaran cultural sensitivities when it came to their erstwhile conquerors, and even better-versed in the likelihood of By making an off-color joke—clarified quickly, “Only I’m ghem Estif. That part’s hereditary.”

“Ah. Just Arqua Vorpatril Vorrutyer, then.” The clerk looked as though it was contemplating how to enter her resulting surname into the console, at a minimum.

Both Tej and Ivan Xav looked over at By, who looked mildly down at the certificate.

Ivan Xav said, “Er—should it be Arqua Vorrutyer Vorpatril instead, d’you think? If you’re going to be Lord Byerly, from marrying me . . .” He trailed off, looking worried.

By’s eye glinted with amusement. “Technically, Ivan, I believe the only courtesy title you’re eligible to bestow upon a spouse is ‘Lady.’ So not Lord Byerly, no.”

“Hell.” Ivan Xav snorted. “Dono would have something to say about that.”

“Dono will be furious with me for usurping his title as the most scandalous Vorrutyer of this generation. Or thrilled, depending on who he’s trying to charm in the Council of Counts this session. I can’t wait to find out which.” By sniffed. “In any event, I believe I shall save us at least one legal battle, not to mention space on the certificate. I quite prefer to keep my name, thank you.” And he wrote Byerly Vorrutyer with his usual flourish.

There was something curiously defiant in him as he did it, which Tej filed away to think about later. Ivan Xav frowned, and said, “Should we not take your name either, then?”

“That would be best, I imagine.” Byerly’s eyelashes dipped. “If only from a professional standpoint.”

Tej thought she could see what he was getting at. Even if By was assigned alongside them to whatever embassies they would be posted to, there might be times when it would be to his benefit not to be so obviously married to the Barrayaran ambassador.

From the look on his face, Ivan Xav was thinking through this, too. He chewed his lip, and then took By suddenly by the arm, drawing him away from the counter. So quietly that even Tej strained to hear, he said, “Are you sure about this?” his tone serious. “The whole point is to make other people acknowledge what we are to each other. If you still think I don’t want your name, or for you to have mine . . .”

By matched him in volume. “So eager to become a Vorrutyer, Ivan? And after all those protestations to Dono about being drawn into our affairs.”

“Don’t be an ass.” Ivan Xav’s grip on By’s arm tightened visibly. “I mean it. I’ll take your name, unless you don’t want me to. Arqua Vorrutyer Vorpatril.”

By smiled a strange little By smile, and said, “I believe you. But it’ll be better for both of us”—and General Allegre, Tej could almost hear his silent addition—“if you don’t.” By’s hand rose to brush an invisible speck of lint from Ivan Xav’s sleeve. “And it’s only fair, since I won’t be taking yours.”

Ivan Xav looked like he wanted to say something more, staring intently at him, but said only, “All right,” and let go of Byerly’s arm. He turned and wrote his own name, keeping it to Arqua Vorpatril. Tej glanced at By and followed suit, whereupon all three of them signed.

The clerk took back the certificate, stamped it, and ran it through the console. There was another brief interlude of tapping keys, after which the herm slid the certificate back to them with a cheery smile. “Congratulations, lady and gentlemen. The three of you are now married under Betan authority. Feel free to kiss your lawfully wedded spouses; people usually do.”

Ivan Xav let out the breath he’d been holding, possibly since the low-voiced aside with By. He turned to Byerly, and pulled him unceremoniously in for a kiss.

It was a long kiss, and ardent enough that By’s arm slid up around Ivan’s shoulders, letting Ivan tilt him back. Someone in the waiting room behind them whistled; Tej grinned and rolled her eyes. There was always someone like that around, no matter what planet you were on.

When at last they broke apart Ivan Xav said, “Spouse and helpmeet,” low and fierce, holding By’s gaze. “Forsaking all others, except for Tej.” By’s eyes burned darkly back at him.

“My turn,” said Tej, and shouldered Ivan Xav gently out of the way. The dreamy smile on By’s face suited him rather well; it was almost a shame to kiss it away.

But she did anyway, curling her hands around By’s lapels and sealing their Deal with a kiss of her own. This won another, louder whistle—did that mean she compared favorably to Ivan Xav?—and thereby prompted a grumble from the latter. By smiled against her mouth, whether at the heckler or Ivan Xav. Knowing By, it was probably both.

When she was done she hugged him, and rose on her toes to whisper, “Welcome to the family,” into his ear. It’s about time.

He breathed, “Thank you,” and squeezed her tightly in response. The sense of wonder-disbelief-surprise still clung to him, but he smelled happy, too, the joy crowding out everything else.

As signs that they’d done the right thing, she thought that one was pretty good.

