“How could he have known to send such a thing? He himself should already be comatose.” Lyall blinked in mild confusion and looked to Biffy for an explanation.
“He would have left orders with his drones.”
“Nosy vampire neighbors,” sniffed Lady Kingair.
Afterward, Biffy could only just recall that ride back home, stumbling into the house and up the stairs, he and Professor Lyall leaning against one another in exhaustion. But he remembered perfectly the Beta’s face, a single sharp look when they reached the door to his chamber, almost frightened. It was a look Biffy recognized. He had neither the strength nor the interest in allowing loneliness to pillage anyone else’s peace of mind.
So he made the offer. “Would you like company, Professor?”
Professor Lyall looked at him, hazel eyes desperate. “I wouldn’t… that is… I couldn’t… that is… I’m not all that… capable.” He gave a weak little flap of a gesture indicating his still-wounded state, his fatigue, and his disheveled appearance all in one.
Biffy gave a little puff of a chuckle. He had never seen the urbane professor discombobulated before. Had he known, he might have flirted more in the past. “Just company, sir. I should never presume even if we were both in perfect health.” Besides, my hair must look atrocious. Imagine being able to attract anyone in such a state, let alone someone of Lyall’s standing.
The corner of his Beta’s mouth twitched, and he withdrew behind a veil of dispassionate hazel eyes. “Pity, pup? After you heard what Lord Woolsey did to me? It was a long time ago.”
Biffy had no doubt Professor Lyall was as proud, in his way, as any other man of good breeding and refined tastes. He tilted his head, showing his neck submissively. “No, sir. Never that. Respect, I suppose. To survive such things and still be sane.”
“Betas are made to maintain order. We are the butlers of the supernatural world.” An analogy no doubt sparked by the advent of Floote, who glided down the hallway toward them, looking as concerned as it is possible for a man to look who, so far as Biffy could tell, never displayed any emotion at all.
“You are well, gentlemen?”
“Yes, thank you, Floote.”
“There is nothing I can get for you?”
“No, thank you, Floote.”
“Investigation?” The butler arched an eyebrow at their fatigued and roughened state.
“No, Floote, a matter of pack protocol.”
“Ah.”
“Carry on, Floote.”
“Very good, sir.” Floote drifted away.
Biffy turned to make his way to his own sleeping chamber, assured now that his overtures had been rejected. He was forestalled by a hand on his arm.
Lyall had lovely hands, fine and strong, the hands of an artist who practiced a craft, a carpenter, perhaps, or a baker. Biffy had a sudden fanciful image of Lyall with a smudge of flour on his face, going comfortably into old age with a fine wife and brood of mild-mannered children.
The sandy head tilted in silent invitation. Professor Lyall opened the door to his bedroom. Biffy hesitated only a moment before following him inside.
By the time the sun set that evening, they were both fully recovered from the ordeal, having slept the day away without incident. Fully recovered and curled together naked in Lyall’s small bed.
Biffy learned, through careful kisses and soft caress, that Lyall was not at all disturbed by messy hair. In fact, his Beta’s hands were almost reverent, stroking through his curls. Biffy hoped that with his own touch he could convey his disregard for Lyall’s past actions and suffering, determined that none of what they did together should be about shame. Most of it, Biffy guessed, was about companionship. There might have been a tiny little seed of love. Just the beginnings, but a tender, equality of love, of a kind Biffy had never before experienced.
Professor Lyall was as different from Lord Akeldama as was possible. But there was something in that very difference that Biffy found restful. The contrast in characters made it feel like less of a betrayal. For two years, Biffy had held on to his hope and his infatuation with the vampire. It was time to let go. However, he didn’t feel that Lyall was edging Lord Akeldama out. Lyall wasn’t the type to compete. Instead he was carving himself a new place. Biffy might just be able to make the room. Lyall was, after all, not very big, for a werewolf. Of course, he worried about Felicity’s story of Alessandro Tarabotti, about whether Lyall was capable of loving him back, but it was early yet and Biffy allowed himself to revel in the simple joy that can only be found in allaying another’s loneliness.
