The Serrano Succession by Elizabeth Moon Read Free Book Online Page B

quiet gracious place, that Bunny was dead, and all their peace in peril. She found herself expecting to see him coming down the corridor, his pleasantly foolish face lighting with a smile.
     
    Until she came face to face with Miranda, and saw the devastation of that legendary beauty. Cecelia wondered how the same exquisite curves of bone, the same flawless skin, could now express a wasteland. After the rituals of greeting, when the staff had placed a tea set on the low table and withdrawn, Cecelia could wait no longer. No need, when the porcelain surface had already shattered.
     
    "Miranda, what have they told you about it—about who did it?"
     
    "Nothing." Miranda poured a cup of tea and handed it to Cecelia; the cup did not rattle on the saucer. "I know the news media say it was the New Texas Militia, in retaliation for the executions. I know that the former head of security is on administrative leave. But they have very gently let me know that investigations are in progress, and I will be informed when it is time. Do have a pastry; you always liked these curly ones, didn't you?"
     
    Cecelia ignored the offered pastry. "Miranda . . . I don't think it was the NewTex Militia."
     
    "Why?" Miranda's face had no more expression than a cameo.
     
    "I think it was someone . . . inside."
     
    "Family?" Her voice was cool. Why wasn't she upset? Why wasn't she frightened? Had she been through too much?
     
    Cecelia waited a moment, then went on. "Pedar said . . . that Bunny broke rules."
     
    Miranda's mouth twitched; it might have been grimace or grin. "He did. He was so . . . so quiet, so . . . compliant, it always seemed. But from the first time he brought me a tart he'd filched from the cook, when we were children, and showed me where we could hide from our governesses . . . he broke rules."
     
    "More important than that," Cecelia said.
     
    "I know." Miranda stared past Cecelia's left ear, as if she saw something a long way away, but was too tired to pay much attention.
     
    "Miranda!" Even before Miranda turned her eyes back, Cecelia had bitten back the rest of it, all that she wanted to say. You can't give up now. You have to keep going. You have a family—
     
    "I have a family," Miranda said, in that cool level voice. "I have responsibilities. Children. Grandchildren. You don't want me to forget that."
     
    "Yes . . ." Cecelia had lowered her voice, and strove to sit quietly.
     
    "I do not care." Miranda turned that cameo face full on Cecelia. "I do not care about the children—not even Brun, whom I most desperately want to care about. I do not care about the grandchildren, those bastard brats forced on my daughter—" Her breath caught in a ragged gasp, giving the lie to that do not care . Cecelia said nothing; there was nothing she could say. "I do not care," Miranda went on, "about anything but Branthcombe. Bunny. Whom, in this day and age, and in spite of rejuvenations and genetic selection and everything else we invented to spare us the pain of living . . . I loved. All my life, from the time he brought me that cherry tart, and we ate it in alternate bites, sitting on the back stairs . . . I loved him. It was a miracle to me that he loved me. That he survived the hunting season we still make our young people go through, that he remembered me after my years in seclusion at Cypress Hill, that he married me. And fathered my children, and no matter what stayed loyal and decent and—" Her voice broke at last, in a gasp that ended in sobs.
     
    "My dear . . ." Cecelia reached out, uncertain. Miranda had been, for so long, another exquisite porcelain figurine in Cecelia's mental collection of beautiful women—like her sister, like all the women of that type—and she had never touched any of them for more than the rituals of class affection—the fingertips, the cheeks. But Miranda didn't recoil, and leaned into her as if Cecelia were her mother or her aunt.
     
    The sobs went on a long