Heartless (Parasol Protectorate #4)

Heartless (Parasol Protectorate #4) Page 10

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 peculiar 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.”

“Ivy, did you not notice something peculiar about Felicity’s demeanor?”

“Should I have?”

“She was awfully nice, wasn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“To you.”

“Yes.”

“And to me.”

“Yes, why”—a pause—“come to think on it, that is peculiar.”

“Isn’t it just?”

“Is she in poor health?”

“My dear sister has joined a society.” Lady Maccon pursed her lips and pretended coyness.

This was lost on Mrs. Tunstell, who said only, “Well, there you have it. Constructive occupation and attention to good works can have just such a beneficial effect on peevish young ladies. Either that or she has fallen in love.”

Alexia could hardly find the words to explain in a manner that Ivy would comprehend. “It is a feminine-advocacy association.”

Ivy gasped and clutched at her bosom. “Oh, Alexia, what a thing to say out loud!”

Lady Maccon realized that Ivy might be right—they were heading into highly indecorous, not to say dangerous, territory. “Well, of course”—Alexia cleared her throat ostentatiously—“do tell me, what business is it that has brought you to call this afternoon, my dear Ivy?”

“Oh, Alexia, I do have quite the surfeit of delightful news to relate. I hardly know where to start.”

“The beginning, I find, is usually the best place.”

“Oh, but, Alexia, that’s the most overwhelming part. It is all happening at once.”

Lady Maccon took a firm stance at this juncture—she rang for Floote. “Tea is obviously necessary.”

“Oh, my, yes,” agreed Ivy fervently.

Floote, having anticipated just such a request, came in with tea, treacle tart, and a bunch of grapes imported at prodigious expense from Portugal.

Lady Maccon poured the tea while Ivy waited, fairly vibrating with her news but unwilling to begin recitation until her friend had finished handling the hot liquid.

Alexia placed the teapot carefully back on the tray and handed Ivy her cup. “Well?”

“Have you noticed anything singular about my appearance?” Ivy immediately put the cup down without taking a sip.

Lady Maccon regarded her friend. If a brown dress could be called glaring, Ivy’s could be so described. It boasted an overdress and bustle of chocolate satin with a pure white skirt striped, like a circus tent, in the same shade. The accompanying hat was, of course, ridiculous: almost conical in shape but covered with what looked to be the feathers of at least three pheasants mixed in with a good deal of blue and yellow silk flowers. However, none of these extremes of dress were unusual for Mrs. Tunstell. “Not as such.”

Ivy blushed beet red, apparently mortified by what she must now relate given Alexia’s failed powers of observation. She lowered her voice. “I am very eager for the tea.” This garnered no response from the confused Alexia, as Ivy wasn’t drinking it. So Ivy soldiered bravely on. “I am—oh, dear, how to put this delicately?—anticipating a familial increase.”

“Why, Ivy, I didn’t know you expected any kind of inheritance.”

“Oh, no.” Ivy’s blush deepened. “Not that kind of increase.” She nodded significantly toward Alexia’s portly form.

“Ivy! You are pregnant!”

“Oh, Alexia, really, must you say it so loudly?”

“Felicitations, indeed. How delightful.”

Ivy moved the conversation hurriedly onward. “And Tunny and I have decided to form our own dramatic association.”

Lady Maccon paused to reinterpret this confession. “Ivy, are you saying you intend to establish an acting troupe?”

Mrs. Tunstell nodded, her curls bouncing. “Tunny thinks it a good plan to start a new family of players as well as a new family, as he is keen on saying.”

A family, indeed, Alexia thought. Having left the werewolf pack, Tunstell must be trying, in his own way, to build a new pack for himself. “Well,” she said, “I do wish you all the best luck in the world. However, Ivy—and I do not mean to be crude—how have you managed to gather the means to fund such an undertaking?”

Ivy blushed and lowered her eyes. “I was dispatched to consult you on just such a subject. I understand Woolsey is quite enthusiastic in its patronage of artistic endeavors. Tunny implied you even had some capital invested in a circus!”

“Indeed, but, Ivy, for obvious reasons, those are in the interest of furthering the pack. Claviger recruitment and so forth. Tunstell has voluntarily severed any such connection.”

Ivy nodded glumly. “I thought you would say as much.”

“Now, wait just a moment. I’m not so feeble a friend as to abandon anyone, especially you, my dear, when in need.” Lady Maccon frowned in thought. “Perhaps I could dip into my own coffers. You may not be aware, but my father left me rather well set up, and Conall is quite generous with a weekly allowance. We have never discussed my personal income, but he seems disinterested in my financial affairs. I am convinced he shouldn’t object if I were to become a patron of the arts. Why should Woolsey have all the fun?”

“Oh, Alexia, really? I couldn’t ask such a thing of you!” protested Ivy in a tone that suggested this had been her objective in calling all along.

“No, no.” Alexia was becoming rather entranced with the proposal. “I think it a capital idea. I wonder if I might ask a rather odd favor in return?”

Ivy looked amenable to anything that might further her husband’s goal. “Oh, please do.”

Alexia grappled with how exactly to phrase this next question without exposing too much of her nature to her dear friend. She had never told Ivy of her preternatural state, nor of her post as muhjah and the general investigative endeavors that resulted.