"Good evening, Olivia. What a pretty frock." Yes, women spent so much time on their clothes, it was always a good opening move to notice the effort. "Enjoying yourself?"

"Oh, hi, Ivan. Yes, certainly."

"I didn't see you earlier. Mama put me to work buttering up Komarrans."

"We were rather late arriving. This is our fourth stop this evening."

We? "The rest of your family here? I saw Delia with Duv, of course. They're caught over there in that cluster around Gregor."

"Are they? Oh, good. We'll have to say hi before we go."

"What are you doing after this?"

"Going on to that squeeze at Vorsmythe House. It's potentially extremely valuable."

While Ivan was trying to decode this last cryptic remark, Olivia looked up, her gaze caught by someone. Her lips parted and her eyes lit, reminding Ivan for a dizzy moment of Cassie Vorgorov. Alarmed, he followed the line of her glance. But there was no one in it except Lord Dono Vorrutyer, apparently just parting company with his/her old friend Countess Vormuir. The Countess, svelte in a red dress that strikingly complemented Dono's sober black, patted Dono on the arm, laughed, and strolled away. Countess Vormuir was still estranged from her husband, as far as Ivan knew; he wondered what kind of time Dono might be making with her. The concept made his brain cramp.

"Vorsmythe House, eh?" said Ivan. "Maybe I'll go along. I can about guarantee they'll be trotting out the good wine, for this. How are you getting there?"

"Groundcar. Would you like a lift?"

Perfect. "Why, yes, thank you. I would." He'd ridden here with his mother and Illyan, from his point of view to avoid risking his speedster's enamel in the parking cram, from hers so that she could be sure he'd show up for duty as ordered. He hadn't anticipated that the absence of his own car would prove a tactical aid. He smiled brilliantly down upon Olivia.

Dono strode over to them, smiling in a peculiarly satisfied manner that put Ivan disquietingly in mind of the lost Lady Donna. Dono was not a person with whom Ivan cared to be quite so publicly paired. Perhaps he could keep Olivia's hellos brief, and then whisk her off.

"Things look like they're breaking up," said Dono to Olivia. He gave Ivan a nod of greeting. "Shall I call Szabo to bring round the car?"

"We ought to see Delia and Duv first. Then we can go. Oh, I offered Ivan a ride along with us to Vorsmythe's. I think there'll be room."

"Certainly." Dono smiled cheerful welcome.

"Did she take the packet?" Olivia asked Dono, with a glance up at the flash of red now vanishing into the crowd.

Dono's smile broadened briefly to a remarkably evil grin. "Yep."

While Ivan was still trying, and failing, to calculate how to get rid of the person providing the transportation, Byerly Vorrutyer made his way around some tables and descended upon them. Damn. Worse and worse.

"Ah, Dono," By greeted his cousin. "Are you still planning on Vorsmythe's for your last stop of the night?"

"Yes. Do you need a ride too?"

"Not from here to there. I have other arrangements. I'd appreciate if you could drop me home after, though."

"Of course."

"What a long talk you had with Countess Vormuir, out there on the balcony. Chewing over old times, were you?"

"Oh, yes." Dono smiled vaguely. "This and that, you know."

By gave him a penetrating look, but Dono declined to elaborate. By asked, "Did you manage to get in to see Count Vorpinski this afternoon?"

"Yes, finally, and a couple of others too. Vortaine was no help, but at least with Olivia along he was forced to stay polite. Vorfolse, Vorhalas, and Vorpatril all declined to hear my pitch, unfortunately." Dono shot Ivan a somewhat ambiguous look from under his black brows. "Well, I'm not sure about Vorfolse. No one answered the door; he might really have not been home. It was hard to tell."

"So how's the vote tally doing?" By asked.

"Close, By. Closer than I'd ever dared to dream, to tell you the truth. The uncertainty is now making me quite sick to my stomach."

"You'll get through it. Ah . . . close on which side?" By inquired.

"The wrong one. Unfortunately. Well . . ." Dono sighed, "it will have been a great try."

Olivia said sturdily, "You're going to make history." Dono pressed her hand to his arm, and smiled gratefully at her.

Byerly shrugged, which by his standards qualified as a consoling gesture. "Who knows what might happen to turn things around?"

"Between now and tomorrow morning? Not much, I'm afraid. The die is pretty much cast."

"Chin up. There're still a couple of hours to work on the men at Vorsmythe House. Just stay sharp. I'll help. See you over there. . . ."

And so Ivan found himself not with a private opportunity to make time with Olivia, but rather, trapped with her, Dono, Szabo, and two other Vorrutyer Armsmen in the back of the late Count Pierre's official car. Pierre's was one of the few vehicles Ivan had ever encountered that could beat Miles's Regency relic for both fusty luxury and a paranoid armoring that made its best progress a sort of lumbering wallow. Not that it wasn't comfortable ; Ivan had slept in space station hostel rooms that were smaller than this rear compartment. But Olivia had somehow ended up seated between Dono and Szabo, while Ivan shared body heat with a couple of Armsmen.

They were two-thirds of the way to Vorsmythe House when Dono, who had been staring out the canopy with little vertical lines scored between his brows, suddenly leaned forward and spoke into the intercom to his driver. "Joris, swing around by Count Vorfolse's again. We'll give him one more try."

The car lumbered around the next corner, and began to backtrack. In a couple of minutes, the apartment building containing Vorfolse's flat loomed into view.

The Vorfolse family had a remarkable record for picking the losers in every Barrayaran war of the last century, including choosing to collaborate with the Cetagandans and backing the wrong side in Vordarian's Pretendership. The somewhat morose present heir, oppressed by his ancestors' many defeats, eked out his life in the capital by renting the drafty old Vorfolse clan mansion to an enterprising prole with grandiose ambitions, and living entirely off the proceeds. Instead of the permitted squad of twenty, he kept only a single Armsman, an equally depressed and rather elderly fellow who doubled as every servant the Count had. Still, Vorfolse's apprehensive refusal to align himself with any faction or party or project, no matter how benign it appeared, at least meant he wasn't an automatic yes for Richars. And a vote was a vote, Ivan supposed, no matter how eccentric.

A narrow, multilevel parking garage attached to the building provided spaces for the prole residents to house their vehicles, at a stiff surcharge Ivan had no doubt. Parking space in the capital was normally leased by the square meter. Joris oozed Pierre's groundcar into the meager clearances, then suffered a check when he discovered all the ground-floor visitor parking to be taken.

Ivan, planning to stay in the comfy car with Olivia, revised his plan when Olivia jumped out to accompany Dono. Dono left Joris waiting for a space to open up, and, flanked by Olivia and his security outriders, strode out through the street-level pedestrian access and around toward the apartment building's front entrance. Torn between curiosity and caution, Ivan trailed along. With a short gesture, Szabo left one of his men to take station by the outer door, and the second by the lift tube exit on the third floor, so that by the time they arrived at Vorfolse's flat they were a not-too-intimidating party of four.

A discreet brass tag was screwed a little crookedly to the door above the apartment's number; it read Vorfolse House in a script that was meant to be imposing, but, in context, succeeded mainly in being rather pathetic. Ivan was reminded of his Aunt Cordelia's frequent assertion that governments were mental constructs. Lord Dono touched the chime-pad.