The Parasol Protectorate Boxed Set (116 page)

“But even twenty years ago, the local pack was…” Alexia sat back, sentence unfinished, hand instinctively and protectively
pressed upon her belly.

“Woolsey.”

Alexia mentally catalogued the Woolsey Pack members. Aside from her husband and Biffy,
all of them
were holdovers from the previous Alpha. “Channing,” she said finally. “I'll wager it was Channing. He certainly didn't like
the idea of my investigating the past. Interrupted me in the library just the other day. I'll need to check the military records,
of course, find out who was in England at the time and who was billeted overseas.”

“Good girl,” approved the vampire. “Nice and thorough, but I have something more for you. That cook who worked for the OBO
who you were investigating? The little poisoner?”

“Oh, yes. How did you know about her?”

“
Please,
darling.” He gestured with the monocle toward himself, as if pointing a finger.

“Oh, of course. I apologize. Do go on.”

“She preferred a tannin-activated dosing mechanism. Very hard to detect, you understand. Her preferred brand of poison at
the time was stimulated by the application of
hot water and a chemical component most commonly found in tea.”

Alexia put down her teacup with a clatter.

Lord Akeldama continued, eyes twinkling. “It requires a specialized automechanical nickel-lined teapot. The teapot was to
arrive as a gift for Queen Victoria, and the first time she drank from it—death.” The vampire made a gesture with two slim,
perfectly manicured fingers curving down toward his own neck, like fangs. “Your little ghost may have supplied the poison,
but teapots of that type were made by only one specialty manufacturer.”

Lady Maccon narrowed her eyes. Coincidence was a fateful thing. “Let me guess, Beatrice Lefoux?”

“Indeed.”

Alexia stood, slowly and cautiously by degrees but with evident firmness of intent, leaning upon her parasol. “Well, this
has been most edifying, Lord Akeldama. Most edifying. Thank you. I must be on my way.”

Right at that moment, there was a scuffle in the hallway and the door to the drawing room burst open to reveal the dewan.

“What is the meaning of such a summons as I just received?” He barreled into the room all loud bluster, bringing along an
odor of London night air and raw meat.

Lady Maccon waddled past him as though the summons had nothing whatsoever to do with her. “Oh, hello, Dewan. The potentate
will be happy to explain everything. Please excuse me, my lords. Important business.” She paused, searching for an excuse.
“Shopping. I'm certain you understand. Hats. Very critical hats.”

“What?” said the werewolf. “But you directed me to attend you! Here, Lady Maccon! At the house of a
vampire
!”

Lord Akeldama stood up from his consciously relaxed posture as though he might try to waylay Lady Maccon.

Alexia waved at them both cheerily from the doorway before hobbling out and into her waiting carriage. “Regent Street, please,
posthaste. Chapeau de Poupe.”

Lady Maccon barely glanced at the hats. She headed straight through the shop past the sputtering attendant in a, it must be
said, very grand
Lady
Maccon–like manner. “I shall make my own way,” she said to the fretful girl, and then, “
She
is expecting me.” Which was, of course, an outfight fib but served to mollify the chit. Luckily, for all concerned, the shopgirl
had the presence of mind to flip the
CLOSED
sign and shut the door before anyone could observe Lady Maccon's disappearance into the wall.

Madame Lefoux was in her contrivance chamber, looking, if possible, even more gaunt and unwell than when Alexia had seen her
last.

“My dear, Genevieve! I thought I was the one meant to be laid up. You look as though you could use a week's rest. Surely this
new project cannot be so vital you must damage your health over its completion.”

The inventor smiled wanly but barely glanced up from her work, concentrating on some engine schematic rolled out on a metal
crate before her. The massive bowler-hat contraption she was still building loomed behind her, looking more of-a-piece. It
was at least three times Lord Maccon's height, with its podlike driving chamber now seated atop multiple tentacle-like supports.

Alexia thought perhaps her friend's intense focus on work was a necessary distraction from her aunt's terminal condition.
“Goodness me, quite a fearsome thing, is it not?
How do you intend to get it out of the chamber, Genevieve? It will never fit through that passageway of yours.”

