The Parasol Protectorate Boxed Set (3 page)

“I was simply sitting,” Alexia explained, placing the sandwich aside, having lost her appetite. “He launched himself at me,
totally unprovoked. His feeding fangs were out. I am certain if I had been a normal daylight woman, he would have bled me
dry. I simply had to defend myself.”

Professor Lyall nodded. A vampire in a state of extreme hunger had two socially acceptable options: to take sips from various
willing drones belonging to him or his hive, or to pay for the privilege from blood-whores down dockside. This was the nineteenth
century, after all, and one simply did not attack unannounced and uninvited! Even werewolves, who could not control themselves
at full moon, made certain they had enough clavigers around to lock them away. He himself had three, and it took five to keep
Lord Maccon under control.

“Do you think maybe he was forced into this state?” the professor wondered.

“You mean imprisoned until he was starving and no longer in possession of his faculties?” Lord Maccon considered the idea.

Professor Lyall flipped his glassicals back down off his hat and examined the dead man's wrists and neck myopically. “No signs
of confinement or torture, but hard to tell with a vampire. Even in a low blood state, he would heal most superficial wounds
in”—he grabbed Lord Maccon's metal roll and stylus, dipped the tip into the clear sizzling liquid, and did some quick calculations—“a
little over one hour.” The calculations remained etched into the metal.

“And then what? Did he escape or was he intentionally let go?”

Alexia interjected, “He seemed perfectly sane to me—aside from the attacking part, of course. He was able to carry on a decent
conversation. He even tried to charm me. Must have been quite a young vampire. And”—she paused dramatically, lowered her voice,
and said in sepulchral tones—“he had a fang-lisp.”

Professor Lyall looked shocked and blinked largely at her through the asymmetrical lenses; among vampires, lisping was the
height of vulgarity.

Miss Tarabotti continued. “It was as though he had never been trained in hive etiquette, no social class at all. He was almost
a boor.” It was a word she had never thought to apply to a vampire.

Lyall took the glassicals off and put them away in their little case with an air of finality. He looked gravely at his Alpha.
“You know what this means, then, my lord?”

Lord Maccon was not frowning anymore. Instead he was looking grim. Alexia felt it suited him better, setting his mouth into
a straight line and touching his tawny eyes with a determined glint. She wondered idly what he would look like if he smiled
a real honest smile. Then she told herself quite firmly that it was probably best not to find out.

The object of her speculations said, “It means some hive queen is intentionally biting to metamorphosis outside of BUR regulations.”

“Could it be just the once, do you think?” Professor Lyall removed a folded piece of white cloth from his waistcoat. He shook
out the material, revealing it to be a large sheet of fine silk. Alexia was beginning to find the number of things he could
stash in his waistcoat quite impressive.

Lord Maccon continued. “Or this could be the start of something more extensive. We'd better get back to BUR. The local hives
will have to be interviewed. The queens are not going to be happy. Apart from everything else, this incident is awfully embarrassing
for them.”

Miss Tarabotti agreed. “Especially if they find out about the substandard shirt selection.”

The two gentlemen wrapped the vampire's body in the silk sheet. Professor Lyall hoisted it easily over one shoulder. Even
in their human form, werewolves were considerably stronger than daylight folk.

Lord Maccon rested his tawny gaze on Alexia. She was sitting primly on the chesterfield. One gloved hand rested on the ebony
handle of a ridiculous-looking parasol. Her brown eyes were narrowed in consideration. He would give a hundred pounds to know
what she was thinking just then. He was also certain she would tell him exactly what it was if he asked, but he refused to
give her the satisfaction. Instead he issued a statement. “We'll try to keep your name out of it, Miss Tarabotti. My report
will say it was simply a normal girl who got lucky and managed to escape an unwarranted attack. No need for anyone to know
a preternatural was involved.”

Now it was Alexia's turn to glare. “Why do you BUR types always
do
that?”

Both men paused to look at her in confusion.

