The Parasol Protectorate Boxed Set (104 page)

“It's Biffy or nobody.”
Typical of my husband to see only Biffy's limitations as a werewolf and not his admirable abilities as a human.

For the young dandy was, indeed, quite accomplished. Much to Lord Maccon's disgust, he had taken over many of the duties of
lady's maid to his new mistress. Alexia had never bothered to hire a replacement for Angelique. Biffy's taste was impeccable,
and he had a real eye for which hairstyles and fabrics would suit her best—better than Angelique, who had been good but rather
more daringly French than Lady Maccon liked. Biffy, for all his audacious inclinations when it came to his own apparel, knew
how to be sensible when it came to a lady who scurried around whacking at automatons and climbing into ornithopters.

“It isn't a wise choice.” Lord Maccon's jaw was set.

No one else had yet joined them at the dining table. It was a rare thing in a pack to enjoy any privacy outside the bedroom.
Alexia took advantage of their seclusion. She scooted toward her husband and rested her hand atop his on the fine lace tablecloth.

“Biffy has had Lord Akeldama's training. That is a
skill set that branches away from being merely a dab hand with the curling tongs.”

The earl snorted.

“I am not only thinking of my own comfort in this matter. He needs some kind of distraction, Conall. Haven't you noticed?
Five months and he's still not settled.”

The earl twisted his lips slightly to one side. He had noticed. Of course he had. He noticed everything about his wolves.
It was part of his most essential being, to hold the pack together as a single cohesive entity. Alexia had read the papers;
scientists called it the soul's intrinsic cross-linking of the essential humors, the enmatterment of aether. But she could
also guess the truth of it: that just as vampires and ghosts became tethered to a place, so werewolves became tethered to
a pack. Biffy's all too frequent melancholy must hurt Conall terribly.

“How will allowing him to accompany you help?”

“Am I not also part of this pack?”

“Ah.” The earl turned his hand over to grip his wife's in a compliant caress.

“If you ask me, it is not so much Biffy who cannot find his place as Woolsey not giving him the right place to find. You are
all thinking of him as you would any new werewolf. He's not, you understand? He's different.”

Conall, remarkably, did not jump immediately to the defensive. “Yes, I'm aware. Randolph and I were recently discussing this
very thing. But it cannot simply be a matter of Biffy's preferences. We werewolves are as experimental in our tastes as the
vampires, if a little more reserved about the expression of them. And there's always Adelphus. He's willing.”

Alexia made a disgusted noise. “Adelphus is always
willing. Biffy does not need a lover, husband—he needs a purpose. This is a matter of culture. Biffy has come to you out of
vampire culture.
Lord Akeldama's
vampire culture.”

“So what do you recommend?”

“Woolsey has managed to accept me into its midst and I am by no means standard werewolf fare.” Alexia played with her husband's
fingers, threading and unthreading them with her own.

“But you are female.”

“Exactly!”

“You are suggesting we treat Biffy as if he were a woman?”

“I am suggesting that you think about him as if he had married in from the outside.”

Lord Maccon gave this due consideration and then nodded slowly.

Lady Maccon realized he must be very troubled by Biffy's unhappiness to listen to her suggestions with so few protestations.

Alexia squeezed his hand once more and then let go, returning to her meal of apple fritter and boiled arrowroot pudding with
melted butter and currant jelly. Of late, her taste in comestibles had leaned ever more in the saccharine direction. Now she
ate almost exclusively of the pudding course at any meal. “You think there's a chance you might lose him, don't you?”

Her husband did not answer her, which was an admission in and of itself. Instead he busily began tackling a veritable heap
of fried veal cutlets.

Lady Maccon chose her next words with care. “How quickly can loner status be established?” She did not want
to be perceived as doubting her husband's Alpha abilities. Men, even immortal ones, had fragile egos on certain subjects.
Such egos could be as delicate and as messy as puff pastry. Though rather less palatable with tea.
Ooh, tea.

