The Parasol Protectorate Boxed Set (157 page)

“He seems to be on our side, Ivy. Do stop fussing.”

“Oh, oh, dear, Alexia. Can you believe? Why I never, in all life's flutterings!”

Ivy looked a little worse for wear. Her hat was gone, her hair loose, and her dress torn. Percival was red-faced and crying like his sister, but otherwise both seemed unbowed. The nursemaid, still with donkey—remarkably placid and undisturbed by the ruckus—came behind them.

Ivy plunked her squalling child into one of the panniers and Alexia did the same with Primrose. The twins continued their thin treble wails of distress but remained inside their respective baskets.

Alexia bent and lifted Prudence up. Her daughter was sobered by the experience, although much less overset by the excitement than the two younger infants. Not a tear tracked down the dust covering her face. In fact, her eyes glittered with hidden excitement.

“Oh-ah Eeegypt!” she said as a kind of commentary.

“Yes, dear,” agreed her mother.

Ivy leaned back against the donkey, fanning herself with one gloved hand. “Alexia, I am quite overset. Do you realize we were attacked! Right here, in a public thoroughfare. Really, I feel quite faint.”

“Well, can it wait? We must make for safety.”

“Oh, my, yes, of course. And I could hardly faint with a bare head in a foreign country! I might catch something,” Ivy exclaimed.

“Exactly.”

Their bearded savior gestured. “This way, lady.”

With no other options—Ivy having dropped her guidebook in the excitement—they followed.

The Drifter set a brisk pace through hidden streets and alleys, up small sets of stone steps in a direction Alexia could only hope was toward their hotel. She was beginning to worry that they might have gone from boiler to steam engine, trading one danger for another. She shifted so that her parasol pointed at the man's unprotected back, wary that she still did not recognize the city around them.

Then at long last, they burst out onto a familiar square and saw the front entrance to Hotel des Voyageurs sitting in peaceful serenity before them across a bustling bazaar. Alexia glanced over to thank their guide, but the man had melted off into the crowd, leaving the ladies to make their way this last little bit without escort.

“What a mysterious gentleman,” commented Alexia.

“He probably had to make it back to his balloon.”

“Oh?”

“Baedeker says that the balloons heat during the early part of the day and rise up. Most Drifters allow them to sink back down at night as they cool, wherever they are in the desert, until the morning heat again. He said that once the balloon is up, a Drifter will never allow it back down again until evening,” Ivy explained as they pushed their way through the milling throng.

“How very ingenious.”

“So, you see, his home is probably sinking. He has to go meet it or he wouldn't know where it landed.”

“Oh, Ivy, I hardly think…” Alexia trailed off.

Lord Conall Maccon stood in the doorway to the hotel, holding a letter in one hand, and he did not look pleased.

A
lexia Maccon adored her husband and she should never wish to cause him any pain. He was a sensitive werewolf type, unfortunately, for all her efforts, prone to extremes in emotion and with a particular, perhaps even obsessive, regard for such noble concepts as honor, loyalty, and trust.

“Wife.”

“Good evening, husband. How was your repose?” Alexia paused at the threshold to the hotel, trying to angle herself to the side so they did not entirely block the entranceway. Given her husband's bulk, this was no mean feat.

“Never mind repose. I have received a most upsetting letter.”

“Ah, yes, well. I can explain.”

“Oh, ho?”

“Do you think we might repair to our room to discuss the matter?”

The earl ignored this entirely sensible suggestion. Alexia supposed she was in for a well-deserved bout of public humiliation. Behind Conall's looming form, in the foyer of Hotel des Voyageurs, she could see guests turn to look at the tableau in the doorway. Her husband had raised his voice rather more than was common, even for Alexandria.

Lord Maccon boasted a barrel chest and companion booming vocalization at the best of times. As this was the worst of times, he could have roused the undead—and probably did in some areas of the city. “Randolph Lyall, that squirrelly snot-nosed plonker, rigged the whole darn thing: caused Kingair tae betray me, got me tae come tae Woolsey, saw me eliminate his old Alpha. All of it! He never saw fit tae tell me this little fact.” The earl's tawny eyes were narrowed and yellow in fury, and it looked as though a bit of canine was showing out the corners of his mouth.

His voice went very cold and clipped. It was terrifying. “Apparently,
you
know all of this, wife. And you dinnae tell me. I canna quite ken tae such a thing. But my own great-great-great-granddaughter assures me of the truth of it, and why should she lie?”

Alexia raised her hands, placating. “Now, Conall, please look at this from my perspective. I didn't
want
to keep it secret. I really didn't. But I saw how upset you were about Kingair and that betrayal. I couldn't bear to see you hurt again if I told you about Lyall. He didn't know you intimately way back when. He had no thought to your loss. He was trying to save his pack.”

