The Parasol Protectorate Boxed Set (113 page)

Alexia, while sympathetic to his plight, maintained her grasp and noted, with scientific detachment, that his blush went
all the way
down.
Remarkable.

Her husband's growl drew her attention back to him. He, too, was back in his human form and naked.

“What?”

“Stop looking at him. He's bare.”

“So are you, husband.”

“Yes, well, you can look at me all you like.”

“Yes, well. Oh.” Lady Maccon clutched suddenly at her stomach with her free hand.

Conall's mild jealousy translated instantly to overbearing solicitude. “Alexia! Are you ailing? Oh, you shouldna hae come
in here! It's too dangerous. You fell.”

Biffy sat up, also concerned. He tried to extract his
ankle, but Lady Maccon refused to let go. “My lady, what is wrong?”

“Oh, stop it! Both of you. The infant is simply kicking up a fuss over such sudden activity. No, Biffy dear, we must stay
in contact, however indecorous you find it.” Biffy offered her his hand instead of his foot. Alexia accepted the exchange
of prisoners.

“Shall I ring for Floote?” suggested Biffy, blushing slightly less now that he had something to be worried about that wasn't
his own shame.

Alexia hid a smile. “You should find that rather difficult, as you seem to have chewed up the bell rope.”

Biffy looked around, blushing again. He covered his face with one hand, peeking through open fingers as though he couldn't
stand to look, yet was unable to drag his eyes away. “Oh my ruffled bacon! What have I done? Your poor parlor. My lord, my
lady,
please
forgive me. I was not myself. I was in thrall to the curse.”

Lord Maccon was having none of it. “That's the problem, pup. You were yourself. You continue to refuse to accept that.”

Lady Maccon understood her husband's meaning and tried to phrase it in a more sympathetic manner. “You must begin to accustom
yourself to being a werewolf, Biffy dear. Even attempt to enjoy it. This continued resistance is unhealthy.” She looked around.
“Mainly to my furniture.”

Biffy looked down and nodded. “Yes, I know. But, my lady, it's so undignified. I mean to say, one must strip before shifting.
And then after…” He looked down at himself, attempting to cross his legs. Lord Maccon took sympathy on him and tossed
him a velvet throw pillow.
Biffy placed it into his lap gratefully. Alexia noted her husband took no such pains himself.

Biffy's blue eyes were wide. “Thank you, my lady, for bringing me back. It hurts, but it is worth anything to be human again.”

“Yes, but the question is, how are we to get you dressed while I maintain contact?” Alexia wanted to know, ever practical.

Lord Maccon grinned. “Something can be arranged. I shall call Floote in, shall I? He will know how to manage.” In the absence
of the bellpull, Conall strode out into the hall, yelling for the butler.

Mere moments later, Floote appeared. He took in the wretched condition of the room, furniture everywhere, and the entirely
unfurnished condition of two of its occupants without even the flicker of an eyelid.

“Sirs. Madam.”

“Floote, my man,” said the earl jovially. “We will need someone to see to this room. It's a wee bit messy. A re-covering of
the chaise, I think; repairs to the wallpaper and curtains; and a new bell rope. Oh, and Biffy here needs to be dressed without
letting go of my wife's paw.”

“Yes, sir.” Floote turned to see to the matter.

Lady Maccon cleared her throat and looked meaningfully at her husband, up and down and then up again.

“What? Oh, yes, and send one of the clavigers next door for some kit for me as well. Deuced inconvenient, but I suppose I
may need garments at some point tonight.”

Floote vanished and then reappeared in due time carrying a stack of clothing for Biffy. The young werewolf looked as though
he would like to object to the butler's
selection but didn't want to cause any more of a fuss. It did seem that Floote had chosen the most somber attire possible
out of all of the dandy's peacocklike closet. Biffy's bottom half was seen to rather simply. After which Floote suggested
the young man kneel at the edge of the chaise lounge and Lady Maccon touch the back of his head while shirt, waistcoat, jacket,
and cravat were summarily dealt with. Floote handled everything with consummate skill, an ability Alexia attributed to his
many years as valet to her father. Alessandro Tarabotti, by all accounts, had been a bit of a dandy himself.

