The Parasol Protectorate Boxed Set (109 page)

Madame Lefoux had a new, pretty, young shopgirl behind the counter when they arrived at Chapeau de Poupe. Madame Lefoux's
shopgirls were always young and pretty. This one seemed overset by the unexpected arrival of the grand Lady Maccon and was
mightily relieved when her mistress, elegant and refined in gray tails and top hat, appeared to take over the management of
such an august personage.

“My dear Lady Maccon!”

“Madame Lefoux, how do you do?”

The Frenchwoman grasped both of Alexia's hands and kissed first one and then the other of Alexia's cheeks. No air was left
between lips and flesh, as was the custom among women of fashion, nor was this an extravagant gesture for fashion's sake.
No, for Madame Lefoux, such a greeting was as natural as a handshake among American businessmen. Her actions were tender and
her smile dimpled with genuine affection.

“What an unexpected pleasure! But are you certain you should be in public in your condition?”

“My dear Genevieve, you have been so long away I
began to suspect you might never return to us. Then what should London do when in need of a new hat?”

Madame Lefoux acknowledged both the compliment and rebuke of Alexia's statement with a tilt of her dark head.

Lady Maccon noted, with some concern, that her friend was looking practically gaunt. Mostly composed of sharp angles, Madame
Lefoux could never be described as full figured, but during her most recent travels, she had lost flesh she could not afford
to lose. The inventor always had been more concerned with the pursuits of the mind than the body, but never before had her
lovely green eyes sported such dark circles.

“Are you well?” asked Alexia. “Is it Quesnel? He is supposed to be home for the month, is he not? Is he being perfectly beastly?”

Madame Lefoux's son was a cheerful towheaded creature with an unfortunate nose for mischief. There was no malice to his actions,
but his mere presence resulted in a kind of microcosmic chaos that kept his mother on edge whenever he was in residence.

Madame Lefoux flinched slightly and shook her head. “He did not make it home this time.”

“Oh, dear! But then if not Quesnel, what could possibly be the matter? Truly, you do not look at all well.”

“Oh, pray, do not concern yourself, Alexia. Some trouble sleeping, nothing more. How are you? I understand you have taken
a residence in town. You certainly look amplified. Have you been maintaining a tranquil environment? I read recently that
it is terribly important for the baby to be surrounded by peace. Knowing your disposition, this has me worried.”

Alexia blinked at her.

Perceiving that her solicitude was unwelcome, the Frenchwoman moved hastily on. “Did you come to pick up Woolsey's new glassical
order, or is this merely a social call?”

Lady Maccon accepted the conversational redirection. She respected her friend's need for privacy and her expertly cultivated
aura of mystery. She also did not want to appear nosy. “Oh, is there an order? I suppose I could collect it. But, in actuality,
there is a matter I should very much like to discuss with you.” Alexia noticed the curiosity in the eyes of the new shopgirl.
“In seclusion, perhaps?” And then, as she was not certain as to the extent of the shopgirl's knowledge, she confined her voice
to a whisper. “Below?”

Madame Lefoux lowered her eyelashes and nodded gravely. “Of course, of course.”

Alexia looked to her escort. “Biffy, will you find yourself entertainment enough here for a quarter of an hour, or should
you prefer to run along to the Lottapiggle Tea Shop on Cavendish Square?”

“Oh, I can abide a while among such loveliness as this.” The young werewolf waved a graceful gloved hand at the forest of
dangling hats displayed all about him. He brushed his fingers along an exaggerated ostrich feather, much as a young girl would
trail her fingertips through a fountain. “Beautiful brim rolling.”

“I shan't be very long,” replied his mistress before following her friend toward the back of the shop, where a door in the
wall led to an ascension room that took them down to a passageway, underneath Regent Street, and into the inventor's much-vaunted
contrivance chamber.

Madame Lefoux's laboratory might have been a great wonder of the world, if only because it was a wonder the Frenchwoman could
ever find anything inside it. The massive, cavelike laboratory was not only messy, but it was also noisy. Alexia often thought
that the only reason it could not be heard in the street above was that Regent was one of the busiest thoroughfares in London.
Then she wondered if that was why Madame Lefoux had chosen this particular spot.

