Misinterpreting her continued physical contact, the lady inventor twisted to face her, their noses practically touching. Madame Lefoux slid her hand up Alexia’s arm.
Lady Maccon had read that Frenchwomen were much more physically affectionate than British women in their friendship, but there was something unbearably personal in the touch. And no matter how good she smelled and how helpful she had been, there was that octopus mark to consider. Madame Lefoux could not be trusted. The fight could have been staged. She could have an associate on board. She could still be a spy, intent on procuring the muhjah’s dispatch case through any possible means. Alexia pulled away from the caressing hand.
At the withdrawal, the inventor stood. “I shall excuse myself. We could probably both use some rest.”
Breakfast the next morning saw everyone back about their regular routine, bruises, bonnets, and all. Miss Hisselpenny forbore to mention Alexia’s clumsy attempt at scaling Mt. Dirigible out of mortification over her dear friend’s exposed underpinnings. Madame Lefoux was impeccably, if incorrectly, dressed and unflaggingly polite, with no comment on the previous evening’s aerial escapade. She inquired kindly after Tunstell’s health, to which Alexia responded favorably. Felicity was horrible and snide, but then Felicity had been a repulsive earwig ever since she first grew a vocabulary. It was as though nothing untoward had occurred at all.
Lady Maccon only nibbled at her food, not from any concern that there would be another attempted poisoning, but because she was still feeling slightly airsick. She was looking forward to having solid, unpretentious ground under her feet once more.
“What are your plans for the day, Lady Maccon?” inquired Madame Lefoux when all other pleasantries were exhausted.
“I envision an exhausting day of lying about in a deck chair, broken up with small but thrilling strolls about the ship.”
“Capital plan,” replied Felicity.
“Yes, sister, but I was going to sit in that deck chair with a book, not a supercilious expression and a hand mirror,” shot back Alexia.
Felicity only smiled. “At least I possess a face worth looking at for extended periods of time.”
Madame Lefoux turned to Ivy. “Are they always like this?”
Miss Hisselpenny had been staring dreamily off into space. “What? Oh, them, yes, as long as I’ve know them. Which is a dog’s age now. I mean to say, Alexia and I have been friends for quite these four years. Imagine that.”
The inventor took a bite of steamed egg and did not respond.
Lady Maccon realized she was exposing herself to ridicule by bickering with her sibling.
“Madame Lefoux, what did you do before you came to London? You resided in Paris, I understand? Did you have a hat shop there too?”
“No, but my aunt did. I worked with her. She taught me everything I know.”
“Everything?”
“Oh yes, everything.”
“A remarkable woman, your aunt.”
“You have no idea.”
“Must be the excess soul.”
“Oh.” Ivy was intrigued. “Did your aunt come over all phantomy after death?”
Madame Lefoux nodded.
“How nice for you.” Ivy smiled her congratulations.
“I suspect I will be a ghost in the end,” said Felicity, preening. “I am the type to have extra soul. Don’t you all agree? Mama says I am remarkably creative for someone who does not play or sing or draw.”
Alexia bit her tongue. Felicity was about as likely to have excess soul as a hassock. She turned the conversation forcibly back to the inventor. “What made you leave your home country?”
“My aunt died, and I came over here looking for something precious that had been stolen from me.”
“Oh, really? Did you find it?”
“Yes, but only to come to the understanding that it was never mine to begin with.”
“How tragic for you,” sympathized Ivy. “I had just such a thing happen with a hat once.”
“It matters little. It had changed beyond all recognition by the time I located it.”
“How mysterious and cryptic you are.” Lady Maccon was intrigued.
“It is not entirely my story to tell and others may be injured in the telling if I am not careful.”
Felicity yawned ostentatiously. She was little interested in anything not directly connected to herself. “Well, this is all very fascinating, but I am off to change for the day.”
Miss Hisselpenny rose as well. “I believe I shall go check on Mr. Tunstell, to ascertain if he has been provided with an adequate breakfast.”
