The Parasol Protectorate Boxed Set

by Gail Carriger

  “Oh, very well,” conceded Alexia, “if you insist.” She glared at Madame Lefoux. “But you had better be right about this character’s character.”

  “Oh”—the dimples were back—“I believe he may surprise you.”

  “Like being served wet toad on toast?”

  “He could prove you’re right. That Lord Maccon fathered your child.”

  “That’s the only possible way this could be worth it. ‘Female Specimen,’ indeed! Sounds like he plans to dissect me with a clinkering-spud.”

  When Alexia finally came down to breakfast the next morning, it was, in fact, no longer morning at all, but early afternoon. Madame Lefoux and Floote were already seated at the small dining table, as was the little German scientist. He was entirely absorbed in some research while eating—deplorable behavior! He was positively vibrating in excitement, almost as much as his feather duster of a dog.

  As it was now daytime, both the German and his dog were a tad more formally attired. Alexia was a little surprised. She’d half expected Mr. Lange-Wilsdorf to still be wearing his striped nightshirt. Instead, he looked perfectly respectable in a tweed coat and brown trousers. He wore no cravat, to Floote’s obvious dismay. Alexia was, perhaps, less shocked by the missing cravat than she should have been. After all, eccentricity of dress was to be expected in foreigners for whom neckwear and cravats were regarded with suspicion, as they made it difficult to identify drones. Poche also wore tweed; a length of it was tied in a waterfall knot about the dog’s neck. Aha, thought Alexia, the missing cravat! The creature greeted Alexia’s arrival with the expected volley of frenzied barking.

  Alexia arranged herself at the table without direction from her host and, as he did not appear to care one way or the other, she began helping herself to the repast. Today the infant-inconvenience wasn’t objecting to food. Buggery thing couldn’t make up its mind. Madame Lefoux greeted her with a fond smile and Floote with a little nod.

  “Sir,” said Alexia to their host.

  “Good afternoon, Female Specimen.” Mr. Lange-Wilsdorf did not look up from the open book and companion notepad upon which he was scribbling some complex formula.

  Alexia scowled.

  Whatever else might be said about Mr. Lange-Wilsdorf—and after his use of the term “abomination,” Alexia could certainly think of a good deal that she might say about him—he provided a decent spread. The food laid out for luncheon was light but tasty: roasted winter vegetables, cold poultry, bread that managed to be both crispy and fluffy, and a selection of flaky pastries. Alexia had extracted from the depths of her dispatch case some of the precious tea that Ivy had given her. It had survived the journey far better than anything else. She had also, after a moment’s consideration, transferred a small emergency amount into one of the pockets of her parasol, just in case. Fortunately, milk remained a cross-cultural universal, and the tea managed to taste just as delicious as it might have back in England. This resulted in a pang of homesickness so acute that Alexia actually did not speak for a good few minutes after the initial sip.

  Madame Lefoux noticed her uncharacteristic silence.

  “Are you feeling well, my dear?” The inventor placed a soft hand on Alexia’s upper arm.

  Alexia started slightly and experienced an unacceptable welling of tears. Really, at her age! It seemed to have been a very long while since anyone touched her with genuine fondness. Air kisses and three-fingered pats on the head comprised the bulk of affectionate action in the Loontwill household, and had done since she was a child. It wasn’t until Conall had come into her life that Alexia became accustomed to physical intimacy. He enjoyed it immensely and had engaged in it with her at every possible opportunity. Madame Lefoux was not quite so aggressive, but she was French, and seemed to feel that verbal comfort ought to be companioned by a soothing caress. Alexia leaned into the embrace. The hand around her shoulder was not large and calloused, and Madame Lefoux smelled of vanilla and engine oil, not open fields, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

  “Oh, it is nothing. I was reminded of home there for one moment.” Alexia took another sip of the tea.

  The German looked up at her curiously. “He did not treat you well? The werewolf husband?”

  “Not as such in the end,” Alexia prevaricated, never one to talk about personal matters with strange little Germans.

  “Werewolves, ya. Difficult creatures. What is left of the soul is all violence and emotion. It is a wonder you English have managed to integrate them into society.”

