Blameless

CHAPTER FIVE


In Which Ivy Hisselpenny and Professor Lyall Are Given Too Much Responsibility
Italy?”
“The hotbed of antisupernatural sentiment,” spat Professor Lyall.
“The cesspit of religious fanaticism,” added Tunstell.
“The Templars.” That last was from Floote, and he whispered it.
“I think it’s a perfectly topping idea,” said Alexia, expressionless.
Madame Lefoux examined Alexia’s face sympathetically. “You think the Templars can explain how Lord Maccon managed to get you with child?”
“Why don’t you tell me? You once said you managed to read a portion of the Templars’ Amended Rule.”
“You did what?” Professor Lyall was impressed.
Floote looked at the Frenchwoman with renewed suspicion.
“They must know something about this thing.” Alexia poked an accusatory finger at her still-flat stomach.
Madame Lefoux looked thoughtful but clearly did not want to tempt Alexia with false hope. “I think they might be so intrigued at meeting a female preternatural that they will be unguarded in their approach. Especially if they find out you are pregnant. But they are warriors, not intellectuals. I’m not convinced they can furnish you with what you actually desire.”
“Oh, and what’s that?”
“The return of your husband’s regard.”
Alexia glared daggers at the Frenchwoman. The very idea! She didn’t want that disloyal fuzz-ball back in love with her. She simply wanted to prove him wrong.
“I think,” said Professor Lyall before Alexia could commence a diatribe, “that you are entering a wasp hive.”
“So long as it is not a ladybug hive, I shall be fine.”
“I think,” said Floote, “that I should come with you ladies.”
Neither of the ladies in question objected.
Alexia raised a finger in the air. “Might I recommend we arrange a regular aethographic transmission date, Professor Lyall? Although that presupposes the fact that we will be able to find a public transmitter.”
“They have become more popular recently.” Madame Lefoux clearly approved of the idea.
The Beta nodded. “Keeping a time slot open at BUR headquarters is an excellent notion. I shall give you a list of all the names and locations of transmitters for whom we have crystalline valve frequensors, and with whom we can thus transmit. From what I recall, Florence has a good one. You understand, our apparatus is not as sophisticated as Lord Akeldama’s?”
Alexia nodded. Lord Akeldama had recently purchased the latest and greatest in aethographic transmitters, but BUR’s was old and clunky. “I shall need a valve for your transmitter as well, for the Italian end of the business.”
“Of course. I will send an agent ’round directly. Shall we set the appointment for just after sunset? I will have my men set ours to receive from Florence and hope something comes through from you at some point on that frequency. If only so that I know you are alive.”
“Oh, that is terribly optimistic of you,” said Alexia in mock umbrage.
Professor Lyall did not apologize.
“So, Italy it is?” Madame Lefoux rubbed her hands together in the manner of one about to embark on an adventure.
Lady Maccon glanced about at the four standing around her. “One should always visit one’s roots once in one’s lifetime, don’t you feel? I expect the carriage with my things has arrived by now.” She turned to leave. The others followed. “I shall have to repack. Better do it quickly, before anything else goes wrong today.”
Madame Lefoux touched her arm before she could dash off. “What else happened to you this morning?”
“Aside from the announcement of my rather embarrassing condition in the public papers and an attack of virulent ladybugs? Well, Queen Victoria fired me from the Shadow Council, my family ejected me from their house, and Lord Akeldama vanished, leaving me a very terse message about a cat. Which reminds me.” Lady Maccon took the mysterious metal cat collar out of her reticule and waved it at Madame Lefoux. “What do you make of this?”
“Magnetic auditory resonance tape.”
“I thought it might be something like.”
Professor Lyall looked on with interest. “Do you have a resonance decoding cavity?”
Madame Lefoux nodded. “Of course, over here somewhere.” She disappeared behind a vast pile of parts that looked to be the dismembered components of a dirigible’s steam engine combined with half a dozen enormous spoons. She returned carrying an object that gave every indication of being a very tall stovepipe-style top hat, with no brim, mounted on a teapot stand with a crank attachment and a trumpet coming out its underside.
Lady Maccon had nothing to say upon seeing such a bizarre-looking contraption. She handed over the metal tape in mystified silence.
The inventor fed the tape in through a slit in the underside of the hat, turning the crank to run it through the device. As she did so, a pinging sound began to emerge, akin to the noise a piano might make after inhaling helium. She cranked faster and faster. The pings began meshing together, and eventually a high voice came into existence.
