Heartless (Parasol Protectorate #4)

Heartless (Parasol Protectorate #4) Page 6

Lord Akeldama’s inquisitive expression did not waver. “Darlings!” he said to the two of them, as though he had not seen them in years. “What exciting tidbits have you brought me?”

Miss Loontwill looked with interest at the two young men. “Oh,” she said, “I remember you! You helped my sister plan her nuptials. You had that marvelous idea about a groom’s cake. Stylish, two cakes. Especially for my sister’s wedding—she is so very fond of food.”

Biffy knew his duty and hurried forward to bow over Felicity’s proffered hand. “Sandalio de Rabiffano, at your service, miss. How do you do?”

Alexia, who until that moment had never before heard Biffy’s real name, gave Lord Akeldama a startled look. The vampire stood and wandered innocently over to her chair. “Spectacularly Spanish, wouldn’t you say? Moorish blood some ways back.”

She nodded sagely.

Biffy returned Felicity’s hand. “I cannot take credit for the cake, miss. It’s an odd little American custom.”

Felicity flirted outrageously. “Oh, well, we won’t tell anyone that, now, will we? Are you still in Lord Akeldama’s employ?”

A brief flash of hurt passed over Biffy’s pleasant face. “No, miss. I’ve been transferred to your sister’s household.”

Miss Loontwill clearly thought this a most beneficial arrangement. “Oh, have you, indeed?”

Alexia interrupted any continued flirtation. “Felicity, go next door and wait for me in the front parlor. Order tea if you must. When my husband returns, I’ll discuss your request with him.”

Felicity opened her mouth again.

“Now, Felicity.” Lady Maccon was at her most dictatorial.

Much to everyone’s surprise, including Felicity’s, Felicity went.

Lord Akeldama tilted his head at Boots and gave a little nod after the retreating girl. With no verbal exchange required, Boots trotted obediently after Felicity. Biffy looked on wistfully. Alexia surmised that he was not yearning for Felicity’s continued company but was regretting the fact that he could no longer obey Lord Akeldama’s commands.

She brought him back around sharply. No sense in letting him dwell. “Biffy, did you have something to tell me or Lord Akeldama?”

“You, my lady. I am pleased to report that you have been successfully moved. The new house awaits your perusal and, hopefully, approval.”

“Excellent! I should—Oh wait. Lord Akeldama, I keep meaning to ask. And while I’m in your company, if I may?”

“Yes, my little syllabub?”

“Do you recall, I was describing those porcupines to you? Or overgrown hedgehogs, or whatever their species inclination, from several nights ago? I was thinking, they were also ever so slightly vampiric in propensity. Their speed and their old dark blood and their susceptibility to the lapis solaris. Is that possible, do you think—vampire porcupines?”

Lord Akeldama’s eyes lit with amusement. “Oh, my dearest girl, what will you think of next? Weregoats? Be on your guard, for at full moon they shall creep into your coat closet and eat up all your shoes!”

Biffy hid a smile.

Alexia was not in the mood to be mocked.

Lord Akeldama recovered his much-vaunted poise. “My darling toffee button, you can be quite the widgeon upon occasion. Animals do not have souls. How could they possibly? Next thing you know, I’ll be petitioning Countess Nadasdy to bite old fatty there so I can have company into my dotage.” He gestured to his cat. The chubby creature had delusions of being a vicious hunter but could never master anything more taxing than a pillow tassel. Or, on one recent and memorable occasion, one of Ivy’s hats. Lady Maccon shuddered at the recollection. Why had she thought she could bring Ivy to tea with a vampire? Her dearest friend may have taken to the stage of late, but she was still not ready for intimate exposure to Lord Akeldama’s brand of drama. Nor was Lord Akeldama entirely capable of withstanding intimate exposure to one of Ivy’s hats. After that tea, Alexia had been forced to admit that Lord Akeldama and Ivy Tunstell were like plaid and brocade, utterly incompatible even in complementary colors.

At which juncture someone else came into Lord Akeldama’s drawing room, only this time without announcement of any kind save a minor bellow.

“Good gracious me,” said Lord Akeldama, sounding like some dowager countess of old Georgian inclination. “What has my house become? Charring Cross Station?”

Biffy looked to Lady Maccon, resplendent in her tentlike gown of eyelet lace and blue satin bows. “More akin to a dirigible landing green, I should think, my lord.”

Alexia, who found her condition even more ridiculous than anyone else, was moved to smile at such a comparison. She had, of late, been feeling inflated.

Lord Akeldama chuckled softly. “Ah, Biffy, I have missed you, my dove.”

The individual who had entered, unannounced and unbidden, observed this exchange with a frown.

Lord Akeldama turned upon him with mild censure in his sharp blue eyes. “Lord Maccon, if you are to stay here, and I believe that is settled for the moment, we really must train you in the fine art of knocking before entering a room.”

The earl was gruff in his embarrassment. “Oh, yes. Upon occasion, I find it hard to remember details of etiquette.” He swirled his cloak off. It landed on the back of a side chair before sliding off and falling to the floor.

Lord Akeldama shuddered.

“Lord Akeldama. Wife. Pup.” Lord Maccon nodded. His tawny eyes concerned, he moved to bend over Alexia. “Everything still corked up?” he asked her in one ear.

“Yes, yes, don’t fuss, Conall.” Alexia would have none of it.

“Everything else squared away?”

“I was just about to perform the inspection. Hoist me up, would you, please?”

The earl grinned, braced himself, and offered her one massive hand. Alexia grasped it in both of hers and he levered. At her preternatural touch, he lost supernatural strength, but he was still powerful enough to handle Alexia—even in her inflated dirigible state.

