Heartless: The Parasol Protectorate: Book the Fourth (24 page)

Lady Maccon’s mouth opened slightly, then snapped shut. “Ivy’s Agent Doom was at BUR?” She sighed. “Well,
I suppose that puts Lord Woolsey to the top of my suspect list. He would have held my husband’s position at the time.”

Floote, in the act of shutting the door behind himself, paused on the threshold. “Lord Woolsey, madam?”

Alexia looked at him, all big-eyed and innocuous. “Yes. I’m beginning to think he must have had a hand in the Kingair assassination attempt.”

Madame Lefoux looked entirely uninterested at this. Her present concerns must be outweighing any curiosity over the past. “I do hope the information will be of some use, Alexia. When you’re finished, could I please have those records back? I like to keep these things in proper order. You understand, don’t you?”

“Of course.”

“And now, I hate to be so abrupt, but I must get back to it.”

“Of course, of course. Do try to get some rest, please, Genevieve?”

“I’ll rest when the souls do,” quipped the inventor with a shrug. Then she left the room, only to return a moment later. “Have you seen my top hat?”

“The gray one out in the hall?” Lady Maccon’s stomach fell in a way that had nothing whatsoever to do with the child.

“Yes.”

“I believe my husband may have accidentally absconded with it. Was it
special
?”

“Only in that it was my favorite hat. I can’t imagine it fit him. Must be several sizes too small.”

Lady Maccon closed her eyes at the very idea. “Oh, he must look quite a picture. I do apologize, Genevieve. He is
so very bad about these things. I’ll have it sent over as soon as he returns.”

“Oh, no trouble. I do, after all, own a hat shop.” The inventor flashed a dimpled smile, and Alexia felt a strange bump of pleasure at the sight. It had been so long since Genevieve had smiled fully.

Floote saw the Frenchwoman to the door, but before he could even attempt to resume his regular duties, Lady Maccon called him back into her presence.

“Floote, a moment of your time.”

Floote came to stand before her, wary. His face, as always, was impassive, but Alexia had learned over the years to watch the set of his shoulders for clues as to his real feelings.

“Floote, I wouldn’t wish to be an eavesdropper, not on my friends or my staff—that is, by rights, your provenance. However, I couldn’t help but overhear some bit of your conversation with Madame Lefoux before I entered this room. Really, I didn’t know you had it in you. Several sentences in a row. And some of them quite sharp.”

“Madam?” The shoulders twitched.

Floote really didn’t have much of a sense of humor, poor man. Lady Maccon stopped teasing him and moved on to the meat of the matter. “You were discussing my father, weren’t you?”

“In a manner, madam.”

“And?”

“Madame Lefoux pays you a good deal of conspicuous attention.”

“Yes. I always figured it was her
way.
If you take my meaning.”

“I do, madam.”

“But you think it is something more?”

His shoulders tensed and Floote looked, if such a thing were to be conceived, uncomfortable. “I have made observations over the years.”

“Yes?” Having a conversation with Floote was about as easy as explaining the formulation of the counterbalance theorem to a bowl of macaroni pudding.

“On the nature of preternatural interactions, if you would, madam.”

“Yes, I would. Go on.”

Floote spoke slowly, choosing his words with care. “I have arrived at certain conclusions.”

“Concerning what, exactly?”
Coaxing, coaxing,
thought Alexia. Never her strong point in a conversation, letting others take their time getting to a point. Still, the company of Lord Akeldama had taught her much in the way of it.

“There may be attraction between those who have excess soul and those who have none at all, madam.”

“You mean preternatural and supernatural?”

“Or preternatural and natural folk with supernatural potential.”

“What kind of attraction?” asked Lady Maccon rather injudiciously.

Floote raised an eloquent eyebrow.

