Changeless pp-2

by Gail Carriger

  Lady Maccon was equal to the task. No one of her stalwart character, required since birth to supervise first Mrs. Loontwill and later two equally improbable sisters, was unprepared for even such trying circumstances as large, kilted werewolves en masse.

  “We heard about you,” said the Gamma, whose name sounded like something slippery to do with bogs. “Knew the old laird had suckered himself to a curse-breaker.” He paced about Alexia slowly in a circle as though examining her for flaws. It felt very doglike to Alexia. She was prepared to jump back if he cocked a leg.

  Luckily, his statement was misconstrued by both Ivy and Felicity. Alexia was not known as a preternatural to either of them and she preferred to keep it that way. Both young ladies seemed to assume that the phrase curse-breaker was some queer Scottish term for wife.

  Felicity said, sneering at the enormous man in front of her, “Really, can you not speak English?”

  Lady Maccon said quickly, ignoring her sister, “You have the upper hand on me. I know nothing of you.” They were all so very large. She was not used to feeling diminutive.

  The Gamma’s broad face went pinched at that. “Over a century he was master o’ this pack and he na mentioned us to ye?”

  “Could be me he does not want to know you, rather than you he does not want to talk about,” offered Alexia.

  The werewolf gave her a long, assessing look. “I’m thinking ’tis that he never brought us up, did he?”

  Sidheag interrupted them. “Enough gossip. We’ll show you to your rooms. Lads, go grab in the extras—blasted English canna travel light.”

  The upstairs bedrooms and guest accommodations seemed no better off than the rest of the castle, muted in color and dank in smell. The room given to Lord and Lady Maccon was tidy enough but musty, with decorations of brownish red some hundred years or so outdated. There was a large bed, two small wardrobes, a dressing table for Alexia, and a dressing chamber for her husband. The color scheme and general appearance reminded Lady Maccon of nothing so much as a damp, malcontented squirrel.

  She checked about the chamber for a safe place to secrete her dispatch case, with little success. There seemed nowhere acceptably discreet, so she trundled three doors down to where Miss Hisselpenny was billeted.

  As she passed one of the other chambers, she heard Felicity say, in a breathy voice, “Oh, Mr. Tunstell, shall I be safe in the room right next to yours, do you think?”

  Seconds later, she witnessed Tunstell, panic in every freckle, emerge from Felicity’s room and dive into the refuge of his small valet accommodations just off of Conall’s dressing chamber.

  Ivy was busy unpacking her trunk when Alexia tapped politely on her door and wandered in.

  “Oh, thank heavens, Alexia. I was just pondering, do you think there might be ghosts in this place? Or worse, poltergeists? Please do not think I am at all bigoted against the supernatural set, but I simply cannot withstand an overabundance of ghosts, especially not those at the final stage of disanimus. I heard they get all over funny in the head and go wafting about losing bits of their noncorporeal selves. One rounds a corner of some perfectly respectable passageway only to find a disembodied eyebrow floating halfway between ceiling and potted palm.” Miss Hisselpenny shuddered as she carefully stacked her twelve hatboxes next to the wardrobe.

  Alexia thought back to what her husband had said. If the werewolves here could not change, then the plague of humanization must be infecting Castle Kingair. The castle would have been completely exorcised.

  “I have a funny feeling, Ivy,” she said with confidence, “that ghosts will definitely not be frequenting this locale.”

  Ivy looked unconvinced. “But, Alexia, really you must admit to the fact that this building seems like the kind of place that ought to have ghosts.”

  Lady Maccon clicked her tongue in exasperation. “Oh, Ivy, do not be ridiculous. Appearances have nothing to do with it; you know that. Only in Gothic novels are ghosts linked so, and we both know how utterly fanciful fiction has become recently. Authors never do get the supernatural correct. I mean to say, the last one I read essentially claimed metamorphosis had to do with magic, when everyone knows there are perfectly valid scientific and medical explanations for excess soul. Why, just the other day, I read that—”

  Miss Hisselpenny interrupted her hastily before she could go on. “Yes, well, no need to overset me with bluestocking explanations and Royal Society papers. I shall take your word for it. What time did Lady Kingair say supper was to commence?”

