Blameless

Alexia demurred. “Quite.” Sometimes she found the Frenchwoman’s flirtations unsettling.

“Spoilsport,” said the inventor wryly before retreating into her room. Before Alexia could go into her own, she heard a cry of anger emerge from her friend.

“Wel , this is unconscionable!”

Alexia and Floote exchanged startled looks.

A tirade of French outrage flowed out the stil partly open door.

Alexia knocked timidly. “Are you quite al right, Genevieve?”

“No, I am not! Imbeciles! Look what they have given me to wear!”

Alexia nosed her way in to find Madame Lefoux, a look of abject horror on her face, holding up a dress of pink gingham so covered in ruffles as to put Alexia’s nightgown to shame.

“It is an insult!”

Alexia decided her best move at this juncture was a retreat. “You’l let me know,” she said with a grin, pausing on the threshold, “if you need, perhaps, assistance with—oh, I don’t know—the bustle?”

Madame Lefoux gave her a dirty look, and Alexia departed in possession of the field, only to find, across her own bed, a dress of equal y layered outrageousness.

Really, she thought with a sigh as she pul ed it on, is this what they are wearing in Italy these days?

Her dress was orange.

Professor Randolph Lyal had been three nights and two days hunting with very little sleep. The only thing he’d gotten was a lead as to the whereabouts of Lord Akeldama’s stolen item, from a ghost agent in good standing assigned to tail the potentate—if one could use the word “tail” when referring to a vampire.

Professor Lyal had sent Lord Maccon off to explore the lead further, arranging it so that the Alpha thought it was his own idea, of course.

The Beta rubbed at his eyes and looked up from his desk. He wouldn’t be able to keep the earl in England much longer. He’d managed a series of investigative distractions and manipulations, but Alpha was Alpha, and Lord Maccon was restless knowing Alexia was out in the world being disappointed in him.

Keeping the earl active meant that Professor Lyal was stuck with the stationary work. He checked every day after sunset for a possible aethograph from Lady Maccon and spent much of the rest of his time reading through the oldest of BUR’s records. He’d had them extracted with much tribulation from the deep stacks, needing six forms signed in triplicate, a box of Turkish delights to bribe the clerk, and a direct order from Lord Maccon. The accounts stretched back to when Queen Elizabeth first formed BUR, but he’d been scanning through them most of the night, and there were few references to preternaturals, even less about any female examples of such, and nothing at al about their progeny.

He sighed and looked up, resting his eyes. Dawn was imminent, and if Lord Maccon didn’t arrive back presently, he’d be arriving back naked.

The door to the office creaked open, as though activated by that thought, but the man who walked in wasn’t Lord Maccon. He was almost as big as the Woolsey Alpha and walked with the same air of self-assurance, but he was ful y clothed and clearly in disguise. However, when Lyal sniffed the air, there was no doubt as to his identity

—werewolves had an excel ent sense of smel .

“Good morning, Lord Slaughter. How do you do?”

The Earl of Upper Slaughter—commander in chief of the Royal Lupine Guard, also known as Her Majesty’s Growlers; sometime field marshal; holder of a seat on Queen Victoria’s Shadow Council and most commonly known as the dewan—pushed his hood back and glared at Professor Lyal .

“Not so loudly, little Beta. No need to broadcast my presence here.”

“Ah, not an official visit, is it? You haven’t come to chal enge for Woolsey, have you?

Lord Maccon is currently out.” The dewan was one of the few werewolves in England who could give Lord Maccon a fight for his fur and had reputedly done so, over a game of bridge.

“Why would I want to do a thing like that?”

Professor Lyal gave an elegant little shrug.

“The trouble with you pack types is you always assume us loners want what you’ve got.”

“Tel that to the chal engers.”

“Yes, well , the last thing I need is the additional responsibility of a pack.” The dewan fussed with the hood about his neck, arranging it to suit his taste.

The dewan was a man who had taken the curse later in life, resulting in a permanently jowly face, lined about the nose and mouth, with bags under the eyes. He sported a ful head of dark hair, with a touch of gray at the temple, and fiercely bushy brows over deep-set eyes. He was handsome enough to have broken hearts in his day, but Lyal had always found the man’s mouth a little ful and his mustache and muttonchops quite beyond the limits of acceptable bushiness.

“To what, then, do I owe the honor of your visit at such an early hour?”

“I have something for you, little Beta. It is a delicate matter, and it goes without saying that it cannot be known that I am involved.”

“Oh, it does, does it?” But Lyal nodded.

The werewolf pul ed forth a rol ed piece of metal from his cloak. Professor Lyal recognized it at once—a slate for the aethographic transmitter. He reached into his desk for a special little cranking device and used it to careful y unrol the metal. What was revealed was the fact that a message had been burned through—already transmitted.

The note was short and to the point, each letter printed neatly in its segment of the grid, and, rather indiscreetly, it had been signed.

“A vampire extermination mandate. Ordering a death bite on Lady Maccon’s neck.

Amusing, considering she cannot be bitten, but I suppose it is the thought that counts.”

“I understand it is just their turn of phrase.”

“As you say. A death order is a death order, and it is signed by the potentate, no less.” Professor Lyal let out a deep sigh, placed the metal down with a tinny sound on the top of his desk, and pinched the bridge of his nose above his spectacles.

“So you understand the nature of my difficulty?” The dewan looked equal y resigned.

“Was he acting under the authority of Queen Victoria?”

“Oh, no, no. But he did use the Crown’s aethographor to send the order to Paris.”

“How remarkably sloppy of him. And you caught him in the act?”

“Let us say, I have a friend on the transmitter-operating team. He swapped out the slates so that our sender there destroyed the wrong one.”