“Leave England,” it said in a tinny, mechanical tone. “And beware Italians who embroider.”
“Useful,” was Madame Lefoux’s only comment.
“How on earth did he know I would choose Italy?” Sometimes Lord Akeldama still managed to surprise Alexia. She pursed her lips. “Embroidery?” Lord Akeldama was never one to prioritize one vital factor, such as murder, over another, such as fashion. “I’m worried about him. Is it safe for him to be away from his house? I mean to say, I understand his being a rove detaches him from the hive, but I was under the impression roves also became part of a place. Tethered, a little like ghosts.”
Professor Lyall tugged on one earlobe thoughtfully. “I wouldn’t concern yourself overly, my lady. Roves have a much larger roaming ability than hive-bound vampires. It takes considerable strength of soul to break the queen dependency to begin with, and the older the rove, the more mobile. It is their very capacity for movement that keeps most roves in favor with a local hive. They are untrustworthy but useful. And since the rove needs the queen to convert his drones, they are vested in each other’s survival. Have you seen Lord Akeldama’s BUR file?”
Lady Maccon shrugged noncommittally. She was not above poking about her husband’s office, but she did not think Lyall needed to be made aware of that little fact.
“Well, it is quite substantial. We’ve no record of his original hive, which suggests he has been a rove some considerable time. I should think he could easily travel outside London city limits, perhaps even as far as Oxford, with very few psychological or physiological consequences. He is probably not mobile enough to handle floating the aether or crossing the water out of England, but he is certainly capable of making himself difficult to find.”
“Difficult to find? We are talking about the same Lord Akeldama?” The vampire in question had many sterling qualities—admirable taste in waistcoats and an acerbic wit to name but a few—but subtlety was not among them.
Professor Lyall grinned. “I should rest easy if I were you, Lady Maccon. Lord Akeldama can take care of himself.”
“Somehow I do not find a werewolf’s reassurances on behalf of a vampire all that heartening.”
“Shouldn’t you be worrying about your own problems?”
“What enjoyment is there in that? Other people’s are always far more entertaining.”
With that, Lady Maccon led the way back into the hallway, up in the ascension room, through the hat shop, and out into the street. There she supervised the removal of her luggage and sent the waiting coachman off. He was clearly pleased to be heading back toward the comparative sanity of the Loontwill household, where excitable members of the aristocracy did not hurl mechanical beetles at him.
Professor Lyall hailed a hansom and directed it to BUR headquarters to continue on with what looked to be a most demanding day. Floote used the Woolsey carriage to return to the castle and collect his own meager belongings. He arranged to meet the ladies back at the Chapeau de Poupe in under four hours. They agreed that they should depart as quickly as possible, thus traveling under the comparative protection of daylight. Madame Lefoux, of course, was already packed.
Lady Maccon immediately began upending her many suitcases, with Tunstell’s assistance, right there in the midst of the forest of hats. The bags had been hastily and rather upsettingly packed by the petulant Swilkins, and Alexia couldn’t seem to find anything she might require for a trip to Italy. Mindful of Lord Akeldama’s message, she eliminated all articles of clothing afflicted by the presence of embroidery.
Madame Lefoux contented herself with puttering about with her hats, putting them in order in anticipation of their abandonment. They were all thus agreeably occupied when an enthusiastic rat-tat-tatting at the door interrupted them. Alexia looked up to see Ivy Tunstell, black curls bouncing in her eagerness, waving madly from the other side of the glass.
Madame Lefoux went to let her in.
Ivy had taken to both married life and a considerable fall in social station with unexpected gusto. She seemed to genuinely enjoy her new role as wife to an actor of middling reputation and denizen of—gasp—rented apartments in Soho. She spoke with pride of entertaining poets on a regular basis. Poets, of all things! She even made murmurs about treading the boards herself. Alexia thought this might be a good plan, for Ivy had just the right kind of pleasant, animated face and inordinately melodramatic temperament to suit life as a thespian. She certainly needed little help in the wardrobe department. Always one for the outrageous hat in her unmarried state, her taste, cut free of her mother’s apron strings, now extended to the rest of her attire. Today’s offering was a bright apple green, pink, and white striped visiting gown, with a matching hat that boasted feathers of such epic proportions that Ivy actually had to duck slightly upon entering the shop.
“There you are, you wretched man,” she said affectionately to her husband.
“Hello, magpie,” was his equally warm response.
