With Stars Underfoot (Adventures in the Liaden Universe®) Read Online Free PDF Page B

stepped forward and placed her hand lightly on Audrey's sleeve.
      "Thank you," she said austerely. "A glass of wine would be most welcome."
      The two ladies moved off toward the refreshment table as the rest of the guests shook themselves and returned to interrupted conversations.
      Pat Rin remembered to breathe.
      "See?" Miri gave his hand a companionable squeeze before releasing him, and sending another grin up into his face. "Piece o'cake."
      "As an author of the joke you might well say so," he replied, with feeling. "But consider how it might seem to those who had no—"
      "Indeed, it was ill-done of us," Val Con murmured, slipping his arm away. "We had not taken into account that your duty would place you between the two ladies."
      Pat Rin turned to stare, and Val Con inclined his head, for all the worlds like a proper Liaden, and murmured the phrase in High Liaden—"Forgive us, cousin. We do not intend to distress you, but to attain clarity."
      Sighing, Pat Rin also inclined his head, "It is forgotten," rising reflexively to his lips.
      "Next time, we'll send you a clue ahead of time," Miri said.
      He eyed her. "Must there be a next time?"
      "Bound to be," she answered, not without a certain amount of sympathy. Her eyes moved, tracking something beyond his shoulder.
      "Band's settin' up," she said to Val Con.
      "Ah," he returned, and lifted an eyebrow. "Cousin, I am wanted at my 'chora."
      "By all means, go," Pat Rin told him. "Perhaps Ms. Audrey will induce my mother to stand up with Andy Mack."
      The band played surprisingly well, and in a rather wider range than Pat Rin had expected, fiddle and guitar at the fore, Val Con's omnichora weaving a light, almost insubstantial, background.
      At Ms. Audrey's insistence, he and Natesa had stood up for the first dance—a lively circle dance not dissimilar to the nescolantz , which had been a staple at young people's balls when he had been considerably younger. He spied Ms. Audrey, with Lady Kareen and Luken bel'Tarda at her side, observing the pattern of the dance from the edge of the rug. Further on, Clonak ter'Meulen was in animated conversation with Uncle Daav and Cheever McFarland.
      At the end of the first dance, he relinquished Natesa to Priscilla with a bow, and started for the refreshment table. He'd scarcely gone three steps before his hand was caught.
      "Come," said his cousin Nova. "I claim you for the next dance!"
      "Ah, do you?" He laughed, and allowed himself to be led back onto the floor. "Then let us hope the band pities me and produces a less spirited number!"
      Alas, his wish had not reached the ears of the band leader, for the next dance was something akin to a jig, requiring intricate footwork which he learned from step to step by the simple expedient of observing Nova and reproducing her movement.
      He'd done the same thing many times in the past, of course—a person of melant'i would naturally take care to acquire the movements of a variety of dances, so that he might do his proper duty as a guest; however, no one but a scholar of the form could hope to know the intricacies of all possible dances. A quick eye and a flair for mimicry were therefore skills that a young person who wished to move without offense through Solcintra's party season would do well to acquire.
      Having survived the jig unbloodied, Pat Rin bowed to his fair partner, handed her off to his Uncle Daav, and turned, setting his sights on a glass of wine and perhaps more discussion of solar arrays with Andy Mack, who he could see speaking with Clonak to the left of the refreshment table.
      This time, he was claimed by a smiling Villy, who led him back out onto the floor with something very like a skip in his step. At least, Pat Rin thought, the gods were at