“Oh, it's only loosely assembled. I shall take it out in pieces. I have an arrangement with the Pantechnicon to utilize a
warehouse for the final stage of construction.” The Frenchwoman stood, stretched, and turned to face Lady Maccon full-on for
the first time. She scrubbed her grease-covered hands with a rag and then came over to greet her guest properly. A soft kiss
was pressed lovingly against Alexia's cheek, and Alexia was reminded of her friend's consistently solicitous care in the past.

“Are you certain there is nothing you wish to talk about? I assure you I am the soul of discretion; it should go no further.
Is there nothing I can do to help?”

“Oh, my dearest lady, I wish there were.” Madame Lefoux moved away, elegant shoulders hunched.

Alexia wondered if there might not be some other component to her friend's unhappiness. “Has Quesnel been asking about his
real mother again?”

Genevieve and she had discussed such matters in the past. Angelique's violent death was deemed too much for an impressionable
young boy. As was the former maid's identity as his biological mother.

Madame Lefoux's soft chin firmed. “
I
am his real mother.”

Lady Maccon understood such defensiveness. “It must be hard, though, not telling him about Angelique.”

Genevieve dimpled wanly. “Oh, Quesnel knows.”

“Oh, oh, dear. How did he…?”

“I should prefer not to talk about it just now.” The inventor's face, always tricky to read, shut down completely, her dimples
vanishing as surely as poodles after a water rat.

Alexia, saddened by such icy reticence, nevertheless respected her friend's wishes. “I actually have a matter of business
to consult you on. I recently learned something of your aunt's past activities. She undertook the manufacture of special automated
teapots, I understand, very special ones. Nickel plated?”

“Oh, yes? When was this?”

“Twenty years ago.”

“Well, I should hardly remember that myself, I'm afraid. You may be correct, of course. We can attempt to converse with my
aunt on the subject or look through her records. I warn you, she is difficult.” She switched to her perfect musical French.
“Aunt Beatrice?”

A ghostly body shimmered out of a wall nearby. The specter was looking worse than last time, her form barely recognizable
as human, misty with lack of cohesion. “Do I hear my name? Do I hear bells? Silver bells!”

“She has gone to poltergeist?” Alexia's voice was soft in sympathy.

“Unfortunately, almost entirely. She has some lucid moments. So not yet completely lost to me. Go ahead, try.” Genevieve's
voice was drawn with unhappiness.

“Pardon me, Formerly Lefoux, but do you recall a special order for a teapot, twenty years ago. Nickel plated?” Alexia relayed
some of the other details.

The ghost ignored her, drifting up toward the high ceiling, floating about the head of her niece's massive project, extending
herself so that she became a crude kind of tiara.

Genevieve's face fell. “Let me go check her old records. I think I may have kept them when we moved.”

While Madame Lefoux fussed about a far corner of her massive laboratory, Formerly Lefoux drifted back down
to Alexia, as if drawn against her will. She was definitely beginning to lose control over noncorporeal cohesion, the end
stages before involuntary disanimus. As her mental faculties failed, she was forgetting she was human, forgetting what her
own body once looked like. Or that was what the scientists hypothesized. Mental control over the physical was a popular theory.

The ambient aether feathered hazy tendrils off the ghostly form, carrying them toward Lady Maccon. Alexia's preternatural
state fractured some of the remaining tether of the ghost's body, pulling it apart. It was an eerie thing to watch, likes
soap suds in water curling down a sink.

The ghost seemed to be observing the phenomenon of her own destruction with interest. Until she remembered her selfhood and
tugged back, gathering herself inward. “Preternatural!” she hissed. “Preternatural female! What are you—Oh, oh, yes. You are
the one who will stop it. Stop it all. You are.”

Then she became distracted by something unseen. She swirled about, drifting away from Alexia, still muttering to herself.
Behind her murmuring voice, Alexia could make out the high keening wail that all her vocalizations would eventually dissolve
into—the death shriek of a dying soul.

Alexia shook her head. “Poor thing. What a way to end. So embarrassing.”

“Wrong track. Wrong track!” Formerly Lefoux garbled.

