Lord Palmerston stood before a carriage. In truth, he had not waited so respectfully for anyone in decades.
But now he could only do so. Even the chance to do this had taken great effort to secure; not everyone had the opportunity to wait outside Whitehall for Britain's Foreign Secretary.
With Lord Palmerston's seniority, he was fully qualified to enter Whitehall and sit in on the meeting with George Villiers, but Prime Minister Gordon had specifically said he did not wish to see him.
There was nothing to be done about that.
After all, George Hamilton-Gordon was Britain's bona fide Prime Minister. If he named someone he did not wish to see, there was truly nothing anyone else could do.
The Palmerston of the past might have dared to ignore Britain's Prime Minister, but at this moment his reputation had fallen to rock bottom. He had no standing to challenge anyone.
The moment George Villiers emerged from Whitehall, Lord Palmerston went up to meet him. Only after inviting him into the carriage did he ask, "My lord, how did it go?"
"Let the Austrians fight the undead!"
"The undead?"
"That Hungarian."
Lord Palmerston shook his head. That was plainly not what he had been asking about, though he did not think much of necromancy either. Even he knew that certain taboos were not meant to be touched.
"My lord, I mean the matter in Brazil."
"It has been handed over to Sir Graham. He'll deal with it properly. Besides, the Brazilian army is utterly incapable of putting up a fight."
George Villiers clearly did not take the matter too seriously, because once some things were laid bare, they could only be heard as a joke.
Palmerston, however, was somewhat troubled. He had not expected Britain's diplomatic methods to have fallen