The Parasol Protectorate Boxed Set (130 page)

Floote vanished, and Lady Maccon stood and began to make her way with stilted awkwardness out of the drawing room and through
Lord Akeldama's house. The vampire followed. About halfway, however, she held up a finger at her host.

The baby inside of her had shifted. It felt a little lighter somehow. Well, who was she to question such a helpful adjustment?
She patted her belly approvingly. However, she also rocked from one foot to the other. The infant-inconvenience had come to
rest on a certain portion of her anatomy.

“Uh, oh, dear. How embarrassing. I really must visit your… uh… that is… um.”

If he could have blushed, Lord Akeldama would have. Instead, he took out a red lace fan from the inside pocket of his jacket
and fanned himself vigorously with it while Alexia tottered off to see to the necessary business. She returned several long
moments later, feeling better about all aspects of life.

Then she led the way onward through Lord Akeldama's house, behind the grand staircase and past the servants' stairs, through
the kitchen, and out the back door. Lord Akeldama minced along solicitously after her.

Behind the house, past such shockingly vulgar objects as dustbins and a clothesline, the hive waited. Much to Lady Maccon's
shock, there were gentlemen's undergarments on that clothesline! She closed her eyes and took a deep and fortifying breath.
When she opened them again, she looked past the necessities into the delivery alley where a clot of vampires paced restlessly.

Countess Nadasdy was there with Dr. Caedes, Lord Ambrose, the Duke of Hematol, and two other vampires Alexia did not know
by name. The hive queen was not in any condition to converse on any topic, mundane or otherwise. She was in obvious mental
distress, her movements frenzied and her nerves overset. She paced to and fro, muttering and jerking at any noise. A startled
vampire
can leap to amazing heights and move at incredible speeds; this ability made the soft, round queen grasshopper-like. Sometimes
she fought against one of her male counterparts as though trying to escape from the loose circle they formed around her. Occasionally,
she would lash out at one of them, clawing at his face or biting hard into an exposed body part. The male vampire would only
gentle her back into the center of the group, his wounds healed by the time she resumed her twitching.

Lady Maccon noted with relief that Quesnel had been transferred to Dr. Caedes's care. It was clearly not safe for a mortal
to be near the queen. Alexia caught the young scamp's violet eye under his floppy thatch of yellow hair. He looked terrified.
She gave him a wink and he brightened almost instantly. Theirs was not a long acquaintance, but she had once supported him
in the matter of an exploding boiler, and he had trusted her implicitly ever since.

Alexia moved forward, only to pause, finding herself alone and Lord Akeldama left standing in a dramatic pose on the stoop
behind her. Frankly, she had been surprised he even considered walking through the kitchen. He'd probably never even seen
that part of his house before.

She turned back. “You aren't facilitating this conversation?” Never had she known Lord Akeldama to step aside when something
significant was afoot.

The rove vampire chuckled. “My little
dumpling,
the countess would not tolerate my presence in her current condition. And I could hardly stand to endure such waistcoats
as Dr. Caedes seems to favor these days. Not to mention the universal lack of headgear.”

Alexia looked over the vampires with new eyes. It was true; the gentlemen seemed to have misplaced their top hats during the
kerfuffle.

“No, no, my
cream puff,
this is
yours
to play now.” He spared her a worried glance. She had not stopped clutching her protruding belly since she first reappeared
in his drawing room. “If you are certain you can handle it with sufficient dexterity.”

Lady Maccon took a fortifying breath, almost overbalancing. Responsibility was responsibility and no baby was going to prevent
her from seeing everything right. Her world, currently, was in disarray. If Alexia Maccon was good at nothing else, she was
good at putting things to rights and bringing order to the universe. Right now the Westminster Hive needed her managerial
talents. She could hardly shirk her duty for so mere a trifle as pregnancy.

Without a backward glance at Lord Akeldama, she strode forward into the midst of the panicking hive. Or she would like to
say she strode; it was more a gimpy kind of shuffle.

“Wait, Alexia! Where is your parasol?” Lord Akeldama sounded more concerned than she had ever heard him, devoid of both italics
and pet names.

