I smell diplomacy. Miles grimaced. - Lois McMaster Bujold

“So…d’you like him? Or not?”
Like was surely not an adequate word for this hash of delight and anger and longing, this profound respect laced with profound irritation, all floating on a dark pool of old pain. The past and the future, at war in her head. “I don’t know. Some of the time I do, yes, very much.”
Another long pause. “Are you in love with him?”
What Nikki knew of adult love, he’d mostly garnered off the holovid. Part of her mind readily translated this question as code for, Which way are you going to jump, and what will happen to me? And yet…he could not share or even imagine the complexity of her romantic hopes and fears, but he certainly knew how such stories were supposed to Come Out Right.
“I don’t know. Some of the time. I think.”
He favored her with his Big People Are Crazy look. In all, she could only agree.

“He told Mark he’s courting her in secret,” Martya put in to the Vorbrettens. “It’s a secret from her. We’re all still trying to figure that one out.”
“Is the entire city party to my private conversations?” Miles snarled. “I’m going to strangle Mark.”
Martya blinked at him with manufactured innocence. “Kareen had it from Mark. I had it from Ivan. Mama had it from Gregor. And Da had it from Pym. If you’re trying to keep a secret, Miles, why are you going around telling everyone?”

It’s a moribund body anyway, afflicted with the narrowest conservatism and stuffed with old relics only concerned with protecting their privileges. I’m not sure anything can be done with the Counts in the long run. Perhaps they should finally be allowed to dodder over the brink of extinction.