“
Do
what, Miss Tarabotti?” asked the professor.

“Dismiss me as though I were a child. Do you realize I could be useful to you?”

Lord Maccon grunted. “You mean you could go around legally getting into trouble instead of just bothering us all the time?”

Alexia tried to keep from feeling hurt. “BUR employs women, and I hear you even have a preternatural on the payroll up north,
for ghost control and exorcism purposes.”

Lord Maccon's caramel-colored eyes instantly narrowed. “From whom, exactly, did you hear that?”

Miss Tarabotti raised her eyebrows. As if she would ever betray the source of information told to her in confidence!

The earl understood her look perfectly. “Very well, never you mind that question.”

“I shall not,” replied Alexia primly.

Professor Lyall, still holding the body slung over one shoulder, took pity on her. “We do have both at BUR,” he admitted.

Lord Maccon elbowed him in the side, but he stepped out of range with a casual grace that bespoke much practice. “But what
we do not have is any
female
preternaturals, and certainly not any gentlewomen. All women employed by BUR are good working-class stock.”

“You are simply still bitter about the hedgehogs,” muttered Miss Tarabotti, but she also bowed her head in acknowledgment.
She'd had this conversation before, with Lord Maccon's superior at BUR, to be precise. A man her brain still referred to as
that Nice Silver-Haired Gentleman. The very idea that a lady of breeding such as herself might want to
work
was simply too shocking. “My dearest girl,” he had said, “what if your mother found out?”

“Isn't BUR supposed to be covert? I could be covert.”

Miss Tarabotti could not help trying again. Professor Lyall, at least, liked her a little bit. Perhaps he might put in a good
word.

Lord Maccon actually laughed. “You are about as covert as a sledgehammer.” Then he cursed himself silently, as she seemed
suddenly forlorn. She hid it quickly, but she had definitely been saddened.

His Beta grabbed him by the arm with his free hand. “Really, sir, manners.”

The earl cleared his throat and looked contrite. “No offense meant, Miss Tarabotti.” The Scottish lilt was back in his voice.

Alexia nodded, not looking up. She plucked at one of the pansies on her parasol. “It's simply, gentlemen”—and when she raised
her dark eyes they had a slight sheen in them—“I would so like something useful to do.”

Lord Maccon waited until he and the professor were out in the hallway, having bid polite, on Professor Lyall's part at least,
farewells to the young lady, to ask the question that really bothered him. “For goodness' sake, Randolph, why doesn't she
just get married?” His voice was full of frustration.

Randolph Lyall looked at his Alpha in genuine confusion. The earl was usually a very perceptive man, for all his bluster and
Scottish grumbling. “She is a bit old, sir.”

“Balderdash,” said Lord Maccon. “She cannot possibly have more than a quarter century or so.”

“And she is very”—the professor looked for a gentlemanly way of putting it—“assertive.”

“Pah.” The nobleman waved one large paw dismissively. “Simply got a jot more backbone than most females this century. There
must be plenty of discerning gentlemen who'd cop to her value.”

Professor Lyall had a well-developed sense of self-preservation and the distinct feeling that if he said anything desultory
about the young lady's appearance, he might actually get his head bitten off. He, and the rest of polite society, might believe
Miss Tarabotti's skin a little too dark and her nose a little too prominent, but he did not think Lord Maccon felt the same.
Lyall had been Beta to the fourth Earl of Woolsey since Conall Maccon first descended upon them all. With barely twenty years
gone and the bloody memory still strong, no werewolf was yet ready to question why Conall had wanted the bother of the London
territory, not even Professor Lyall. The earl was a confusing man, his taste in females equally mystifying. For all Professor
Lyall knew, his Alpha might actually
like
Roman noses, tan skin, and an assertive disposition. So instead he said, “Perhaps it's the Italian last name, sir, that keeps
her unwed.”

“Mmm,” agreed Lord Maccon, “probably so.” He did not sound convinced.

