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By Root 1172 0

Security or Elli Quinn, his second-in-command among the Dendarii. Miles's pride crashes and embarrassment peaks with a crucial accident on a rescue mission when he has a seizure and accidentally cuts off the legs of the Barrayaran courier they were rescuing. Miles does not report all the details of the accident or his health woes to Imperial Security, not wanting to be removed from active duty. Miles gets orders to return immediately to Barrayar, where, instead of a mission, he gets a medical discharge and is forced to resign after Simon catches him in his lies and falsified reports. After he suffers through his depression, the incident with Simon Illyan's memory gains him an acting Imperial Auditor post from Gregor to find out what's really going on. Miles discovers that General Haroche, the acting chief of Imperial Security, is the culprit. The Emperor offers Miles the chief of Imperial Security position, but he declines, not wanting a desk job. Miles does accept the position of the eighth Imperial Auditor, with a request to be promoted to captain post-career. He regretfully decides to not join Elli in the Dendarii Free Mercenary Fleet, but asks her one last time to marry him. She declines, but accepts the position as Admiral of the Dendarii. Miles gets medical aid and is able to control the seizures so he can function normally.

Three months after his appointment as a full Imperial Auditor, Miles travels with Imperial Auditor Vorthys to investigate a Soletta Station accident at Komarr. He meets Ekaterin, Vorthys's married niece, when staying with her family, and falls in love with her. With Vorthys and help from Doctor Riva, Miles figures out the plot rebellious Komarrans had concocted to close Barrayar's wormhole, and moves to stop the Komarran engineers from setting off the device, knowing that it will probably destroy the jump-point station. Unfortunately, Ekaterin's husband is one of the casualties of the plot. Miles convinces the Komarrans to surrender and release their hostages. Despite her very recent widowhood, and his part in the husband's death, Miles begins making plans to make Ekaterin his as soon as he possibly can, before some other Vor lord can snatch her away.

Having returned from his successful mission on Komarr, Miles is now on a personal mission to woo and win Ekaterin Vorsoisson. Gregor also gives Miles the task of managing René Vorbretten's problem with succession—the count has discovered he is part Cetagandan, and not a direct descendant of the sixth count. Miles also has to handle the Vormiur uterine replicator case of his 122 daughters as well. But his work does not keep Miles from trying to win Ekaterin over by being friends. He plans to court her without telling her. In his first salvo, he gives her the job of designing a garden near Vorkosigan House. The entry of multiple suitors for her hand sends Miles into overdrive, however, and he is suddenly plotting as if she has become a military objective. He tries to put on an elegant dinner party, but it ends in disaster when the butter bugs are released into the house, and his intent to marry Ekaterin is accidentally exposed by Simon Illyan. Miles proposes to her in front of everyone, but she storms out of the house, enraged by his deception. He must then apologize and lay his true feelings bare to her. In the end, Miles helps René Vorbretten win his case, assists Lord Dono Vorrutyer to inherit his brother's title and District, and wins Ekaterin over, leading her to propose to him at the Council of Counts meeting with his delighted parents watching from the balcony behind her.

As Miles is anxiously awaiting his upcoming wedding, he is determined for everything to go well, but worried that his bride-to-be is getting cold feet. Then Ekaterin gets sick—very sick. When Miles finds out that Ekaterin's illness is caused by a murder attempt using poisoned pearls that appear to be from his ex-lover Elli Quinn, he is furious, not at Elli, since he knows she would never do something like this, but that an attempt was made on the love of his life. Even after