"I will at least attempt not to have any disasters. Fun's debatable, there's no girls who aren't married to you, or anything to do, around here." Pause. "Speaking of the girl who is married to you and things to do - and you did promise not to decapitate me -"

"Yes, Ivan?"

"How not-standing-very-still-on-a-shrine does she get?"

"None of your business."

"I don't mean anything by it. You know that, right?"

"Define 'mean anything by it'."

"I'm not asking because I have decided to explore my voyeuristic streak or anything, I am very curious about what haut-ladies are like when they are not standing very still on shrines receiving presents, and - I am genuinely kind of concerned for you in the long run, like I said before you snapped at me, before."

"I think I-in-the-long-run will be fine. I-in-the-present am also fine. My wife is... really kind of adorable, in addition to beautiful and brilliant."

"There's - adorable and then there's -" Ivan shakes his head.

"And then there's...?"

"There's girls who smile and they're completely elsewhere and there's ones who smile and mean it, and I can tell most of the time, with regular girls, and I have no idea about the standing-very-still-on-shrines kind."

"Linya means it."

"And you know that she's not just a clever actress using you to abscond from her planet or worse because?"

Now Miles will go back to his room.

Here is Linya, writing in white. "Hi."

"Hi." Oh look, it's his wife.

"Am I reading too much into things, or does your cousin act strange around me?"

"He... acts moderately strange," Miles admits. "I think he's worried for me. Well, he sort of admitted he's worried for me. He's just worried for me in a very Ivan way."

"...What does he think I'm going to do?"

"I, er, think he's more worried about what you're not going to do. And also that you might be - that you might have some unexplained ulterior motive for being cute with me. Which I don't believe, for the record."

"Good, if you believed that it would probably be awkward. 'Hi, Miles.' 'Hi, Linya, sent any interesting intelligence home to your celestial master today?'"

...He giggles.

"I wonder if it would be better all told if I looked for Barrayaran people to work with on the pen thing rather than going with the Escobaran fellow just because I have this extremely tenuous connection already. Would that look meaningfully less suspicious? Does Barrayar have reasonably sophisticated electrical engineering and allied industries?"