“Lady Maccon! How unexpected.”
“So everyone keeps pointing out.” Alexia tried to barge past him.
“You can’t come in here.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake, I mean her no harm. Truth be told, quite the opposite.”
An exchange of glances occurred between Lord Ambrose and the duke.
“She is part of this new order. I think we must believe her.”
“You used to think Walsingham was right!” Lord Ambrose accused his compatriot.
“I still do. But in character, she is no more her father’s daughter than Lord Maccon is Lord Woolsey’s successor or Lord Akeldama is Walsingham’s.”
Lady Maccon glared. “If you mean that I think for myself and make my own choices, then you are spot-on. Now, I must see the countess immediately. I have—”
Lord Ambrose didn’t budge. “I must take possession of your parasol.”
“Absolutely not. We may need it shortly, especially if you don’t let me in. I tell you I have—”
“I must insist.”
“Let her in, Ambrose dear.” Countess Nadasdy had a voice as warm as butter and just as greasy. She could fry people with that voice, if she wanted to.
Immediately, Lord Ambrose moved out of Alexia’s direct line of sight, revealing the interior of the chamber. It was a very-well-appointed boudoir, complete with not only a massive canopied bed, but also a full sitting area and other highly desirable accoutrements. There was the latest and most sophisticated in exsanguination warmers, an overlarge teapot for storing blood with multiple spouts and tubing attached. Both the pot and the tubes wore knitted tea cozies, and there was a warming brazier underneath to keep the vital liquid moving through the tubes.
The countess was indeed at tea. Her version being a lavish affair, complete with lace-covered tea trolley set out with teacups and matched teapot of fine china painted with little pink roses and edged in silver. There were pink and white petits fours that no one was eating and cups of tea that no one was drinking. A three-tiered serving dish of silver held a tempting display of finger sandwiches and sugared rose petals, and there was even a small platter of?.?.?.?could it be? Treacle tart!
Lady Maccon was excessively fond of treacle tart.
The assembled drones and guests were all dressed in shades of white, pale green, and pink to accessorize the decor. Elegant Greek urns held massive arrangements of flowers—pale cream roses with pink edges and long leaf ferns. It was all very well coordinated, perhaps too well, as a scientific etching of an animal compares to the real thing.
A second tea trolley was also prominently displayed, similarly draped in a fine lace cloth. It was one of the lower styles meant for front parlors and afternoon visiting hours. Upon it lay the supine form of a young lady, dressed to match the china in a white damask evening gown with pink flowers. Her throat was bare and exposed, and her fine blond hair was piled high and off of her neck.
The countess, it would appear, had a very particular definition of high tea.
“Oh, dear. I do hate to interrupt you at mealtime,” said Lady Maccon, not at all apologetically. “But I have the most important information to impart.”
She waddled forward, only to have her way blocked yet again by Lord Ambrose. “My Queen, I must protest, a soulless in your inner sanctum. While you are at table!”
Countess Nadasdy looked up from the young girl’s fine white neck. “Ambrose. We have been over this before.” Alexia had never thought the Westminster queen entirely suited the role of vampire. Not that Lady Maccon’s opinion mattered much. If the rumors were to be believed, Countess Nadasdy had been suiting the role for over a thousand years. Possibly two. But, unlike Lord Ambrose, she simply didn’t look the part. She was a cozy little woman—short and on the plump side. Her cheeks were round and rosy, and her big eyes sparked. True, the blush was mercuric and the eyes sparkled with belladonna and calculation, not humor, but it was hard to feel threatened by a woman who looked like the living incarnation of one of Lord Akeldama’s shepherdess seduction paintings.
“She is a hunter,” protested Lord Ambrose.
“She is a lady. Aren’t you, Lady Maccon?”
Alexia looked down at her protruding belly. “So the evidence would seem to suggest.” The baby inside of her moved around as though to punctuate the statement. Yes, said Alexia to it internally, I don’t like Lord Ambrose either. But now is not the time for histrionics.