“Highly unlikely—none of us were,” said Alexia, whose delight in the imminent end to their voyage was encouraged by the idea of eating food that was not bland and steamed into submission.
They parted ways, and Alexia was about to pursue her highly strenuous plans for the day when she realized that if Ivy had gone to check on Tunstell, the two would be isolated together, and that was not a good idea. So she hightailed it after her friend toward the claviger’s cabin.
She found Miss Hisselpenny and Tunstell engaged in what both probably thought was an impassioned embrace. Their lips were, in fact, touching, but nothing else was, and Ivy’s greatest concern throughout the kiss seemed to be keeping her hat in place. The hat was of a masculine shape but decorated with the most enormous bow of purple and green plaid.
“Well,” said Lady Maccon loudly, interrupting the couple, “I see you have recovered with startling alacrity from your illness, Tunstell.”
Miss Hisselpenny and the claviger jumped apart. Both turned red with mortification, though it must be admitted that Tunstell, being a redhead, was far more efficient at this.
“Oh dear, Alexia,” exclaimed Ivy, leaping back. She made for the door as rapidly as the strapped-down floating skirts of her travel dress would allow.
“Oh no, Miss Hisselpenny, please, come back!” Tunstell cried, and then, shockingly, “Ivy!”
But the lady in question was gone.
Alexia gave the ginger-haired young man a hard look. “What are you up to, Tunstell?”
“Oh, Lady Maccon, I am unreservedly in love with her. That black hair, that sweet disposition, those capital hats.”
Well goodness, thought Alexia, he really must be in love if he likes the hats. She sighed and said, “But, really, Tunstell, be serious. Miss Hisselpenny cannot possibly have a future with you. Even if you were not up for metamorphosis presently, you are an actor, with no substantial prospects of any kind.”
Tunstell donned a tragic-hero expression, one she had seen more than once in his portrayal of Porccigliano in the West End production of Death in a Bathtub. “True love will overcome all obstacles.”
“Oh bosh. Be reasonable, Tunstell. This is no Shakespearian melodrama; this is the 1870s. Marriage is a practical matter. It must be treated as such.”
“But you and Lord Maccon married for love.”
Lady Maccon sighed. “And how do you figure that?”
“No one else would put up with him.”
Alexia grinned. “By which you mean that no one else would put up with me.”
Tunstell judiciously ignored that statement.
Lady Maccon explained. “Conall is the Earl of Woolsey and as such is permitted the eccentricity of a highly inappropriate wife. You are not. And that is a situation unlikely to alter in the future.”
Tunstell still looked starry-eyed and unrelenting.
Lady Maccon sighed. “Very well, I see you are unmoved. I shall go determine how Ivy is coping.”
Miss Hisselpenny was coping by engaging in a protracted bout of hysteria in one corner of the observation deck.
“Oh, Alexia, what am I to do? I am overcome with the injustice of it all.”
Lady Maccon replied with a suggestion. “Seek the assistance of an ugly-hat-addiction specialist this very instant?”
“You are horrible. Be serious, Alexia. You must recognize that this is a travesty of unfairnes
s!”
“How is that?” Lady Maccon did not follow.
“I love him so very much. As Romeo did Jugurtha, as Pyramid did Thirsty, as—”
“Oh, please, no need to elaborate further,” interjected Alexia, wincing.
“But what would my family say to such a union?”
“They would say that your hats had leaked into you head,” muttered Alexia, unheard under her breath.
Ivy continued wailing. “What would they do? I should have to break off my engagement with Captain Featherstonehaugh. He would be so very upset.” She paused, and then gasped in horror. “There would have to be a printed retraction!”
“Ivy, I do not think that is the best course of action, throwing Captain Featherstonehaugh over. Not that I have met the man, mind you. But to go from a sensible, income-earning military man to an actor? I am very much afraid, Ivy, that it would be generally regarded as reprehensible and even indicative of”—she paused for dramatic effect—“loose morals.”
Miss Hisselpenny let out an audible gasp and stopped crying. “You truly believe so?”