Lady Maccon gesticulated in an expressive way and yelled back to him, “Underneath what's left of the hive house, I suspect.”
Then she faced her muhjah duties full-on. “Right, you lot. I've had about enough of this waggish behavior.”

Countess Nadasdy turned and hissed at her. Actually hissed.

“Oh, really.” Lady Maccon was revolted. She looked at
the Duke of Hematol. “Would you like me to sober her up?” She twiddled her naked fingers at him.

Lord Ambrose snarled and leaped, in one of those fantastic supernatural feats of athleticism, to place himself between Lady
Maccon and his queen.

“Apparently not. Have you a better solution?”

The duke said, “We could not have her mortal and vulnerable, not in such an unprotected state.”

Behind them, clattering through the alley behind the long row of town houses, the Woolsey carriage drew to a stop, the chestnut
travelers hitched up rather than the parade bays. The countess leaped toward it as though it were some fearsome foe. Lord
Ambrose held her back by snaking both arms around her from behind in an embarrassingly intimate gesture. It was only an old-fashioned
gingerbread coach with a massive crest on its side and just that kind of superfluous decadence that would appeal to Lord Akeldama
but that Lady Maccon had always felt was ever so slightly embarrassing for Woolsey. It was built to make an impression, not
for speed or nimbleness. But Alexia hardly thought even such grandiose ugliness warranted a vampire attack.

“Well, then, as Lord Akeldama will not invite you in for tea and a sit-down, I was thinking I might suggest we retreat to
Woolsey for the time being. Take refuge there.”

All the assembled vampires, even the countess, who seemed to have only a limited ability to follow what was going on around
her, paused to look at Lady Maccon as though she had just donned Grecian robes and begun hurling peeled grapes at them.

“Are you certain, Lady Maccon?” asked one of them, almost timidly for a vampire.

The doctor stepped forward, elongated and frail-looking, for all he held the struggling Quesnel as though the boy weighed
no more than one of Madame Lefoux's automated feather dusters. “You are inviting us to stay, Lady Maccon? At Woolsey?”

Alexia did not see the source of their persistent confusion. “Well, yes. But I've only the one carriage, so you and the boy
and the countess had best come with me. The others can run behind. Try to keep up.”

Lord Ambrose looked at Dr. Caedes. “It is unprecedented.”

Dr. Caedes looked at the Duke of Hematol. “There is no edict for this.”

The duke looked at Lady Maccon, rolling his head from one side to the other. “The marriage was unprecedented, and so is the
forthcoming child. She but maintains her brand of tradition.” The duke moved toward his mistress. Cautiously, careful not
to make any sudden movements.

“My Queen, we have an option.” He spoke precisely, careful to enunciate each and every word.

Countess Nadasdy shook herself. “We have?” Her voice sounded hollow and very far away, as though emanating from the bottom
of a mine. It reminded Alexia of something, but with the child inside her creating a fuss and the prospect of a long drive
ahead, she couldn't remember what.

The countess looked to Lord Ambrose. “Who must we kill?”

“It is an offer freely given. An
invitation.
”

For a moment, Countess Nadasdy seemed to return to herself, focusing completely on the faces of her three most treasured hive
members. Her supports. Her tentacles. “Well, let us take it, then. No time to spare.” She looked around, cornflower-blue eyes
suddenly sharp. “Is that
laundry?
Where
have
you brought me?”

With a nod to Lady Maccon, Lord Ambrose hustled his queen into the Woolsey carriage. Quicker than the mortal eye could follow,
he ducked back out again, his movements made smoother without the need to monitor a hat. He leaped to the driver's box, unceremoniously
dismissing the perfectly respectable coachman who sat there and taking up the reins himself. Lady Maccon arched a brow at
him.

“Pardon me?”

“I once raced chariots,” he explained with a grin that showed off his fangs to perfection.

“I do not think it is quite the same thing, Lord Ambrose,” remonstrated Alexia.

Dr. Caedes and Quesnel climbed inside next. And then, reluctantly, Lady Maccon. She struggled a bit with the steps, and no
vampire was willing to offer her any kind of assistance, no touching, not even for politeness' sake. Once inside, she was
unsurprised to find that the vampires were seated together on one bench so that she must sit alone on the other.