“We will have to be seen going next door, I suppose. And we will have to determine a way to sneak back into this house later tonight.”

“Such skulking and folderol, all for the sake of appearances,” grumbled Lord Maccon.

Alexia bristled. She’d been through quite a hellish time when her husband had booted her from his bed and company. Society had ostracized her all because she appeared to have been indiscreet. “Appearances are everything!”

“Hear, hear,” agreed Lord Akeldama.

“Very well, wife. We must determine how to get you from our balcony to Lord Akeldama’s.”

He wore an expression Alexia suspected greatly. She glared at him. “You will find me a gangplank, thank you very much. I will not be flung, husband.”

Lord Maccon looked a tad surprised at that. “Did I indicate I intended any such activity?”

“No, but I know how you get.”

Conall was nonplussed by such an unwarranted accusation.

Alexia continued. “Oh, yes, and I should warn you. There’s a surprise waiting for us in our new front parlor.”

Lord Maccon grinned wolfishly. “Is it a nice surprise?”

“Only if you’re in a very good mood,” hedged his wife.

*   *   *

The ghost was in that space again, that insubstantial void. She thought she might float there forever if she could simply stay still. Still as death.

But reality intruded. Reality from her own mind, however little of it was left. “You have to tell someone. You have to tell them. This is wrong. You are mad and yet even you know this is wrong. Put a stop to it. You have to tell.”

Oh, how inconvenient, when one’s own brain starts issuing instructions.

“Who can I tell? Who can I tell? I am only a hen in a chicken coop.”

“Tell someone who can do something. Tell the soulless girl.”

“Her? But I don’t even like her.”

“That’s no excuse. You don’t like anyone.”

The ghost hated it when she was sensible with herself.

CHAPTER THREE

Matters Ghostly

Oh, really, must you?” was Lord Maccon’s considered opinion, expressed to his wife upon seeing her sister in residence, as if Felicity were some sort of unfortunate digestive complaint Alexia had recently developed.

Lady Maccon ignored her sister, who sat waiting patiently in the parlor, and instead took in her new surroundings. The drones and the werewolves had done Woolsey Pack proud. Their new town house was quite filled to bursting with tasteful furniture, pleasingly arranged and minimally decorated. As the abode was intended to serve as a way station for those of the pack who had business in town, most personal items and vital survival necessities such as dungeons and clavigers were left back at Woolsey Castle. The result was that the new house had the look of a gentleman’s club, rather than a private residence (but a nicely up-market gentleman’s club). Lord Maccon muttered that it reminded him of one of the sitting rooms in the House of Lords. But he was muttering for the sake of it, and everyone knew it. Thick curtains kept harmful sunlight out, and thick, plush rugs kept heavy footfalls and claw scrapes to a minimum.

For the time being, Floote was to resume the post of butler to the secondary residence. He had not even batted an eye at this temporary demotion back to domestic staff. Alexia suspected that he had missed his former authority over the household and accompanying ability to monitor all business occurring within it. Personal secretary might be a higher position, but it did not carry with it quite the range of a butler’s command over gossip.

The front parlor, where Felicity sat, was decked out in rich chocolate brown leather and cream twill, with only a small touch of brass here and there for accent—the filigree of a gas lamp, the fringe on a tablecloth, a large Oriental floor vase to hold Alexia’s parasols, and a periscopic shoe-drying stand in front of the fireplace.

It was exactly the opposite of Lord Akeldama’s brocade-and-gilt splendor.

Lady Maccon was impressed. “Floote, where did you find such lovely furnishings at such short notice?”

Floote looked at Alexia as though she had asked him the secrets of his daily ablutions.

“Now, now, wife. If Floote prefers to be thought a conjurer, who are we to inquire as to his sleight of hand? We must preserve a sense of wonder and faith, eh, Floote?” Lord Maccon slapped the dignified gentleman amiably on the back.

Floote sniffed. “If you say so, sir.”

Lord Maccon turned to his wife’s sister, sitting in demure silence and drab gray, both so utterly out of character as to garner even Lord Maccon’s notice.

“Miss Felicity, has somebody died?”

Felicity stood and bobbed a curtsy at the earl. “Not that I am aware, my lord. Thank you for inquiring. How do you do?”

“There’s something rather singular about your appearance this evening, isn’t there? Have you done something different with your hair?”

“No, my lord. I’m simply a tad underdressed for visiting. Only, I had a favor to ask my sister and it couldn’t possibly wait.”

“Oh, did you?” The earl turned his tawny eyes on his wife.

Alexia tipped her chin up and to one side. “She wants to come stay with us.”

“Oh, she does, does she?”

“Here.”

“Here?” Conall took his wife’s point exactly. They could hardly have Felicity stay in their new town house and not actually be living there themselves. What if that information got out? Felicity would be known to have resided with a pack of werewolves and no chaperone.

“Why not at Woolsey? Bit of country air? Looks like she could do with it.” Lord Maccon grappled for a better solution.

“Felicity has involved herself in some”—Alexia paused—“questionable charitable work here in town. She seems to believe she may require our protection.”

Lord Maccon looked confused. As well he might. “Protection?.?.?.?protection from whom?”

“My mother,” replied his wife, with meaning.

Lord Maccon could understand that and was about to demand additional details when a ghost materialized up through the plush carpet next to him.

Under ordinary circumstances, ghosts were too polite to simply appear in the middle of a conversation. The better-behaved specters took pains to drift into front hallways at the very least, where a footman might notice and inquire as to their business. In a startling fashion, this one wafted into existence out of the center of the new rug, directly through the bouquet of flowers depicted there.

Lord Maccon exclaimed. Lady Maccon let out a little gasp and firmed her grip on her parasol. Floote raised one eyebrow. Felicity fainted.