Changeless: The Parasol Protectorate: Book the Second (2 page)

Alexia considered. Was it Thursday? “Yes.”

“You are in for an interesting conference,” advised the earl, goading her.

Alexia sat up, undoing all of his nice tucking. “What? Why?” The blankets fell, revealing that Lady Maccon’s endowments were
considerable and not fabricated through fashionable artifice such as stuffed corset or too-tight stays. Despite nightly familiarity
with this fact, Lord Maccon was prone to dragging her onto secluded balconies at balls in order to check and “make certain”
this remained the case.

“I
am
sorry for waking you so early, my dear.” There was that dreaded phrase again. “I promise I shall make it up to you in the
morning.” He waggled his eyebrows at her lasciviously and leaned down for a long and thorough kiss.

Lady Maccon sputtered and pushed at his large chest ineffectually.

“Conall,
what
is going on?”

But her irritating werewolf of a husband was already away and out of the room.

“Pack!” His holler resounded through the hallway. At least this time he had made a pretense of seeing to her comfort by shutting
the door first.

Alexia and Conall Maccon’s bedroom took up the whole of one of the highest towers Woolsey had to offer, which, admittedly,
was more of a dignified pimple off the top of one wall. Despite this comparative isolation, the earl’s bellow could be heard
throughout most of the massive building, even down to the back parlor, where his clavigers were taking their tea.

The Woolsey clavigers worked hard about their various duties during the day, looking after slumbering werewolf charges and
taking care of daylight pack business. For most, tea was a brief and necessary respite before they were called to their other
nonpack work. As packs tended to favor boldly creative companions, and Woolsey was close to London, more than a few of its
clavigers were actively engaged in West End theatricals. Despite the lure of Aldershot pudding, Madeira cake, and gunpowder
black tea, their lord’s yodel had them up and moving as fast as could be desired.

The entire house suddenly became a hubbub of activity: carriages and men on horseback came and went, clattering on the stone
cobbles of the forecourt; doors slammed; voices called back and forth. It sounded like the dirigible disembarkation green
in Hyde Park.

Emitting that heaviest of sighs that denotes the gravely put-upon, Alexia Maccon rolled herself out of bed and picked up her
nightgown from where it lay, a puddle of frills and lace, on the stone floor. It was one of her husband’s wedding gifts to
her. Or more probably gifts to
him
, as it was made of a soft French silk and had scandalously few pleats. It was quite fashion-forward and daringly French,
and Alexia rather liked it. Conall rather liked taking it off her. Which was how it had ended up on the floor. They had negotiated
a temporal relationship with the nightgown; most of the time, she was able to wear it only out of the bed. He could be very
persuasive when he put his mind, and other parts of his anatomy, to it. Lady Maccon figured she would have to get used to
sleeping in the altogether. Although there was that niggling worry that the house might catch fire and cause her to dash about
starkers in full view of all. The worry was receding slowly, for she lived with a pack of werewolves and was acclimatizing
to their constant nudity—by necessity if not preference. There was, currently, far more hairy masculinity in her life than
any Englishwoman should really have to put up with on a monthly basis. That said, half the pack was away fighting in northern
India; someday there would be even more full-moon maleness. She thought of her husband; him she had to deal with on a
daily
basis.

A timid knock sounded, followed by a long pause. Then the door to the bedchamber was pushed slowly open, and a heart-shaped
face paired with dark blond hair and enormous violet eyes peered in. The eyes were apprehensive. The maid to whom they belonged
had learned, to her abject mortification, to give her master and mistress extra time before disturbing them in the bedchamber.
One could never predict Lord Maccon’s amorous moods, but one could certainly predict his temper if they were interrupted.

Noting his absence with obvious relief, the maid entered carrying a basin of hot water and a warm white towel over one arm.
She curtsied gracefully to Alexia. She wore a modish, if somber, gray dress with a crisp white apron pinned over it. Alexia
knew, though others did not, that the high white collar about her slender neck disguised multiple bite marks. As if being
a former vampire drone in a werewolf household were not shocking enough, the maid then opened her mouth and proved that she
was also, quite reprehensibly, French.