“Oh, trust me, Alexia. I ken what old Lord Woolsey was like. And I ken verra well what Lyall was up against.
I can even ken what love and loss drove him tae do. But tae keep such a secret from me even after we became kin? After I had grown tae trust him? And worse, that you should do the same! You who have nothing like his excuse.”

Alexia bit her lower lip, worried. “But, Conall, even knowing how awful it was for him, Lyall and I both knew you would never trust him again. And you need him—he is a good Beta.”

Lord Maccon looked at her, even more coldly than before. “Make no bones about it, Alexia. I
need
no one! Least of all a wife like you and a Beta like
that
! If you owe me naught else in this marriage, you owe me truth about pack! I wouldna ask for truth in anything else. But
my pack
, Alexia? It was your duty tae tell me the moment you found out!”

“Well, to be fair, at the time I had other things on my mind. There was an octomaton, and Prudence to be born—you know, little trifles like that.” Alexia tried to smile weakly, knowing there could be no real excuse.

“Are you making light of this, woman?”

“Oh, dear. Conall, I
wanted
to tell you! I really did. I simply knew you would react… well, you know.”

“Do I?”

She sighed. “Badly. I knew you would react badly.”

“Badly! You have no idea how bad this is going to get.”

“See?”

“So you thought you might wait it out, that I shouldna find out?”

“Well, I thought perhaps, since I'm a mortal, I might at least die first.”

“Don't go playing the sympathy card with me, woman.
I know verra well you'll be dying afore me.” Then he sighed.

The earl was such a massive man, yet as Alexia watched in concern, he seemed to shrink in upon himself. He leaned back against the side of the door, old and tired. “I canna believe you would do this tae me. Alexia, I
trusted
you.”

It was said in such a small, little boy voice that Alexia felt her own heart contract in response to his pain. “Oh, Conall. What can I say? I thought it was for the best. I thought you would be happier not knowing.”

“You thought, you thought. Never did you
think
it might be better tae have been told by you than to have you ally against me? You have made a chump of me. To hell with the lot of you.” With that, he crumpled the letter and tossed it to the street before striding off into the crowded city.

“Where are you going? Please, Conall!” Alexia called after him, but he only raised one hand into the air in disregard and strode away.

“And with no top hat,” came a small addendum comment from behind her.

Alexia turned in a daze, having entirely forgotten until that moment that Mrs. Tunstell, the nursemaid, the children, and the donkey—all of them grubby, sunburned, and tear-stained—stood waiting patiently to enter the hotel, except the donkey, although he probably wouldn't have minded going inside.

Alexia could only blink down at Ivy, experiencing a kind of emotional distress heretofore alien to her makeup. Oh, Conall had been angry at her in the past, but to the best of
her
knowledge, he had never been in the right
before. “Oh, Ivy. I am so very sorry. I forgot you were there.”

“Goodness, that doesn't happen often,” replied Ivy. Although she had heard much of the conversation, she was ignorant as to the significance of the tirade, for she asked at that juncture, looking with concern into her dear friend's ashen face, “Why, Alexia, my dear, are you quite well?”

“No, Ivy, I am not. I do believe my marriage may be in ruins.”

“Well, it's a good thing we are in the land of such things, then, isn't it?”

“What things?”

“Ruins.”

“Oh, Ivy,
really
.”

“Not even a smile? You must truly be afflicted by sentimental upset. Do you feel faint? I've never known you to faint, but I suppose one is never too young to start trying.”

Then, much to Ivy's shock and Alexia's horror, the bold-as-brass Lady Maccon—paragon of assertive behavior and wielder of stoicism, parasols, and the occasional cryptic remark—burst into tears, right there on the front step of a public hostelry in central Alexandria.

Mrs. Tunstell, horrified beyond measure, wrapped one consoling arm about her friend and hustled her quickly inside Hotel des Voyageurs and into a private side parlor where she called for tea and instructed the nursemaid to see that the children were cleaned and put down for a nap. Alexia had just enough presence of mind to babble out that under no circumstances was anyone to attempt to bathe Prudence.

Alexia continued to blubber incoherently and Ivy to pat her hand sympathetically. Mrs. Tunstell was clearly at a loss as to what else she might do to allay her friend's anguish.

Tunstell appeared in the doorway at one point, riding atop Prudence's mechanical ladybug—he had always been fond of ladybugs—his knees up by his ears and grinning like a maniac. Even that failed to cheer Alexia. Ivy sent her husband off with a quick shake of her head and a stern, “Tunny, this is a serious matter. Bug off. We are not to be disturbed.”

“But, light of my life, what has happened to your hat?”

“Never mind that now. I have an emotional crisis on my hands.”

Tunstell, shaken to the core by the fact that his wife was clearly not disturbed by the loss of one of her precious bonnets, elected to take Alexia's tears seriously and stopped smiling. “My goodness, what can I do?”