Across the counter, clerk cleared its throat. “If you’d like to select a new set of appropriate earrings, should you be planning to spend more time on Beta Colony . . .” Its tone suggested this was strongly encouraged. A wave of its hand brought up another display, this one showing some dozen styles of earring. Each bore the baseline signifier of a three-way marriage, with the different nuances annotated underneath.

Ivan Xav’s eyes lit at the sight. If not by name, then by earring? Tej wondered.

He glanced at By, then at her, and said, “Yeah,” his voice rough. “Yeah, we would.”

Later—much later, after a day spent sightseeing in Silica, followed by a vigorous evening back at the suite—Ivan was roused from sleep by someone moving beside him.

The springy embassy mattress shifted in the dark, and a moment’s bleary cognition identified By, carefully extricating himself from beneath Ivan’s arm. By climbed out of bed, picked something up from the nearby chair, and crept quietly out, the door into the main room clicking softly behind him.

Ivan rolled onto his back, and spent a while watching the ceiling. Tej breathed softly beside him, deeply asleep; she was a heavy sleeper, and rarely woke for anything less than the military-grade beeper Ivan still wore on his left wrist, leftover from his days with Desplains.

The black-on-black silhouette of By’s foppish jacket draped neatly over the back of a chair went a long way towards keeping Ivan from panicking about where By had gone. If Byerly had left his fine tailoring then he certainly wasn’t venturing beyond the confines of the apartment, which precluded a panicked escape into the night. And why should he, anyway? Probably By was just getting water, and would be back any minute.

Ivan’s thoughts drifted, pleasantly muzzy, to the activities they’d occupied themselves with earlier in the evening. Marital sex, he was increasingly convinced, had it all over fumbling early passions. It felt different, fucking By and knowing that he was theirs, officially and incontrovertibly, and they his, at least in the eyes of Beta Colony. And hopefully in the eyes of Barrayar too, or hadn’t that been the point of all this?

The answer came to him clearly, despite his half-asleep state. I would have wanted it anyway. Even if there wasn’t any chance it would work.

Enough minutes ticked by that it became apparent that By popping out for a drink was wishful thinking, so Ivan sighed—the sigh morphed into a long yawn—and crawled out of bed himself. He let Tej sleep; she wouldn’t appreciate being roused at this hour, and in any case she wasn’t functional straight out of bed.

He detoured to the bathroom to hit the head, washed his hands, and threw on one of the bathrobes set out by the embassy staff. After a moment’s consideration he grabbed a second one, and went out to find By, hugging the spare under one arm.

The main room of the suite was dark, the only illumination coming from the kitchenette at the far end. By sat at the counter that separated the kitchenette from the living area, dressed in undershirt and briefs; he was half-turned towards the window, beyond which Beta Colony’s moonless night rendered the canyon an indistinguishable mass of black, broken only by pinprick lights in the far canyon wall. At the sound of Ivan’s entrance By glanced over his shoulder, and lowered his eyelids in greeting.

Ivan went over to him, draping the spare bathrobe over By’s shoulders. By had a glass of water in front of him, but otherwise nothing to hold his attention; he clearly hadn’t come out here to work on his commpad. “Couldn’t sleep?”

By shrugged. Ivan claimed the other stool, and waited while By shifted around to get the robe on properly, pulling on the sleeves and wrapping it closer around himself. Just now he looked soft and pleasingly rumpled, quite unlike his dapper daytime appearance, and Ivan’s gaze was drawn to the spot where By’s hair curled against his neck, loose whorls caught by the robe’s collar. Ivan reached out to tug them free, laying them carefully against the outside.

Quite mildly, By said, “I don’t sleep well with someone else in the same bed,” and Ivan had known that, somewhere in the back of his mind; had noticed it right from the start, the way By always tended to slip away to sleep somewhere else, leaving the bed to Ivan and Tej. Somehow he’d expected that to change, once By’s rightful place in their bed was assured, but—now that By had said it he could see that it was true, and could probably even guess why. Who wouldn’t have a hard time turning off, after two decades of spying on the people one slept with?

By went on, “I think I’ll take the couch tonight, if you don’t mind. Please don’t take it as a slight; I promise I had a lovely time.”

Ivan gave a faint snort at that. “No kidding. Three times, was it, from the pitch of the moans?” By kicked him under the table, without the slightest change expression; Ivan grinned unrepentantly, then subsided. Soberly, he said, “No, I . . . understand, I think. Will you, um, want a separate bed, wherever we end up?”

Was that a flicker of surprise in those dark Vorrutyer eyes? “I would prefer that, yes.”

“Okay.” Ivan nodded, and took a mental deep breath. That was fine; he could live with it. His first instinct was to push, to reassure By that he was wanted, but—he didn’t think By was using this as an excuse, this time. Yes, By was sometimes susceptible to the bizarre notion that he didn’t deserve what Ivan and Tej were offering, capable of tying himself in knots over unspoken uncertainties. But when he was hiding something he smiled, and he wasn’t smiling now. His expression was slightly guarded, but calm, like he felt the need to tread carefully but wasn’t expecting a bomb.