  Alexia shrugged. “I am under the impression the vampires are more difficult to handle.”

  “Really?”

  Alexia, feeling she may have been traitorously indiscreet, grappled for the right way of phrasing it. “You know how vampires get, all high-up-mucky-mucky and I’m-older-than-thou.” She paused. “No, I suppose you do not know how they get, do you?”

  “Mmm. I should have thought werewolves more an issue. With the running about in armies and the marrying of normal humans.”

  “Well my particular werewolf did turn out a bit difficult. But, to be fair, he was perfectly suitable right up until the end.” Alexia was painfully conscious that “perfectly suitable” was a rather understated way of putting it. Conall had been a model husband in his massive grumpy way: tender, except when it wasn’t necessary, and then rough until gentleness was called for once more. She shivered slightly at the memories. He had also been loud and gruff and overprotective, but he had adored her. It had taken her a good deal of time before she believed that she was worth all that fierce affection he lavished upon her. To have it stolen away unjustly was that much more cruel.

  “Isn’t the end result what counts?” Madame Lefoux cocked her head. She had taken against Conall most decidedly when he kicked Alexia out.

  Alexia grimaced. “Spoken like a true scientist.”

  “You cannot possibly forgive him for what he did?” Madame Lefoux seemed ready to reprimand Alexia.

  Mr. Lange-Wilsdorf glanced up from his meal. “Cast you out, did he? Does he not think the child is his?”

  “Howlers have never sung of a werewolf child.” Alexia couldn’t believe it, but she was actually defending her husband. “And loving me apparently wasn’t enough to get him over that fact. He didn’t even give me a chance.”

  The German shook his head. “Werewolves. Emotion and violence, ya?” Then he put down his stylographic pen decidedly and leaned forward over book and notepad. “I spent all morning with research. My records would seem to substantiate his assessment. Although, lack of corroborative cases or other information does not make for real evidence. There are older records.”

  “Records kept by vampires?” Alexia theorized, thinking of the Vampire Edicts.

  “Records kept by Templars.”

  Floote gave a little wince. Alexia glanced at him. He chewed his food impassively.

  “So you think the Templars might have some hint as to how this is possible?” Alexia gestured delicately at her midsection.

  “Ya. If this has happened before, they will have records of it.”

  Alexia had grand romantic visions of marching into Conall’s office and slamming down proof of her innocence—of making him eat his words.

  “And what of your theories, Monsieur Lange-Wilsdorf?” asked Madame Lefoux.

  “I believe, if I abandon the concept of undead but maintain my aetheric analysis of the composition of the soul, I might be able to explain this pregnancy.”

  “Will you be able to maintain the principles of epidermal contact?”

  The German looked impressed. “You are indeed familiar with my work, madame. I thought you were an engineer by training?”

  Madame Lefoux flashed her dimples. “My aunt is a ghost and so was my grandmother. I have a keen interest in understanding excess soul.”

  The horrible little dog came over to yap at Alexia’s ankle, and then, to add insult to injury, began to chew on one of her bootlaces. Alexia picked the serviette up off of
her lap and surreptitiously dropped it on Poche’s head. The animal attempted to back out from under it, with little success.

  “You believe you may have excess soul?” The German was apparently unaware of his dog’s predicament.

  The Frenchwoman nodded. “It seems likely.”

  Alexia wondered what that might feel like, knowing one was likely to end life as a poltergeist. She herself would die with no possibility of salvation or immortality. Preternaturals had no soul to save for either God or ghost.

  “Then why not seek immortality, now that you live in England where such atrocities are openly encouraged?” Mr. Lange-Wilsdorf curled his lip.

  Madame Lefoux shrugged. “Despite my preferred mode of dress, I am still a woman, and I know my chances of surviving a werewolf bite, not to mention vampire blooding, are extremely slim. Besides, I do not wish to lose what little skill I have as an inventor alongside the bulk of my soul. To become entirely dependent upon the goodwill of a pack or a hive? No thank you. And simply because my relatives were ghosts does not necessarily mean I, too, have excess soul. In the end, I am not that much of a risk taker.”

