“Is there something amiss with the family?”
“You mean, aside from Mama’s predilection for pink?”
Alexia, blinking in flabbergasted shock, lowered herself carefully onto a chair. “But, Felicity, you are wearing last season’s dress!” She lowered her voice, in genuine fear that her sister might be deranged. “And knitwear.”
“Oh.” Felicity wrapped the ghastly shawl tighter about her neck. “It was necessary.”
Lady Maccon was only further shocked by such an unexpected statement. “Necessary? Necessary!”
“Well, yes, Alexia, do pay attention. Have you always been this frazzled, or is it your unfortunate condition?” Felicity lowered her voice conspiratorially. “Necessary because I have been fraternizing.”
“You have? With whom?” Alexia became suspicious. It was very late at night for an unmarried young lady of quality to be cavorting about unchaperoned, especially one who kept daylight hours and whose parents shunned association with the supernatural set.
“I am wearing tweed. With whom else? Some poor unfortunates of the middle class.”
Lady Maccon would have none of it. “Oh, really, Felicity, you can hardly expect me to believe that you have had anything whatsoever to do with the lower orders.”
“You may choose to believe it or not, sister.”
Alexia wished for a return of her ability to stride about and loom threateningly. Sadly, striding was several months behind her, and should she attempt to loom, she would undoubtedly overbalance and pitch forward in graceless splendor. She settled for glaring daggers at her sibling. “Very well, then, what are you doing here? And how did you know to find me at Lord Akeldama’s residence?”
“Mrs. Tunstell told me where to find you.” Felicity looked with a critical eye at the golden magnificence surrounding her.
“Ivy? How did Ivy know?”
“Madame Lefoux told her.”
“Oh, she did, did she? And how—”
“Apparently someone named Professor Lyall told Madame Lefoux your relocation was taking place this evening and that you would hole up at Lord Akeldama’s, in case there were any orders pending delivery. Have you commissioned a new hat, sister? From that crass foreign female? Are you certain you should be patronizing her establishment after what happened in Scotland? And who is this Professor Lyall person? You haven’t taken up with academics, have you? That cannot possibly be healthy. Education is terribly bad for the nerves, especially for a woman in your state.”
Lady Maccon grappled for some appropriate response.
Felicity added, in a blatant attempt at distraction, “Speaking of which, you have gotten tremendously portly, haven’t you? Is increasing supposed to cause you to swell quite so much as all that?”
Lady Maccon frowned. “I believe I have increased, as it were, to the maximum. You know me—I always insist on seeing a thing done as thoroughly as possible.”
“Well, Mama says to make certain you don’t get angry with anyone. The child will end up looking like him.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yes, emotional mimicking they call it, and—”
“Well, that’s no trouble. It will simply end up looking like my husband.”
“But what if it is a female? Wouldn’t that be horrible? She’d be all fuzzy and—”
Felicity would have continued but Lady Maccon lost her patience, a thing she was all too prone to misplacing. “Felicity, why are you visiting me?”
Miss Loontwill hedged. “This is quite the remarkable abode. I never did think I should ever see inside of a vampire hive. And so charming and gleaming and full of exquisite collections. Almost up to my standards.”
“This is not a hive—there is no queen. Not in the technical definition of the word. I will not be so easily detoured, Felicity. Why have you shown up at such a time of night? And why would you undertake such pains to discover my whereabouts?”
Her sister shifted on the brocade settee, her blond head tilted to one side and a small frown creased her perfect forehead. She had not, Alexia noticed, modified her elaborately styled ringlets to match her lowbrow outfit. A row of perfect flat curls were gummed to her forehead in the very latest style.
“You have not paid the family much mind since your return to London.”
Lady Maccon considered this accusation. “You must admit, I was made to feel rather unwelcome prior to my departure.” And that is putting it mildly. Her family had always been a mite petty for her taste, even before they unilaterally decided to expel her from their midst at the most inconvenient time. Since her ill-fated trip to Scotland and subsequent dash across half the known world, she had simply elected to avoid the Loontwills as much as possible. As Lady Maccon, denizen of the night, who fraternized with werewolves; inventors; and, horror of horrors, actors, this was a relatively easy undertaking.