As ever, Lady Maccon took in her surroundings with a kind of reverence that was part appreciation, part horror. There were
engines and mysterious constructs galore, some of them running, many of them disassembled into component parts. There were
diagrams and sketches of larger projects strewn about, mostly aeronautical devices such as ornithopters, as aetheric travel
was one of Madame Lefoux's specialties. It smelled of oil.

“Oh, my, is that a new commission?” Alexia picked her way slowly through the clutter, holding her skirts well out of the way
of any possible grease stains.

Dominating the chamber was a partly assembled transport contraption. Or Alexia assumed it was a transport—as yet, it had no
apparent wheels, rails, or legs. It was shaped like a massive bowler hat without a brim, so she supposed it might be an underwater
conveyance. Inside were levers and pull cords, an operator's seat, and two small slits at the front for visibility. It was
almost buglike and well outside of the Frenchwoman's ordinary principles of subtlety. Alexia's parasol with all its secret
pockets and component parts was far more to Genevieve's taste. Traditionally, she did not go in for big and flashy.

“Something I've been working on of late.”

“Is it armored?” Lady Maccon had an embarrassingly unladylike interest in modern technology.

“In part.” Something in Madame Lefoux's tone warned Alexia off.

“Oh, dear, is it under contract from the War Office? I'm probably not supposed to know. I do apologize for asking. We shall
say no more about it.”

“Thank you.” Madame Lefoux smiled in tired gratitude. Her dimples barely showed.

Government defense commissions were lucrative but not something one could speak of openly, even to the queen's muhjah. The
inventor moved to take Alexia's hand, her own work-hardened by decades of tool use. Alexia could feel the roughness even through
her gloves, along with a companion thrill she had grown to accept was part of the price of intimacy with this woman. Genevieve
was so very
intriguing.

“Was there something specific you wanted, my dear Alexia?”

Alexia hesitated and then, without subtlety, jumped right to the point. “Genevieve, do you know anything about the Kingair
assassination attempt on Queen Victoria of twenty years ago? I mean, anything from the Order of the Brass Octopus?”

Madame Lefoux started in genuine surprise. “My goodness, what has brought you back around to that?”

“Let us say I made a contact recently who has led me into explorations of the past.”

Madame Lefoux crossed her arms and leaned back against a coiled roll of brass plating. “Hmm. I personally know nothing. I
would have been no more than thirteen at
the time, but we could ask my aunt. I'm not certain how useful she might be but the attempt can't hurt.”

“Your aunt? Oh you mean…?”

Madame Lefoux nodded, her face sad. “She's finally undergoing diminished spectral cohesion. Even with all my preservation
techniques and chemical expertise, it was inevitable. However, she does have her lucid moments.”

Alexia realized this must be the true source of Genevieve's distress. She was losing a treasured family member. The woman
who had raised her. Genevieve may have a well-developed mystique, but she was not emotionally reserved and she loved deeply.
Alexia moved to her friend and stroked her upper arm where the muscles tensed. “Oh, Genevieve, I am so very sorry.”

The inventor's face crumpled slightly at the sympathy. “I cannot help but think that this is to be my fate, too. First Angelique
and now Beatrice.”

“Oh, surely not! You cannot be so confident you have excess soul.” Alexia would have offered to ensure exorcism, but Genevieve
had been so angry when she performed the service for Angelique.

“No, you are correct. I have been traveling, researching, studying, trying to find a way to extend my aunt's afterlife. But
there is
nothing.
” Her tone was anguished, that of a scientist who sees a problem but no solution.

“Oh, but you have done your level best! You have given her
years,
far longer than any ghost has a right to expect.”

“Years for what? Humiliation and madness?” Genevieve took a breath, then placed her hand over Alexia's where it stroked her
arm, stilling the movement. “I do apologize, my lovely Alexia. This is not your burden. You still wish to speak to her?”

“Would she talk to me, do you think?”

“We can but try.”

Lady Maccon nodded and attempted to shrug herself out of her normally regal posture, trying to be less overbearing and physically
threatening. She didn't want to scare the ghost. Not that a woman in her corpulent condition boasted so fearsome a visage.