  The little dog had managed to circumnavigate the entire table without shaking off the offending serviette. Alexia coughed and rattled her dinnerware to disguise the sound of the animal bumping into various objects about the room. Floote, now within reach, bent down and removed the cloth from the dog’s head, issuing Alexia a reproving look.

  Alexia had never thought to ask, but come to think of it, it was indeed odd that an inventor of Madame Lefoux’s particularly high creative skill level should have no supernatural patron. The Frenchwoman maintained good working relationships with the Westminster Hive and the Woolsey Pack, but she also dealt with loners, roves, and daylight folk. Alexia had thought the inventor’s avoidance of metamorphosis and supernatural patronage stemmed from personal objections, not practical ones. Now she was forced to consider, had she herself been born with Madame Lefoux’s options, would she choose the same path?

  The German was not impressed. “I should prefer if you were a religious protester rather than an ethical objector, Madame Lefoux.”

  “It is better, then, Monsieur Lange-Wilsdorf, that I act to suit myself and not you. Is it not?”

  “So long as the end result is one less supernatural.”

  “Oh, really. Must we talk politics while eating?” Alexia interjected at this juncture.

  “By all means, Female Specimen, let us turn the conversation back to you.” The little man’s eyes were quite hard as he focused them upon her, and Alexia had a sudden sense of alarm.

  “It is quite remarkable, you understand, your pregnancy. Until last night, I would have sworn that vampires and werewolves could only breed through metamorphosis. Ya? Your preternatural touch, it does not cancel out the fact that the supernatural person has, already, mostly died. It turns them mortal, ya, but not human, certainly not sufficient to procreate naturally.”

  Alexia nibbled a piece of fruit. “Obviously this is an incorrect statement you make, sir.”

  “Obviously, Female Specimen. So I have—how do you say?—rethought the situation. There is one line of scientific evidence to support your claim. That line is the fact that both vampires and werewolves still engage in”—the little man paused, a bright flush suffusing his pale features—“well, bedroom activities.”

  “Of an extensive and rather experimental nature, if the rumors are to be believed.” Madame Lefoux waggled her eyebrows suggestively. Trust the only French person at the table to be at ease with this topic of conversation. Alexia, Floote, and Mr. Lange-Wilsdorf all looked painfully uncomfortable and shared a moment of awkward solidarity. Then the little German soldiered bravely on.

  “There has to be a reason the procreative urges aren’t eliminated postmetamorphosis. Yet, none of my books could adequately address this concern. If they really were undead, werewolves should no longer have need of that particular biological function.”

  “So how, exactly, does this pertain to my situation?” Alexia stopped eating to listen with renewed interest.

  “It seems clear that your husband’s capacity to continue to, er, perform, even as a werewolf, must be linked to an instinctual need to produce offspring the old-fashioned way. Modern science tells us that, thus, offspring must be a possibility, however infinitesimal. You, it would appear, are that infinitesimal possibility. The problem is, of course, the inevitable miscarriage.”

  Alexia blanched.

  “I am sorry to say there is no way around that fact. If the Templar preternatural breeding program proved nothing else, it proved that preternaturals always breed true. And similarly that they cannot occupy the same air space. Essentially, Female Specimen, you have an intolerance for your own child.”

  Alexia had shared a room with a preternatural mummy once; she knew the feeling of discomfort and repulsion that would be her fate should she ever encounter another preternatural. But she had not yet felt that feeling from the embryo inside her.

  “The child and I are not sharing any air,” she objected.

  “We are aware that preternatural abilities are a matter of physical contact. In this, the Templar records are clear, and I recall them well. All Female Specimens experimented upon over the centuries were barren or unable to carry a child. It is not a matter of if you will lose this embryo—it is a matter of when.”

