"It was off a twenty-meter-tall turret. I don't know," he said impatiently. "I'm not responsible for my weird ancestors. Quite the reverse. Exactly the inverse." He swallowed. "You see, one of Lord Vorkosigan's non-military duties is to eventually, sometime, somewhere, come up with a Lady Vorkosigan. The eleventh Countess-Vorkosigan-to-be. It's rather expected from a man from a strictly patrilinear culture, y'see. You do know," his throat seemed to be stuffed with cotton, his accent wavered back and forth, "that these, uh, physical problems of mine," his hand swept vaguely down the length, or lack of it, of his body, "were teratogenic. Not genetic. My children should be normal. A fact which may have saved my life, in view of Barrayar's traditional ruthless attitude toward mutations. I don't think my grandfather was ever totally convinced of it. I've always wished he could have lived to see my children, just to prove it. . . ."

"Miles," Elli interrupted him gently.

"Yes?" he said breathlessly.

"You're babbling. Why are you babbling? I could listen by the hour, but it's worrisome when you get stuck on fast-forward."

"I'm nervous," he confessed. He smiled blindingly at her.

"Delayed reaction, from this afternoon?" She slipped closer to him, comfortingly. "I can understand that."

He eased his right arm around her waist. "No. Yes, well, maybe a little. Would you like to be Countess Vorkosigan?"

She grinned. "Made of glass? Not my style, thanks. Really, though, the title sounds more like something that would go with black leather and chromium studs."

The mental image of Elli so attired was so arresting, it took him a full half minute of silence to trace back to the wrong turn. "Let me rephrase that," he said at last. "Will you marry me?"

The silence this time was much longer.

"I thought you were working up to asking me to go to bed with you," she said finally, "and I was laughing. At your nerves." She wasn't laughing now.

"No," said Miles. "That would have been easy."

"You don't want much, do you? Just to completely rearrange the rest of my life."

"It's good that you understand that part. It's not just a marriage. There's a whole job description that goes with it."

"On Barrayar. Downside."

"Yes. Well, there might be some travel."

She was quiet for too long, then said, "I was born in space. Grew up on a deep-space transfer station. Worked most of my adult life aboard ships. The time I've spent with my feet on real dirt can be measured in months."

"It would be a change," Miles admitted uneasily.

"And what would happen to the future Admiral Quinn, free mercenary?"

"Presumably—hopefully—she would find the work of Lady Vorkosigan equally interesting."

"Let me guess. The work of Lady Vorkosigan would not include ship command."

"The security risks of allowing such a career would appall even me. My mother gave up a ship command—Betan Astronomical Survey—to go to Barrayar."