“Did my father—” Alexia stopped, trying to come up with the correct phrasing. This was a strange sensation for her, thinking before she spoke. Her husband was much the same way or they might never have tolerated each other. Floote was notoriously reluctant to talk about his former employer, citing classified protection of international relations and the safety of the empire. Lady Maccon
tried again. “Did my father exercise this appeal on purpose?”

“Not to my knowledge.” Suddenly Floote switched topics, volunteering information in a most unexpected and un-Floote-like manner. “Do you know why the Templars gave up their preternatural breeding program, madam?”

Alexia’s brain tried to change gears, a steam engine caught on the wrong track. “Uh, no.”

“They never could entirely control preternaturals. It’s your pragmatism. Your kind cannot be persuaded by faith; pure logic must be applied.”

Alexia’s very pragmatic nature was confused as to why normally taciturn Floote was telling her this, and right now. “Is that what happened to my father? Did he lose faith?”

“Not exactly faith, madam.”

“What do you mean, precisely, Floote? Enough shilly-shallying.”

“He engaged in an exchange of loyalties.”

Alexia frowned. She was beginning to suspect there were far fewer coincidences in life than she had previously believed. “Let me guess. This occurred about twenty years ago?”

“Nearer to thirty, but if you are asking if the three events are linked, the answer is yes.”

“My father rejecting the Templars, his death, and the Kingair assassination attempt? But when the Kingair Pack tried to kill the queen, he was already dead.”

“My point exactly, madam.”

A loud crashing and banging came at the front door. Lady Maccon would have liked to query Floote further,
but pressing noises seemed to be calling on his butler attentions.

Floote glided out, all calmness and dignity, to see what the fuss was about. Whoever it was, however, pushed past him and came rushing into the front parlor, crying, “Lady Maccon! Lady Maccon, you are needed most urgently!”

The intrusion resolved itself into the form of two of Lord Akeldama’s boys, Boots and a young viscount by the name of Trizdale. They were overwrought and disheveled—conditions highly out of character for any of Lord Akeldama’s drones. One sleeve of Boots’s favorite green jacket was torn, and Tizzy’s boots actually looked to be scuffed in places.
Scuffed, indeed!

“My goodness me, gentlemen, has there been an
incident?
”

“Oh, my lady, I can hardly bear to say it. But we are being assaulted!”

“Oh, my.” Lady Maccon signaled them to come closer. “Don’t stand there gawping—help me to rise. What can I do?”

“Well, my lady, we are under attack from a werewolf!”

Alexia paled considerably. “In a vampire’s abode? Deary me! What is this world coming to?”

Boots said, “That’s just the thing, my lady. We thought it best to fetch you. The creature is on a bender.”

Lady Maccon grabbed up her parasol and her reticule. “Of course, of course. I’ll come directly. Lend me your arm, please, Mr. Bootbottle-Fipps.”

As quickly as possible, the two young dandies helped Alexia to waddle out the front door and along the path past the lilac bushes into Lord Akeldama’s house.

The arched and frescoed hallway was packed with
concerned-looking young men, several of them worse off than Boots and Tizzy. Two were even missing their cravats. A truly startling thing to see. They were milling about and talking in obvious trepidation, at a loss but eager to do something.

“Gentlemen!” Lady Maccon’s shrill feminine voice cut through the masculine hubbub. She raised her parasol on high as though about to conduct a concert. “Where is the beast?”

“Please, mum, it’s our master.”

Alexia paused in perplexity and lowered her parasol slightly. Lord Akeldama was a vampire, but no one would ever refer to him as a
beast.

The dandies continued in a chorus of explanations and objections.

“He’s gone and locked himself in the drawing room.”

“With
that
monster.”

“I should never wish to question our lord’s choices, but
really!
”

“So ill-kempt. I’m convinced its fur had split ends.”

“Said he could handle it.”

“For our own good, he said. Not to let anyone in.”

“I’m not
anyone.
” Lady Maccon pushed her way through the throng of perfectly tailored jackets and high white collars, as one of those particularly chubby terriers might clear a path through a pack of poodles.