The two werewolves exited the duke's town house into the black London night, one bearing the body of a dead vampire, the other,
a puzzled expression.

M
iss Tarabotti generally kept her soulless state quite hush-hush, even from her own family. She was not undead, mind you; she
was a living, breathing human but was simply… lacking. Neither her family nor the members of the social circles she frequented
ever noticed she was missing anything. Miss Tarabotti seemed to them only a spinster, whose unfortunate condition was clearly
the result of a combination of domineering personality, dark complexion, and overly strong facial features. Alexia thought
it too much of a bother to go around explaining soullessness to the ill-informed masses. It was almost, though not quite,
as embarrassing as having it known that her father was both Italian and dead.

The ill-informed masses included her own family among their ranks, a family that specialized in being both inconvenient and
asinine.

“Would you look at this!” Felicity Loontwill waved a copy of the
Morning Post
at the assembled breakfast table. Her father, the Right Honorable Squire Loontwill, did not divert his concentrated attention
from the consumption of an eight-minute egg and toast. But her sister, Evylin, glanced up inquiringly, and her mama said,
“What is it, my dear?” pausing in midsip of her medicinal barley water.

Felicity pointed to a passage in the society section of the paper. “It says here that there was a particularly gruesome incident
at the ball last night! Did you know there was
an incident
? I do not remember any incident!”

Alexia frowned at her own egg in annoyance. She had been under the impression Lord Maccon was going to keep everything respectfully
quiet and out of the society papers. She refused to acknowledge the fact that the sheer number of people who had seen her
with the dead vampire meant that any such endeavor was practically impossible. After all, the earl's purported specialty was
accomplishing several impossible things before dawn.

Felicity elaborated, “Apparently someone died. No name has been released, but a genuine death, and I missed it entirely! A
young lady discovered him in the library and fainted from the shock. Poor lamb, how horrific for her.”

Evylin, the youngest, clucked her tongue sympathetically and reached for the pot of gooseberry jelly. “Does it say who the
young lady is?”

Felicity rubbed her nose delicately and read on. “Unfortunately, no.”

Alexia raised both eyebrows and sipped her tea in un-characteristic silence. She winced at the flavor, looked with narrowed
eyes at her cup, and then reached for the creamer.

Evylin spread jelly with great attention to applying a precisely even layer over the top of the toast. “How very tiresome!
I should love to know all the relevant details. It is like something out of a gothic novel. Anything else interesting?”

“Well, the article continues on with a more extensive review of the ball. Goodness, the writer even criticizes the Duchess
of Snodgrove for not providing refreshments.”

“Well, really,” said Evylin in heartfelt agreement, “even Almack's has those bland little sandwiches. It is not as if the
duke could not see to the expense.”

“Too true, my dear,” agreed Mrs. Loontwill.

Felicity glanced at the byline of the article. “Written by ‘anonymous.' No commentary on anyone's attire. Well, I call that
a pretty poor showing. He does not even mention Evylin or me.”

The Loontwill girls were quite popular in the papers, partly for their generally well-turned-out appearance and partly because
of the remarkable number of beaux they had managed to garner between them. The entire family, with the exception of Alexia,
enjoyed this popularity immensely and did not seem to mind if what was written was not always complimentary. So long as
something
was written.

Evylin looked annoyed. A small crease appeared between her perfectly arched brows. “I wore my new pea-green gown with the
pink water lily trim simply so they'd write about it.”

Alexia winced. She would prefer not to be reminded of that gown—
so many ruffles
.

The unfortunate by-product of Mrs. Loontwill's second marriage, both Felicity and Evylin were markedly different from their
older half sister. No one upon meeting the three together would have thought Alexia related to the other two at all. Aside
from an obvious lack of Italian blood and completely soul-ridden states, Felicity and Evylin were both quite beautiful: pale
insipid blondes with wide blue eyes and small rosebud mouths. Sadly, like their dear mama, they were not much more substantive
than “quite beautiful.” Breakfast conversation was, therefore, not destined to be of the intellectual caliber that Alexia
aspired to. Still, Alexia was pleased to hear the subject turn toward something more mundane than murder.