When Lyall lay flush against him, nuzzling up into his neck, Biffy thought they fit well together. Not matched colors so much as coordinated, with Lyall a neutral cream satin, perhaps, and Biffy a royal blue. Biffy said nothing concerning any such romantic flights of fancy. Instead he asked a more practical question.
“You truly intend to become Kingair’s Beta, even after all you sacrificed for this pack?”
“I must make amends.” Lyall did not stop his nuzzling.
“So far away from London?” So far from me?
“It won’t be forever. But I’ll have to stay away, at least until Lord Maccon retires.”
Biffy was floored. He stopped smoothing the hair at Lyall’s temple. “Retires? Retires from being Alpha?” As though it were a position in a tradesman’s firm? “You think that is something he’s likely to do?”
Lyall smiled. Biffy could feel the movement of his cheek against his chest. “Ah, Biffy, you think Lord Maccon is any less aware of the fate of Alphas who get too old than we are?”
Biffy’s hand went involuntarily to his throat in shock. For there could be only one possible implication from such a statement. Lord Maccon intended to kill himself before he went mad. “Poor Lady Maccon!” he whispered.
“Now, now, not to worry. I shouldn’t think it’ll be all that soon. Decades or more. You must really learn to think like an immortal, my sweet Biffy.”
“Will you come back here after?”
“I will try.”
“So we must wait until Lord Maccon dies? How macabre.”
“Much of immortality, you will find, is in surviving the deaths of others. And the waiting has not started yet. We have some time before our Alphas return.” He began kissing Biffy softly on the neck.
“By all means, let us not waste time.”
Which was how Biffy missed his last window to send a message by dirigible post, warning Lady Maccon of Lady Kingair’s letter to Lord Maccon. Which was why he used rather more colorful language than he ought upon realizing that he had mucked the timing up quite royally and would not have an opportunity to contact his mistress again until after she landed in Alexandria.
Timing, he realized, could work hard against one, even when one had, theoretically, all the time in the world.
CHAPTER TEN
Wherein Our Intrepid Travelers Ride Donkeys
It was Sunday tea aboard ship and the Tunstells had been persuaded to perform their rendition of Macbeth to rousing applause and much comedic effect in the dining hall when the port of Alexandria was sighted. Ten days of familiarity will make strangers traveling together more friendly with one another than an entire season of town socialization. Alexia was not certain how she felt about such familiarity—it led to homegrown theatricals while at table, but the other passengers were enjoying themselves.
Ivy was dressed in a corseted medieval gown and lamenting her blood-covered hands—beet juice from a most excellent stewed vegetable tureen—and wearing a blond wig of epic proportions and ratty state. She was giving the tragedy her all, in a rather misguided and decidedly impressionistic take on the famous knife scene. Tunstell lay prone over a potted plant stage right—also known as the kitchen entrance. Mr. Tumtrinkle, sporting a substantial fake mustache and a waistcoat so tight it was near to popping over his well-padded circumference, was tiptoeing across the stage wielding another potted plant, Macduff with Birnam Wood, and carrying a baguette
sword.
The diners were riveted. Particularly by the antics of the waitstaff, who had to dodge through the climactic fight scene carrying scones and jam.
It was no wonder, then, that Alexandria snuck up on all of them. The first thing that signified the momentous event was a slowing in their speed and a loud tooting noise. The captain hurriedly excused himself, tea unfinished, and the Tunstells stopped their antics and stood about dumbly.
The proximity bells clanged out and everyone made busy finishing their conversation and foodstuffs without the appearance of excitement or hurry, although clearly under the influence of both.
“Have we arrived?” Alexia asked her husband. “I do believe we have.”
Conall, for whom high tea was an exercise in futility, there being little protein on offer and too many small fiddly sandwiches expressly designed to thwart a man of his ilk, stood without prompting. “Well, come along, my dear, to the upper deck!”