“Do? Do! Men are useless in such matters. Go see what is delaying the tea!”

Tunstell and the mechanical ladybug trundled away.

Finally a beverage did arrive, but it was once again honey-sweetened coffee, not tea. This only made Alexia cry harder. What she wouldn't give for a cup of strong Assam with a dollop of quality British milk and a piece of treacle tart. Her world was crumbling around her!

She sobbed. “Oh, Ivy, what am I to do? He will never trust me again.” She must have been feeling quite undone to ask Mrs. Ivy Tunstell for advice.

Ivy clasped Alexia's hand in both of hers and made sympathetic shushing noises. “There, there, Alexia, it will all be all right.”

“How will it be all right? I lied to him.”

“Oh, but you've done that heaps of times.”

“Yes, but this time it was about something that matters. Something he cares about. And it was wrong of me to do it. And I knew it was wrong but I did it anyway. Oh, blast Professor Lyall. How could he get me into this mess? And blast my father, too! If he hadn't gone off and gotten himself killed, none of this would have happened.”

“Now, Alexia, language.”

“Right when I have important information about this plague and I need Conall here to help me figure out the particulars. But, no, he has to go storming off. And it's all destroyed, all lost.”

“Really, Alexia, I've never known you to be fatalistic before.”

“Too many viewings of
The Death Rains of Swansea
, I suppose.”

There came a bustle at the door and another familiar face peeked in. “What on earth has happened? Alexia, are you well? Is it Prudence?” Madame Lefoux came hurrying into the room. Tossing her hat and gloves carelessly aside, she dashed over to the divan and sat next to Alexia, on the other side from Ivy.

Lacking Mrs. Tunstell's natural British reticence, the Frenchwoman scooped Alexia into a full embrace, wrapping her bony arms around her friend and pressing her cheek to the top of Alexia's dark head. She stroked Alexia's back up and down in long, affectionate caresses, which reminded Alexia of Conall and made the tears, which were almost under control, start up once more.

Genevieve looked at Ivy curiously. “Why, Mrs. Tunstell, whatever could cause our Alexia to be so overset?”

“She has had a most trying argument with her husband. Something to do with a letter, and Professor Lyall, and a trifle, and some treacle, I believe.”

“Oh, dear, it sounds gummy.”

The absurdity of Ivy's interpretation was the boost Alexia needed to rein in her runaway sentimentality.
Really
, she thought,
there is no point in wallowing. I must get myself in order and come up with a way to fix this
. She took a deep, shaky breath and a long sip of the horrible coffee to calm her nerves. She then developed a bad case of the hiccoughs, because, as she could only surmise, the universe was against her retaining any dignity whatsoever.

“Old history,” she said at last. “With werewolves, it is never so very well buried as one might hope. Suffice it to say that Conall has discovered something and I am to blame in part for his not knowing it to start with. He is not happy about this. Sticky, indeed.”

Genevieve, sensing Alexia was beginning to recover, let her go and sat back, pouring herself a cup of coffee.

Mrs. Tunstell, wishing to provide some distraction while Alexia composed her emotions, began prattling on about their adventures at the bazaar in highly embellished terms. Madame Lefoux listened attentively and gasped in all the right places, and by the time the telling was complete, Alexia was feeling better, if not entirely up to snuff.

Alexia turned the full focus of her attention onto the French inventor. “And how about you, Genevieve? I trust your explorations about the metropolis have proved more enjoyable than ours?”

“Well, they were certainly less exciting. I had a matter of business to conduct. It seems, however, to have opened up more questions than it answered.”

“Oh?”

“Yes.”

Alexia took a gamble. “While I know that ostensibly the countess sent you along to keep an eye on me and figure out what Matakara wants with Prudence, I don't suppose your true purpose in visiting Egypt is to investigate the expansion of the God-Breaker Plague for the OBO. Is it?”

Genevieve dimpled at her. “Ah. I see. You've noticed it, too, have you?”

“Conall and I suspected as much the evening we arrived, and a missive from Biffy recently confirmed it. Some fifty years ago, or thereabouts, it began an accelerated push.”

Madame Lefoux tilted her head in acknowledgment. “Actually, we are thinking that it was more like forty.”

“You have an idea of what might have set it into motion?”

“Well…,” Madame Lefoux hedged.

“Genevieve, we have been through this before. Don't you think it wiser simply to tell me what you are thinking? It saves burning half of London and having to build weapons of immense tentaclization.”

The Frenchwoman pursed her lips and then nodded. She stared for a moment at Ivy out of suspicious green eyes and then finally said, “I suppose. It's not that we know exactly what caused it, more that there is a terrible coincidence. How to put this? You see, Alexia, your father happened to be in Egypt right about that time.”