“Ah, yes, felicitations on the imminent event.”
“Let us hope not all that imminent. Incidentally, my apologies, venerable ones. Until recently, you seem to have found the advent of my progeny discombobulating.”
“Exactly, My Queen, we cannot have that—”
Lady Maccon interrupted Lord Ambrose by the simple expedient of prodding his ribs with her parasol. She aimed exactly for that point in the rib cage that the ticklish find most discomposing. Not that vampires got ticklish, so far as Alexia was aware, but it was the principle of the thing. “Yes, yes, I know you still would prefer it if I were dead, Lord Ambrose, but never mind that now. Countess, listen to me. You have to get away.”
Lord Ambrose moved and Lady Maccon proceeded toward the hive queen.
The countess dabbed at a bit of blood on the side of her mouth with a white linen handkerchief. Alexia barely caught a hint of fang before they were tucked away behind perfect cupid’s bow–shaped lips. The countess never showed fang unless she meant it. “My dear Lady Maccon, what are you wearing? Is that a visiting gown?”
“What? Oh, yes, sorry. I hadn’t intended to come to your lovely gathering, or I would be more appropriately dressed. But, please listen, you must leave now!”
“Leave this room? Whatever for? It is one of my particular favorites.”
“No, no, leave the house.”
“Abandon my hive? Never! Don’t be foolish, child.”
“But, Countess, there is an octomaton heading in this direction. It wants to kill you and it knows the location.”
“Preposterous. There hasn’t been an octomaton in a dog’s age. And how would it know where to find me?”
“Ah, yes, well, as to that. There was this break-in, you see—”
Lord Ambrose bristled. “Soul-sucker! What have you done?”
“How was I to remember one little invitation from way back?”
The countess went momentarily still, like a wasp atop a slice of melon. “Lady Maccon, who is it that wants to kill me?”
“Oh, too many to choose from? I am similarly blessed.”
“Lady Maccon!”
Alexia had hoped not to reveal the identity of the culprit. It was one thing to warn the hive of imminent attack; it was quite another to expose Madame Lefoux without first understanding her motives. Well, perhaps if my friend had let me in on her reasoning, I might not now be forced into this situation. But in the end, I am muhjah, and I must remember that my duty is to maintain the solidarity of the peace between humans and supernatural folk. No matter Madame Lefoux’s grounds, we cannot have a hive arbitrarily attacked by an inventor. It is not only impolitic, it is impolite.
So, Lady Maccon took a deep breath and told the truth. “Madame Lefoux has built the octomaton. She intends to kill you with it.”
The countess’s big cornflower-blue eyes narrowed.
“What!” That was Lord Ambrose.
The Duke of Hematol made his way over toward his queen. “I told you no good would come of taking in that French maid.”
The countess held up a hand. “She’s after the boy.”
“Of course she is after the boy!” The duke’s voice was harsh with annoyance. “Dabble in the affairs of mortal women and this is what transpires. Octomaton at your doorstep. I warned you.”
“Your complaint was recorded by the edict keeper at the time.”
Lady Maccon blinked. “Quesnel? What has he to do with any of this? Wait.” She tilted her head and gave the countess a look. “Did you kidnap Madame Lefoux’s son?”
Alexia often felt it wasn’t possible for a vampire to look guilty. But the countess was giving the expression a fair facsimile.
“Why? I mean, for goodness’ sake.” Lady Maccon shook her finger at the hive queen as though the ancient vampire were a very naughty schoolgirl caught with her hand in the jam jar. “Shame on you! Bad vampire.”
The countess tsked dismissively. “Oh, really. There’s no cause for condescension, soul-sucker. The boy was promised to us. In her will, Angelique named the hive guardian to her child. We didn’t even know he existed until that moment. Madame Lefoux wouldn’t hear of it, of course. But he is ours. And we never let go of what is rightfully ours. We didn’t kidnap him. We retrieved him.”