Madame Lefoux yelled, her normally melodious voice sharp, “Aunt, where are you? Aunt!”

Several moments later, a ghostly form shimmered into existence out of the side of a conveyer belt spool, looking grumpy.

“Yes, Niece, you summoned me?” Formerly Beatrice Lefoux had been in life an angular spinster of severe attitude and limited
affection. She might once have been pretty but obviously never allowed herself, nor others, to enjoy that fact. There was
much of her in Madame Lefoux, tempered by a level of good humor and mischief that the aunt had never bothered to cultivate.
The specter was beginning to go fuzzy, not so badly as Alexia's ghostly messenger but enough for it to be clear she wasn't
long for this world.

As soon as she spotted Lady Maccon, the ghost drew herself inward, appearing to wrap the drifting threads of her noncorporeal
self closer, as a werewolf wraps his cloak around after shifting.

“Why, you have the soulless visiting you, Niece. Honestly, I don't know why you persist in such an association.” The ghost's
voice was bitter, but more out of habit than any real offense. Then she seemed to lose track of what she was saying. “Where?
What? Where am I? Genevieve, why, you are so old. Where is my little girl?” She
swirled in a circle. “You have built an octomaton? I said never again. What could possibly be so dire?” As she spoke, the
ghost shifted between French and heavily accented English. Luckily, Alexia was tolerably competent in both.

Madame Lefoux, her expression stiff in an attempt to hide distress, snapped her fingers in front of her deceased aunt's face.
“Now, Aunt, please pay attention. Lady Maccon here has something very serious to ask of you. Go on, Alexia.”

“Formerly Lefoux, are you familiar with the attempt on Queen Victoria's life that took place in the winter of 1853? A Scottish
werewolf pack was implicated. It was a matter of poison.”

The ghost bobbled up and down in surprise, losing some small measure of control over bits of herself. An eyebrow detached
from her forehead. “Oh, why, yes. Although not intimately, of course. Not from the actual assassination perspective but more
from the sidelines. I lost one of my students because of it.”

“Oh?”

“Why, yes. Lost her to the mist of the moor. Lost her to duty. So promising, so strong, so… wait. What were you asking?
What are we discussing? Why must I forget things all the time?”

“The Kingair assassination attempt,” Alexia prompted.

“Silly dogfight. Poor girl. Imagine having to take on that kind of responsibility. At sixteen! And over werewolves. Werewolves
who planned a poisoning. So many things wrong with the very idea. So many things out of character. Out of the supernatural
order. Was it ever put right, I wonder?”

Alexia pulled a measure of this rambling together. “Sidheag Maccon was your student?”

The ghost's head tilted. “Sidheag. That name is familiar. Oh, why, yes. So hard to finish in one way, so easy to finish in
another. A strong girl, good at finishing. But then again, strength in girls is not so much valued as it ought to be.”

Lady Maccon, as interested as she was in anything to do with her husband's great-great-great-granddaughter, now one of the
only female werewolves in England and Alpha of the Kingair Pack, felt she must still steer the ghost back onto more relevant
matters. “Did you happen to hear, at the time, whether there was a connection between the assassination attempt and the Order
of the Brass Octopus?”

“Connection? Connection? Of course not.”

Alexia was taken aback by the firm confidence in the ghost's voice. “How can you be so certain?”

“How can I not? Imagine such a thing. No, no, not against the queen. Never against Queen Victoria. We would have known. I
would have known. Someone would have told me.” Formerly Beatrice Lefoux swirled about in her distress, once more catching
sight of Madame Lefoux's latest project. She paused as though hypnotized by the imposing thing. “Oh, Genevieve, I can't believe
you would. I can't. Not for anything. Why, child, why? I must tell. I must convince…” She ended up facing Alexia once
more and, as though seeing her for the first time, said, “You! Soulless. You will stop everything in the end, won't you? Even
me.”

Madame Lefoux pressed her lips together, closed her eyes, and gave a sad sigh. “There she goes. We won't get any more sense
out of her this evening. I'm sorry, Alexia.”