Still, it probably didn’t hurt to be clear. Ivan was a big believer in cutting short potential mind games, even ones that remained within the confines of By’s head. He said: “But you know you’ll still be welcome in ours, right? Whether it’s just for one night, or because you changed your mind, or—whatever. You can sleep in any bed you like.”

By did smile, then; just a twitch of the lips, but it reached his eyes. “I’m touched by your faith in my abilities.” And, before Ivan could open his mouth to further insist on the seriousness of what he’d said, “Thank you. I’ll keep that in mind.”

“I’ll remind you, if you don’t,” Ivan promised. Then: “But you’re not on the couch now, I notice. You’re in the kitchen”—embassy guest suite limitations notwithstanding—“and that means you’re thinking hard about something. Nobody goes to navel-gaze in the kitchen at night because they’re content.”

“A tenet from your dread aunt’s school of Betan psychoanalysis?”

“From the Ivan Vorpatril school of having been there before. Come on, By. This morning we got hitched, and just a few hours ago we had fantastic sex, but instead of sleeping the sleep of the sated you’re out here alone. What gives?”

By gave him a narrow-eyed sideways look.

Then he sighed, and—rather to Ivan’s alarm—buried his face in his hands. His voice came out very strange when he spoke. “Oh, all right. It’s just—I didn’t think I’d feel so . . .”

A tremor ran through By’s shoulders, and Ivan sat bolt upright. Surely By didn’t regret it? Ivan had been so sure that By had wanted it, despite that moment of panic the night before, but—had he been wrong? Had he pushed By into it against his will, too enamored with his own plan to see anything besides what he’d wanted to see? He’d spent an awful lot of time around Miles in the last decade; maybe some of his cousin’s terrifying tunnel vision had rubbed off. But By had seemed so sure at the registry office that morning . . . More rose-tinted goggles?

Stop. By hadn’t actually said anything, yet. Ivan choked down his incipient panic, and prompted, “So—?”

“So happy,” By finished, slightly squeezed, and it hit Ivan that he was laughing.

“You—” Relief and ire flooded in side by side. “Dammit, By, I thought you were about to say you regretted it, and wanted to go back tomorrow to undo it all!”

“Not in the least. That’s the problem, you see. It’s a mad idea—don’t argue with me, you hardly need convince me into anything now—Vorbarr Sultana society shall have spasms, and I shall be lucky to retain my career, and the Emperor will no doubt post you to the back end of nowhere for so long that the next time we see each other I shall be old and gray. And for all that, I find I don’t regret it at all.” The words spilled out of By in a deluge of slightly hysterical mirth; Ivan couldn’t recall him ever sounding like that before. “I’d claim to be surprised by your hitherto unbeknownst determination, but I’ve known what you’re capable of for years. I’d just never anticipated seeing it put to use for my sake.”

“Why not?” Ivan demanded, affronted. Whether the affront was on his own behalf or By’s he wasn’t sure. “You’re—you’re not—for God’s sake, By! Who would I make that kind of effort for, if not you and Tej?”

“Oh, your family, probably. And your Emperor. And any number of other persons, if they especially needed your help. You’re extraordinary that way.” By let out a shuddering laugh, ignoring Ivan’s protests. “But you did it for me, and now I fear that the damage done to my cynical outlook may truly be beyond repair. You’ve brought this upon yourself, Ivan; I shall be insufferable with joy for months.”

”Well—good,” Ivan managed. The rush of warmth this elicited in his breast warred with his indignation that By would imagine himself so far down Ivan’s list. Bloody Vorrutyers and their neuroses. “Remember that, when you tell Allegre about us.”

“And they say it’s the Vorrutyer line that’s afflicted with madness. Then again, you’ve got few Vorrutyers in your family tree; perhaps it’s blood showing at last.” Byerly drew his hands away from his face, and Ivan saw that he was still smiling, crooked and honest. “You unravel me.”

“You think after three years you’d realize you’re high up on my list of priorities,” grumbled Ivan.

But even as the words left his mouth he was reminded that for By it had been two years, followed by a long year alone, with only the occasional letter or vid message to remind him that he was cared for. It wasn’t difficult to imagine why he might find it hard to believe in the depth of Ivan’s concern, when in between Ivan’s letters By had been left one-on-one with the hard evidence of being his second choice.

By, who’d been betrayed and abandoned by those closest to him before, and spent most of his time in the company of such vile characters as wouldn’t hesitate to double-cross their own loved ones. By, whom Ivan had abandoned, by getting into a relationship with him while knowing full well that the diplomatic corps would be sending him off-planet within two years, and not turning from that career . . .