  “Nine, I believe.”

  Another look of panic suffused her friend’s face. “Will they be serving”—she gulped—“haggis, do you think?”

  Lady Maccon made a face. “Surely not for our first meal. But best prepare yourself; one never knows.” Conall had described the disastrous foodstuff, with unwarranted delight, during their carriage ride in. The ladies were living in mortal terror as a result.

  Ivy sighed. “Very well. We had better get dressed, then. Would my periwinkle taffeta be appropriate for the occasion?”

  “For the haggis?”

  “No, silly, for dinner.”

  “Does it have a matched hat?”

  Miss Hisselpenny looked up from tidying her stack of hatboxes with a disgusted expression. “Alexia, do not talk such folderol. It is a dinner gown.”

  “Then I think it will serve very well. May I ask you a favor? I have a gift for my husband in this case. Do you think I might conceal it in your room for the time being so he does not accidentally uncover it? I wish it to be a surprise.”

  Miss Hisselpenny’s eyes shone. “Oh, really! How lovely and wifely of you. I should never have pegged you for a romantic.”

  Lady Maccon winced.

  “What is it?”

  Alexia grappled with her brain for an appropriate answer. What would one possibly buy for a man and then hide in a dispatch case? “Uh. Socks.”

  Miss Hisselpenny was crushed. “Only socks? I hardly think socks cry out for secrecy.”

  “They are lucky, special socks.”

  Miss Hisselpenny saw no apparent illogicality in that and carefully tucked Lady Maccon’s dispatch case behind her stack of hatboxes.

  “I may need to access it from time to time,” said Alexia.

  Miss Hisselpenny was bemused. “Why?”

  “To, uh, check on the condition of the, uh, socks.”

  “Alexia, are you feeling quite the thing?”

  Lady Maccon instantly spoke, in order to throw Miss Hisselpenny off the scent. “Did you know, I just passed Tunstell leaving Felicity’s rooms.”

  Ivy gasped. “No!” She immediately began furiously arranging her accessories for dinner, tossing gloves, jewelry, and lacy hair cap on top of the dress already laid out upon the bed.

  “Alexia, I do not mean to be at all rude. But I really do believe your sister may be an actual nincompoop.”

  “Oh, that is perfectly all right, Ivy dear. I cannot stomach her myself,” replied Lady Maccon. And then, because she felt guilty for having told her about Tunstell, “Would you like to borrow Angelique this evening to do up your hair? The rain’s ruined mine beyond all repair I’m afraid, so it would be a wasted effort.”

  “Oh, really? Thank you, that would be lovely.” Ivy perked up immediately.

  With that, Lady Maccon retreated to her own room to dress.

  “Angelique?” The maid was busy unpacking when Lady Maccon reentered her bedroom.

  “I have told Ivy she may have you for her hair this evening. Not a thing could possibly be done to help mine at this point.” Alexia’s dark locks were a mass of frizzy curls in reaction to the unpleasant Scottish climate. “I shall simply pop on one of those horrible lace matron’s caps you are always trying to get me to wear.”

  “Yez, my lady.” The maid bobbed a curtsy and went to do as she was bid. She paused in the doorway, looking back at her mistress. “Please, my lady, why is Madame Lefoux still with us?”

  “You really do not like
her, do you, Angelique?”

  A quintessentially French shrug met that statement.

  “It was my husband’s idea, I am afraid to say. I do not trust her either, mind you. But you know how Conall gets. Apparently, Kingair has a malfunctioning aethographic transmitter. I know, you might well look surprised. Who would have thought a backwater place like this could possess anything so modern? Apparently they do, and it has been having difficulties. Secondhand goods, I understand. Well, what do you expect? Anyhow, Conall brought Madame Lefoux along to give it the old once-over. Nothing I could do to stop him.”

  Angelique looked blank at that and bobbed a quick curtsy, and went off to see to Ivy.

  Alexia ruminated over the outfit the maid had selected for her to wear. And then, because she really could not count on her own sense of style to do any better, put it on.