  Alexia sucked in her breath. Unexpectedly, it hurt. Quite apart from the loss of the child, this would mean that Conall’s rejection and abuse had all been for naught. It was stupid, and hopeless, and…

  Madame Lefoux came to her rescue. “Except that this may not be an ordinary preternatural child. You said it yourself—they are usually the result of daylight and preternatural crossings. Alexia’s baby has a werewolf father, and as mortal as her touch would have made him at the time of conception, he was still not human. Not entirely, for he had already lost much of his soul. This child is something different. It must be.” She turned to look at her friend. “It is a safe bet that the vampires aren’t trying to kill you simply because you are about to miscarry a soulless. Particularly not the English vampires.”

  Alexia sighed. “It is at times like this I wish I could talk to my mother.”

  “Good gracious, what good would that do, madam?” Floote was moved to speak by the outrageousness of Alexia’s statement.

  “Well, whatever she said, I could simply take the opposite point of view.”

  Mr. Lange-Wilsdorf was not to be distracted by family history. “You have felt no queasiness or revulsion for the specimen inside?”

  Alexia shook her head.

  The German began muttering to himself. “Something must be off in my calculations. Perhaps the aetheric exchange conduction between mother and child is limited by partial soul retention. But why, then, wouldn’t a child retain part of the soul of a daylight father? Different kind of soul, perhaps?” He scratched out his careful notes with a sweeping motion of the stylographic pen, flipped to a new page, and began scribbling again.

  They all watched him in silence, Alexia having mostly lost her appetite, until he stopped midnotation.

  He looked up, his eyes popping wide as the second half of Madame Lefoux’s statement finally worked its way into his brain. “Vampires trying to kill her? Did you say they were trying to kill her? That thing, sitting there at my table, in my house!”

  Madame Lefoux shrugged. “Well, yes. Who else would they want to kill?”

  “But that means they will be coming. They will be following her. Here! Vampires. I hate vampires!” Mr. Lange-Wilsdorf spat noisily on the floor. “Nasty, bloodsucking tools of the devil. You must get out. You must all leave, now! I am terribly sorry, but I cannot have you here under such circumstances. Not even for the sake of scientific research.”

  “But, Mr. Lange-Wilsdorf, what a way to treat a fellow member of the Order of the Brass Octopus. Be reasonable; it is the middle of the day!”

  “Not even for the Order!�
� The little man stood, looking as though he were about to get just as hysterical as his dog. “You must leave! I shall give you provisions, money, contacts in Italy, but you must quit my house now. Get to the Templars. They will take care of you, if only because the vampires want you dead. I am not equipped. I am not able to handle this.”

  Alexia stood to find that Floote, being Floote, had at some point during the conversation sensed impending doom and vanished to their rooms. There he had obviously packed up her dispatch case, retrieved her parasol and their outerwear, and was waiting patiently in the doorway. He, at least, did not seem at all reluctant to leave.

  CHAPTER NINE

  How Not to Cross an Alpine Pass

  Upon reflection, Alexia decided it was perhaps safer to press on toward Italy during daylight, anyway. It was becoming painfully obvious that should she expect any answers as to her current condition and situation, she would have to extract said answers from either the Templars or the vampires. And of the two, only one was likely to talk to her before they tried to kill her.

  Another thing had also become apparent. As driven as she might be to prove Conall wrong, the fate of the infant-inconvenience was now at stake. Alexia might be frustrated with the tiny parasite, but she decided, after contemplation, that she did not, exactly, wish it dead. They’d been through a lot together so far. Just you allow me to eat regularly, she told it silently, and I’ll think about trying to grow a mothering instinct. Won’t be easy, mind you. I wasn’t ever expecting to have one. But I’ll try.

  On the run from the murderous hordes, cashiered by an eccentric German, Alexia was nonplussed to find they did what anyone might have done under more mundane circumstances—they caught a cab. Hired transport, as it turned out, was much the same in France as it was in England, only more limited. Madame Lefoux had a brief but intense conversation with the driver of a fly, after which a good deal of money exchanged hands. Then the inventor sat down next to Floote, and the handsom took off at a terrific pace, heading for the coast through the streets of Nice, which were crowded with invalids and wet-weather refugees. Alexia supposed it was a sensible mode of transport when one was on the run, but the fly was a tight fit for three passengers.