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Hugo put in anxiously, "But you see, Ekaterin, the same person informed Vassily that Lord Vorkosigan attempted to force you to accept a proposal of marriage from him."

She sighed in exasperation. "Force? No, certainly not."

"Ah." Hugo brightened.

"He did ask me to marry him. Very . . . awkwardly."

"My God, that was really true?" Hugo looked momentarily stunned. He sounded a deal more appalled at this than at the murder charge—doubly unflattering, Ekaterin decided. "You refused, of course!"

She touched the left side of her bolero, tracing the now not-so-stiff shape of the paper she kept folded there. Miles's letter was not the sort of thing she cared to leave lying around for anyone to pick up and read, and besides . . . she wanted to reread it herself now and then. From time to time. Six or twelve times a day . . . "Not exactly."

Hugo's brow wrinkled. "What do you mean by not exactly? I thought that was a yes-or-no sort of question."

"It's . . . difficult to explain." She hesitated. Detailing in front of Tien's closest cousin how a decade of Tien's private chaos had worn out her soul was just not on her list, she decided. "And rather personal."

Vassily offered helpfully, "The letter said that you seemed confused and distraught."

Ekaterin's eyes narrowed. "Just what busybody did you have this—communication—from, anyway?"

Vassily replied, "A friend of yours—he claimed—who is gravely concerned for your safety."

A friend? The Professora was her friend. Kareen, Mark . . . Miles, but he would hardly traduce himself, now . . . Enrique? Tsipis? "I cannot imagine any friend of mine doing or saying any such thing."

Hugo's frown of worry deepened. "The letter also said Lord Vorkosigan has been putting all sorts of pressure on you. That he has some strange hold on your mind."

No. Only on my heart, I think. Her mind was perfectly clear. It was the rest of her that seemed to be in rebellion. "He's a very attractive man," she admitted.

Hugo exchanged a baffled look with Vassily. Both men had met Miles at Tien's funeral; of course, Miles had been very closed and formal there, and still grayly fatigued from his case. They'd had no opportunity to see what he was like when he opened up—the elusive smile, the bright, particular eyes, the wit and the words and the passion . . . the confounded look on his face when confronted by Vorkosigan liveried butter bugs . . . she smiled helplessly in memory.

"Kat," said Hugo in a disconcerted tone, "the man's a mutie. He barely comes up to your shoulder. He's distinctly hunched—I don't know why that wasn't surgically corrected. He's just odd."

"Oh, he's had dozens of surgeries. His original damage was far, far more severe. You can still see these faint old scars running all over his body from the corrections."

Hugo stared at her. "All over his body?"

"Um. I assume so. As much of it as I've seen, anyway." She stopped her tongue barely short of adding, The top half. A perfectly unnecessary vision of Miles entirely naked, gift-wrapped in sheets and blankets in bed, and her with him, slowly exploring his intricacies all the way down, distracted her imagination momentarily. She blinked it away, hoping her eyes weren't crossing. "You have to concede, he has a good face. His eyes are . . . very alive."

"His head's too big."

"No, his body's just a little undersized for it." How had she ended up arguing Miles's anatomy with Hugo, anyway? He wasn't some spavined horse she was considering purchasing against veterinary advice, drat it. "Anyway, this is none of it our business."

"It is if he—if you—" Hugo sucked his lip. "Kat . . . if you're under some kind of threat, or blackmail or some strange thing, you don't stand alone. I know we can get help. You may have abandoned your family, but we haven't abandoned you."

More's the pity. "Thank you for that estimate of my character," she said tartly. "And do you imagine our Uncle Lord Auditor Vorthys is incapable of protecting me, if it should come