“Well, that's all it says about the ball.” Felicity paused, switching her attention to the society announcements. “This is
very interesting. That nice tearoom near Bond Street has decided to remain open until two am to accommodate and cultivate
supernatural clientele. Next thing you know, they will be serving up raw meat and flutes of blood on a regular basis. Do you
think we should still frequent the venue, Mama?”

Mrs. Loontwill looked up once more from her barley and lemon water. “I do not see how it can do too much harm, my dear.”

Squire Loontwill added, swallowing a bite of toast, “Some of the better investors run with the nighttime crowd, my pearl.
You could do worse when hunting down suitors for the girls.”

“Really, Daddy,” admonished Evylin, “you make Mama sound like a werewolf on the rampage.”

Mrs. Loontwill gave her husband a suspicious glance. “You haven't been frequenting Claret's or Sangria these last few evenings,
have you?” She sounded as though she suspected London of being suddenly overrun with were-wolves, ghosts, and vampires, and
her husband fraternizing with them all.

The squire hurriedly backed away from the conversation. “Of course not, my pearl, only Boodles. You know I prefer my own club
to those of the supernatural set.”

“Speaking of gentlemen's clubs,” interrupted Felicity, still immersed in the paper, “a new one opened last week in Mayfair.
It caters to intellectuals, philosophers, scientists, and their ilk—of all things. It calls itself the Hypocras Club. How
absurd. Why would such a class of individual need a club? Isn't that what they have public museums for?” She frowned over
the address. “Terribly fashionable location, though.” She showed the printed page to her mother. “Isn't that next door to
the Duke of Snodgrove's town house?”

Mrs. Loontwill nodded. “Quite right, my dear. Well, a parcel of scientists coming and going at all hours of the day and night
will certainly lower the tenor of
that
neighborhood. I should think the duchess would be in a veritable fit over this occurrence. I had intended to send round a
thank-you card for last night's festivities. Now I think I might pay her a call in person this afternoon. As a concerned friend,
I really ought to check on her emotional state.”

“How ghastly for her,” said Alexia, driven beyond endurance into comment. “People actually thinking, with their brains, and
right next door. Oh, the travesty of it all.”

Evylin said, “I will come with you, Mama.”

Mrs. Loontwill smiled at her youngest daughter and completely ignored her eldest.

Felicity read on. “The latest spring styles from Paris call for wide belts in contrasting colors. How regrettable. Of course,
they will look lovely on you, Evylin, but on my figure…”

Unfortunately, despite invading scientists, the opportunity to gloat over a friend's misfortune, and imminent belts, Alexia's
mama was still thinking about the dead man at the Snodgroves' ball. “You disappeared for quite a while at one point last night,
Alexia. You would not be keeping anything important from us, would you, my dear?”

Alexia gave her a carefully bland look. “I did have a bit of a run-in with Lord Maccon.”
Always throw them off the scent,
she thought.

That captured everyone's attention, even her step-father's. Squire Loontwill rarely troubled himself to speak at length. With
the Loontwill ladies, there was not much of a chance to get a word in, so he tended to let the breakfast conversation flow
over him like water over tea leaves, paying only half a mind to the proceedings. But he was a man of reasonable sense and
propriety, and Alexia's statement caused him to become suddenly alert. The Earl of Woolsey might be a werewolf, but he was
in possession of considerable wealth and influence.

Mrs. Loontwill paled and noticeably mollified her tone. “You did not say anything disrespectful to the earl, now, did you,
my dear?”

Alexia thought back over her encounter. “Not as such.”

Mrs. Loontwill pushed away her glass of barley water and shakily poured herself a cup of tea. “Oh dear,” she said softly.