While Floote, Alexia, and Biffy performed their complicated game of knotted parts on the chaise, a claviger arrived with apparel
for Lord Maccon. The earl threw it on in an arbitrary way, showing all the attention to detail a ferret might employ if called
upon to decorate a hat. Lord Maccon believed that if his trousers were on his legs, and something else was on his torso, he
was dressed. The less done after that, the better. His wife had been startled to find that in the summertime, he actually
went around their room barefoot! Once—and only once, mind you—he even attempted to join her for tea in such a state.
Impossible man.
Alexia put a stop to
that
posthaste.

Professor Lyall stuck his head in to see if everything was sorted.

“Ah, good. You've managed matters.”

“Doesn't she always?” grumbled her husband.

“Yes, Professor Lyall?” asked Alexia.

“I thought you should know, my lady, those results you wanted came in from our laboratory at BUR.”

“Yes?”

“On those little vials you, uh, found?”

“Yes?”

“Poison. All of them. Different kinds, different effectiveness levels. Some detectable, some not as such. Mostly for mortals
but one or two that might put even a supernatural under the weather for some time. Nasty stuff.”

H
aving to keep Biffy mortal made for a pretty incommodious several hours. Ordinarily, Lady Maccon, even pregnant, could manage
a meal and a carriage ride with aplomb, but when one must stay attached in some manner to a dandy, even the most mundane tasks
become an exercise in complexity.

“It's a good thing I enjoy your company, Biffy. I can't imagine having to handle daily tasks with someone less agreeable affixed.
Like my husband, for example.” Alexia shuddered at the very idea. She enjoyed having Conall affixed to her, but only for a
limited amount of time.

The husband in question looked up at his lady with a grumbled, “Oh, thank you verra much, wife.”

They were sitting in the carriage together. Woolsey Castle loomed on the horizon—a sizable blob in the moonlight. Lady Maccon,
being a woman of little artistic preference, regarded her domain with an eye toward its practicality as an abode for werewolves
rather than an
architectural endeavor. Which was good, as it was rather more of an architectural tragedy. Those unfortunate enough to happen
upon it during daylight could tender only one compliment—that it was pleasingly situated. And it was, atop rising ground in
extensive, if slightly unkempt, grounds with a cobbled courtyard and decent stables.

“Oh, you know perfectly well what I mean, husband. We've had to stay attached before, but customarily only when violence was
imminent.”

“And sometimes for other reasons.” He gave her his version of a seductive look.

She smiled. “Yes, dear, exactly.”

Biffy said, being on his best behavior, “Thank you for the compliment, my lady, and I do apologize for the inconvenience.”

“So long as there are no more zombie porcupines, we should do very well.”

“Shouldn't be,” said her husband. “Seems the hives have officially declared a cease-fire. Hard to tell truth with vampires
but they appear to be pleased with the idea of Lord Akeldama adopting our child.”

“Well, at least someone is.”

Woolsey Castle was no castle at all but a large Georgian manor house augmented by mismatched Gothic-style flying buttresses.
On her most recent trip to Italy, Lady Maccon had encountered a bug—a creature larger than her thumb that flew upright, like
an angel, with a nose like an elephant, horns like a bull, and multiple wings. It stayed aloft in an erratic up-and-down manner
as though it were remembering, occasionally, that a bug of its size and shape ought not to be able to fly. Woolsey Castle
was built, in principle, upon much the same lines
as that bug: improbably constructed, exceedingly ugly, and impossible to determine how it continued to stay upright or, indeed,
why it bothered to do so.

Since Lord and Lady Maccon had set forth to their country seat with no warning, their unanticipated arrival at Woolsey threw
the residents into a tizzy. Lord Maccon swept into the bevy of sprightly young men who'd congregated in the courtyard, taller
than most by a head, and carved a path before him, scythelike.

Major Channing, Woolsey's Gamma, strode down from his sanctum and out the front door to greet them, still knotting his cravat
and looking as though he had only just arisen, despite the lateness of the hour. “My lord, you were not expected until full
moon.”

