Heartless pp-4 Page 7

  “I would say I taught him everything he knows, but Biffy’s a natural.” Lord Akeldama nodded his approval.

  They made their way into the meeting chamber to find the dewan already pacing about in a tizzy. Queen Victoria was not there. The queen did not attend most Shadow Councils. She expected to be informed of anything significant but otherwise was uninterested in the minutiae.

  “Threat to the queen, I hear.” The dewan was a large gruff individual who reminded Alexia of her husband, in character if not in appearance or manner. Not that she would ever tell this to either of them. He held state as the Earl of Upper Slaughter but no longer boasted the country seat to accompany the title. Similarly, he had the demeanor of a leader without a pack. This freedom from responsibility both as lord and Alpha made the dewan the most powerful autonomous werewolf in all England. And, even though he was not quite as big as Conall Maccon, it was generally acknowledged by all—including said Conall Maccon—that Lord Slaughter could give even that most feared of Alphas a fight for his fur. Thus, the dewan and Lord Maccon tended to circle each other, both in and out of polite company, rather like two tugboats drawing freight—widely and with much tooting.

  “Indeed.” Alexia’s practical side was pleased at the two Alphas’ respective similarities, because constant exposure to her husband had given her the necessary skills for handling the dewan.

  She and Lord Akeldama wafted—or, in Alexia’s case, toddled—in and took seats at the long mahogany table, leaving the dewan to continue his pacing unmolested.

  Lady Maccon snapped open the lid of her dispatch case and extracted her harmonic auditory resonance disruptor. The spiky little apparatus looked like two tuning forks sticking out of a bit of crystal. While Alexia rummaged about for further necessities, Lord Akeldama tapped one fork with his finger, waited a moment, and then tapped the other. This resulted in a discordant, low-pitched humming, amplified by the crystal. It would prevent their conversation from being overheard.

  “Serious, do you think? This threat? One to be taken seriously?”

  The dewan ought to have been handsome with his dark hair and deep-set eyes, but his mouth was a little too full, the cleft in his chin a little too pronounced, and his mustache and muttonchops excessively aggressive. This facial hair had initially given Alexia much distress. Why? was the question. Most gentlemen went clean-shaven into immortality’s long night. Poor Biffy had had to wait in scruffy purgatory until Alexia returned home from her European tour and turned him mortal long enough to shave. Professor Lyall had reportedly been kind and sympathetic during that most trying of times.

  Lady Maccon took out her notes on the ghostly event and closed her dispatch case. She had attempted to remember and transcribe everything the specter said to her. “The threat came to me via a ghost messenger. I think we must treat it with slightly greater significance than we would some blundering daylight opportunist with a taste to become the next darling of the anarchist press.”

  Lord Akeldama added, “And, my sweetlings, if a supernatural told of the threat to a preternatural, it is likely that something or someone equally unnatural is involved.”

  The dewan sucked at his teeth. “Very serious.”

  Lord Akeldama sat back and rested the tips of his long white fingers on the table before him. It was a gesture oddly reminiscent of his predecessor.

  Alexia continued. “Greatly mysterious as well. My husband says that BUR records show nothing on this ghost. We’ve been unable to locate either her or her corpse since she delivered the message.” Alexia had no compunction about involving the two disparate arms of Her Majesty’s supernatural supervisory operations, nor tapping into the advantages afforded by her position as wife to BUR’s chief officer. So far as she was concerned, bureaucratic restrictions were all very well in their place, but they couldn’t be allowed to limit efficiency. So while BUR was supposed to handle enforcement and the Shadow Council deal with legislative issues, Alexia was actively causing the two to become ever more entangled.

  This was largely held to be one of the reasons Queen Victoria had appointed her muhjah in the first place.

  The dewan was suspicious. “Why was the message delivered to you? And why use a ghost? Most are instinctively afraid of you because of what you are and what you can do.”

  Lady Maccon nodded. Even when she was properly introduced to ghosts, they treated her with decided wariness. “Valid points. I don’t know. If anyone, it should have been brought to the attention of my husband. He’s the official channel.”