“Wolves can go solitary at any time, but it is usually for a specific reason and occurs within the first few years of metamorphosis.
Howlers say it has something to do with early bonding to the Alpha. Often it means the unbonded is too much Alpha himself.
I don't believe Biffy falls into this category, but that is the only thing currently in our favor.”

Alexia thought she spotted the real source of her husband's concern. “If Biffy becomes a loner, you don't believe he would
survive. Do you?”

“Loners are unstable. They brawl constantly. Our new pup is not a fighter, not like that.” Her husband's lovely eyes were
pained and guilty. This mess with Biffy was his fault. Unintentionally his fault, but Lord Conall Maccon was not the kind
of gentleman who shifted blame merely because they were all victims of circumstance.

Alexia took a breath and then dove for the kill. “Then you really should give him to me for a while. I'll see what I can do.
Remember, I can tame him if I have to, if he loses control and goes to wolf.” She wiggled ungloved fingers at her husband.

“Very well, wife. But you are to check in with either me or Randolph as to his progress.”

As the earl said this, Professor Lyall wandered into the dining room. The Beta was his usual unassuming self—his sandy hair
neatly combed; his angular features arranged into a nonthreatening expression; his demeanor quiet, self-effacing, and utterly
forgettable. It was an aura that
Alexia was beginning to suspect Professor Lyall had cultivated for decades.

“Good evening, my lady, my lord.” The Beta assumed his seat.

A maid appeared at his elbow with fresh tea and the evening's paper. Professor Lyall was the type of man to have
that
kind of relationship with the domestic staff. Even newly hired and after only a day's residence, they were already providing
exactly what he required without need for any time-wasting orders. Between him, Floote, and Biffy, there would never be a
single upset in the running of the Maccon household. It was a good thing, too, for the indomitable Lady Maccon had other things
to occupy her time and attention. The running of her household was best left to the gentlemen. Although, she did indicate
to the maid that she, too, required tea.

“Professor Lyall, how are you this evening?” Alexia saw no reason why familiarity with an individual ought to breed familiarity
of manner, except with her husband, of course. Even though she had been living, off and on, among the Woolsey Pack for almost
a year, she never relaxed on courtesy.

“Tolerably well, my lady, tolerably well.” Nor, indeed, did Professor Lyall, who was remarkably civilized for a werewolf and
seemed particularly respectful of all codes of politeness and gracefulness of manner.

Now that she had both of them at her table, Lady Maccon directed the two werewolves back onto the weighty matter of the queen's
life. “So, gentlemen, anything come out of BUR on the threat?”

“Not an aetheric sausage,” complained the earl.

Professor Lyall shook his head.

“Must be the vampires,” said Lord Maccon.

“Now, husband, why would you say that?”

“Isn't it always the vampires?”

“No, sometimes it's the scientists.” Lady Maccon was referring obliquely to the disbanded Hypocras Club. “And sometimes it's
the church.” Now she was thinking of the Templars. “And sometimes it's the werewolves.”

“Well, I say!” Lord Maccon stuffed another cutlet into his mouth. “I can't imagine you actually defending the vampires. They've
been trying to kill you for months.”

“Oh, Conall, do swallow first. Then speak. What kind of example is that for our child?”

The earl looked around as though trying to see if the little being had somehow been born without his notice and was now staring
at him with an eye toward modeling its behavior upon his.

Lady Maccon continued. “Simply because the vampires are perennially trying to murder me doesn't mean they are trying to murder
the queen as well, now, does it? One would think their resources would be somewhat taxed, if nothing else. Besides, what could
possibly be their motive? The queen is a progressive.” She was moved to defend her stance further. “I thought your lot was
supposed to have long memories. Correct me if I'm wrong, Professor Lyall, but didn't the last major threat to Queen Victoria's
life emanate from the Kingair Pack?”

“Really, Lady Maccon, couldn't it wait until I've at least finished my first cup of tea?” The Beta looked put upon.

Alexia said nothing.