“Emergency trip. Have to stick certain persons down the dungeon sooner than anticipated.” There were rumors as to the original
owner's use of Woolsey's dungeon, but regardless of initial intent it had proved ideal for a werewolf pack. In fact, the whole
house was well suited. In addition to a well-fortified holding area and brick walls, there were no less than fourteen bedrooms,
a goodly number of receiving parlors, and several precarious-looking but fully functional towers, one of which Lord and Lady
Maccon utilized as their boudoir.

Channing waved a hand at a gaggle of clavigers, directing them to help with luggage and assist in extracting Lady Maccon from
the carriage. The earl was already cocking an ear to a murmured report from one of his pack. He left his wife to see to Biffy,
secure in the knowledge that if nothing else, Alexia was good at setting a gentleman in his proper place, even if that place
be a dungeon.

Lady Maccon, happy to lean upon Biffy, for exhaustion
was beginning to take its toll once more, made her way down into the dungeon and saw the young dandy safely into one of the
smaller cells. Two clavigers accompanied them, carrying the requisite amount of silver-tipped and silver-edged weaponry, just
in case Lady Maccon lost her grip.

Alexia did not want to let go, for Biffy's face was pale with the imminent terror of transformation. It was an agonizing process
for all werewolves to endure, but the new ones had it the worst, for they were not yet accustomed to the sensation, and they
were forced into it more frequently by their own lack of control.

Biffy clearly did not care to leave contact with the safe haven of her preternatural skin, but he was too much the gentleman
to say. He would be more mortified to impose upon her for the duration of an entire night than to transform into a rampaging
monster.

Alexia averted her eyes and kept her hand to the back of his head, her fingers buried in his thick chocolate brown hair, while
the clavigers stripped him and clapped silver manacles about his elegant wrists. Conscious of his fading dignity, she kept
a stream of irreverent chatter mostly concerning matters fashionable and decorative.

“We are ready, my lady,” said one of the clavigers, arms full of clothing, as he exited the prison cell. The other stood outside
the silver-plated bars, ready to slam the door as soon as Lady Maccon came through.

“I am sorry,” was all Alexia could think to say to the young man.

Biffy shook his head. “Oh, no, my lady, you have given me unexpected peace.”

They stretched apart, fingertips just touching.

“Now,” said Lady Maccon, and she broke contact, moving as fast as she could in her condition through the door and into the
viewing hall.

Biffy, mindful of any damage he might do before she could touch him again, threw himself away in that same instant, using
all his regained supernatural strength and speed, before the change descended upon him.

Alexia found the werewolf transformation an intellectually fascinating occurrence and enjoyed watching it, as one might enjoy
dissecting a frog, but not in the younger werewolves. Her husband, Professor Lyall, and even Major Channing could manage shifting
form with very little indication as to the pain accompanying the experience. Biffy could not. The moment they broke contact,
he began to scream. Lady Maccon had learned over the past several months that there is no worse noise in the universe than
a proud, kind young man suffering. His scream evolved into a howl as bones and organs broke and re-formed.

Swallowing down bile and wishing she had wax to stopper her ears, Alexia firmly took the arm of one of the clavigers and ushered
him toward the stairs and up into the comforting hullabaloo of the pack, leaving the other to stand solitary vigil over a
broken man.

“You really want that?” she asked her escort.

The claviger did not try to hedge. Everyone knew Lady Maccon to be direct in her conversation and intolerant of shilly-shallying.
“Immortality, my lady, is nothing to treat lightly, no matter the package or the price.”

“But at such a cost as that?”

“I would be choosing it, my lady. He did not.”

“And you wouldn't prefer trying for vampire instead?”

“To suck blood for survival and never see the sun
again? No, thank you, my lady. I'll take my chances with the pain and the curse, should I be so lucky as to have the choice.”

“Brave lad.” She patted his arm as they attained the top of the stair.

The hubbub resulting from the sudden arrival of Alphas in their midst had settled down into the pleasant boisterous hum of
pack in full play. There was some discussion of going hunting, others thought a game of dice was in order, and a few were
advocating a light wrestling match. “Outside,” grumbled Lady Maccon mildly upon hearing
that.