  “The fact that you are the muhjah is not well known around town except by the hives. A standard ghost would not have had access to information divulging your state and position and would not have known that you have the queen’s ear. So, there is even less reason to tell you under such circumstances.”

  Alexia looked over her notes. “Perhaps it has something to do with my father.”

  The dewan paused in his pacing. “God’s teeth, why should it?”

  “The ghost muttered something about ‘daughter of Tarabotti.’ As though she were specifically driven to find me because of my name.”

  “Perhaps the ghost knew Alessandro Tarabotti in life, my little dipped biscuit.”

  Alexia nodded. “Perhaps. Regardless, if the threat is coming from the supernatural element, who do we like as suspects?”

  Lord Akeldama immediately said, “I know one or two darling little lone werewolves who’ve been getting restless.” He tilted his head and snapped his teeth together a couple times.

  The dewan countered with, “There are some rove vampires with sharp fangs.”

  Lady Maccon was having none of this kind of scapegoat prejudice. “I think we ought to take everything into consideration and assume that it could also be a hive or a pack that is involved.”

  Lord Akeldama looked cagey and the dewan uncomfortable.

  The dewan said, “Oh, very well, but what kind of lead do we have?”

  “Only the ghost. I have to find her, and soon, for she was getting rather unsubstantial.”

  “Why you?” demanded the dewan.

  “Clearly it has to be me. I was the one she was looking for, so I am the one she will converse with. Either one of you might do more harm than good. I’m already concerned that my husband is blundering about without my supervision.”

  Lord Akeldama laughed. “Thank heavens he never hears you talk like that, petunia.”

  “What makes you think he doesn’t?” Alexia continued her line of reasoning. “A ghost left untended, no preservation enacted, in the dead of summer. How long would the specter remain sane under such conditions?”

  The dewan answered, “Only a few days.”

  “And if she were given regular formaldehyde treatments?”

  “Several weeks.”

  Alexia pursed her lips. “That is a rather broad window.”

  Lord Akeldama smoothed his fingertips over the tabletop. “Did she have any kind of accent, my petal?”

  “You mean was she foreign?”

  “No, snowdrop. I mean, could you make out her place in society?”

  Lady Maccon considered this. “Good but not particularly well educated. I should say perhaps upstairs staff? Which could explain why she did not get proper preservation, burial . . . or registry with BUR.” Alexia was smart enough to carry the line of reasoning full unto its undignified potential. “So I am looking for a shopgirl or perhaps a housekeeper or cook. One who has died within the past two weeks. Few or no family members. And within a tethering radius of the potentate’s town house.”

  Lord Akeldama shook his head in distress. “You have my deepest sympathies.”

  Alexia knew this for the sham that it was. Lord Akeldama liked to pretend he attended only the best parties and fraternized with only the right kind of people. His drones were certainly drawn from the highest society had to offer. But Biffy, in his day, had unexpectedly turned up in more unsavory locales than a housekeeper would ever frequent, and Lord Akel
dama would never make his drones go anywhere in London he had not vetted first himself.

  The dewan kept the conversation on course. “But, Muhjah, that’s hundreds of houses, not to mention shops, private clubs, and other places of interest.”

  Lady Maccon considered Madame Lefoux’s underground contrivance chamber, just outside the radius of inquiry. “In addition, it does not take into account cellars or attics built with subterfuge in mind. And it assumes strangers will tell me if someone within their household has recently died. Nevertheless, can you think of a better approach?”

  Neither Lord Akeldama nor the dewan could.

  The infant-inconvenience kicked out in apparent punctuation to this statement. Lady Maccon made an oof noise, glared down at her stomach, then cleared her throat when the others looked at her inquiringly.

  “Do we inform the queen in the meantime?” Now that they had some kind of plan, the dewan seemed to feel that pacing about was no longer necessary. He came to sit at the table.

  Lord Akeldama took a stand at that. He always took a stand over control of information. “Not just yet, I think, fluffy. Not until we have more concrete evidence. All we have now are the mutterings of a mad ghost.”