“Good evening, madame.”

Alexia smiled. “Good evening, Angelique.”

The new Lady Maccon, barely three months in, had already established her taste as quite daring, her table as incomparable,
and her style as trendsetting. And while it was not generally known among the ton that she sat on the Shadow Council, she
was observed to be on friendly terms with Queen Victoria. Couple that with a temperamental werewolf husband of considerable
property and social standing, and her eccentricities—such as carrying a parasol at night and retaining an overly pretty French
maid—were overlooked by high society.

Angelique placed the basin and a towel on Alexia’s dressing table and disappeared once more. She reappeared a polite ten minutes
later with a cup of tea, whisked away the used towel and dirty water, and returned with a determined look and an air of quiet
authority. Usually, there was a minor contest of wills when dressing Lady Maccon, but recent praise in the society column
of the
Lady’s Pictorial
had bolstered Alexia’s faith in Angelique’s decisions à la toilette.

“Very well, you harridan,” said Lady Maccon to the silent girl. “What am I wearing tonight?”

Angelique made her selection from the wardrobe: a military-inspired tea-colored affair trimmed in chocolate brown velvet and
large brass buttons. It was very smart and appropriate to a business meeting of the Shadow Council.

“You will have to leave off the silk scarf,” said Alexia, her token protest. “I shall need to show neck tonight.” She did
not explain that bite marks were monitored by the palace guards. Angelique was not one of those who knew Alexia Maccon sat
as muhjah. She may be Alexia’s personal maid, but she was still French, and despite Floote’s feeling on the matter, the domestic
staff didn’t have to know
everything
.

Angelique acquiesced without protest and put Lady Maccon’s hair up simply, complementing the severity of the dress. Only a
few loops and tendrils peeked out from under a small lace cap. Then Alexia made good her escape, aflutter with curiosity over
her husband’s early departure.

There was no one to ask. No one waited at the dinner table; clavigers and pack alike had vanished along with the earl. The
house was empty but for the servants. Alexia turned her concentrated interest on them, but they scattered about their various
tasks with the ease of three months’ practice.

The Woolsey butler, Rumpet, refused, with an air of affronted dignity, to answer her questions. Even Floote claimed to have
been in the library all afternoon and overheard nothing.

“Floote, truly, you simply
must
be acquainted with what has transpired. I depend upon you to know what is going on! You always do.”

Floote gave her a look that made her feel about seven years of age. Despite graduating from butler to personal secretary,
Floote had never quite lost his severe aura of butlerness.

He handed Alexia her leather dispatch case. “I reviewed the documents from last Sunday’s meeting.”

“Well, what is your opinion?” Floote had been with Alexia’s father before her, and, despite Alessandro Tarabotti’s rather
outrageous reputation (or perhaps because of it), Floote had learned
things.
Alexia was finding herself, as muhjah, more and more reliant upon his opinion, if only to confirm her own.

Floote considered. “My concern is with the deregulation clause, madam. I suspect that it is too soon to release the scientists
on their own recognizance.”

“Mmm, that was my assessment as well. I shall recommend against that particular clause. Thank you, Floote.”

The elderly man turned to go.

“Oh, and, Floote.”

He turned back, resigned.

“Something substantial has happened to overset my husband. I suspect research in the library may be called for when I return
tonight. Best to clear your schedule.”

“Very good, madam,” said Floote with a little bow. He glided off to summon her a carriage.

Alexia finished her repast, gathered up her dispatch case, her latest parasol, and her long woolen coat, and wandered out
the front door.

Only to discover exactly where everyone had gone—outside onto the sweeping front lawn that led up to the cobbled courtyard
of the castle. They had managed to multiply themselves, don attire of a military persuasion, and, for some reason known only
to their tiny little werewolf brains, proceed to engage in setting up a considerable number of large canvas tents. This involved
the latest in government-issue self-expanding steam poles, boiled in large copper pots like so much metal pasta. Each one
started out the size of a spyglass before the heat caused it to suddenly expand with a popping noise. As was the general military
protocol, it took far more soldiers than it ought to stand around watching the poles boil, and when one expanded, a cheer
erupted forth. The pole was grasped between a set of leather potholders and taken off to a tent.