“Why bring it to BUR’s attention?”

The dewan looked a little offended by the question. “I am not bringing it to BUR; I am bringing it to the Woolsey Pack. Lady Maccon, regardless of the gossip, is stil married to a werewolf. And I am stil the dewan. The vampires simply cannot be al owed to indiscriminately kil one of our own. It’s not on. Why, that is practical y as bad as poaching clavigers and cannot be al owed, or al standards of supernatural decency wil be lost.”

“And it cannot be known that the information came from you, my lord?”

“Wel , I do have to stil work with the man.”

“Ah, yes, of course.” Professor Lyal was a tad surprised; it was rare for the dewan to involve himself in pack business. He and Lord Maccon had never exactly liked each other ever since that fateful game of bridge. Lord Maccon had, in fact, given up cards as a result.

With his usual inappropriate timing, Lord Maccon returned from his jaunt at that very moment. He marched in, clad only in a cloak, which he removed in a sweeping motion and flung carelessly in the vicinity of a nearby hat stand, clearly intent on striding on to the smal changing room to don his clothes.

He stil ed, naked, sniffing the air. “Oh, hel o, Fluffy. What are you doing out of your Buckingham penitentiary?”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” said Professor Lyal , frustrated. “Do hush up, my lord.”

“Lord Maccon, indecent as always, I see,” snapped the dewan, ignoring the earl’s pet name for him.

Now, bound and determined to remain nude, the earl marched around Lyal ’s desk to see what he was reading, as it clearly had some connection with the unexpected presence of the second most powerful werewolf in al of Britain.

The dewan, showing considerable self-restraint, ignored Lord Maccon and continued his conversation with Professor Lyal as though the earl had not interrupted them. “I am under the impression the gentleman in question may have also managed to persuade the Westminster Hive to his line of thinking, or he would not have sent that order.”

Professor Lyal frowned. “Ah, well , given—”

“Official extermination mandate! On my wife!”

One would think, after twenty-odd years, Professor Lyal would be used to his Alpha’s yel ing, but he stil winced when it was conducted with such vigor so close to his ear.

“That lily-livered, bloodsucking sack of rotten meat! I shal drag his sorry carcass out at high noon—you see if I don’t!”

The dewan and Professor Lyal continued their conversation as if Lord Maccon weren’t boiling over next to them like a particularly maltreated porridge.

“Real y, by rights, preternaturals,” Lyal spoke coldly, “are BUR’s jurisdiction.”

The dewan tilted his head from side to side in mild agreement. “Yes, well , the fact remains that the vampires seem to think they have a right to take matters onto their own fangs. Clearly, so far as the potentate is concerned, what that woman is carrying is not preternatural and thus no longer BUR’s jurisdiction.”

“That woman is my wife! And they are trying to kil her!” A sudden deep suspicion and sense of betrayal caused the Alpha to turn upon his Beta in accusation. “Randolph Lyal , were you aware of this and yet didna tel me?” He clearly didn’t require an answer.

“That’s it; I’m leaving.”

“Yes, yes, well , never mind that.” Professor Lyal tried unsuccessful y to calm his Alpha down. “The question is, what do they think she is carrying?”

The dewan shrugged and pul ed his cloak back up over his head, preparing to leave.

“I rather think that is your problem. I’ve risked enough bringing this to your attention.”

Professor Lyal stood, reaching over his desk to grasp the other werewolf’s hand.

“We appreciate you giving us this information.”

“Just keep my name out of it. This is a domestic matter between Woolsey and the vampires. I wash my fur of the entire debacle. I told you not to marry that woman, Conal . I said no good could possibly come of it. Imagine contracting to a soul ess.” He sniffed.

“You youngsters, so brash.”

Lord Maccon began to protest at that, but Professor Lyal shook the dewan’s hand firmly in the manner of pack brothers, not chal engers. “Understood, and thank you again.”

With one last mildly offended look at the naked, red-faced, sputtering Alpha, the dewan left the office.

Professor Lyal , drawing on long years of practice, said, “We have got to find Lord Akeldama.”

Lord Maccon sobered slightly at that abrupt change in subject. “Why is that vampire never around when you need him, but always around when you don’t?”

“It is an art form.”

Lord Maccon sighed. “Wel , I canna help you find the vampire, Randolph, but I do know where the potentate has his object stashed.”

Professor Lyal perked up. “Our ghost overheard something significant?”

“Better, our ghost saw something. A map. I thought we might just go steal the object back, before I leave to fetch my wife.”

“And you stil haven’t told me where you sent Channing.”

“It’s possible I was too drunk to remember.”

“It’s possible, but I think not.”

Lord Maccon took that as an opportunity to get dressed, leaving Professor Lyal in possession of the field but not the information.

“So, about this theft?” Lyal was always one to cut his losses and move on when necessary.

“It should be fun.” Lord Maccon’s voice emerged from the little changing closet.

When the Alpha reemerged, Professor Lyal wondered, not for the first time, if gentlemen’s garb was not made complex through vampire influence as a dig at werewolves who, by their very nature, were often in a tearing hurry to get dressed. He himself had mastered the art, but Lord Maccon never would. He stood to go around his desk and help his Alpha rebutton a lopsided waistcoat.

“It should be fun, you said, this reacquisition operation, my lord?”

“Especial y if you like swimming.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Wherein Alexia Encounters Both Pesto and a

Mysterious Jar

Hadn’t we better go to the local dirigible station? Didn’t Monsieur Trouvé say he would send our luggage there?” Alexia looked down in disgust at the orange fril y dress she was wearing. “I could very much use the comfort of my own wardrobe.” ns class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true">