“In my favorite hat shop.” Ivy tapped Tunstell coquettishly on the arm with her fan. “I wonder what could ever have brought you here.”
Tunstell looked desperately at Lady Maccon, who flashed him an unhelpful smirk.
“Well”—he cleared his throat—“I thought you might want to pick out some new frippery or another, on the occasion of our”—he scrabbled wildly—“month anniversary?” Alexia gave him a slight nod, and he let out a sigh of relief.
Trust Ivy to see nothing but the hats and not notice Lady Maccon’s copious luggage strewn about the place, or, for a few moments, Lady Maccon herself. When Ivy finally did, she was quite forward in her questioning.
“Alexia, good gracious me! What are you doing here?”
Alexia looked up. “Oh, hello, Ivy. How are you? Thank you kindly for the hat you sent over this morning. It was very, um, uplifting.”
“Yes, well, never mind that now. Pray tell, what are you about?”
“I should think that was perfectly obvious, even to you, my dear. I am packing.”
Ivy shook her head, plumage swaying back and forth. “In the middle of a hat shop? There is something amiss with such a situation.”
“Needs must, Ivy. Needs must.”
“Yes, I can see that, but what one must need to know at this juncture is, not to put too fine a point on it, why?”
“I should think that, too, would be perfectly obvious. I am in imminent danger of traveling.”
“Not because of this upsetting business with the morning papers?”
“Precisely so.” Alexia figured it was as good an excuse as any. It went against her nature to be seen fleeing London because she was thought adulterous, but it was better than having the real reason known to the general public. Just imagine what the gossipmongers would say if they knew vampires were intent on assassinating her—so embarrassing. Look at her, they would say. Oh, la, multiple assassination attempts, indeed! Who does she think she is, the Queen of Sheba?
And really, wasn’t that what all disreputable ladies did in the end—escape to Europe?
Ivy knew nothing of Alexia’s soulless state. She did not even know what preternatural meant. Lady Maccon’s affliction was a not-very-well-kept secret, what with BUR and all the local werewolves, ghosts, and vampires in on it, but the majority of the daylight folk were ignorant of the fact that there was a preternatural in residence in London. It was generally felt, by Alexia and those intimate with her, that if Ivy knew of this, all attempts at anonymity would be null and void within several hours. Ivy was a dear friend, loyal and entertaining, but circumspection could not be listed among her more sterling qualities. Even Tunstell acknowledged this flaw in his wife’s nature and had refrained from informing the new Mrs. Tunstell of her old friend’s real eccentricity.
“Yes, well, I suppose I can understand the need to absent yourself from town. But where are you going, Alexia? To the country?”
“Madame Lefoux and I are traveling to Italy, for my low spirits, you understand.”
“Oh, dear, but, Alexia, you do realize”—Ivy lowered her voice to a whisper—“that Italy is where they keep Italians. Are you quite certain you are adequately prepared to cope?”
Lady Maccon suppressed a smile. “I think I might just be able to muddle along.”
“I am certain I heard the most horrible thing about Italy recently. I am failing to recall quite what it was, but it cannot possibly be a healthy place to visit, Alexia. I understand that Italy is the place vegetables come from—all that weather. Terribly bad for the digestion—vegetables.”
Lady Maccon could think of nothing to say in response to that, so she continued packing.
Ivy returned to perusing the hats, finally settling on a flowerpot style covered in striped purple and black tweed, with large purple rosettes, gray ostrich plumes, and a small feathered pouf at the end of a long piece of wire that stuck straight out of the crown. It looked, when Ivy proudly donned said hat, as though she were being stalked by an enraptured jellyfish.
“I shall have a new carriage dress made to match,” she announced proudly while poor Tunstell paid for the atrocity.
Lady Maccon remarked, under her breath, “Wouldn’t it be more sensible to, for example, simply throw yourself off a dirigible?”
Ivy pretended not to hear, but Tunstell shot his wife’s friend a wide smile.
Madame Lefoux cleared her throat, looking up from the transaction.
“I was wondering, Mrs. Tunstell, if you might do me a very great favor.”
Ivy was never one to let down a friend in need. “Delighted, Madame Lefoux. How may I be of assistance?”
“Well, as you may have surmised”—never a good phrase when applied to Ivy—“I will be accompanying Lady Maccon to Italy.”
“Oh, really? How noble of you. But I suppose you are French, which can’t possibly be all that different from Italian.”
