“I regret that you’ve had such an unpleasant morning,” High Ridge continued, “and I deeply appreciate your efforts on the Government’s behalf. I mean that sincerely.”

“You’d damned well better appreciate them!” Descroix half-snapped. “Jesus! And you’d damned well better have a long heart-to-heart talk with Green Vale, too!”

Jessica Burke, Countess of Green Vale, was the Government Whip in the Lords. That post was far from a sinecure in a coalition of such diverse ideologies as that of the current government, and everyone in the conference room knew it. Nonetheless, High Ridge reflected, it was undoubtedly fortunate that Green Vale wasn’t present at the moment.

“I assure you that I’ll be speaking with her,” he said mildly after a moment. “In all fairness, however, I feel confident she did all that could have been done under the circumstances.”

“Oh?” Descroix glowered at him. “And what sort of Whip doesn’t even warn us when we’re likely to lose a vote like that?”

“The margin was only eighteen votes,” High Ridge pointed out. “That’s barely two percent of the members actually present.”

“But the total shift was sixty-three votes, counting the abstentions,” she pointed out in venomous response. “And by my math, that’s over eight percent. Which doesn’t even count the thirty-seven members of the House who managed to not even be there in the first place.” Her eyes would have sent daggers through the heart of anyone less stoutly armored by his own sense of who he was than High Ridge.

“Admittedly, it was a most unfortunate occurrence,” the Prime Minister conceded. “All I meant to indicate was that the margin of votes actually cast was close enough that I believe it would be unfair to fault Jessica for failing to realize ahead of time that the House wouldn’t vote to sustain.”

“Then why the hell do we have a Whip in the first place?” she demanded.

He didn’t respond to the obviously rhetorical question, and, after a moment, she shrugged in petulant acknowledgment of its pettiness.

“At any rate,” she went on after a moment, “I don’t see any way we can regard today’s fiasco as anything but a potentially serious setback, Michael.”

“A setback, certainly,” he agreed. “Precisely how serious it may prove is another question, however.”

“Don’t fool yourself,” she said flatly. “Alexander and White Haven were both out for blood… and New Dijon wasn’t any damned help, either. Goddamned Liberal hypocrite!”

High Ridge didn’t manage to conceal his wince this time. Fortunately, the Chancellor of the Exchequer wasn’t present. It had taken a little creative scheduling on his part to ensure that she would be otherwise occupied meeting with the Chairman of the Bank of Manticore and the Board of the Royal Interstellar Development Fund at the exact time he was “forced” to schedule this meeting. He strongly suspected that New Kiev knew exactly why he’d done it, and the fact that she hadn’t protested even mildly suggested even more to him. On the other hand, she’d undoubtedly managed to assuage her own conscience by reflecting that her good friend and fellow Liberal Sir Harrison MacIntosh would be present to deputize for her and see to it that their party’s interests were represented. Which he was. And at the moment, he looked almost as unhappy with Descroix’s characterization of the Earl of New Dijon as New Kiev would have looked.