  Lady Maccon, a mite suspicious of his motives, nevertheless had to agree with his point. “Very well, I’ll investigate those residences that look to be nighttime inclined, as soon as we have finished here. I’ll sleep tomorrow morning and continue in the afternoon with the daylight households.”

  Lord Akeldama winced and then took a deep breath. “This may be distressing to hear, my flower, but I’m afraid it simply must be said. I am loathe to advocate such an onerous thing, but as you are searching for someone beneath you, you might want to dress down accordingly.”

  Lady Maccon winced, thinking of Felicity and her knitwear. “Are you suggesting that I pretend to be a servant?”

  “I am so very sorry, dumpling, but you might have greater success with subterfuge.” The vampire’s eyes welled with tears at the necessity of having to recommend such a horror.

  Alexia took a deep breath to firm her resolve. “Oh, the actions I must undertake for my country.”

  So it was that Lady Maccon, dressed in some menial rags of ill design and shapeless cut, accompanied by Biffy in the guise of husband, became far more familiar with her new neighborhood than she had previously imagined possible. Biffy looked more uncomfortable in his baggy, lower-class Sunday best than Alexia had ever seen him in evening garb, no matter how tight the breeches or how high the collar. Nevertheless, he threw himself wholeheartedly into the role of out-of-work butler with pregnant housekeeper wife. At each new door, they asked politely after places recently vacated. At each they were treated with a modicum of compassion by the respective butlers—partly due to Alexia’s condition but mostly due to the excellent references they were able to provide from one Lady Maccon of Woolsey Castle.

  Still, after the eleventh cup of tea, they turned reluctantly back toward Lord Akeldama’s street, none the wiser as to any recent deaths that might have gone to ghost. Although, they had received, much to Alexia’s surprise, the offer of positions in the respectable town house of a minor baronet.

  The infant-inconvenience, normally a fan of tea in any form, objected to such a quantity as was consumed upon visiting a succession of possible employers who treated prospective staff in accordance with all standards of common decency. Alexia positively sloshed as she walked. She gripped Biffy’s arm, partly from necessity and partly from the need to keep him human should the rising sun beat their return home. She was moved to ask him something that had been somewhat troubling her of late. “Lord Akeldama takes his tea with lemon?”

  Biffy nodded, looking down at her, curious as to where she was going with the conversation.

  “It never occurred to me until Professor Lyall brought it up, but this is rather peculiar a preference in a vampire. I was under the impression there were problems with fangs and citrus.”

  Biffy smiled but said nothing.

  Lady Maccon persisted. “Need I remind you where your loyalties now lie, young Biffy?”

  “As if I could forget?” Biffy checked the lay of his collar in a nervous gesture. “Ah, well, it’s no particular secret of the commonwealth. He spent several decades, as I understand it, building up a tolerance.”

  “Good gracious me, why?”

  “Simply something to do, I suppose.”

  “That sounds more like the Lord Akeldama of the fashion rags than the Lord Akeldama you and I know.”

  “Of course, my lady. Truth?”

  Alexia nodded.

  “He likes to use lemon on his hair—says it adds brightness and shine. He’s terribly vain.” Biffy’s smile was tinged with longing.

  “Oh, I know.” Alexia looked once more to her companion and then, with Lord Akeldama’s colorful town house in sight, pretended exhaustion and slowed their walk even further.

  “Biffy, my dear, I am worried about you.”

  “My lady?”

  “I had a recent delivery of new fashion plates from Paris, and you hardly glanced at the hairstyles. My husband tells me you are still having difficulty controlling the change. And your cravat has been tied very simply of late, even for evening events.”

  “I miss him, my lady.”

  “Well, he is now living adjacent. You can hardly miss him all that much.”

  “True. But we are no longer compatible—I am a werewolf; he is a vampire.”

  “So?”

  “So we cannot dance the same dance we used to.” Biffy was so sweet when he tried to be circumspect.

  Alexia shook her head at him. “Biffy, and I mean this in the kindest way possible: then you should change the music.”

  “Very good, my lady.”

