Prudence Read online

  BY GAIL CARRIGER

  The Parasol Protectorate

  Soulless

  Changeless

  Blameless

  Heartless

  Timeless

  The Custard Protocol

  Prudence

  “L

  ord Akeldama, I will not have you involving my daughter in some seedy tea extraction mission!”

  Dama sat back, affronted. “My darling girl.”

  Rue leapt to his defence. “When has Dama ever done anything even remotely seedy?”

  “Of course, infant, permit me to rephrase. I will not allow you to involve my daughter in some stylish tea extraction mission, either.”

  “Could we say ‘stylish tea infusion mission’?” Dama suggested meekly.

  Rue was not going to let her mother coerce her Dama. She mounted a secondary defence. “Pish-tosh, Mother. May I kindly remind you that I am all grown up and perfectly capable of making my own tea-related decisions.”

  “Like rampaging around London in your bloomers?”

  “I wasn’t in human form, no one knew it was me. At least, not until the tether to Uncle Rabiffano snapped.”

  “So it was you? Oh dear me, the scandal! You’ll have to retire to the countryside until it blows over at the very least. How will we keep this out of the popular press?”

  Rue felt like stamping her foot, but didn’t on principal. “Of course it was me. And I will certainly not go to the countryside.”

  “I hope you learnt something from this,” said her mother, looking a little hopeless.

  “Frankly, all I learnt is that I must give up bloomers. Perhaps a short silk underskirt would work better? It’s the tail, you see, it rips the seams.”

  COPYRIGHT

  Published by Orbit

  978-1-4055-1560-3

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2015 by Tofa Borregaard

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  Excerpt from God Save the Queen by Kate Locke

  Copyright © 2012 by Kathryn Smith

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  ORBIT

  Little, Brown Book Group

  100 Victoria Embankment

  London, EC4Y 0DY

  www.littlebrown.co.uk

  www.hachette.co.uk

  Prudence

  Table of Contents

  By Gail Carriger

  COPYRIGHT

  CHAPTER ONE: The Sacred Snuff Box

  CHAPTER TWO: For Queen and Custard

  CHAPTER THREE: Rue’s Problem with Redheads

  CHAPTER FOUR: A Floating Custard

  CHAPTER FIVE: The Maltese Tower

  CHAPTER SIX: A Lioness in a Teahouse

  CHAPTER SEVEN: Honeysuckle Isinglass’s Secrets Revealed

  CHAPTER EIGHT: In Which Percy Encounters a Pepper

  CHAPTER NINE: Rakshasas

  CHAPTER TEN: Vanara

  CHAPTER ELEVEN: The Shape of Things to Come

  CHAPTER TWELVE: Hijacking an Elephant Head

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Monkey Hijinks

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Ladybirds to the Rescue

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Weremonkeys in Dressing-Gowns

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN: In Which Tea Solves Everything

  Acknowledgements

  Advertisement

  extras

  about the author

  GOD SAVE THE QUEEN

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  CHAPTER ONE

  THE SACRED SNUFF BOX

  L

  ady Prudence Alessandra Maccon Akeldama was enjoying her evening exceedingly. The evening, unfortunately, did not feel the same about Lady Prudence. She inspired, at even the best balls, a sensation of immanent dread. It was one of the reasons she was always at the top of all invitation lists. Dread had such an agreeable effect on society’s upper crust.

  “Private balls are so much more diverting than public ones.” Rue, unaware of the dread, chirruped in delight to her dearest friend, the Honourable Miss Primrose Tunstell.

  Rue was busy drifting around the room with Primrose trailing obligingly after her, the smell of expensive rose perfume following them both.

  “You are too easily amused, Rue. Do try for a tone of disinterested refinement.” Prim had spent her whole life trailing behind Rue and was unfussed by this role. She had started when they were both in nappies and had never bothered to alter a pattern of some twenty-odd years. Admittedly, these days they both smelled a good deal better.

  Prim made elegant eyes at a young officer near the punch. She was wearing an exquisite dress of iridescent ivory taffeta with rust-coloured velvet flowers about the bodice to which the officer gave due appreciation.

  Rue only grinned at Primrose’s rebuke – a very unrefined grin.

  They made a damnably appealing pair, as one smitten admirer put it, in his cups or he would have known better than to put it to Rue herself. “Both of you smallish, roundish, and sweetly wholesome, like perfectly exquisite dinner rolls.” “Thank you for my part,” was Rue’s acerbic reply to the poor sot, “but if I must be a baked good, at least make me a hot cross bun.”

  Rue possessed precisely the kind of personality to make her own amusement out of intimacy, especially when a gathering proved limited in scope. This was another reason she was so often invited to private balls. The widely held theory was that Lady Akeldama would become the party were the party to be lifeless, invaded by undead, or otherwise sub-par.

  This particular ball did not need her help. Their hosts had installed a marvellous floating chandelier that looked like hundreds of tiny well-lit dirigibles wafting about the room. The attendees were charmed, mostly by the expense. In addition, the punch flowed freely out of a multi-dispensing ambulatory fountain, a string quartet tinkled robustly in one corner, and the conversation frothed with wit. Rue floated through it all on a puffy cloud of ulterior motives.

