The Parasol Protectorate Boxed Set by Gail Carriger
And really, wasn’t that what all disreputable ladies did in the end—escape to Europe?
Ivy knew nothing of Alexia’s soulless state. She did not even know what preternatural meant. Lady Maccon’s affliction was a not-very-well-kept secret, what with BUR and all the local werewolves, ghosts, and vampires in on it, but the majority of the daylight folk were ignorant of the fact that there was a preternatural in residence in London. It was generally felt, by Alexia and those intimate with her, that if Ivy knew of this, all attempts at anonymity would be null and void within several hours. Ivy was a dear friend, loyal and entertaining, but circumspection could not be listed among her more sterling qualities. Even Tunstell acknowledged this flaw in his wife’s nature and had refrained from informing the new Mrs. Tunstell of her old friend’s real eccentricity.
“Yes, well, I suppose I can understand the need to absent yourself from town. But where are you going, Alexia? To the country?”
“Madame Lefoux and I are traveling to Italy, for my low spirits, you understand.”
“Oh, dear, but, Alexia, you do realize”—Ivy lowered her voice to a whisper—“that Italy is where they keep Italians. Are you quite certain you are adequately prepared to cope?”
Lady Maccon suppressed a smile. “I think I might just be able to muddle along.”
“I am certain I heard the most horrible thing about Italy recently. I am failing to recall quite what it was, but it cannot possibly be a healthy place to visit, Alexia. I understand that Italy is the place vegetables come from—all that weather. Terribly bad for the digestion—vegetables.”
Lady Maccon could think of nothing to say in response to that, so she continued packing.
Ivy returned to perusing the hats, finally settling on a flowerpot style covered in striped purple and black tweed, with large purple rosettes, gray ostrich plumes, and a small feathered pouf at the end of a long piece of wire that stuck straight out of the crown. It looked, when Ivy proudly donned said hat, as though she were being stalked by an enraptured jellyfish.
“I shall have a new carriage dress made to match,” she announced proudly while poor Tunstell paid for the atrocity.
Lady Maccon remarked, under her breath, “Wouldn’t it be more sensible to, for example, simply throw yourself off a dirigible?”
Ivy pretended not to hear, but Tunstell shot his wife’s friend a wide smile.
Madame Lefoux cleared her throat, looking up from the transaction.
“I was wondering, Mrs. Tunstell, if you might do me a very great favor.”
Ivy was never one to let down a friend in need. “Delighted, Madame Lefoux. How may I be of assistance?”
“Well, as you may have surmised”—never a good phrase when applied to Ivy—“I will be accompanying Lady Maccon to Italy.”
“Oh, really? How noble of you. But I suppose you are French, which can’t possibly be all that different from Italian.”
Madame Lefoux paused in stunned silence before recovering her powers of speech. She cleared her throat. “Yes, well, I was wondering if you might consider overseeing the day-to-day running of the hat shop while I am away.”
“Me? Engage in trade? Well, I don’t know.” Ivy looked about at the dangling hats, undeniably tempting in all their feathered and flowered glory. But still, she had not been raised for commerce.
“You could, of course, borrow from the stock at your leisure and discretion.”
Mrs. Tunstell’s eyes took on a distinctly covetous sheen. “Well, if you put it like that, Madame Lefoux, how can I possibly refuse? I would be absolutely delighted to take on the task. What do I need to know? Oh, wait just a moment, before we start, if you please. Ormond.” Ivy summoned her husband with a little flap of her hand.
Dutifully, Tunstell trotted over, and Ivy issued him a complex set of whispered instructions. In a flash, he had doffed his hat to the ladies, let himself out the front door, and was off down the street about some errand at his wife’s behest.
Alexia approved. At least Ivy had him well trained.
Madame Lefoux led Mrs. Tunstell behind the small counter and spent the next half hour showing her how to cook the books.
“No need to place any new orders, and no need to open the shop for business all that frequently while I am away. I have listed the important appointments here. I understand you are a busy lady.”