This train of thought ran headlong into the worry that had been niggling at Ivan since the registry office, and left him with a new and awful notion. It wasn’t the sort of thing he would’ve normally come up with on his own, but—it was a very By sort of thought. “Hang on,” he said. “By. Did you not want to take my last name—our last names—because you thought we might change our minds?”

“What?” The startled look By gave him at that surely wasn’t feigned, his lingering smile arrested part-way. “No, of course not. It wasn’t about you at all.”

Ivan flushed. “What was it about, then?” And, realizing how that sounded, “I mean—of course it was your choice, and you mentioned Allegre, but . . . look, we both know that if you needed a cover identity you’d get one, tailor-made by Allegre’s boffins. Which means it was about something else, and I’m . . . I don’t mind, all right? I’m just worried.” Worried about what kind of strange logic you might have come up with.

By glanced away towards the table, the edge of his mouth curving up. For a long moment he traced a manicured finger around the rim of his glass, and then said, “You’re right, of course. It’s hardly an operational necessity, though it does offer a layer of verisimilitude a cover identity wouldn’t provide. But I did mean it, when I said it was nothing to do with you. It’s not about taking your name, or not. It’s about keeping mine.”

Ivan frowned. If By wanted to keep his name that meant he wanted to remain a Vorrutyer, which implied . . . what? Not family pride, surely. Oh, By had Vor pride in spades, well-hidden beneath the dissolute public exterior, but not, Ivan thought, in his clan; By didn’t even get along with most of them, with the notable exception of Dono, who surely wouldn’t care about By’s name one way or the other. Family . . . guilt?

Carefully, Ivan said, “Are you saying you want to redeem the Vorrutyer name?”

By looked at him from beneath his lashes. “Not exactly. But close enough.” He was definitely smirking now, the bastard. “I’d just hate for anyone to think that it was becoming a Vorpatril that finally made an honest man out of me.”

Which was just the sort of twisty Vorrutyer logic that Ivan had been expecting, yeah. The strange mix of personal and professional pride was . . . very By. Still, Ivan clarified, “So you definitely didn’t do it out of some misguided belief that it would make it easier to get rid of you, or vice versa?”

By let out a fondly exasperated sigh. “No, Ivan. Nothing like that.” His eyes narrowed. “But it bothers you, I notice. Worried someone’ll try to win me away if I’m not labeled as yours?”

“No! As if they—as if you’d—just, no.” Ivan scrubbed a hand over his face. “Of course I’d like for people to know that you’re mine, but not because of that. It’s—I’m proud of you, that’s all.” His face felt hot; even after everything, it still felt like a ridiculous thing to say to By.

Then he took his hand away, and was treated to the sight of Byerly Vorrutyer looking genuinely surprised for the third time that night. That had to be some kind of record.

The expression was fleeting, and this time it melded into a tenderness that Ivan had rarely seen in By’s face. “Oh,” By said, softly. “Well, in that case I’ll be sure to wear my Betan earrings as much as possible until we go home.” A wicked gleam entered his eye. “And perhaps in front of your more galactic relations, as well. Do you suppose Illyan remembers enough to recognize the meaning on sight? I’ve no doubt your cousin does.”

Ivan’s choke was covered by a jaw-cracking yawn. Now that he’d assuaged his main worries—what By had been thinking that morning, and why he was out here now—fatigue was flooding back in, and he longed to go back to bed.

Probably that was why the prospect of everyone back home reacting to the three of them arriving back in Vorbarr Sultana with matching earrings didn’t actually perturb him that much, and instead caused a burgeoning warmth in his chest. Probably.

“Come on,” he said, nudging Byerly’s shoulder. “I’ll help you put sheets on the couch.”

Tej woke from the cold. The apartment’s air conditioning had turned on, and either By or Ivan Xav had left the bed covers half-drawn. Neither of them being in evidence, she was deprived of both body heat and a windbreak, the stream of cold air blowing straight in her face. Merely pulling the covers back over herself and turning away wouldn’t do any good; she’d have to actually get up and change the thermostat to get comfortable. Ugh.

She yawned, mustered enough to climb out of bed, and wandered out, shivering slightly.

Someone had left the light on in the kitchenette, which at least saved stumbling through the dark. Still half-asleep, Tej made her way to the thermostat near the suite’s entrance, upped the temperature by a few degrees, and turned to go back to the bedroom.

And saw them, slumped together on the couch.

Both of them were soundly asleep, Ivan Xav with his head tipped back between couch cushions and By drooping against him. From the sheet tucked around the cushions and the spare blanket folded off to the side she deduced they’d been in the process of making a spare bed for By, and simply made the mistake of sitting down.

Tej smiled, and went to throw the blanket over them both.