  Rue might have attended, even without motives. The Fenchurches were always worth a look-in – being very wealthy, very inbred, and very conscientious of both, thus the most appalling sorts of people. Rue was never one to prefer one entertainment when she could have several. If she might amuse herself and infiltrate in pursuit of snuff boxes at the same time, all the better.

  “Where did he say it was kept?” Prim leaned in, her focus on their task now that the young officer had gone off to dance with some other lady.

  “Oh, Prim, must you always forget the details halfway through the first waltz?” Rue rebuked her friend without rancour, more out of habit than aggravation.

  “So says the lady who hasn’t waltzed with Mr Rabiffano.” Prim turned to face the floor and twinkled at her former dance partner. The impeccably dressed gentleman in question raised his glass of champagne at her from across the room. “Aside from which, Mr Rabiffano is so very proud and melancholy. It is an appealing combination with that pretty face and vast millinery expertise. He always smiles as though it pains him to do so. It’s quite… intoxicating.”

  “Oh, really, Prim, I know he looks no more than twenty but he’s a werewolf and twice your age.”

  “Like fine brandy, most of the best men are,” was Prim’s cheeky answer.

  “He’s also one of my uncles.”

  “All the most eligible men in London seem to be related to you in some way or other.”

  “We must get you out of London then, mustn’t w
e? Now, can we get on? I suspect the snuff box is in the card room.”

  Prim’s expression indicated that she failed to see how anything could be more important than the general availability of men in London, but she replied gamely, “And how are we, young ladies of respectable standing, to make our way into the gentlemen’s card room?”

  Rue grinned. “You watch and be prepared to cover my retreat.”

  However, before Rue could get off on to the snuff box, a mild voice said, “What are you about, little niece?” The recently discussed Mr Rabiffano had made his way through the crowd and come up behind them at a speed only achieved by supernatural creatures.

  Rue would hate to choose among her Paw’s pack but if pressed, Paw’s Beta, Uncle Rabiffano, was her favourite. He was more older brother than uncle, his connection to his humanity still strong, and his sense of humour often tickled by Rue’s stubbornness.

  “Wait and see,” replied Rue pertly.

  Prim said, as if she couldn’t help herself, “You aren’t in attendance solely to watch Rue, are you, Mr Rabiffano? Could it be that you are here because of me as well?”

  Sandalio de Rabiffano, second in command of the London Pack and proprietor of the most fashionable hat shop in all of England, smiled softly at Prim’s blatant flirting. “It would be a privilege, of course, Miss Tunstell, but I believe that gentleman there…?” He nodded in the direction of an Egyptian fellow who lurked uncomfortably in a corner.

  “Poor Gahiji. Two decades fraternising with the British, and he still can’t manage.” Prim tutted at the vampire’s evident misery. “I don’t know why Queen Mums sends him. Poor dear – he does so hate society.”

  Rue began tapping her foot. Prim wouldn’t notice but Uncle Rabiffano would most certainly hear.

  Rabiffano turned towards her, grateful for the interruption. “Very well, if you persist in meddling, go meddle.”

  “As if I needed pack sanction.”

  “Convinced of that, are you?” Rabiffano tilted his head eloquently.

  Sometimes it was awfully challenging to be the daughter of an Alpha werewolf.

  Deciding she’d better act before Uncle Rabiffano changed his mind on her father’s behalf, Rue glided away, a purposeful waft of pale pink and black lace. She hadn’t Prim’s elegance, but she could make a good impression if she tried. Her hair was piled high atop her head and was crowned by a wreath of pink roses – Uncle Rabiffano’s work from earlier that evening. He always made her feel pretty and… tall. Well, taller.

  She paused at the refreshment table, collecting four glasses of bubbly and concocting a plan.

  At the card room door, Rue reached for a measure of her dear mother’s personality, sweeping it about herself like a satin capelet. Personalities, like supernatural shapes, came easily to Rue. It was a skill Dama had cultivated. “Were you anyone else’s daughter,” he once said, “I should encourage you to tread the boards, Puggle dearest. As it stands, we’ll have to make shift in less public venues.”

  Thus when Rue nodded at the footman to open the card room door it was with the austere expression of a bossy matron three times her age.

  “But, miss, you can’t!” The man trembled in his knee britches.

  “The door, my good man,” insisted Rue, her voice a little deeper and more commanding.

  The footman was not one to resist so firm an order, even if it came from an unattached young lady. He opened the door.

  Rue was met by a cloud of cigar smoke and the raucous laughter of men without women. The door closed behind her. She looked about the interior, narrowing in on the many snuff boxes scattered around the room. The chamber, decorated without fuss in brown leather, sage, and gold, seemed to house a great many snuff boxes.

  “Lady Prudence, what are you doing in here?”