Ivy displayed surprising aptitude for the accounting. She always had been good with sums and figures, and she was obviously capable of being serious, at least about hats. Just as they were finishing up, Tunstell reappeared, clutching a small brown paper package.
Alexia joined them to make her good-byes. Directly before leaving, Ivy handed Alexia the package that Tunstell had just acquired.
“For you, my dearest Alexia.”
Curiously, Alexia turned it about in her hands before unwrapping it carefully. It turned out to be a whole pound of tea inside a decorative little wooden box.
“I remembered that awful thing I had heard about Italy.” Ivy dabbed at the corner of one eye with her handkerchief in an excess of sentiment. “What I heard… Oh, I can hardly speak of it… I heard that in Italy they drink”—she paused—“coffee.” She shuddered delicately. “So horribly bad for the stomach.” She pressed Alexia’s hand fervently with both of hers and the damp handkerchief. “Good luck.”
“Why, thank you, Ivy, Tunstell, very thoughtful and kind of you both.”
It was good-quality tea, large-leaf Assam, a particular favorite of Alexia’s. She tucked it carefully into her dispatch case to carry with her on board the trans-channel dirigible. As she was no longer muhjah and the dispatch case could not serve its intended purpose of carrying secret and highly significant documents and gadgets belonging to queen and country, it might as well carry an item of equal value and importance.
Ivy might be a tad preposterous at times, but she was a kind and thoughtful friend. Much to both of their surprise, Alexia kissed Ivy on the cheek in gratitude. Ivy’s eyes welled with tears.
Tunstell gave them yet another cheerful grin and shepherded his still-emotive spouse from the shop. Madame Lefoux had to dash after them to give Ivy the spare key and a few last instructions.
Professor Lyall had endured a long and trying day. Ordinarily, he was well equipped to cope with such tribulation, being a self-assured gentleman possessed of both mental acumen and physical prowess accompanied by the economy of thought required to choose quickly which best suited any given situation. That afternoon, however, with the full moon rapidly approaching, an Alpha out of commission, and Lady Maccon heading to Italy, it must be admitted that he nearly, on two occasions, lost his temper. The vampire drones were being unresponsive, only admitting to the fact that their respective masters “might not be available” for BUR duty that evening. There were three vampires on staff, and BUR was not designed to cope with a sudden loss of these supernatural agents all at once. Especially not when the four BUR-affiliated werewolves were all young enough to already be out of commission on their monthly bone-bender. To compound the staffing issue, certain supplies hadn’t arrived as scheduled, two suspicious dirigible accidents needed to be investigated, and there was an exorcism to perform just after sunset. While dealing with all of this, Professor Lyall had to foil no less than eight reporters hoping to interview Lord Maccon, ostensibly about the dirigibles but undoubtedly about Lady Maccon. Needless to say, Lyall was in no mood to find, upon returning home just prior to sunset, his Alpha singing opera—or what might have been considered opera by a tribe of tone-deaf orangutans—in the bathtub.
“You managed to break back into my specimen collection, didn’t you? Really, my lord, those were the last of my samples.”
“Ish good stuff, fermaldathdie.”
“I thought I set Major Channing to keep watch over you. He hasn’t gone to sleep, has he? He should be able to hold for one full day. He can take direct sunlight—I have seen him do it—and you are not so difficult to track, not in this condition at least.??
“He canna poshibly do tha.”
“Oh, no, why not?” Professor Lyall tested the water in which Lord Maccon splashed and wallowed like some bewildered water buffalo. It was quite cold. With a sigh, the Beta retrieved his Alpha’s robe. “Come on, my lord. Let’s get you out of there, shall we?”
Lord Maccon grabbed his washrag and began conducting the opening sequence of The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein, flicking water all about the room as he did so. “Maidens, never mind us,” sang the earl, “twirling ’round and ’round.”