Lady Maccon lost her temper. “What
are
you all doing out here?”

No one looked at her or acknowledged her presence.

Alexia threw her head back and yelled, “
Tunstell!
” She had not quite the lung capacity to match that of her massive husband, but neither was she built on the delicate-flower
end of the feminine spectrum. Alexia’s father’s ancestors had once conquered an empire, and it was when Lady Maccon yelled
that people realized how that was accomplished.

Tunstell came bouncing over, a handsome, if gangly, ginger fellow with a perpetual grin and a certain carelessness of manner
that most found endearing and everybody else found exasperating.

“Tunstell,” Alexia said calmly and reasonably, she thought, “
why
are there tents on my front lawn?”

Tunstell, Lord Maccon’s valet and chief among the clavigers, looked about in his chipper way, as if to say that he had not
noticed anything amiss and was now delighted to find that they had company. Tunstell was always chirpy. It was his greatest
character flaw. He was also one of the few residents of Woolsey Castle who managed to remain entirely unfazed by, or possibly
unaware of, either Lord or Lady Maccon’s wrath. This was his second-greatest character flaw.

“He didn’t warn you?” The claviger’s freckled face was flushed with exertion from helping to raise one of the tents.

“No,
he
most certainly did not.” Alexia tapped the silver tip of her parasol on the front stoop.

Tunstell grinned. “Well, my lady, the rest of the pack has returned.” He flipped both hands at the canvas-ridden chaos before
her, waggling his fingers dramatically. Tunstell was an actor of some note—everything he did was dramatic.

“Tunstell,” said Alexia carefully, as though to a dim child, “this would indicate that my husband possessed a very, very big
pack. There are no werewolf Alphas in England who can boast a pack of such proportions.”

“Oh, well, the rest of the pack brought the rest of the regiment with them,” explained Tunstell in a conspiratorial way, as
though he and Alexia were partners engaged in the most delightful lark.

“I believe it is customary for the pack and fellow officers of a given regiment to separate upon returning home. So that,
well, one doesn’t wake up to find hundreds of soldiers camping on one’s lawn.”

“Well, Woolsey has always done things a little differently. Having the biggest pack in England, we’re the only ones who split
the pack for military service, so we keep the Coldsteam Guards together for a few weeks when we get home. Builds solidarity.”
Tunstell gestured expansively once more, his fine white hands weaving about in the air, and nodded enthusiastically.

“And does this solidarity have to occur on Woolsey’s front lawn?”
Tap tap tap
went the parasol. The Bureau of Unnatural Registry (BUR) was experimenting with new weaponry of late. At the disbanding of
the Hypocras Club several months previous, a small compressed steam unit had been discovered. It apparently heated continually
until it burst. Lord Maccon had shown it to his wife. It made a ticking noise just prior to explosion, rather like that of
Alexia’s parasol at this precise moment. Tunstell was unaware of this correlation or he might have proceeded with greater
caution. On the other hand, being Tunstell, he might not.

“Yes, isn’t it jolly?” crowed Tunstell.

“But why?”
Tap tap tap.

“It is where we have always camped,” said a new voice, apparently belonging to someone equally unfamiliar with the ticking,
exploding steam device.

Lady Maccon whirled to glare at the man who dared to interrupt her midrant. The gentleman in question was both tall and broad,
although not quite to her husband’s scale. Lord Maccon was Scottish-big; this gentleman was only English-big—there was a distinct
difference. Also, unlike the earl, who periodically bumped into things as though his form were larger than his perception
of it, this man seemed entirely comfortable with his size. He wore full officer formals and knew he looked good in them. His
boots were spit-shined, his blond hair coiffed high, and he boasted an accent that very carefully was no accent at all. Alexia
knew the type: education, money, and blue blood.

She gritted her teeth. “Oh, it is, is it? Well, not anymore.” She turned back to Tunstell. “We are hosting a dinner party
the evening after next. Have them remove those tents immediately.”