“Yes, but it’s been positively months, sister! I did not think you the type to hold a grudge. Did you know Evylin has renewed her engagement to Captain Featherstonehaugh?”
Lady Maccon only stared at her sister, tapping one slipper lightly on the carpeted floor.
Miss Loontwill blushed, looking toward her and then away again. “I have become”—she paused as though searching for the correct way of phrasing it—“involved.”
Alexia felt a tremor of real fear flutter through her breast. Or is that indigestion? “Oh, no, Felicity. Not with someone unsuitable? Not with someone middle class. Mama would never forgive you!”
Felicity stood and began to wander about the gilded room showing considerable agitation. “No, no, you misconstrue my meaning. I have become involved with my local chapter of the”—she lowered her voice dramatically—“National Society for Women’s Suffrage.”
If Lady Maccon hadn’t already been sitting down, she would have had to sit at such a statement. “You want to vote? You? But you can’t even decide which gloves to wear of a morning.”
“I believe in the cause.”
“Poppycock. You’ve never believed in anything in your whole life, except possibly the reliability of the French to predict next season’s color palette.”
“Well. Still.”
“But, Felicity, really this is so very common. Couldn’t you start up a ladies aid society or an embroidery social? You? Politically minded? I cannot deem such a thing feasible. It has only been five months since I met with you last, not five years, and even then you could not change your character so drastically. A feathered bonnet does not molt so easily as that.”
At which juncture, and without any warning whatsoever, Lord Akeldama wafted into the room smelling of lemon and peppermint candy and sporting a playbill of some risqué comedy from the West End.
“Alexia, pudding, how are you faring this fine evening? Is moving house tragically unsettling? A relocation can be such a trial on one’s finer feelings, I always find.” He paused artfully on the threshold to put down his opera glasses, gloves, and top hat on a convenient sideboard. Then he raised his silver and sapphire monocle to one eye and regarded Felicity through it.
“Oh, dear me, pardon the intrusion.” His keen eyes took in the dated dress and the effusive curls of Alexia’s visitor. “Alexia, my dove, you have some sort of company?”
“Lord Akeldama. You remember my sister?”
The quizzing glass did not lower. “I do?”
“I believe you may have met one another at my wedding festivities?” Alexia was in no doubt that her esteemed host knew exactly who Felicity was from the very moment he entered the room—possibly before—but he did dearly love a performance, even if he had to put one on himself.
“I did?” The vampire was dressed to the height of fashion for an evening out. He wore a midnight-blue tailcoat and matched trousers, quite subdued for Lord Akeldama, or so it would seem at first glance. The careful observer soon noted that his satin waistcoat was silver, blue, and purple paisley in an excessively bold print, and he wore gloves and spats of the same material. Alexia had no idea how he t
hought to carry off such an outrageous ensemble. Whoever heard of patterned gloves, let alone spats? Then again, no ensemble had ever yet gotten the better of Lord Akeldama, nor was one likely to.
He certainly had the right to look askance at Felicity. “I did! Miss Loontwill? But you are so very much altered from when we last met. How has such a transformation been effected?”
Even Felicity had not the gumption to stand up to Lord Akeldama armed with a monocle. She crumbled in the face of the majestic authority of his perfectly tied and still fluffy—despite an evening’s activities—cravat with its ostentatiously large sapphire pin. “Oh, well, you see, my lord, I’ve had a, ur, meeting and simply didn’t have the time to change. I thought to catch my sister before she retired, on a matter of some delicacy.”
Lord Akeldama did not take the hint. “Oh, yes?”
“Felicity has joined the National Society for Women’s Suffrage,” Alexia said placidly.
The vampire proved instantly helpful. “Oh, yes? I understand Lord Ambrose is a frequent contributor.”
Alexia nodded her understanding at last. “Lord Ambrose, is it? Oh, Felicity, you do realize he is a vampire?”
Miss Loontwill tossed her curls. “Well, yes, but an eligible vampire.” She glanced at Lord Akeldama from under her lashes. “And I am getting ever so old!”
He was instantly sympathetic. “Of course you are. You are already what? All of eighteen?”
Miss Loontwill sallied on. “But then I was quite taken with the rhetoric.”