“Where has Major Channing gone off to, then?” Professor Lyall was irritated, but it didn’t show in his voice. It seemed he had spent a lifetime being irritated with Channing, and given the day so far, this was nothing more than what was to be expected. “I gave him a direct order. Nothing should have superseded that. I am still Beta of this pack, and Major Channing is under my command.”
“Under mine firsh,” objected Lord Maccon mildly. Then he warbled out, “For you’ll be left behind us, you’ll be safe and sound.”
Professor Lyall attempted to part pull, part lift his Alpha out of the bathtub. But he lost his grip and Lord Maccon slipped and went falling back into it with a tremendous splash. The massive tub, with its small steam-heating attachment, was extremely well constructed and had been imported from the Americas at great expense because there they knew steel. But it still wobbled dangerously on its four clawed feet under Lord Maccon’s weight.
“If a bullet’s billet, you are doomed to fall,” sang out the drenched werewolf, skipping several of the words.
“You gave Channing a direct order? In this state?” Professor Lyall tried once more to extract the earl from the tub. “And he obeyed you?”
For one brief second, Lord Maccon’s eyes sharpened and he looked quite sober. “I am still his Alpha; he had better obey me.”
Professor Lyall finally managed to get his Alpha out of the water and into the robe in a desultory kind of way. The thin material stuck indecently close in places, but the earl, never one to suffer the strain of modesty under any circumstances, clearly didn’t give a fig, or a fig leaf.
Professor Lyall was used to it.
Lord Maccon began swaying back and forth in time with his singing. “Take your glass and fill it, laugh and drink with all!”
“Where did you send him?” Professor Lyall, supporting the brunt of his Alpha’s weight, blessed his own supernatural strength, which made the massive man merely awkward rather than hopeless to maneuver. Lord Maccon was built like a brick outhouse, with opinions twice as unmoving and often equally full of crap.
“Aha, wouldna you like ta know tha?” The Alpha did not do coy well, and Professor Lyall was not amused at the lack of a direct answer.
“Did you send him after Lord Akeldama?”
Lord Maccon came over slightly sober once more. “That pansy. Missing, is he? Good. He reminds me of limp custard filling, all cream and no crust. Never could understand what Alexia saw in that pointy-toothed ninnyhammer. My wife! Cavorting about with a crustless vampire. Least I know he isna the father.” The Alpha’s yellow eyes squinted, as if he were trying to keep from thinking about that.
Suddenly, he flopped downward with all his weight, slipped out of Professor Lyall’s hold, and landed in a cross-legged heap in the middle of the floor. His eyes were starting to go completely yellow, and he was looking altogether too hairy for Professor Lyall’s liking. Full moon wasn’t for a couple more nights, and Lord Maccon, by Alpha rights and strength, ought to be able to resist the change easily. Apparently, he wasn’t bothering to try.
The earl continued to sing even as his slurring from the drink gave way to slurring from his jawbones breaking and re-forming into those of a wolf’s muzzle. “Drink and sing a ditty, good-bye to the past, all the more’s the pity, if this cup’s our last!”
Professor Lyall was Woolsey Pack Beta for many reasons, one of them being that he knew perfectly well when he needed to ask for assistance. A quick run to the door and one loud yell had four of Woolsey’s strongest clavigers in to help him navigate his lordship, now a very drunken wolf, down into the cellar lockup. Four legs offered no improvement in the matter of the earl’s wobbling, and instead of singing, he merely took to letting forth with a mournful howl or two. An aggravating day was looking to become an equally aggravating night. With Major Channing vanished, Professor Lyall really had only one recourse left to him: he called for a pack meeting.
CHAPTER SIX
Under the Name Tarabotti
It was early evening, the sun just setting, when three unlikely-looking companions boarded the last dirigible for Calais, leaving from its mooring atop the white cliffs of Dover. No reporters managed to capture the departure of the notorious Lady Maccon. This may have had something to do with the swiftness of her response to the publication of her alleged indiscretion, or it may have been the fact that the lady in question was traveling incognito by means of being outrageous in entirely new ways. Instead of her fashionable but severely practical garb, Alexia sported a black floating dress with chiffon ruffles, yellow modesty straps dangling about the skirt, and a hideous yellow hat. She bore, as a result, some passing resemblance to a self-important bumblebee. It was a truly ingenious disguise, for it made the dignified Lady Maccon look and act rather more like an aging opera singer than a societal grande dame. She was accompanied by a well-dressed young gentleman and his valet. Only one conclusion might be drawn from such a party—that it was an impropriety in action.
