Kareen got to her feet. "Ekaterin, thank you so much. You've been more help to me than anybody—" in my own family , she managed to bite back. There was no point in deliberately ticking off Martya, when she'd allowed this grudging and partial allegiance against the parental opposition. "And I'm deadly serious about the bug redesign. Call me as soon as you have something ready."

"I'll have something tomorrow, I promise." Ekaterin walked the sisters to the gate, and closed it behind them.

At the end of the block, they were more or less ambushed by Pym, who waited leaning against the parked armored groundcar.

"Did she read it?" he asked anxiously.

Kareen nudged Martya.

"Not in front of us , Pym," said Martya, rolling her eyes.

"Huh. Damn." Pym stared up the block at the tile front of Lord Auditor Vorthys's house, half concealed in the trees. "I was hoping—damn."

"How is Miles, really?" asked Martya, following his glance and then cocking her head.

Pym absently scratched the back of his neck. "Well, he's over the vomiting and moaning part. Now he's taken to wandering around the house muttering to himself, when there's nothing to distract him. Starved for action, I'd say. The way he took to the drain problem was right frightening. From my point of view, you understand."

Kareen did. After all, wherever Miles bolted off to, Pym would be compelled to follow. No wonder all Miles's household watched his courtship with bated breath. She pictured the conversations belowstairs: For God's sake, can't somebody please get the little git laid, before he drives us all as crazy as he is? Well, no, most of Miles's people were sufficiently under his spell, they probably wouldn't put it in quite such harsh terms. But she bet it came to about that.

Pym abandoned his futile surveillance of Madame Vorsoisson's house and offered the sisters a ride; Martya, possibly looking ahead to parental cross-examination later, politely declined for them both. Pym drove off. Trailed by her personal snitch, Kareen departed in the opposite direction.

* * *

Ekaterin returned slowly to the garden table, and sat again. She pulled the envelope from her left inner pocket, and turned it over, staring at it. The cream-colored paper had impressive weight and density. The back flap was indented in the pattern of the Vorkosigans' seal, pressed deeply and a little off-center into the thick paper. Not machine embossed; some hand had put it there. His hand. A thumb-smear of reddish pigment filled the grooves and brought out the pattern, in the highest of high Vor styles, more formal than a wax seal. She raised the envelope to her nose, but if there was any scent of him lingering from his touch, it was too faint to be certain of.

She sighed in anticipated exhaustion, and carefully opened it. Like the address, the sheet inside was handwritten.

Dear Madame Vorsoisson , it began. I am sorry .

This is the eleventh draft of this letter. They've all started with those three words, even the horrible version in rhyme, so I guess they stay.

Her mind hiccuped to a stop. For a moment, all she could wonder was who emptied his wastebasket, and if they could be bribed. Pym, probably, and likely not. She shook the vision from her head, and read on.

You once asked me never to lie to you. All right, so. I'll tell you the truth now even if it isn't the best or cleverest thing, and not abject enough either.

I tried to be the thief of you, to ambush and take prisoner what I thought I could never earn or be given. You were not a ship to be hijacked, but I couldn't think of any other plan but subterfuge and surprise. Though not as much of a surprise as what happened at dinner. The revolution started prematurely because the idiot conspirator blew up his secret ammo dump and lit the sky with his intentions. Sometimes those accidents end in new nations, but more often they end badly, in hangings and beheadings. And people running into the night. I can't be sorry I asked you to marry me, because that was the one true part in all the smoke and rubble, but I'm sick as hell I asked you so badly.

Even though I'd kept my counsel from you, I should at least have done you the courtesy to keep it from others as well, till you'd had the year of grace and rest you'd asked for. But I became terrified you'd choose another first.

What other did he imagine her choosing, for God's sake? She'd wanted no one. Vormoncrief was impossible. Byerly Vorrutyer didn't even pretend to be serious. Enrique Borgos? Eep. Major Zamori, well, Zamori seemed kindly enough. But dull.

She wondered when not dull had become her prime criterion for mate selection. About ten minutes after she'd first met Miles Vorkosigan, perhaps? Damn the man, for ruining her taste. And judgment. And . . . and . . .

She read on.

So I used the garden as a ploy to get near to you. I deliberately and consciously shaped your heart's desire into a trap. For this I am more than sorry. I am ashamed.

You'd earned every chance to grow. I'd like to pretend I didn't see it would be a conflict of interest for me to be the one to give you some of those chances, but that would be another lie. But it made me crazy to watch you constrained to tiny steps, when you could be outrunning time. There is only a brief moment of apogee to do that, in most lives .

I love you. But I lust after and covet so much more than your body. I wanted to possess the power of your eyes, the way they see form and beauty that isn't even there yet and draw it up out of nothing into the solid world. I wanted to own the honor of your heart, unbowed in the vilest horrors of those bleak hours on Komarr. I wanted your courage and your will, your caution and serenity. I wanted, I suppose, your soul, and that was too much to want.

She put the letter down, shaken. After a few deep breaths, she took it up again.

I wanted to give you a victory. But by their essential nature triumphs can't be given. They must be taken, and the worse the odds and the fiercer the resistance, the greater the honor. Victories can't be gifts.

But gifts can be victories, can't they. It's what you said. The garden could have been your gift, a dowry of talent, skill, and vision.

I know it's too late now, but I just wanted to say, it would have been a victory most worthy of our House.

Yours to command,

Miles Vorkosigan.

Ekaterin rested her forehead in her hand, and closed her eyes. She regained control of her breathing again in a few gulps.

She sat up again, and reread the letter in the fading light. Twice. It neither demanded nor requested nor seemed to anticipate reply. Good, because she doubted she could string two coherent clauses together just now. What did he expect her to make of this? Every sentence that didn't start with I seemed to begin with But . It wasn't just honest, it was naked.

With the back of her dirty hand, she swiped the water from her eyes across her hot cheeks to cool and evaporate. She turned over the envelope and stared again at the seal. In the Time of Isolation, such incised seals had been smeared with blood, to signify a lord's most personal protestation of loyalty. Subsequently, soft pigment sticks had been invented for rubbing over the indentations, in a palette of colors of various fashionable meanings. Wine red and purple had been popular for love letters, pink and blue for announcements of births, black for notifications of deaths. This seal-rubbing was the very most conservative and traditional color, red-brown.