The Armsmen cleared away the plates for the main course, which had been grilled vat beef fillet with a very quick pepper garnish, accompanied by a powerful deep red wine. Dessert appeared: sculpted mounds of frozen creamy ivory substance bejeweled with a gorgeous arrangement of glazed fresh fruit. Miles caught Pym, who had been avoiding his eye, by the sleeve in passing, and leaned over for a word behind his hand.

"Pym, is that what I think it is?"

"Couldn't be helped, m'lord," Pym muttered back in wary self-exculpation. "Ma Kosti said it was that or nothing. She's still right furious about the sauces, and says she wants a word with you after this."

"Oh. I see. Well. Carry on."

He picked up his spoon, and took a valiant bite. His guests followed suit doubtfully, except for Ekaterin, who regarded her portion with every evidence of surprised delight, and leaned forward to exchange a smile with Kareen, downtable; Kareen returned her a mysterious but triumphant high-sign. To make it even worse, the stuff was meltingly delicious, seeming to lock into every primitive pleasure-receptor in Miles's mouth at once. The sweet and potent golden dessert wine followed it with an aromatic shellburst on his palate that complemented the frozen bug stuff perfectly. He could have cried. He smiled tightly, and drank, instead. His dinner party limped on somehow.

Talk of Gregor and Laisa's wedding allowed Miles to supply a nice, light, amusing anecdote about his duties in obtaining, and transporting, a wedding gift from the people of his District, a life-sized sculpture of a guerilla soldier on horseback done in maple sugar. This won a brief smile from Ekaterin at last, this time toward the right fellow. He mentally marshaled a leading question about gardens to draw her out; she could sparkle, he was sure, if only she had the right straight line. He briefly regretted not priming Aunt Alys for this ploy, which would have been more subtle, but in his original plan, she hadn't been going to be seated right there—

Miles's pause had lasted just a little too long. Genially taking his turn to fill it, Illyan turned to Ekaterin.

"Speaking of weddings, Madame Vorsoisson, how long has Miles been courting you? Have you awarded him a date yet? Personally, I think you ought to string him along and make him work for it."

A chill flush plunged to the pit of Miles's stomach. Alys bit her lip. Even Galeni winced.

Olivia looked up in confusion. "I thought we weren't supposed to mention that yet."

Kou, next to her, muttered, "Hush, lovie."

Lord Dono, with malicious Vorrutyer innocence, turned to her and inquired, "What weren't we supposed to mention?"

"Oh, but if Captain Illyan said it, it must be all right," Olivia concluded.

Captain Illyan had his brains blown out last year, thought Miles. He is not all right. All right is precisely what he is not . . .

Her gaze crossed Miles's. "Or maybe . . ."

Not , Miles finished silently for her.

Ekaterin's face, animate and amused moments ago, was turning to sculpted marble. It was not an instantaneous process, but it was relentless, implacable, geologic. The weight of it, pressing on Miles's heart, was crushing. Pygmalion in reverse; I turn breathing women to white stone. . . . He knew that bleak and desert look; he'd seen it one bad day on Komarr, and had hoped never to see it in her lovely face again.

Miles's sinking heart collided with his drunken panic. I can't afford to lose this one, I can't, I can't. Forward momentum, forward momentum and bluff, those had won battles for him before.

"Yes, ah, heh, quite, well, so, that reminds me, Madame Vorsoisson, I'd been meaning to ask you—will you marry me?"

Dead silence reigned all along the table.

Ekaterin made no response at all, at first. For a moment, it seemed as though she had not even heard his words, and Miles almost yielded to a suicidal impulse to repeat himself more loudly. Aunt Alys buried her face in her hands. Miles could feel his breathless grin grow sickly, and slide down his face. No, no. What I should have said—what I meant to say was . . . please pass the bug butter? Too late . . .

She visibly unlocked her throat, and spoke. Her words fell from her lips like ice chips, singly and shattering. "How strange. And here I thought you were interested in gardens. Or so you told me."

You lied to me hung in the air between them, unspoken, thunderously loud.

So yell. Scream. Throw something. Stomp on me all up and down, it'll be all right, it'll hurt good—I can deal with that—

Ekaterin took a breath, and Miles's soul rocketed in hope, but it was only to push back her chair, set her napkin down by her half-eaten dessert, turn, and walk away up the table. She paused by the Professora only long enough to bend down and murmur, "Aunt Vorthys, I'll see you at home."

"But dear, will you be all right . . . ?" The Professora found herself addressing empty air, as Ekaterin strode on. Her steps quickened as she neared the door, till she was almost running. The Professora glanced back and made a helpless, how-could-you-do-this, or maybe that was, how-could-you-do-this-you-idiot, gesture at Miles.

The rest of your life is walking out the door. Do something. Miles's chair fell backwards with a bang as he scrambled out of it. "Ekaterin, wait, we have to talk—"

He didn't run till he passed the doorway, pausing only long enough to slam it, and a couple of intervening ones, shut between the dinner party and themselves. He caught up with her in the entry hall, as she tried the door and fell back; it was, of course, security-locked.

"Ekaterin, wait, listen to me, I can explain," he panted.

She turned to give him a disbelieving stare, as though he were a Vorkosigan-liveried butter bug she'd just found floating in her soup.

"I have to talk to you. You have to talk to me," he demanded desperately.

"Indeed," she said after a moment, white about the lips. "There is something I need to say. Lord Vorkosigan, I resign my commission as your landscape designer. As of this moment, you no longer employ me. I will send the designs and planting schedules on to you tomorrow, to pass on to my successor."

"What good will those do me?!"

"If a garden was what you really wanted from me, then they are all you'll need. Right?"

He tested the possible answers on his tongue. Yes was right out. So was no . Wait a minute—

"Couldn't I have wanted both?" he suggested hopefully. He continued more strongly, "I wasn't lying to you. I just wasn't saying everything that was on my mind, because, dammit, you weren't ready to hear it, because you aren't half-healed yet from being worked over for ten years by that ass Tien, and I could see it, and you could see it, and even your Aunt Vorthys could see it, and that's the truth."

By the jerk of her head, that one had hit home, but she only said, in a dead-level voice, "Please open your door now, Lord Vorkosigan."

"Wait, listen—"

"You have manipulated me enough," she said. "You've played on my . . . my vanity —"

"Not vanity," he protested. "Skill, pride, drive—anyone could see you just needed scope, opportunity—"

"You are used to getting your own way, aren't you, Lord Vorkosigan. Any way you can." Now her voice was horribly dispassionate. "Trapping me in front of everyone like that."

"That was an accident. Illyan didn't get the word, see, and—"

"Unlike everyone else? You're worse than Vormoncrief! I might just as well have accepted his offer!"

"Huh? What did Alexi—I mean, no, but, but—whatever you want, I want to give it to you, Ekaterin. Whatever you need. Whatever it is."

"You can't give me my own soul." She stared, not at him, but inward, on what vista he could not imagine. "The garden could have been my gift. You took that away too."