There's a searing bit in Cryoburn where you find out that the kids have embroidered a whole fantasy about Miles adopting them. Then he whips out his photo album and shows them picture after picture of his impossibly privileged and adored children, and their fantasy falls apart to ashes in front of their eyes, and Miles is completely oblivious.

It's a view of the malign side of Miles' charisma. He gets people to love him and be fanatically loyal to them, and then he leaves. And what they thought he meant to them is wrecked.

I felt like Lois must be going somewhere with that, but she never did. The kids lined up a different Barrayaran daddy figure, and Miles went on being oblivious to how much he had hurt them. That struck me as... weird.