Alexia took up Prudence, who was ostensibly the excuse for awakening early and attending the tea. The toddler had yet to experience such an occasion as Sunday tea in a public assembly on a steamer, and Alexia had thought she might enjoy the treat. Prudence had indeed, although her good behavior might be better attributed to the performance than the comestibles. Prudence found the Tunstells’ rendition of Macbeth more fascinating than anyone else, possibly because the antics were right about her education level or possibly because life with Lord Akeldama had given her to expect a certain degree of extravagant theatricality.
Prudence was particularly taken with the idea that Mr. Tumtrinkle now answered to the name Macduff, possibly because she could say Macduff but not Tumtrinkle. She was also hypnotized by his mustache, a fact made clear as they climbed out onto the promenade and the actor stood behind them. Prudence somehow ended up leaning over her mother’s shoulder, misappropriating the mustache and wearing it rather proudly on her own tiny, fat face.
“Oh, really!” was her mother’s comment, but she did not try to remove it.
Madame Lefoux came up next to them and gave Prudence a green-eyed look of approval. “Child after my own heart.”
“Don’t you start,” said Alexia, possibly to both of them. “Prudence, darling, look: Egypt!” She pointed before them as the rays of the slowly setting sun caught the beige buildings of the last great Mediterranean port. The first thing to appear was the famous lighthouse, rising above the level of a colorless line of coast. Although, to Alexia’s mind, it seemed a little smaller than one would hope.
“No,” said Prudence, but she looked.
The steamer chugged to a halt, disappointing everyone.
“We have to wait to take a pilot on board,” explained, of all people, Ivy Tunstell.
“We do?” Alexia looked down at her friend, mystified. Ivy had come to stand next to them still garbed in her medieval dress and long blond wig.
Ivy nodded sagely. “The channel into the harbor is narrow, shallow, and rocky. Baedeker says so.”
“Well, then, it must be true.” They spotted a small tug chugging through the water toward them. A sprightly, dark-skinned fellow in very ill-fitting and baggy clothing was allowed aboard. He saluted the watching passengers in a casual manner and then disappeared toward the captain’s lookout.
Moments later, the steamer puffed back up into rumbling action and began making its way sedately into the port of Alexandria.
Lady Maccon was pleased to say the city quite lived up to her expectations. While Ivy prattled on about Pompey’s Pillar, the Cape of Figs, the Arsenal, and various other guidebook sights of note, Alexia simply absorbed the quality of the place: the subdued tranquility of exotic buildings, broken only occasionally by the white marble turrets of mosques or the sharp knitting-needle austerity of an obelisk. She thought she could make out ruins in the background. It was mostly sand colored, lit up orange by the sun—a city carved out of the desert indeed, utterly alien in every way. The thing it most resembled was a sculpture made of shortbread.
Ivy excused herself, remarking that they, too, ought to go below, or at least in out of the sea air. “Too much sea air can detrimentally affect the mental stability, or so I’ve read.”
“Why, Mrs. Tunstell, you must have traveled by boat before,” said Lord Maccon.
Lady Maccon stifled a chuckle and returned her attention to the shore. She felt the heat for the first time as well, rolling at them off the land. True, it had been getting hotter over the last few days, but this heat brought new smells with it.
“Sand, and sewage, and grilled meat,” commented her husband, rather ignoring the romance of it all.
Alexia shifted against him and took his hand with her free one, bracing Prudence against the railing.
The baby frowned at the city, which loomed larger and larger as they moved in to dock. “Ick,” she said, and then, “Dama.”
Alexia wasn’t certain if the toddler was simply missing her adopted father or if somehow the ancient city reminded Prudence of the ancient vampire. The little girl shivered despite the heat and buried her mustachioed face in her mother’s neck. “Ick,” she said again.
As complicated and difficult as it had been getting on board the steamer, it was twice as problematical getting off of it. Of course, it was intended that passengers spend that last night aboard, to awaken the next morning in a new land and begin their adventures well rested and fully packed. But Alexia and her party were on a night schedule and had no intention of wasting precious evening hours by staying on the ship. They hurried back to their respective rooms and threw a collective tizzy gathering up attendants to help them pack, tracking down multiple missing items, paying steward’s fees, and eventually disembarking.