Madame Lefoux returned, walking right through her aunt she was so lost in thought. “Oh, oops, sorry, Aunt. I do apologize,
Alexia. I can't seem to locate the crate where I stashed those records. Allow me some time and I'll see what I can find later
tonight. Would that do?”

“Of course, thank you for the attempt.”

“And now, if you will excuse me? I really must return to work.”

“Oh, certainly.”

“And you must return to your husband. He's looking for you.”

“Oh? He is? How did you know?”

“Please, Alexia, you are wandering around out of bed, with a limp, grossly pregnant. Knowing you, I'm quite certain you are
not meant to be. Ergo, he must be looking for you.”

“How well you know us both, Genevieve.”

Lord Maccon was indeed looking for his errant wife. The moment her carriage drew up before their new town residence, he was
out the front door, down the steps, and scooping her up into his arms.

Alexia withstood his solicitous attentions with much forbearance. “Must you make a scene here in the public street?” was all
she said after he had kissed her ardently.

“I was worried. You were gone much longer than I expected.”

“You thought to catch me at Lord Akeldama's?”

“Well, yes, and instead I caught the dewan, for my pains.” This was growled out in a very wolfish manner for a man whose husbandly
duties rendered him not a werewolf at that precise moment.

The earl carried his wife into their back parlor, which five days' absence had seen adequately refurbished, if not quite up
to Biffy's exacting standards. Alexia was convinced that once recovered from this month's bone-bender, the dandy would see
to it the room was brought back up to snuff.

Lord Maccon deposited his wife into a chair and then knelt next to her, clutching one of her hands. “Tell me truthfully—how
are you feeling?”

Alexia took a breath. “Truthfully? I sometimes wonder if I, like Madame Lefoux, should affect masculine dress.”

“Gracious me, why?”

“You mean aside from the issue of greater mobility?”

“My love, I don't think that's currently the result of your clothing.”

“Indeed, well, I mean
after
the baby.”

“I still don't see why you should want to.”

“Oh, no? I dare you to spend a week in a corset, long skirts, and a bustle.”

“How do you know I haven't?”

“Oh, ho!”

“Now stop playing games, woman. How are you really feeling?”

Alexia sighed. “A little tired, a lot frustrated, but well in body if not spirit. My ankle is paining me only a little, and
the infant-inconvenience has been remarkably patient with all my carriage rides and poodling about.” She contemplated how
to raise the subject of Lord Akeldama's thoughts on the matter of the queen. Finally, knowing she had little inherent delicacy
of speech and that her husband had none at all, she decided he would probably appreciate directness.

“Lord Akeldama thinks the London mastermind of your Kingair plot was a Woolsey Pack member.”

“Does he, by George?”

“Now, stay calm, my dear. Think logically. I know that is difficult for you. But wouldn't someone like Channing take—”

Lord Maccon shook his head. “No, not Channing. He would never—”

“But Lord Akeldama said that the previous Alpha was not right in the head. Couldn't that have had something to do with it?
If he ordered Channing to—”

Lord Maccon's voice was sharp. “No. But Lord Woolsey himself? That
is
an idea. Much as I hate to admit it. The man was mad, my dear. Utterly mad. It can happen that way, especially to Alphas
when we get too old. There's a reason, you know, that we werewolves fight amongst ourselves. I mean aside from the etiquette
of the duel. Especially Alphas. We shouldn't be allowed to live forever—we go all funny in the brain. Or that's what the howlers
sing of. Vampires do, too, if you ask me. I mean, you only have to look at Lord Akeldama to realize he's… but I digress.”

His wife reminded him of where they were in the conversation. “Lord Woolsey, you were saying?”

Lord Maccon looked down at their joined hands. “It can take on many forms, the madness—sometimes quite harmless little esoteric
inclinations and sometimes not. Lord Woolsey, as I understand it, became deviant. Even brutal in his”—he paused, looking for
the right word that might not shock even his indomitable wife—“tastes.”

Alexia contemplated this. Conall was an aggressive lover, demanding, although he could be quite gentle. Of course, with her,
he had no real teeth to do damage beyond a nibble or two. But there had been one or two times, early on in their courtship,
when she had wondered if he might not actually think of her as food. She had also read overmuch of her father's journals.