“Why is your uncle putting you on my case?” she finally asked over dessert, an exquisite crème brûlée. “I mean, what’s your background? You said he was thinking one step ahead. Why you?”

“Hrrm.” Roland stirred sugar into his coffee, then looked at her with frank blue eyes. “I think your guess is as good as mine.”

“You’re unmarried.” She kicked herself immediately afterward. Very perceptive, Ms. Holmes.

“As if that matters.” He smiled humorlessly. “I have an attitude problem.”

“Oh?” She leaned forward.

“Let’s just say, Angbard wants me where he can keep an eye on me. They sent me to college when I was eighteen,” he said morosely. “It was—well, it was an eye-opener. I stayed for four years, then applied to Harvard immediately. Economics and history. I thought I might be able to change things back home. Then I decided I didn’t want to go back. After my first year or so, I’d figured out that I couldn’t stay over here just on the basis of my name—I’d have to work. So I did. I wasn’t much of one for the girls during that first degree—” he caught her speculative look—“or the boys.”

“So?” Personal Memo: Find out what they think of sex, as opposed to marriage. The two are not always interchangeable. “What next?”

“Well.” He shrugged uncomfortably. “I wanted to stay over here. I got into a postgrad research, program, studying the history of economic development in the Netherlands. Met a girl named Janice along the way. One thing led to another.”

“You wanted to marry her?” asked Miriam.

“Sky father, no!” He looked shocked. “The Clan council would never have stood for it! Even if it was just over here. But I could buy us both a house over here, make believe that—” He stopped, took a sip of coffee, then put his cup down again. All through the process, he avoided Miriam’s gaze.

“You didn’t want to go back,” she stated.

“You can cross over twice in a day, in an hour, if you take beta-blockers,” he said quietly. “Speaking of which.” He extracted a blisterpack of pills from his inner pocket and passed it across to her. “They do something about the headaches. You can discharge your duty to Clan and family that way, keep the post moving, and live nine-tenths of your life free of…of…of…”

Miriam waited for him to sort his tongue out.

“Jan and I had two years together,” he finally said quietly. “Then they broke us up.”

“The Clan.” Her mouth was dry. She turned the pack of pills over and over, reading the label. “Did they—”