The young men gave way until she was faced with the gilt door, painted with white and lavender swirls, that led into Lord Akeldama’s infamous drawing room. She took a deep breath and knocked loudly with the handle of her parasol.

“Lord Akeldama? It’s Lady Maccon. May I enter?”

From behind the door came the sound of scuffling and possibly Lord Akeldama’s voice. But no one actually bid her entrance.

She knocked again. Even under the most dire of circumstances, one didn’t simply go bursting into a man’s private drawing room without sufficient provocation.

A particularly loud crash was all the response she got.

Alexia decided that
this
could be considered sufficient provocation and slowly turned the knob. Parasol at the ready, she waddled in as quick as she could, closing the door firmly behind her. Just because she was disobeying Lord Akeldama’s orders didn’t mean the drones could as well.

Her fascinated gaze fell upon quite the tableau.

Lady Maccon had witnessed an altercation between a vampire and a werewolf once before, but it had been inside a moving carriage and had rather rapidly relocated from carriage to road. Also, back then, the two opponents had genuinely been trying to kill each other. This was different.

Lord Akeldama was locked in single combat with a werewolf. The wolf was definitely trying to kill him, jaws snapping and all his supernatural strength bent on the vampire’s destruction. But Lord Akeldama, while fighting the wolf off, did not seem to be enthusiastic about killing him. For one thing, his favored weapon, a silver-edged glaive that masqueraded as a piece of gold plumbing, was still in its customary place above the mantelpiece. No, Lord Akeldama seemed to be employing mostly evasive strategies, which only served to frustrate and anger the wolf.

The beast lunged for the vampire’s elegant white neck,
and Lord Akeldama dodged to the side, flicking out one arm in a blasé manner, as if flapping a large handkerchief at a departing steamer. It was a gesture that, for all its casualness, still lifted the werewolf up and entirely over the vampire’s blond head to land on his back near the fireplace.

Alexia had never had the chance to observe Lord Akeldama fight before. Of course, one knew Lord Akeldama must be
able
to fight. He was rumored to be quite old, and as such must be at least capable of combat. But this was akin to knowing, academically, that his chubby calico house cat was capable of hunting rats—the actual execution of the task always seemed highly improbable and possibly embarrassing for all concerned. Thus, she now found herself quite intrigued by the display before her. And soon discovered that she was wrong in her initial assumption.

Far from any discomfit or awkwardness, Lord Akeldama fought with a nonchalant lazy efficiency, as though he had all the time in the world on his side. Which Alexia supposed he did. His advantage was in speed, eyesight, and dexterity. The wolf had strength, smell, and sound to rely on, but he was inexperienced. The werewolf hadn’t an Alpha’s skill, either, which Lord Maccon had once described to his wife as fighting with soul. No, this wolf was moon mad. His jaws snapped and his claws speared surfaces without regard to logic or expense. The vampire’s perfectly elegant drawing room was faring no better than Alexia’s back parlor. He was also getting saliva all over the pretty throw cushions.

It would have been an entirely uneven match except that Lord Akeldama really was trying not to hurt Biffy.

Because that was who it was: Biffy, chocolate brown fur with an oxblood stomach.

“How on earth did you get out of the Woolsey dungeon?”

No one answered her, of course.

Biffy charged Lord Akeldama. The vampire seemed to flash spontaneously from one side of the room to the other, leaving the werewolf to complete his leap with no quarry at the end of it. Biffy landed on a gold brocade chair, overturning it so that its legs stuck up, shockingly bare, into the air.

The werewolf noticed Lady Maccon’s presence first. His nostrils flared. His hairy head swiveled around to cast a yellow-eyed glare in her direction. There was none of Biffy’s soft blue gentleness in those eyes, only the need to maim, feast, and kill.

Lord Akeldama was only seconds behind noticing that they had company. “Why, Alexia, my
little cowslip,
how kind of you to call. Especially in your present condition.”