He can't help but lift a slight eyebrow. Is she Barrayaran? He'd assumed not - not with that hair. Not with that warlike appearance - though, yes, doubtless there are some proles who let their girl-children be soldiers...Not in the Vorrutyer district, surely, conservative as it is. There aren't any ferocious lady-warriors there. Though his own cousin was, admittedly, quite the fearsome woman herself, once. Not that Count Dono isn't fearsome any longer - rather, he's simply no longer a woman.

He briefly considers pretending not to speak Russian, but...No, he can't pull that off unless he's pretending to be a galactic. His mother's side were all Russians, his father's English speakers, and that was simply the norm. Ah, well. "I'd prefer to stick to English, please," he says with a small wave of his fingers. "And I cannot possibly imagine that we know each other at all. I feel as though I would remember it if I had met you in the past."