"I—Okay. You caught me off-balance, I guess."
"I must have. You look like you were just kicked in the stomach. Well, then, tell me: What happened last night?"
"How did you know anything happened?" Lloyd asked.
"A call from the top level this morning. I was warned not to attend on the wrong night in the future, and told I was being let off the hook—though they phrased it more politely, of course—because I was engaged to the son of the Secondary Speakster."
"Did you—? What did you say? To their call?" Lloyd asked, knotting up inside.
Grace folded her arms and leaned back. "I'm no dope, Lloyd. I knew you had my Voteplate, and were bringing it to me last night. That is—" she interjected with chagrin "—I thought you'd be over last night with it. When you didn't come, and I got this call, from top level, I kind of figured you were in dutch, somehow, and played along. I apologized for my error, and promised it wouldn't happen again—I see, by the way you two just let your breaths out, that I did the right thing.... Or did I? I take it Andra was the one who used my plate?" Lloyd nodded, miserably.
Grace thought this over, watching the two of them, then leaned forward and touched Lloyd's fingers where they curled tightly around the end of the chair arm. "Apparently, I have salvaged everybody's chestnuts. Would it be asking too much if I wondered what the hell my reasons were?"
"I'll explain," Lloyd said. "That is, as best I can. My motivations are still a bit obscure even to myself."
Grace flicked a glance at Andra, sitting small and lovely and feminine in the chair. "Are they!" she said, a spark of intuition putting her almost with complete accuracy ahead of Lloyd's still-untold tale. "Maybe I can figure them out for you after I hear your story, then."