Juliana ought to have been used to being called Mrs. Ainsworth by now, but it still always struck her as odd. In fairness to her, perhaps, she had only been Mrs. Ainsworth for less than a year, and she had been Juliana Binns for her entire life prior to that — and unlike some brides-to-be, she had not spent months prior to the wedding dreamily scrawling out her married name in a variety of handwritings in her journal.

"Of course. What kind of a secretary would I be if I refused?" she joked, as she moved to set the tray down and then circled back to shut the door. She wasn't sure why she had assumed this was a closed-door kind of chat. Maybe something in his tone, or maybe it was more the moment that they were in; although Macmillan had not yet announced a campaign of course everyone expected that he would, and Crouch's brother had announced he would run. Anything that was sensitive normally was triply so now.

"What's on your mind, sir?" she said, as she began fixing his cup. "I hope the meeting with the ambassador this morning didn't give you any trouble." That was one of the meetings she would have canceled if it had been in her power, but things got a bit sensitive when diplomats were involved; they couldn't be told to just hold their horses until the Minister had time to hear our their trifling concerns. At least, they couldn't be often told that.

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