Even after they were safely ashore and getting their land legs back, Ivy Tunstell had to return to her quarters no less than three times. The first under the impression that she had misplaced her favorite gloves—they were in a hatbox with her green turban, as it turned out. The second because she was assured her Baedeker’s was left on the bedside table, only to discover it in her reticule. The third because she panicked, convinced she had forgotten Percy, asleep in his bassinet.
The nursemaid, who had charge of the twins, safely ensconced in a rather impressive sling contraption, held Percy up for his frantic mother to see, at which juncture the baby spit up on the strikingly large turban of a native gentleman as he injudiciously cut through their assembled party.
The gentleman made a very rude gesture and said something rapid-fire in Arabic before dashing on.
Ivy tried desperately to apologize to the man’s retreating back. “Oh, my dear sir, how terrible. He’s only a very little boy, of course, not yet under his own power so far as the proper operation of the digestive centers. I am so very sorry. Perhaps I could—”
“He is long gone, Ivy dear,” interrupted Alexia. “Best turn our attention to our hotel. Where are we headed?” She looked at Conall hopefully. It really was rather a bother to travel without Floote; nothing went smoothly, and no one seemed to know exactly what to do next.
Madame Lefoux stepped into the breach. “The custom house is over there, I believe.” She gestured at an ugly square building to their right, from which a military-looking group of local gentlemen were charging in their direction. Alexia squinted, attempting to discern the details of the group. The sun was mostly set at this point, the exotic buildings around them blanketed in shadow.
The customs officials, for that is what they proved to be, practically crashed into them and began garbling unintelligibly in Arabic. Ivy Tunstell whipped out her travel guide and began trilling some, quite probably, equally unintelligible phrases in, for some strange reason known only to Ivy, a lilting falsetto and what appeared to be Spanish. Tunstell began prancing about trying to be helpful, his red hair attracting a good deal of unwarranted attention. When one of the men tried grabbing at Mr. Tumtrinkle’s carpetbag, Lord Maccon began yelling and gesticulating in English, descending rapidly into Scottish as he became increas
ingly annoyed.
During the hubbub, Madame Lefoux sidled up to Lady Maccon.
“Alexia, my dear, might I recommend relocating your gun to an inaccessible part of your apparel and opening the parasol as though the sun were quite up?”
Lady Maccon looked at the inventor as though she were mad. It was now evening, no time for a parasol, and Ethel was tucked away in her reticule, where any good firearm should be.
Madame Lefoux nodded significantly at one of the customs men just as he upended Mr. Tumtrinkle’s carpet bag onto the dock, much to that gentleman’s annoyance, and produced a prop musket triumphantly from within. Mr. Tumtrinkle’s efforts to demonstrate that the firearm was, in fact, a fake did not meet with any kind of approval. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Using Prudence’s body to hide her actions, Lady Maccon took her own tiny gun out of her reticule and shoved it down the front of her bodice. Then she reached for her parasol, dangling from a chatelaine hook at her waist, and opened it above her head. Prudence clung on dutifully while she did this and then insisted on holding the parasol handle herself. This delighted Alexia, as now it appeared as though the parasol were up at her daughter’s childish whim, rather than her own eccentricity.
Lord Maccon was becoming red in the face as he argued violently with the customs officials over the rudeness of actually opening and looking through their luggage right there in public. The men were not intimidated by Lord Maccon’s size, rank, or supernatural state. The first being the only thing they had any direct contact with, the second being irrelevant in Egypt, and the last virtually unknown. It was quite dark, and Conall looked to be in imminent danger of losing his temper altogether when the most curious savior appeared.
A medium-sized, medium-girthed native fellow arrived in their midst. He wore voluminous dark bloomers tucked into suede boots, a high-neck dark shirt of muslin, a wide yellow sash about his waist, and a fez upon his head with a long tassel. He had a beard neatly trimmed into sharp pointed aggressiveness and a serious expression. Alexia wasn’t sure about the beard, nor the bloomers, but she did think that with a different hat and a very long sword, he would look most appealingly piratical. Except that with his figure, that would be more along the lines of a banker at a masquerade.
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