  Her husband came in just as she was struggling to fasten the buttons up the back of the bodice.

  “Oh, good, there you are. Do this up for me, would you, please?”

  Entirely ignoring her command, Lord Maccon strode over to her in three quick steps and buried his face in the side of her neck.

  Lady Maccon emitted an exasperated sigh but at the same time swiveled around to wrap her arms about his neck.

  “Well, that is very helpful, darling. You do realize we are due for—”

  He kissed her.

  When breathing eventually became a necessity, he said, “Well, wife, been wanting to do that the entire carriage ride here.” He moved his large hands down to her posterior and hoisted her against his big, firm body.

  “And here I thought you were thinking about politics most of the ride; you sported such a terrible frown,” replied his wife with a grin.

  “Well, that too. I can do two things at once. For example, right now I am talking to you and also devising a means by which to extract you from this gown.”

  “Husband, you cannot take it off of me. I just put it on.”

  He seemed disinclined to agree with that statement, instead putting a concerted effort into undoing all her careful work and shoving the dress aside.

  “Did you really like the parasol I gave you?” he asked, sweetly hesitant, drifting his fingertips up over her now-bare shoulders and upper back.

  “Oh, Conall, such a lovely gift, with magnetic disruption field generator, poison darts, and everything. So very thoughtful. I was delighted to find I had not lost it during the fall.”

  The fingers stopped drifting abruptly. “Fall? What fall?”

  Lady Maccon knew that burgeoning roar well. She squirmed against him in an effort to distract him. “Uh,” she hedged.

  Lord Maccon pushed her slightly away, holding her by the shoulders.

  She patted him as best she could on the chest. “Oh, it was nothing, dear—simply a little tumble.”

  “Little tumble! Little tumble off of what, wife?”

  Alexia looked down and away and tried to mumble. Since she had a naturally assertive voice, this did not work at all well. “A dirigible.”

  “A dirigible.” Lord Maccon’s tone was hard and flat. “And did that dirigible happen to be floating in the air at the time?”

  “Umm, well, possibly, not quite air… more in the region of, well, aether…”

  A hard glare.

  Alexia hung her head and peeked at him through her eyelashes.

  Lord Maccon steered his wife, as though she were an unwieldy rowboat, backward toward the bed and forced her to sit down upon it. Then he flopped down next to her.

  “Start at the beginning.”

  “You mean the evening I woke up to find you had taken yourself off to Scotland without even speaking to me about it?”

  Lord Maccon sighed. “It was a serious family matter.”

  “And what am I, a nodding acquaintance?”

  Conall actually had the grace to look slightly shamefaced at that. “You must allow me some little time to get used to having a wife.”

  “You mean you did not acclimatize to it the last time you were wed?”

  He frowned at her. “That was a long time ago.”

  “I certainly hope so.”

  “Before I changed. And it was a matter of duty. In those days, one simply didna turn werewolf without leaving an heir behind. I was to be laird; I could not possibly become supernatural without first ensuring the prosperity of the clan.”

  Alexia was not inclined to let him off lightly for keeping her in the dark on this matter, even if she perfectly understood his reasons. “I gathered as much by the fact that you seem to have produced a child. What I question is the fact that, for some reason, you elected not to tell me you still had living descendants.”

  Lord Maccon snorted, grabbing his wife’s hand and caressing her wrist with his callused thumbs. “You met Sidheag. Would you want to claim her as a relation?”

  Alexia sighed and leaned against his broad shoulder. “She seems like a fine, upstanding woman.”

  “What she is is an impossible grouch.”

  Lady Maccon smiled into her husband’s shoulder. “Well, there can be no doubt as to which side of the family she gets that from.” She switched tactics. “Are you going to tell me anything substantial about this previous family of yours? Who was your wife? How many children did you have? Am I likely to encounter any other Maccons of import scattered about?” She stood, continuing about her preparations for dinner, trying not to show how much she cared about his answers. This was one aspect of being married to an immortal she had not figured into her equation. Of course, she knew he had taken previous lovers; at two centuries, she would be concerned if he had not, and she had almost nightly reason to be grateful for his experience. But previous wives? This she had not considered.