Lord Ambrose whipped the horses up and they took off at a canter, far too fast for the crowded streets of London. The clattering
on the cobbles was awfully loud, and the carriage seemed to gyrate around the turns far more than Alexia had noticed before.
Her belly protested the swaying.

It ordinarily took just under two hours to reach Woolsey from central London, less time for a werewolf in full fur, of course.
The Count of Trizdale once claimed to have run it in his highflyer coach in only an hour and a quarter. Lord Ambrose, it seemed,
was intent on trying to break that record.

Within London, the streets were worn enough into ruts for relatively smooth travel, and even though he had been tethered to
Mayfair for hundreds of years, Lord Ambrose knew the way. Plenty of time to study maps, Alexia supposed. They took the lesser
used road toward West Ham. However, upon exiting the city, everything went awry.

Not that the evening's events prior to that moment had been all sugared violet petals. But still.

First, and worst, so far as Lady Maccon was concerned, they hit the dirt road of the countryside. It had never bothered her
overmuch before, and the carriage was well sprung and padded inside. But the fast pace combined with more-than-was-normal
jiggling did not amuse the infant-inconvenience. Fifteen minutes of that and Alexia felt a new bodily sensation commence—a
dull ache in the small of her back. She wondered if she had damaged herself during one of the evening's many bustle-crushing
dismounts.

Then they heard Lord Ambrose yell and smelled acrid smoke. Here, away from looming shadows of the city buildings and under
the full moon's light, everything was much easier to see. Alexia watched through the window as one of their vampire escorts
put on a burst of speed, drew alongside the carriage, and leaped. The coach lurched but did not slow, and there came the sound
of the roof above them being beaten viciously.

“Are we on fire?” Lady Maccon shifted herself into a better position, drew down the window sash, and stuck her head out into
the rushing air, trying to see behind them.

It might have been difficult for her to make out their enemy, had there been a man on horseback or another carriage behind
them, but the thing skittering after them over the fields and between the hedgerows was doing so on eight massive tentacles.
Well, seven massive tentacles—it had the eighth in front of it spurting fire at the carriage. It was also several stories
high.

Alexia pulled her head back inside. “Dr. Caedes, I suggest you have your charge there show himself. It might prevent Genevieve
from actually killing us.”

The carriage lurched again and picked up speed. The vampire on the roof, having succeeded in beating out the flames, had jumped
off. But they were moving nowhere near as fast as they had initially—the horses were tiring, if not becoming winded and destroyed
by such cruel speed.

The octomaton was gaining on them, and Woolsey still a good distance away.

Dr. Caedes changed his grip on the boy and tried to force Quesnel to stick his head out of the carriage window. Quesnel was
not at all inclined to do anything any of the vampires wanted. Alexia gave her friend's son an almost imperceptible nod, at
which point he did as directed. He stuck not only his head but also one skinny arm outside, waving madly at the creature behind
them.

The ache in Lady Maccon's back intensified and she felt her stomach lurch, wavelike. She'd never experienced such a sensation
before. She let out a squeak of alarm and
fell back against the padded wall of the coach. Then it was gone.

Alexia poked at her stomach with a finger. “Don't you dare. Now is most inopportune! Besides, arriving early to a party is
disrespectful.”

The octomaton fell back just far enough to allow the carriage to slow, but if Alexia knew Madame Lefoux, this was only giving
the inventor time to come up with a new plan of attack. Genevieve must realize Alexia was also in the carriage and that they
were headed to Woolsey. There was no other reason to be on that road at that time, for aside from everything else, no one
traveled to Barking at night and no one
ever
traveled to Barking
at speed.

“Oh, my goodness.” Lady Maccon had the most uncomfortable feeling that she had lost some of her legendary control, over the
physical, if not the mental. A wet sensation in her lower area indicated that her bustle, and quite possibly the rest of her
dress, really was not going to survive this night. Then came that wavelike feeling again, starting at the top of her stomach
and working its way down.