Alexia supposed a young lady so swayed by the Parisian fashion papers might be persuaded by a decent oratory display.
Felicity continued. “Why shouldn’t we women vote? After all, it’s not as though the gentlemen have done so wondrous a job of things with their stewardship. I do not intend to offend, my lord.”
“No offense taken, my little buttercup.”
Uh-oh, thought Alexia, Felicity has been given an epithet. Lord Akeldama likes her.
The vampire continued. “I find such struggles adorably commendable.”
Felicity began pacing about in a manner Alexia had to admit not unlike her own good self when seized with a particularly inspired argument. “My point precisely. Don’t you want the vote, Alexia? You cannot be content to allow that buffoonish husband of yours to speak for you in matters political. Not after the way he has behaved in the past.”
Alexia declined to mention at this juncture that she already had the vote, and it was one of only three on Queen Victoria’s Shadow Council. Such a vote as this counted a good deal more than any popular ballot might. Instead, she spoke a different truth. “I have never given the matter much thought. But this still does not explain how you have ended up on Lord Akeldama’s doorstep.”
“Yes, little snowdrop.” Lord Akeldama took up a perch on the arm of the settee, watching Felicity as a parrot might watch a drab little sparrow that had strayed into his domain.
Miss Loontwill took a deep breath. “It is really not my fault. Mama did not endorse my endeavors with regards to Lord Ambrose. So I have been liberating myself from the house after bedtime by means of the servant’s entrance. You used to have some success with this approach, Alexia. Don’t think I didn’t know. I believed I could accomplish such a thing undetected.”
Alexia was beginning to understand. “But you miscalculated. I had help. Floote’s help. I cannot imagine Swilkins being sympathetic to the Ambrose cause.”
Felicity grimaced in agreement. “No, you are perfectly correct. I did not realize how vital the approbation of one’s butler is in allowing for nocturnal autonomy.”
“So let us get to the crux of the matter. Has Mama tossed you out?”
Felicity got that look on her face that said whoever was at fault in this scenario it was probably Felicity. “Not exactly.”
“Oh, Felicity, you didn’t. You walked out?”
“I thought, since you were taking a house in town, perhaps I might come to stay with you for a little while. I understand the company will not be nearly so refined or elegant as that to which I am accustomed, but…”
Lord Akeldama’s forehead creased ever so slightly at that statement.
Lady Maccon cogitated. She would like to encourage this new spirit of social-mindedness. If Felicity needed anything in her life, it was a cause. Then she might stop nitpicking everyone else. But if she stayed with them, she would have to be taken into their confidence regarding the living arrangements. And there was another thing to consider. Should Felicity be exposed to a werewolf pack in all its ever-changing and overexposed glory while still unmarried? This is the last thing I need right now. I can’t even see my own feet anymore. How can I see that my sister is properly chaperoned? Alexia had found pregnancy relatively manageable, up to a point. That point having been some three weeks ago, at which juncture her natural reserves of control gave way to sentimentality. Only yesterday she had ended breakfast sobbing over the fried eggs because they looked at her funny. The pack had spent a good half hour trying to find a way to pacify her. Her husband was so worried he looked to start crying himself.
Alexia copped out, embarrassed to have to do so in front of Lord Akeldama. “I shall have to consult my husband on the subject.”
The vampire jumped in with alacrity. “You could stay here with me, little bluebell.”
Felicity brightened. “Oh, why—”
Lady Maccon put her foot down. “Absolutely not.” Of all the people Felicity should not be overexposed to, it was Lord Akeldama, on the basis of cattiness alone. If left together for too long, the two of them might actually take over the civilized world, through sheer application of snide remarks.
A tap sounded on the drawing room door.
“Now what?” wondered Alexia.
“Come in! We are unquestionably at home,” sung out Lord Akeldama.
The door opened and Boots and Biffy entered. Both were looking dapper and well put together as behooved a current and former drone of Lord Akeldama’s, although Biffy had a certain aura that Boots lacked. Biffy was still the same pleasant-mannered fellow with a partiality for modish attire and the figure to show it off, but something had altered. There was a slight smudge on his cheekbone that no drone of Lord Akeldama’s would ever show to his master. However, seeing the two stand together, Alexia didn’t think it was entirely the smudge’s fault. There was no vampire sophistication to Biffy anymore—no high-society shine, no sharpened edge. Instead he sported a slight air of embarrassment that Alexia suspected all werewolves felt deep down. It sprung from the certain knowledge that once a month he would get naked and turn into a slavering beast whether he liked it or not.