  He lay back on the bed, folding his arms behind his head, looking at her out of predatory eyes. There was no denying it—impossible man her husband, but also a terribly sexy beast.

  “Are you going to tell me about falling off the dirigible?” he countered.

  Alexia fastened earrings to her ears. “Are you going to tell me why you hightailed it off to Scotland without your valet, leaving me to deal with Major Channing at the supper table, Ivy hat shopping, and half of London still recovering from a severe bout of humanization? Not to mention the fact that I had to travel the length of England all by myself.”

  They heard Miss Hisselpenny squealing in the hallway and then a chatter of other voices, Felicity perhaps, and Tunstell.

  Lord Maccon, still lounging poetically upon the bed, sniffed.

  “Very well, travel the length of England accompanied by Ivy and my sister, which is very possibly worse—and still your fault.”

  The earl rose, came over, and buttoned up the back of her dress. Alexia was only mildly disappointed. They were running late for dinner, and she was starving.

  “Why are you here, wife?” he asked bluntly.

  Lady Maccon leaned back, exasperated. They were getting nowhere with this conversation. “Conall, answer me this: have you been able to change since we arrived at Kingair?”

  Lord Maccon frowned. “I had not thought to try.”

  She gave him an aggrieved look via the mirror, and he let go of her and stepped back. She watched him, his busy hands stilled. Nothing happened.

  He shook his head and came back. “Not possible. It feels a little as though I am in contact with you and trying for my wolf form. Not difficult, or even elusive, simply unavailable. That part of me, the werewolf part, has vanished.”

  She turned to him. “I came because I am muhjah, and this changelessness is connected to the Kingair Pack. I saw you sneak away and talk to the Beta. None of this pack has been able to shift in months, have they? For how long exactly has this been going on? Since boarding the Spanker and traveling home? Or before? Where did they find the weapon? India? Egypt? Or is it a plague they have brought back? What happened to them overseas?”

  Lord Maccon looked at his wife in the looking glass, his big hands on her shoulders. �
��They willna tell me. I am no longer Alpha here. They owe me no explanation.”

  “But you are BUR’s chief sundowner.”

  “This is Scotland; BUR’s authority is weak here. Besides, these people were my pack for generations. I may have no wish to lead them anymore, but I do not want to kill any of them either. They know that. I simply want to know what is happening here.”

  “You and I both, my love,” replied his wife. “You don’t mind if I wish to question your brethren on the matter?”

  “I dinna see how you will make over any better than I.” Conall was doubtful. “They do not know you are muhjah, and you’d be wise to keep it that way. Queen Victoria isna so loved in this part of the world.”

  “I’ll be discreet.” Her husband’s eyebrows reached for the sky at that. “Very well, as discreet as possible for me.”

  “It canna hurt,” he said, and then thought better of it. This was Alexia, after all. “So long as you refrain from using that parasol.”

  His lady wife grinned maliciously. “I shall be direct, but not that direct.”

  “Why do I doubt you? Well, watch out for Dubh; he can be difficult.”

  “Not up to Professor Lyall’s caliber as a Beta, shall we say?”

  “Um, that’s not for me to say. Dubh was never my Beta, not even my Gamma.”

  That was interesting news. “But this Niall, the one who was killed in battle over seas, he wasn’t your Beta either?”

  “Na. Mine died,” he replied shortly, in a tone of voice that said he did not want to discuss the matter further. “Your turn. This dirigible fall, wife?”

  Alexia stood, finished with her ablutions. “Someone else is on the scent: a spy of some kind or some other agent, a member of the Hypocras Club, perhaps. While Madame Lefoux and I were strolling the observation deck, someone tried to push us over the side. I fell and Madame Lefoux fought off whomever it was. I managed to stay my fall and climbed to safety. It was nothing, really, except that I nearly lost the parasol. And I am no longer partial to dirigible travel.”

  “I should think not. Well, wife, try not to get yourself killed for at least a few days?”

  “Are you going to tell me the real reason you came back to Scotland? Do not think you have thrown me off the scent so easily.”