The Serrano Succession by Elizabeth Moon Page A

like a silly horse-crazy schoolgirl—"
     
    "But you are," Miranda said, in that same flat cool voice. "You always have been; you refused to grow up—just like Brun, that way. It was ridiculous of Bunny to send Brun to you , of all people—"
     
    "You—blame me? For Brun?"
     
    "Not really . . . I mean, intellectually I know we chose her genetic type, we chose to increase the risk-taking and the responsiveness. But there you were, such a model for such a girl—every hunting season, egging her on over bigger fences, as if horses were all that mattered. And what did it get her, to take someone like you for a model? That . . . that degradation!"
     
    Astonishment had blown out anger for the moment. "She isn't like me," Cecelia said, feeling her way.
     
    "She's not horse-crazy, no. But that—that stubborn insouciance, that willingness to shed responsibility—"
     
    Cecelia felt the anger gathering again just beyond her vision. "I didn't know you considered me irresponsible," she managed to say quietly.
     
    Miranda's hand tilted quickly, a diminishing gesture. "Not in everything, of course. But no sense of family, no loyalty to the Familias—" Her head swung away; the bell of golden hair swung wide a moment, then stilled into new perfection. "And she pulled that harebrained stunt to rescue you —she could have been killed then—"
     
    "I didn't ask her to," Cecelia said. Something tapped at the alarms in her brain, a tiny hammering. "I couldn't. She just—"
     
    "Loved you," Miranda said. Under mint-green silk, her shoulders rose and fell; Cecelia could not hear the sigh but knew it had been given.
     
    "She loved her family," Cecelia said. "And you didn't need rescuing."
     
    "No." Miranda turned back, face composed as usual. "No, I never did." For a long moment, she stood motionless, silent. Cecelia found it hard to breathe. Miranda shrugged again. "Kata Saenz said we provided the wrong models for Brun; she told Bunny that, in the planning for Brun's rescue. I was glad of it at the time; I knew we'd done something wrong, though our other children turned out well. And the shock of being told it was partly his fault got Bunny out of his fury with the Suiza girl, and in the end she saved Brun's life. I just can't understand her, though she's my child."
     
    "How about the rest of the family? Buttons and Sarah . . . ?"
     
    "Are wonderfully helpful, as far as they can be. Buttons, of course, expected to take over as his father's heir. But Bunny's younger brother Harlis—you remember him?"
     
    Cecelia nodded. Harlis had all the arrogance, all the faux-aristocratic foppery, and a third less sense, than Bunny had had. Bunny could always go in an instant from the foolish foxhunting lord of the manor to the sensible, practical, and very capable politician. Harlis was Harlis—all surface and no substance.
     
    "Harlis is challenging the Family structure, and I'm not sure Buttons can stop him. I did tell Bunny three years ago that he ought to clarify the situation just in case, and he and Kevil were looking into it, but then Bubbles—Brun—disappeared."
     
    "And of course Bunny wasn't thinking of it then."
     
    "No, nor of anything else. Harlis managed to convince some of the distant relatives that Bunny's mind had gone, and that any of Bunny's children were likely to carry the trait. And some of them accepted that, and have thrown in their influence with Harlis. He's acquired an astonishing amount of stock in several of the corporations; even old Trema left him her shares—"
     
    "Will you be all right?"
     
    "Probably, but I'm going to lose a lot. And I wanted it for Brun—for her and the twins. She needs a safe place; Sirialis would have been perfect—"
     
    "Harlis isn't taking Sirialis . . . !" Cecelia's first thought was that Harlis had never liked foxhunting and might end the annual hunting season; she slapped that thought down, ashamed of herself. Maybe she was as selfish and narrow-minded as