Lady Maccon went in for the kill. “Even, dare I say it, fastness?”
Ivy gasped again. “Oh no, Alexia, say not so. Truly? To be thought such a thing. How absolutely grisly. Oh what a pickle I am in. I suppose I shall have to throw over Mr. Tunstell.”
“To be fair,” admitted Lady Maccon, “Tunstell has confessed openly to appreciating your choice of headgear. You may very well be giving up on true love.”
“I know. Is that not simply the worst thing you have ever heard, ever?”
Lady Maccon nodded, all seriousness. “Yes.”
Ivy sighed, looking forlorn. To distract her, Alexia asked casually, “You did not perchance hear anything unusual last night after supper, did you?”
“No, I did not.”
Alexia was relieved. She did not want to explain to Ivy the fight on the observation deck.
“Wait, come to think on it, yes,” Ivy corrected herself, twisting a coil of black hair about one finger.
Uh-oh. “What was that?”
“You know, it was a most peculiar thing—just before I drifted off to sleep, I heard someone yelling in French.”
Now that was interesting, “What did they say?”
“Do not be absurd, Alexia. You know perfectly well I do not speak French. Such a nasty slippery sort of language.”
Lady Maccon considered.
“It could have been Madame Lefoux talking in her sleep,” Ivy suggested. “You know she has the cabin next to mine?”
“I suppose that is possible.” Alexia was not convinced.
Ivy took a deep breath. “Well, I should get on with it, then.”
“On with what?”
“Throwing over poor Mr. Tunstell, possibly the love of my life.” Ivy was looking nearly as tragic as the young man had moments earlier.
Alexia nodded. “Yes, I think you better had.”
Tunstell, in grand thespian fashion, did not take Miss Hisselpenny’s rejection well. He staged a spectacular bout of depression and then sank into a deep sulk for the rest of the day. Overwrought, Ivy came pleading to Alexia. “But he has been so very dour. And for a whole three hours. Could I not relent, just a little? He may never recover from this kind of heartache.”
To which Alexia replied, “Give it more time, my dear Ivy. I think you will find he may recuperate eventually.”
Madame Lefoux came up at that moment. Seeing Miss Hisselpenny’s crestfallen face, she inquired, “Has something untoward occurred?”
Ivy let out a pathetic little sob and buried her face in a rose-silk handkerchief.
Alexia said in a hushed voice, “Miss Hisselpenny has had to reject Mr. Tunstell. She is most overwrought.”
Madame Lefoux’s face took on an appropriately somber cast. “Oh, Miss Hisselpenny, I am sorry. How ghastly for you.”
Ivy waved the wet handkerchief, as much as to say, words cannot possibly articulate my profound distress. Then, because Ivy never settled for meaningful gestures when verbal embellishments could compound the effect, she said, “Words cannot possibly articulate my profound distress.”
Alexia patted her friend’s shoulder. Then she turned to the Frenchwoman. “Madame Lefoux, might I beg a small word in private?”
“I am always at your disposal, Lady Maccon. For anything.” Alexia failed to examine the possible meaning of that “anything.”
The two women moved out of Miss Hisselpenny’s earshot over to a secluded corner of the relaxation deck, out of the ever-present aether breezes. To Alexia, these felt faintly tingly, almost like charged particles, but friendlier. She imagined the aether gasses as a cloud of fireflies swarming close to her skin and then flitting off as the dirigible rode one strong current and passed through others. It was not unpleasant but could be distracting.
“I understand you got into an argument late last night, after our little escapade.” Lady Maccon did not sugarcoat her words.
Madame Lefoux puffed out her lips. “I might have yelled at the steward for his negligence. He did take an inexcusably long time to get that rope ladder.”
“The argument was in French.”
Madame Lefoux made no response to that.
Lady Maccon switched tactics. “Why are you following me to Scotland?”
“Are you convinced it is you, my dear Lady Maccon, that I am following?”
“I hardly think you have also developed a sudden passion for my husband’s valet.”