At first, Alexia had thought she would never acclimatize to living with over a dozen grown men—she, who had been reared with
only sisters. But she rather enjoyed it. At least with men, one always knew where they were located, great yelling, galumphing
creatures that they were.

She flagged down Rumpet, the pack butler. “Tea in the library when you have a moment, please, Rumpet? I have some research
to undertake. And, would you be so kind as to ask my husband to attend me when he has the time? No hurry.”

“Right away, my lady.”

The library was Alexia's favorite room and personal sanctuary. However, this evening she intended to use it for its actual
purpose—research. She headed toward the far corner, where behind a massive armchair she had carved out some space on the shelves
for her father's collection. He had favored tiny leather-covered journals of the type used by schoolboys to keep accounts—navy
blue with plain covers dated in the upper left corner.

From what his daughter had gleaned, Alessandro
Tarabotti had not been a very nice person. Practical, as all preternaturals are, but without the ethical grounding Alexia
had managed to cultivate. Perhaps this was because he was male, or perhaps it was the result of a childhood spent in the wilds
of Italy far from the progressive posturing of England. His journals began the autumn of his sixteenth year, during his first
term at Oxford, and ended shortly after his marriage to Alexia's mother. They were sporadic at best, constant for weeks and
then absent of a single word for months or years. They were mainly concerned with sexual exploits, violent encounters, and
long descriptions of new jackets and top hats. Nevertheless, Alexia turned toward them hopefully, hunting out any possible
mention of an assassination attempt. Sadly, the journals stopped some ten years before the Kingair plot. She allowed herself
only a brief time to get lost in her father's tidy handwriting—amazed, as always, to note how similar that writing was to
her own—before pulling herself back and turning her attention to other books. She whiled away the rest of the night thus occupied.
Her reverie was disturbed only by Rumpet bringing in an endless supply of fresh tea and, at one point, by Channing, of all
people.

“Why, Lady Maccon,” he said, unconvincingly. “I was simply looking for—”

“A book?”

Major Channing Channing of the Chesterfield Channings and Lady Alexia Maccon had gotten off on the wrong foot and never managed
to stabilize their relationship—despite the fact that he had, on more than one occasion, saved her life. As far as Alexia
was concerned, Major Channing was uncomfortably good-looking—a strapping blond with icy-blue eyes, marked cheekbones, and
imperiously
arched brows. He was a true soldier to the bone, which might not have been so bad a thing had not his nobility of profession
been augmented by an arrogance of manner and toothiness of accent so extreme only the bluest of the blue-blooded individuals
ought to foist such upon others. As to Channing's opinion of his mistress, the less said on the subject the better, and even
he
was wise enough to understand
that.

“What are you researching, my lady?”

Alexia saw no reason to hide. “The old Kingair assassination attempt on Queen Victoria. Do you remember any of it?” Her tone
was sharp.

The Gamma could not quite disguise the look of concern that suffused his face. Or was that guilt? “No. Why?”

“I think it might be relevant to our current situation.”

“I hardly think
that
likely.”

“Are you certain you remember nothing?”

Channing evaded the question. “Any success?”

“None. Dash it.”

“Well”—Channing shrugged and made his way nonchalantly back out of the library, without a book—“I think you're on the wrong
track. No good can come of meddling in the past, my lady.” Only Channing could put on such an air of dismissive disgust.

“Meddling! I like that.”

“Yes, you do,” said the Gamma, closing the door behind him.

After that, no one else intruded upon Alexia's investigations until some few hours before dawn, when her husband came thumping
in.

She looked up to see Conall watching her fondly, propping up a bookshelf with one massive shoulder.

“Ah, finally remembered me, have you?” She smiled, her eyes soft and dark.

He strode over and kissed her gently. “Never forgot. Simply misplaced while handling matters of pack and protocol.” He tugged
playfully at a dark curl that had escaped to lie against her neck in a loose whorl.

“Anything of import?”

“Nothing that should concern you.” He had learned enough to add, “Although I'm happy to relay the inconsequential details,
should you wish to hear them.”