Madame Lefoux gave herself over to the portrayal of a boy paramour with enthusiasm, affecting many acts of sycophant-like solicitousness. She donned an extraordinarily realistic-looking mustache for the charade—a large black waxed affair that curled up at each side just over her dimples. It managed to disguise much of the femininity of her face through sheer magnitude, but the protuberance had the unfortunate side effect of causing Alexia fits of intermittent giggles whenever she had to look Madame Lefoux directly on. Floote had an easier time of it, sliding comfortably back into his old role of valet, dragging behind him Madame Lefoux’s boxes and his own battered portmanteau, which looked about as old as he was and much the worse for wear.
They were greeted with ill-disguised contempt by the float staff and with actively shocked avoidance by the rest of the passengers. Imagine, such a relationship openly flaunted on board! Disgusting. The resulting isolation suited Alexia perfectly. At Floote’s suggestion, she had purchased her ticket under her maiden name, Tarabotti, never having gotten around to commissioning new travel papers after her marriage.
Madame Lefoux had initially objected. “Is that wise, do you think, given your father’s reputation?”
“Wiser than traveling under the name of Lady Maccon, I suppose. Who wants to be associated with Conall?” Safely ensconced in her apartments, Alexia pulled off the bumblebee hat and flicked it, as though it were a poisonous snake, across the room.
While Floote puttered about seeing to the unpacking, Madame Lefoux came over and stroked Alexia’s hair, now freed from its confines, as though Alexia were a skittish animal. “Only among the supernatural set does the name Tarabotti carry much meaning. There are those who will make the connection eventually, of course. I am hoping we will move through France faster than the gossip does.”
Alexia did not object to the petting—it was comforting. She assumed Madame Lefoux was simply entering into the spirit of her role. Very enthusiastic about such things, the French.
They ate a private meal in their quarters, declining to join the rest of the passengers. Judging by the rapid appearance and freshness of the foodstuffs, the staff approved of this maneuver. Most of the offerings were cooked over the steam engine—a refreshing, if bland, method of preparation.
After supper they left their quarters and made their way up to the squeak deck for some air.
“Snobs.”
Madame Lefoux dimpled slightly from behind her preposterous mustache and leaned against Alexia as they both propped their elbows on the railing, looking down at the dark waters of the channel far below.
Floote watched. Alexia wondered if her father’s faithful valet mistrusted Madame Lefoux because she was French, because she was a scientist, or because she was so consistently inappropriately dressed. With Floote, all three qualities were likely to engender suspicion.
Alexia herself had no such reservations. Genevieve Lefoux had proved herself a most loyal friend over the past month, perhaps a little guarded in matters of the heart, but she was kind of word and more importantly, intelligent of action.
“You miss him?” The Frenchwoman did not need to specify further.
Alexia stuck out one gloved hand and let it ride the rushing aether currents.
“I don’t want to. I’m so blasted angry with him. I’ve come over all numb. Makes me feel slow and stupid.” She glanced sideways at the inventor. Genevieve, too, had experienced loss. “Does it get better?”
Madame Lefoux closed her eyes for a long moment. Probably thinking of Angelique. “It changes.”
Alexia looked up at the almost-full moon, not yet high enough in the sky to vanish behind the enormous balloon section of the ship. “It’s already changing. Tonight”—she gave a tiny shrug—“hurts differently. Now I’m thinking about full moon. It was the one night we remained close, touching, the entirety of the night. Other times, I tried to refrain from extended contact with him. He never cared, but I didn’t feel it worth the risk, to keep him mortal for longer than necessary.”