Lady Maccon thought of her own child, now promised away to Lord Akeldama in order to keep them both safe from fang interference and assassination attempts. “Oh, really, Countess. I mean to say! What is it with you vampires? Don’t you ever relax your machinations? No wonder Genevieve wants to kill you. Kidnapping. That’s very low. Very low, indeed. What could you possibly want with the boy anyway? He’s a terrible scamp.”
The countess’s round, pleasant face went very hard. “We want him because he is ours! What more reason do we need? The law is on our side in this. We have copies of the will.”
Lady Maccon demanded details. “Does it name the hive, or you specifically, Countess?”
“Me alone, I believe.”
Lady Maccon cast her hands heavenward, although there was no one up there for her to appeal to. It was an accepted fact that preternaturals had no spiritual recourse, only pragmatism. Alexia didn’t mind; the latter had often gotten her out of sticky situations, whereas the former seemed highly unreliable when one was in a bind. “Well, there you have it. With no legal recourse, Genevieve only has to see you dead in order to get her child back. Plus, she has the added pleasure of killing the woman who corrupted her lover.”
The countess looked as though she had not thought of matters in such a way.
“You cannot be serious.”
Alexia shrugged. “Consider her perspective.”
The countess stood. “Good point. And she is French. They get terribly emotional, don’t they? Ambrose, arm the defenses. Hematol, send out runners. If it really is an octomaton, we are going to need additional military support. Get me my personal physician. Oh, and bring out the aethertronic Gatling gun.”
Lady Maccon could not help but admire the countess’s command of the situation. Alexia herself was sometimes known, among members of the pack, as the general. Of course, the gentlemen in question believed their mistress unaware of this moniker. Alexia preferred it that way and would periodically go into fits of autocratic demands simply to ascertain if she could get them to grumble about it when they thought she couldn’t hear. Werewolves tended to believe all mortals slightly deaf.
As the countess set about putting her people in order, her meal, left to lie on the tea table in soporific languor, stirred. The young blonde raised herself slowly up onto her elbows and looked about foggily.
“Felicity!”
“Oh, dear, Alexia? What on earth are you doing here?”
“Me! Me?” Lady Maccon was reduced to sputtering. “What about you? I’ll have you know, sister mine, that I came here because I had an invitation to the party!”
Felicity wiped delicately at the side of her neck with a tea cloth. “I didn’t know you ran in the countess’s circles.”
“You mean, supernatural circles? My husband is a werewolf, for goodness’ sake! Must you keep forgetting that tiny little detail?”
“Yes, but on full-moon night, shouldn’t you be with him? And aren’t you terribly far along to be out in public?”
Lady Maccon practically growled. “Felicity. My presence here is not of concern. But yours most certainly is! What on earth are you doing allowing a vampire—and not just any vampire, mind you, but the ruddy Westminster queen herself—to feed on you? You’re?.?.?.?you’re?.?.?.?not even chaperoned!” she sputtered.
Felicity’s expression became hard and calculating. Alexia had seen that look before but had never given it much credence beyond smallness of mind. However, this time she had the upsetting realization that she might have underestimated her sister. “Felicity, what have you done?”
Felicity gave a humorless little smile.
“How long has this relationship been going on?” Alexia tried to think back. When had her sister first started wearing high-necked dresses and lace collars?
“Oh, Alexia, you can be so dim-witted. Since I met Lord Ambrose at your wedding, of course. He very kindly said that I looked like just the type of creative and ambitious young lady who would have excess soul. He asked if I would like to live forever. I thought to myself, well, of course I have excess soul. Mama is always saying what a good artist I would be, should I ever try, and what a good musician I would be, should I ever learn to play. And, most assuredly, I should like to live forever! Not to mention be courted by Lord Ambrose! Then what should the other ladies have to say?”