Madame Lefoux paused in stunned silence before recovering her powers of speech. She cleared her throat. “Yes, well, I was wondering if you might consider overseeing the day-to-day running of the hat shop while I am away.”
“Me? Engage in trade? Well, I don’t know.” Ivy looked about at the dangling hats, undeniably tempting in all their feathered and flowered glory. But still, she had not been raised for commerce.
“You could, of course, borrow from the stock at your leisure and discretion.”
Mrs. Tunstell’s eyes took on a distinctly covetous sheen. “Well, if you put it like that, Madame Lefoux, how can I possibly refuse? I would be absolutely delighted to take on the task. What do I need to know? Oh, wait just a moment, before we start, if you please. Ormond.” Ivy summoned her husband with a little flap of her hand.
Dutifully, Tunstell trotted over, and Ivy issued him a complex set of whispered instructions. In a flash, he had doffed his hat to the ladies, let himself out the front door, and was off down the street about some errand at his wife’s behest.
Alexia approved. At least Ivy had him well trained.
Madame Lefoux led Mrs. Tunstell behind the small counter and spent the next half hour showing her how to cook the books.
“No need to place any new orders, and no need to open the shop for business all that frequently while I am away. I have listed the important appointments here. I understand you are a busy lady.”
Ivy displayed surprising aptitude for the accounting. She always had been good with sums and figures, and she was obviously capable of being serious, at least about hats. Just as they were finishing up, Tunstell reappeared, clutching a small brown paper package.
Alexia joined them to make her good-byes. Directly before leaving, Ivy handed Alexia the package that Tunstell had just acquired.
“For you, my dearest Alexia.”
Curiously, Alexia turned it about in her hands before unwrapping it carefully. It turned out to be a whole pound of tea inside a decorative little wooden box.
“I remembered that awful thing I had heard about Italy.” Ivy dabbed at the corner of one eye with her handkerchief in an excess of sentiment. “What I heard… Oh, I can hardly speak of it… I heard that in Italy they drink”—she paused—“coffee.” She shuddered delicately. “So horribly bad for the stomach.” She pressed Alexia’s hand fervently with both of hers and the damp handkerchief. “Good luck.”
“Why, thank you, Ivy, Tunstell, very thoughtful and kind of you both.”
It was good-quality tea, large-leaf Assam, a particular favorite of Alexia’s. She tucked it carefully into her dispatch case to carry with her on board the trans-channel dirigible. As she was no longer muhjah and the dispatch case could not serve its intended purpose of carrying secret and highly significant documents and gadgets belonging to queen and country, it might as well carry an item of equal value and importance.
Ivy might be a tad preposterous at times, but she was a kind and thoughtful friend. Much to both of their surprise, Alexia kissed Ivy on the cheek in gratitude. Ivy’s eyes welled with tears.
Tunstell gave them yet another cheerful grin and shepherded his still-emotive spouse from the shop. Madame Lefoux had to dash after them to give Ivy the spare key and a few last instructions.
Professor Lyall had endured a long and trying day. Ordinarily, he was well equipped to cope with such tribulation, being a self-assured gentleman possessed of both mental acumen and physical prowess accompanied by the economy of thought required to choose quickly which best suited any given situation. That afternoon, however, with the full moon rapidly approaching, an Alpha out of commission, and Lady Maccon heading to Italy, it must be admitted that he nearly, on two occasions, lost his temper. The vampire drones were being unresponsive, only admitting to the fact that their respective masters “might not be available” for BUR duty that evening. There were three vampires on staff, and BUR was not designed to cope with a sudden loss of these supernatural agents all at once. Especially not when the four BUR-affiliated werewolves were all young enough to already be out of commission on their monthly bone-bender. To compound the staffing issue, certain supplies hadn’t arrived as scheduled, two suspicious dirigible accidents needed to be investigated, and there was an exorcism to perform just after sunset. While dealing with all of this, Professor Lyall had to foil no less than eight reporters hoping to interview Lord Maccon, ostensibly about the dirigibles but undoubtedly about Lady Maccon. Needless to say, Lyall was in no mood to find, upon returning home just prior to sunset, his Alpha singing opera—or what might have been considered opera by a tribe of tone-deaf orangutans—in the bathtub.
“You managed to break back into my specimen collection, didn’t you? Really, my lord, those were the last of my samples.”
“Ish good stuff, fermaldathdie.”