Mrs. Loontwill had never quite managed to figure out her eldest daughter. She had thought that putting Alexia on the shelf
would keep the exasperating girl out of trouble. Instead, she had inadvertently managed to give Alexia an ever-increasing
degree of freedom. Thinking back on it, she really ought to have married Alexia off instead. Now they were all stuck with
her outrageous behavior, which seemed to be progressively worsening as she got older.

Alexia added peevishly, “I did wake up this morning thinking of all the rude things I
could
have said but did not. I call that most aggravating.”

Squire Loontwill emitted a long drawn-out sigh.

Alexia firmly put her hand on the table. “In fact, I think I shall go for a walk in the park this morning. My nerves are not
quite what they should be after the encounter.” She was not, as one might suppose, obliquely referring to the vampire attack.
Miss Tarabotti was not one of life's milk-water misses—in fact, quite the opposite. Many a gentleman had likened his first
meeting with her to downing a very strong cognac when one was expecting to imbibe fruit juice—that is to say, startling and
apt to leave one with a distinct burning sensation. No, Alexia's nerves were frazzled because she was still boiling mad at
the Earl of Woolsey. She had been mad when he left her in the library. She had spent a restless night fuming impotently and
awoken with eyes gritty and noble feelings still on edge.

Evylin said, “But wait. What happened? Alexia, you must tell all! Why did
you
encounter Lord Maccon at the ball when we did not? He was not on the guest list. I would have known. I peeked over the footman's
shoulder.”

“Evy, you didn't,” gasped Felicity, genuinely shocked.

Alexia ignored them and left the breakfast room to hunt down her favorite shawl. Mrs. Loontwill might have tried to stop her,
but she knew such an attempt would be useless. Getting information out of Alexia when she did not want to share was akin to
trying to squeeze blood from a ghost. Instead, Mrs. Loontwill reached for her husband's hand and squeezed it consolingly.
“Do not worry, Herbert. I think Lord Maccon rather likes Alexia's rudeness. He's never publicly cut her for it, at least.
We can be grateful for small mercies.”

Squire Loontwill nodded. “I suppose a werewolf of his advanced age might find it refreshing?” he suggested hopefully.

His wife applauded such an optimistic attitude with an affectionate pat on the shoulder. She knew how very trying her second
husband found her eldest daughter. Really, what
had
she been thinking, marrying an Italian? Well, she had been young and Alessandro Tarabotti so very handsome. But there was
something else about Alexia, something… revoltingly independent, that Mrs. Loontwill could not blame entirely on her first
husband. And, of course, she refused to take the blame herself. Whatever it was, Alexia had been born that way, full of logic
and reason and sharp words. Not for the first time, Mrs. Loontwill lamented the fact that her eldest had not been a male child;
it would have made life very much easier for them all.

Under ordinary circumstances, walks in Hyde Park were the kind of thing a single young lady of good breeding was not supposed
to do without her mama and possibly an elderly female relation or two in attendance. Miss Tarabotti felt such rules did not
entirely apply to her, as she was a spinster. Had been a spinster for as long as she could remember. In her more acerbic moments,
she felt she had been born a spinster. Mrs. Loontwill had not even bothered with the expenditure of a come-out or a proper
season for her eldest daughter. “Really, darling,” Alexia's mother had said at the time in tones of the deepest condescension,
“with that nose and that skin, there is simply no point in us going to the expense. I have got your sisters to think of.”
So Alexia, whose nose really wasn't that big and whose skin really wasn't that tan, had gone on the shelf at fifteen. Not
that she had ever actually coveted the burden of a husband, but it would have been nice to know she could get one if she ever
changed her mind. Alexia did enjoy dancing, so she would have liked to attend at least one ball as an available young lady
rather than always ending up skulking in libraries. These days she attended balls as nothing more than her sisters' chaperone,
and the libraries abounded. But spinsterhood did mean she could go for a walk in Hyde Park without her mama, and only the
worst sticklers would object. Luckily, such sticklers, like the contributors to the
Morning Post,
did not know Miss Alexia Tarabotti's name.