Michael had not met the legendarily crusty Earl of Manchester. Geraint's superior at the Foreign Office, but from Geraint’s descriptions of him the man’s absence wasn’t cause for any great sense of loss. He looked down at the faded, scratched red box briefcase that Geraint’s chauffeur had lugged into the back of the Phaeton and considered that it could probably hold a very great deal of paperwork indeed, and said so.