“No, you would be correct in that.”
“So?”
“So, I am no danger to you or yours, Lady Maccon. I wish you could believe that. But I cannot tell you more.”
“Not good enough. You are asking me to trust you without reason.”
The Frenchwoman sighed. “You soulless are so very logical and practical, it can be maddening.”
“So my husband is prone to complaining. You have met a preternatural before, I take it?” If she could not convince the inventor to explain her presence, perhaps she could learn more about the mysterious woman’s past.
“Once, a very long time ago. I suppose I could tell you about it.”
“Well?”
“I met him with my aunt. I was perhaps eight years old. He was a friend of my father’s—a very good friend, I was given to believe. Formerly Beatrice is the ghost of my father’s sister. My father himself was a bit of a bounder. I am not exactly legitimate. When I was dumped on his doorstep, he gave me to Aunt Beatrice and died shortly thereafter. I remember a man coming to see him after that, only to find that I was all that was left. The man gave me a present of honey candy and was sad to learn of my father’s death.”
“He was the preternatural?” Despite herself, Lady Maccon was intrigued.
“Yes, and I believe they were once very close.”
“And?”
“You understand my meaning: very close?”
Lady Maccon nodded. “I fully comprehend. I am, after all, a friend of Lord Akeldama’s.”
Madame Lefoux nodded. “The man who visited was your father.”
Alexia’s mouth fell open. Not because of this insight into her father’s preferences. She knew his taste to run to both the exotic and the eclectic. From reading his journals, she guessed him to be, at best, an opportunist in matters of the flesh. No, she gasped because it was such an odd coincidence, to find out that this woman, not so much older than herself, had once met her father. Had known what he was like—alive.
“I never knew him. He left before I was born,” Lady Maccon said before she could stop herself.
“He was handsome but stiff. I remember believing that all Italian men would be like him: cold. I could not have been more wrong, of course, but he made an impression.”
Lady Maccon nodded. “So I have been given to understand by others. Thank you for telling me.”
Madame Lefoux switched topics abruptly. “We should continue to keep the full details of the incident last night a s
ecret from your companions.”
“No point in worrying the others, but I shall have to tell my husband after we land.”
“Of course.”
The two women parted at that; Lady Maccon was left wondering. She knew why she wanted to keep the scuffle a secret, but why did Madame Lefoux?
CHAPTER EIGHT
Castle Kingair
They landed just before sunset on a patch of green near the Glasgow train station. The dirigible came to rest as lightly as a butterfly on an egg, if the butterfly were to stumble a bit and list heavily to one side and the egg to take on the peculiar characteristics of Scotland in winter: more soggy and more gray than one would think possible.
Alexia disembarked with pomp and circumstance similar to her embarkation. She spearheaded a parade of bustle-swaying ladies, like so many fabric snails, onto firm (well, truthfully, rather squishy) land. The bustles were particularly prevalent due to the general relief at being able to wear a proper one once more and to pack the floating skirts away. The snails were followed by Tunstell, laden with a quantity of hatboxes and other package; four stewards with various trunks; and Lady Maccon’s French maid.
No one, thought Alexia smugly, could accuse her of traveling without the dignity due to the Earl of Woolsey’s wife. She might gad about town alone or in the care of only one unwed young lady, but clearly she traveled in company. Unfortunately, the effect of her arrival was undermined by the fact that the ground persisted in reeling about under her, causing Lady Maccon to tilt to one side and take an abrupt seat atop one of her trunks.
She dismissed Tunstell’s concern by sending him away to hire an appropriate conveyance to take them into the countryside.
Ivy wandered about the green to stretch her legs and look for wildflowers. Felicity came to stand next to Alexia and began immediately to carry on about the horrible weather.
“Why must it be so gray? Such a greeny sort of gray goes so badly with the complexion. And it is so awful to travel by coach anywhere in such weather. Must we go by coach?”
“Well,” said Lady Maccon, driven to annoyance, “this is the north. Do stop being silly about it.”
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