Gregor held Patricia Vordovan lightly. She was an excellent dancer. She would never mis-step and stomp on his feet, or fall to the floor after not being caught by him during a complex dance, or any of the other terribly embarassing things Gregor had experienced while dancing with other young ladies. He therefore he did not need to pay much attention to her moves, and he contemplated the entire farce, and his role in it.
Early on, Gregor had occasionally escorted a young lady for a few weeks, and rarely, for a few months. The last category, he now admitted, was mostly young ladies who reminded him of Miles -- a category that contained precious few Vor buds. (A couple of the Koudelka girls could easily have been in that category, though, and he had found them almost attractive, on occasion. But they, as Barrayaran but not Vor, were not available to him.)
Over time, though, Alys's excitement every time he deigned to escort a young lady to more than a few events grew wearisome, and Gregor realized that it was not fair to these young ladies to raise their hopes. So he made a rule to not escort any particular girl to more than 3 events. For the vast majority, he managed to escort them once and only once. Of course during the high social season -- such as the current Winterfair, there were so many events that he allowed some flexibility in his rule, while keeping a careful eye out for any sign of romantic excitement on Alys' part.
For a time, Gregor had thought that he could eventually exhaust the supply of Vor buds by escorting each girl no more than 3 times, but he failed (at first) to take into account the fact that every year, a new crop of 18 year old hopefuls debuted, to replace those he'd thrown over. They were relentless -- not overtly, for the most part, being well-schooled in social graces and perhaps warned by Alys to not be too obvious about their Imperial ambitions -- but relentless by their mere presence and the duties they conveyed to Gregor. And of course as Gregor aged, 18 year old girls became younger and younger to him, to the point where now, with almost a generation's age difference, he barely knew how to speak with them.
The Vor buds presented to him became, over the years, less and less "empress material," if for no other reason than that the pool of suitable girls was tiny, and the pool of possible girls barely larger than that. Patricia Vordovan, beautiful, well-bred, and not too starry-eyed for an 18 year old, was certainly "suitable" but she made no particular impression upon Gregor, and he made his best attempt to be kind to her, while inside he seethed in frustration. This frustration occasionally bled into rage, which scared Gregor enormously. He never, as far as he knew, gave the slightest indication that while he squired a young lady around, he was often dreaming of ways to obliterate all she stood for, and sometimes to obliterate the girl herself. He was, after all, schooled to perfection in social self-control. Yet he felt it under his annoyance, and as he made small talk with Patricia, it grew darker and stronger in his mind.
He needed to stop the parade, preferably without getting killed (or killing himself, he admitted) in the process. And preferably without killing any innocent bystanders, either. He now believed that only Miles was -- brave? foolish? -- enough to help him in the way he needed.
So as they danced, his rage at Patricia Vordovan faded, for she had not put him in this position. She was -- ha! -- an innocent bystander.