Professor Lyall put down his tea pointedly. “There was that overeager Pate fellow with the walking stick some
twenty years ago or so. Completely mutilated Her Majesty's favorite bonnet. Shocking behavior. And there was that disgruntled
Irishman with the unloaded pistol before that.” He helped himself to a small serving of smoked kipper but paused before digging
in. “And the reputed incident a few years back with John Brown.” The Beta considered his kipper as though it held all the
answers. “Come to think on it, they've all been remarkably ineffective.”

Her husband snorted. “Notoriety mongers, the lot of them.”

Alexia puffed out her cheeks. “You know what I mean. Those were all isolated incidents. I mean planned cohesive plots backed
by serious intent.”

The maid reappeared with more tea and an extra cup for Lord Maccon. Who sneered at it.

Professor Lyall's face sobered. “Then, no, Kingair was the last.”

A delicate subject, indeed, as Kingair was Lord Maccon's former pack, and they had betrayed him in order to attempt the ghastly
deed. He had killed his Beta and moved to London to challenge for Woolsey as a result. Like politics, or personal dressing
habits, this was not proper meal-time conversation.

Professor Lyall, a man of much delicacy, seemed to find the subject particularly uncomfortable. After all, Woolsey had ultimately
benefited from the assassination attempt. Their previous Alpha was reputed to be a man of petty disposition and profound temper,
and Lord Maccon was considered one of the better werewolf leaders. The best, if Alexia had anything to say on the subject.
Which she did. Often.

The bell sounded in the front entranceway, and Profes
sor Lyall glanced up gratefully. There came a rumble of voices as Floote answered the door. Alexia couldn't make out who it
was, but her husband and his Beta had werewolf hearing and their reactions—a slight smile from Lyall and a disgusted frown
from Conall—gave her a pretty decent idea.

“
Peaches!”
Lord Akeldama wafted in on a wave of Bond Street's best pomade and a lemon-scented eau de toilette. Alexia's pregnancy had
had a strange effect on her sense of smell, rendering it far more acute. She imagined she was getting some limited idea of
how werewolves felt with their supernatural abilities in that arena.

The vampire, resplendent in a silver tailcoat and bright yellow waistcoat only one or two shades darker than his hair, paused
in the doorway. “Isn't this delightfully
cozy
? How perfectly
splendid
that I can simply pop next door and visit you all à la table!”

“And how nice that you are not a hive queen to be so entirely confined to your own home,” replied Alexia. She gestured for
the vampire to draw up a chair. He did so with a flourish, shaking out his napkin and placing it in his lap, although he would,
everyone knew, take no food.

Professor Lyall tilted his head at the teapot. When Lord Akeldama nodded, the Beta poured him out a cup. “Milk?”

“Lemon, if you would be so kind.”

Lyall raised his eyebrows in shock but signaled one of the maids to run and see to this odd request. “I thought most vampires
didn't tolerate citrus.”

“Dolly, my pet, I am most assuredly not
most vampires.
”

Professor Lyall did not pursue this, as he had a more pressing question in mind. “It has occurred to me to worry
about this scheme of ours. I understand it is a delicate subject, but this last winter you did swarm, did you not? Because
of that spot of bother with Biffy being stuck under the Thames.”

“Yes, poppet, what of it?”

“That swarming isn't going to hinder the effectiveness of your residency now, is it? You understand I ask only with a mind
toward the safety of the child and because I've no records pertaining to the consequences of a rove swarming. No insult is
intended.”

Lord Akeldama grinned. “Dolly, such a
careful
little creature, aren't you? But fret not—my house isn't technically a hive. I'm not bound by the same kinds of instincts.
I can return to my previous residence without psychological upset. Besides, that was half a year ago. I'm well recovered from
the experience by now.”

Lyall did not look entirely convinced.

Lord Akeldama changed the subject. “So what say you, all my
lupine darlings,
to this new threat?”

Lord Maccon looked with shock at his Beta. “Randolph, you didn't!”

Professor Lyall did not flinch. “Of course not.”

“Wife?”

Alexia swallowed her bit of pudding. “He knows because, well, this
is
Lord Akeldama. You are going to have to get accustomed to it, my dear.”

“Thank you, darling
plum nubbin,
for your faith in my meager resources.”