Lord Akeldama’s inquisitive expression did not waver. “Darlings!” he said to the two of them, as though he had not seen them in years. “What exciting tidbits have you brought me?”
Miss Loontwill looked with interest at the two young men. “Oh,” she said, “I remember you! You helped my sister plan her nuptials. You had that marvelous idea about a groom’s cake. Stylish, two cakes. Especially for my sister’s wedding—she is so very fond of food.”
Biffy knew his duty and hurried forward to bow over Felicity’s proffered hand. “Sandalio de Rabiffano, at your service, miss. How do you do?”
Alexia, who until that moment had never before heard Biffy’s real name, gave Lord Akeldama a startled look. The vampire stood and wandered innocently over to her chair. “Spectacularly Spanish, wouldn’t you say? Moorish blood some ways back.”
She nodded sagely.
Biffy returned Felicity’s hand. “I cannot take credit for the cake, miss. It’s an odd little American custom.”
Felicity flirted outrageously. “Oh, well, we won’t tell anyone that, now, will we? Are you still in Lord Akeldama’s employ?”
A brief flash of hurt passed over Biffy’s pleasant face. “No, miss. I’ve been transferred to your sister’s household.”
Miss Loontwill clearly thought this a most beneficial arrangement. “Oh, h
ave you, indeed?”
Alexia interrupted any continued flirtation. “Felicity, go next door and wait for me in the front parlor. Order tea if you must. When my husband returns, I’ll discuss your request with him.”
Felicity opened her mouth again.
“Now, Felicity.” Lady Maccon was at her most dictatorial.
Much to everyone’s surprise, including Felicity’s, Felicity went.
Lord Akeldama tilted his head at Boots and gave a little nod after the retreating girl. With no verbal exchange required, Boots trotted obediently after Felicity. Biffy looked on wistfully. Alexia surmised that he was not yearning for Felicity’s continued company but was regretting the fact that he could no longer obey Lord Akeldama’s commands.
She brought him back around sharply. No sense in letting him dwell. “Biffy, did you have something to tell me or Lord Akeldama?”
“You, my lady. I am pleased to report that you have been successfully moved. The new house awaits your perusal and, hopefully, approval.”
“Excellent! I should—Oh wait. Lord Akeldama, I keep meaning to ask. And while I’m in your company, if I may?”
“Yes, my little syllabub?”
“Do you recall, I was describing those porcupines to you? Or overgrown hedgehogs, or whatever their species inclination, from several nights ago? I was thinking, they were also ever so slightly vampiric in propensity. Their speed and their old dark blood and their susceptibility to the lapis solaris. Is that possible, do you think—vampire porcupines?”
Lord Akeldama’s eyes lit with amusement. “Oh, my dearest girl, what will you think of next? Weregoats? Be on your guard, for at full moon they shall creep into your coat closet and eat up all your shoes!”
Biffy hid a smile.
Alexia was not in the mood to be mocked.
Lord Akeldama recovered his much-vaunted poise. “My darling toffee button, you can be quite the widgeon upon occasion. Animals do not have souls. How could they possibly? Next thing you know, I’ll be petitioning Countess Nadasdy to bite old fatty there so I can have company into my dotage.” He gestured to his cat. The chubby creature had delusions of being a vicious hunter but could never master anything more taxing than a pillow tassel. Or, on one recent and memorable occasion, one of Ivy’s hats. Lady Maccon shuddered at the recollection. Why had she thought she could bring Ivy to tea with a vampire? Her dearest friend may have taken to the stage of late, but she was still not ready for intimate exposure to Lord Akeldama’s brand of drama. Nor was Lord Akeldama entirely capable of withstanding intimate exposure to one of Ivy’s hats. After that tea, Alexia had been forced to admit that Lord Akeldama and Ivy Tunstell were like plaid and brocade, utterly incompatible even in complementary colors.
The Parasol Protectorate Boxed Set Page 93