“I thought I set Major Channing to keep watch over you. He hasn’t gone to sleep, has he? He should be able to hold for one full day. He can take direct sunlight—I have seen him do it—and you are not so difficult to track, not in this condition at least.” Professor Lyall looked accusingly around the bathing chamber, as though the Woolsey Gamma’s blond head might just pop up from behind the clothing rack.
“He canna poshibly do tha.”
“Oh, no, why not?” Professor Lyall tested the water in which Lord Maccon splashed and wallowed like some bewildered water buffalo. It was quite cold. With a sigh, the Beta retrieved his Alpha’s robe. “Come on, my lord. Let’s get you out of there, shall we?”
Lord Maccon grabbed his washrag and began conducting the opening sequence of The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein, flicking water all about the room as he did so. “Maidens, never mind us,” sang the earl, “twirling ’round and ’round.”
“Where has Major Channing gone off to, then?” Professor Lyall was irritated, but it didn’t show in his voice. It seemed he had spent a lifetime being irritated with Channing, and given the day so far, this was nothing more than what was to be expected. “I gave him a direct order. Nothing should have superseded that. I am still Beta of this pack, and Major Channing is under my command.”
“Under mine firsh,” objected Lord Maccon mildly. Then he warbled out, “For you’ll be left behind us, you’ll be safe and sound.”
Professor Lyall attempted to part pull, part lift his Alpha out of the bathtub. But he lost his grip and Lord Maccon slipped and went falling back into it with a tremendous splash. The massive tub, with its small steam-heating attachment, was extremely well constructed and had been imported from the Americas at great expense because there they knew steel. But it still wobbled dangerously on its four clawed feet under Lord Maccon’s weight.
“If a bullet’s billet, you are doomed to fall,” sang out the drenched werewolf, skipping several of the words.
“You gave Channing a direct order? In this state?” Professor Lyall tried once more to extract the earl from the tub. “And he obeyed you?”
For one brief second, Lord Maccon’s eyes sharpened and he looked quite sober. “I am still his Alpha; he had better obey me.”
Professor Lyall finally managed to get his Alpha out of the water and into the robe in a desultory kind of way. The thin material stuck indecently close in places, but the earl, never one to suffer the strain of modesty under any circumstances, clearly didn’t give a fig, or a fig leaf.
Professor Lyall was used to it.
Lord Maccon began swaying back and forth in time with his singing. “Take your glass and fill it, laugh and drink with all!”
“Where did you send him?” Professor Lyall, supporting the brunt of his Alpha’s weight, blessed his own supernatural strength, which made the massive man merely awkward rather than hopeless to maneuver. Lord Maccon was built like a brick outhouse, with opinions twice as unmoving and often equally full of crap.
“Aha, wouldna you like ta know tha?” The Alpha did not do coy well, and Professor Lyall was not amused at the lack of a direct answer.
“Did you send him after Lord Akeldama?”
Lord Maccon came over slightly sober once more. “That pansy. Missing, is he? Good. He reminds me of limp custard filling, all cream and no crust. Never could understand what Alexia saw in that pointy-toothed ninnyhammer. My wife! Cavorting about with a crustless vampire. Least I know he isna the father.” The Alpha’s yellow eyes squinted, as if he were trying to keep from thinking about that.
Suddenly, he flopped downward with all his weight, slipped out of Professor Lyall’s hold, and landed in a cross-legged heap in the middle of the floor. His eyes were starting to go completely yellow, and he was looking altogether too hairy for Professor Lyall’s liking. Full moon wasn’t for a couple more nights, and Lord Maccon, by Alpha rights and strength, ought to be able to resist the change easily. Apparently, he wasn’t bothering to try.
The earl continued to sing even as his slurring from the drink gave way to slurring from his jawbones breaking and re-forming into those of a wolf’s muzzle. “Drink and sing a ditty, good-bye to the past, all the more’s the pity, if this cup’s our last!”
Professor Lyall was Woolsey Pack Beta for many reasons, one of them being that he knew perfectly well when he needed to ask for assistance. A quick run to the door and one loud yell had four of Woolsey’s strongest clavigers in to help him navigate his lordship, now a very drunken wolf, down into the cellar lockup. Four legs offered no improvement in the matter of the earl’s wobbling, and instead of singing, he merely took to letting forth with a mournful howl or two. An aggravating day was looking to become an equally aggravating night. With Major Channing vanished, Professor Lyall really had only one recourse left to him: he called for a pack meeting.