  Rue was not, as many of her age and station might have been, overset by the presence of a great number of men. She had been raised by a great number of men – some of them the type to confine themselves to card rooms at private balls, some of them the type to be in the thick of the dancing, plying eyelashes and gossip in measures to match the ladies. The men of the card room were, in Rue’s experience, much easier to handle. She dropped her mother’s personality – no help from that here – and reached for someone different. She went for Aunt Ivy mixed with Aunt Evelyn. Slightly silly, but perceptive, flirtatious, unthreatening. Her posture shifted, tail-bone relaxing back and down into the hips, giving her walk more sway, shoulders back, jutting the cleavage forward, eyelids slightly lowered. She gave the collective gentlemen before her an engaging good-humoured grin.

  “Oh dear, I do beg your pardon. You mean this isn’t the ladies’ embroidery circle?”

  “As you see, quite not.”

  “Oh, how foolish of me.” Rue compared each visible snuff box against the sketch she’d been shown, and dismissed each in turn. She wiggled further into the room as though drawn by pure love of masculinity, eyelashes fluttering.

  Then Lord Fenchurch, unsure of how to cope with a young lady lodged in sacred man-space, desperately removed a snuff box from his waistcoat pocket and took a pinch.

  There was her target. She swanned over to the lord in question, champagne sloshing. She tripped slightly and giggled at her own clumsiness, careful not to spill a drop, ending with all four glasses in front of Lord Fenchurch.

  “For our gracious host – I do apologise for disturbing your game.”

  Lord Fenchurch set the snuff box down and picked up one of the glasses of champagne with a smile. “How thoughtful, Lady Prudence.”

  Rue leaned in towards him conspiratorially. “Now, don’t tell my father I was in here, will you? He might take it amiss. Never know who he’d blame.”

  Lord Fenchurch looked alarmed.

  Rue lurched forward as if under the influence of too much bubbly herself, and snaked the snuff box off the table and into a hidden pocket of her fluffy pink ball gown. All her ball gowns had hidden pockets no matter how fluffy – or how pink, for that matter.

  As Rue made her way out of the room, she heard Lord Fenchurch say, worried, to his card partner, “Which father do you think she means?”

  The other gentleman, an elderly sort who knew his way around London politics, answered with, “Bad either way, old man.”

  With which the door behind her closed and Rue was back in the cheer of the ballroom and its frolicking occupants – snuff box successfully poached. She dropped the silly persona as if shedding shape, although with considerably less pain and cost to her apparel. Across the room she met Prim’s gaze and signalled autocratically.

  Primrose bobbed a curtsey to Uncle Rabiffano and made her way over. “Rue dear, your wreath has slipped to a decidedly jaunty angle. Trouble must be afoot.”

  Rue stood patiently while her friend made the necessary adjustments. “I like trouble. What were you and Uncle Rabiffano getting chummy about?” Rue was casual with Prim on the subject; she really didn’t want to encourage her friend. It wasn’t that Rue didn’t adore Uncle Rabiffano – she loved all her werewolf uncles, each in his own special way. But she’d never seen Uncle Rabiffano walk out with a lady. Prim, Rue felt, wasn’t yet ready for that kind of rejection.

  “We were discussing my venerated Queen Mums, if you can believe it.”

  Rue couldn’t believe it. “Goodness, Uncle Rabiffano usually doesn’t have much time for Aunt Ivy. Although he never turns down an invitation to visit her with a select offering of his latest hat designs. He thinks she’s terribly frivolous. As if a man who spends that much time in front of the looking glass of an evening fussing with his hair should have anything to say on the subject of frivolity.”

  “Be fair, Rue my dear. Mr Rabiffano has very fine hair and my mother is frivolous. I take it you got the item?”

  “Of course.”

  The two ladies drifted behind a cluster of potted palms near the conservatory door. Rue reached into her pocket and pulled out the lozenge-shaped snuff box. It was about the size to hold a
pair of spectacles, lacquered in black with an inlay of mother-of-pearl flowers on the lid.

  “A tad fuddy-duddy, wouldn’t you think, for your Dama’s taste?” Prim said. She would think in terms of fashion.

  Rue ran her thumb over the inlay. “I’m not entirely convinced he wants the box.”

  “No?”

  “I believe it’s the contents that interest him.”

  “He can’t possibly enjoy snuff.”

  “He’ll tell us why he wants it when we get back.”

  Prim was sceptical. “That vampire never reveals anything if he can possibly help it.”

  “Ah, but I won’t give the box to him until he does.”

  “You’re lucky he loves you.”

  Rue smiled. “Yes, yes I am.” She caught sight of Lord Fenchurch emerging from the card room. He did not look pleased with life, unexpected in a gentlemen whose ball was so well attended.

  Lord Fenchurch was not a large man but he looked intimidating, like a ferocious tea-cup poodle. Small dogs, Rue knew from personal experience, could do a great deal of damage when not mollified. Pacification unfortunately was not her strong point. She had learnt many things from her irregular set of parental models, but calming troubled seas with diplomacy was not one of them.

  “What do we do now, O wise compatriot?” asked Prim.

  Rue considered her options. “Run.”

  Primrose looked her up and down doubtfully. Rue’s pink dress was stylishly tight in the bodice and had a hem replete with such complexities of jet beadwork as to make it impossible to take a full stride without harm.