  Lady Maccon got very little sleep that day, partly due to the physical repercussions of too much tea and partly due to an unexpected visit from Ivy Tunstell early in the afternoon. Floote woke her with a gentle touch, a sincere apology, and the deeply troubling information that Miss Loontwill had taken it upon herself to entertain Mrs. Tunstell in the front parlor. They were awaiting Lady Maccon’s pleasure. Alexia half fell, half rolled out of bed, leaving her poor husband, equally disturbed by her now-chronic restlessness, to sleep.

  It being daylight, Biffy was still abed, so she had to ask Floote to assist in buttoning her dress. The butler paled in horror at the very idea and went to corral one of Lord Akeldama’s drones in his stead. Boots proved willing to undertake the distasteful task. Although, it seemed to leave him unexpectedly breathless. Lady Maccon was beginning to learn that Boots was ever willing to undertake anything she asked of him.

  Floote then managed to balance her, by sheer strength of will, across the short gangplank between balconies.

  Downstairs, Felicity was looking more herself, having sent for her things that morning on the assumption that no objections could be found to her assuming permanent residence in her sister’s house. She wore a dress of modern cut with a shirtwaist-style top in turquoise satin trimmed in lace and complemented by matching turquoise rosettes on a white muslin skirt. A demure black bow was tied about her neck à la cravat, and black trim peeked forth between the flounces of the sleeves and at the center of the rosettes. The dress was new, expensive, and very stylish.

  Mrs. Ivy Tunstell, by contrast, wore a visiting gown from two summers prior, its bustle a little too large and its design a little too bold. Unfortunate Ivy, having married a common theatrical, had to make over her existing gowns rather than order new ones.

  For once, however, she did not seem to mind but was weathering Felicity’s conversation, which could be nothing but barb-tipped under the circumstances of an overbustled dress, with complacent demeanor and atypical presence of mind. Either Ivy did not realize she was being insulted, or she had some more interesting matters occupying her thoughts.

  Lady Maccon took a deep breath and entered the parlor.

  “Oh, sister, you do keep such peculia
r hours in this household of yours,” commented Felicity, noticing her first.

  Ivy hopped to her feet and tripped over to blow kisses at Alexia’s face. It was a repulsively Continental habit that she had adopted since her marriage. Lady Maccon blamed overexposure to the stage, or possibly her sometime employment in Madame Lefoux’s hat shop where the French propensity for familiar mannerisms, particularly between ladies, was encouraged beyond the pale.

  “My dearest Ivy, how do you do? What an unexpected visit.”

  “Oh, Alexia, how perfectly splendid of you to be in residence. I was so afraid”—Ivy lowered her voice dramatically—“that you might be in your confinement. Your silhouette is alarmingly advanced. I am not intruding, am I? No, you would be abed. Even you would not receive callers at such a time. Have you been drinking enough tea? Very good for ladies in your condition, is tea.”

  Lady Maccon took a moment to allow the wash of Ivy’s chatter to cascade over her much in the manner that dandelion seeds fly on the winds of inconsequentiality. “Pray, do not trouble yourself on my behalf, Ivy. As you see, I am still ambulatory. Although, I will admit that it is a little problematic getting into motion these days. I do apologize for keeping you waiting.”

  “Oh, pray, do not concern yourself. Felicity was quite proficient a substitute.”

  Lady Maccon raised her eyebrows.

  Ivy nodded in a conspiratorial way to indicate she was being entirely sincere. Her copious dark ringlets bobbed about. Her marriage had had little effect on her girlish preferences in hairstyles. It was probably just as well she had made a less-than-favorable match, for the wives of actors were rather expected to be eccentric in the matter of appearance.

  At this juncture Felicity rose. “If you will excuse me, ladies, I have a meeting to attend.”

  Lady Maccon looked after her sister in shock as she left with neither a remark as to Alexia’s corpulence nor to Ivy’s substandard attire. “I wonder if she will change her dress again.”

  Ivy swished back over to the settee and collapsed onto it dramatically. “Change? Why should she? That was a perfectly splendid day gown.”