The Parasol Protectorate Boxed Set (40 page)

Lady Maccon swept in to find Mrs. Hisslepenny and her clacking knitting needles, keeping wordless vigil to her daughter's
endless chatter.

“Oh, Alexia! Tremendous.”

“And a good evening to you too, Ivy. How are you tonight?”

This was rather an imprudent question to ask Miss Hisselpenny, as Miss Hisselpenny was prone to telling one the answer—in
excruciating detail.

“Would you believe? The announcement of my engagement to Captain Featherstonehaugh was in the
Times
this morning, and practically
no one
has called all day! I have received only twenty-four visitors, and when Bernice got engaged last month, she had twenty-seven!
Shabby, I call it, perfectly shabby. Although, I suppose you would make it twenty-five, dearest Alexia.”

“Ivy,” said Alexia without further shilly-shallying, “why bother to lay about here awaiting insult? You clearly require some
diversion. And I am in just the humor to provide it. For I do believe you are in dire need of a new hat. You and I should
go shopping for one.”

“Right this very instant?”

“Yes, immediately. I hear there is a divine new shop just opened on Regent Street. Shall we give it our patronage?”

“Oh.” Ivy's cheeks pinkened in delight. “The Chapeau de Poupe? It is supposed to be very daring, indeed. Some ladies of my
acquaintance have even referred to it as
fast.
” A little gasp at that word emitted from Ivy's perennially quiet mama, but that good lady did not offer any comment to companion
her inhalation, so Ivy continued. “You know, only the most forward ladies frequent that establishment. The actress Mabel Dair
is supposed to stop in regularly. And the proprietress is said to be quite the scandal herself.”

Everything about her friend's outraged tone told Alexia that Ivy was dying to visit Chapeau de Poupe.

“Well, it sounds like just the place to find something a little more unusual for the winter season, and as a newly engaged
lady, you do realize you simply must have a new hat.”

“Must I?”

“Trust me, my dearest Ivy, you most definitely must.”

“Well, Ivy dear,” said Mrs. Hisselpenny in a soft voice, setting down her knitting and looking up. “You should go and change.
It would not do to keep Lady Maccon waiting on such a generous offer.”

Ivy, pressed most firmly into doing something she wished to do more than anything else in the world, trotted upstairs with
only a few more token protests.

“You will try to help her, won't you, Lady Maccon?” Mrs. Hisselpenny's eyes were quite desperate over her once-again clicking
needles.

Alexia thought she understood the question. “You are also worried about this sudden engagement?”

“Oh no, Captain Featherstonehaugh is quite a suitable match. No, I was referring to Ivy's headwear preferences.”

Alexia swallowed down a smile, keeping her face perfectly serious. “Of course. I shall do my very best, for queen and country.”

The Hisselpennys' manservant appeared with a welcome tea tray. Lady Maccon sipped a freshly brewed cup in profound relief.
All in all, it had been quite the trying evening thus far. With Ivy and hats in her future, it was only likely to get worse.
Tea was a medicinal necessity at this juncture. Thank goodness Mrs. Hisselpenny had thought to provide.

Lady Maccon resorted to painfully pleasant discussion of the weather for a quarter of an hour. None too soon, Ivy reappeared
in a walking dress of orange taffeta ruffled to within an inch of its life, and a champagne brocade overjacket, paired with
a particularly noteworthy flowerpot hat. The hat was, not unexpectedly, decorated with a herd of silk mums and here and there
a tiny feather bee on the end of a piece of wire.

Alexia forbore to look at the hat, thanked Mrs. Hisselpenny for the tea, and hustled Ivy into the Woolsey carriage. Around
them, London's night society was coming to life, gas lights being lit, elegantly dressed couples hailing cabs, here and there
a reeling group of rowdy young blunts. Alexia directed her driver to proceed on to Regent Street, and they arrived in short
order at Chapeau de Poupe.

At first Alexia was at a loss as to why her husband wanted her to visit Chapeau de Poupe. So she did what any young lady of
good breeding would do. She shopped.

“Are you certain you wish to go hat shopping with me, Alexia?” asked Ivy as they pushed in through the wrought-iron door.
“Your taste in hats is not mine.”

“I should most profoundly hope not,” replied Lady Maccon with real feeling, looking at the flower-covered monstrosity atop
her friend's sweet round little face and glossy black curls.

The shop proved to be as reported. It was exceptionally modern in appearance, all light airy muslin drapes, with soft peach
and sage striped walls and bronze furniture with clean lines and matched cushions.

“Ahooo,” said Ivy, looking about with wide eyes. “Isn't this simply too French?”

There were a few hats on tables and on wall hooks, but most were hanging from little gold chains suspended from the ceiling.
They fell to different heights so that one had to brush through the hats to get around the shop, and they swayed slightly,
like some alien vegetation. And such hats—caps of embroidered batiste with Mechlin lace, Italian straw shepherdesses, faille
capotes, velvet toques that put Ivy's flowerpot to shame, and outrageous pifferaro bonnets—dangled everywhere.

Ivy was immediately entranced by the ugliest of the bunch: a canary-yellow felt toque trimmed with black currants, black velvet
ribbon, and a pair of green feathers that looked like antennae off to one side.

“Oh, not that one!” said both Alexia and another voice at the same time when Ivy reached to pull it off the wall.

Ivy's hand dropped to her side, and both she and Lady Maccon turned to see the most remarkable-looking woman emerging from
a curtained back room.

Alexia thought, without envy, that this was quite probably the most beautiful female she had ever seen. She had a lovely small
mouth, large green eyes, prominent cheekbones, and dimples when she smiled, which she was doing now. Normally Alexia objected
to dimples, but they seemed to suit this woman. Perhaps because they were offset by her thin angular frame and the fact that
she had her brown hair cut unfashionably short, like a man's.

Ivy gasped upon seeing her.

This was not because of the hair. Or, not entirely because of it. This was because the woman was also dressed head to shiny
boots in perfect and impeccable style—for a man. Jacket, pants, and waistcoat were all to the height of fashion. A top hat
perched upon that scandalously short hair, and her burgundy cravat was tied into a silken waterfall. Still, there was no pretense
at hiding her femininity. Her voice, when she spoke, was low and melodic, but definitely that of a woman.

Alexia picked up a pair of burnt umber kid gloves from a display basket. They were as soft as butter to the touch, and she
looked at them to stop herself from staring at the woman.

“I am Madame Lefoux. Welcome to Chapeau de Poupe. How may I serve you fine ladies?” She had the hint of a French accent, but
only the barest hint, utterly unlike Angelique, who could never seem to handle the “th” sound.

Ivy and Alexia curtsied with a little tilt to their heads, the latest fashion in curtsies, designed to show that the neck
was unbitten. One wouldn't want to be thought a drone without the benefit of vampiric protection. Madame Lefoux did the same,
although it was impossible to tell if her neck was bitten under that skillfully tied cravat. Alexia noted with interest that
she wore two cravat pins: one of silver and one of wood. Madame Lefoux might keep night hours, but she was cautious about
it.

Lady Maccon said, “My friend Miss Hisselpenny has recently become engaged and is in dire need of a new hat.” She did not introduce
herself, not yet. Lady Maccon was a name best kept in reserve.

Madame Lefoux took in Ivy's copious flowers and feather bees. “Yes, this is quite evident. Do walk this way, Miss Hisselpenny.
I believe I have something over here that would perfectly suit that dress.”

Ivy dutifully trotted after the strangely clad woman. She gave Alexia a look over her shoulder that said, as clearly as if
she had the gumption to say it aloud,
what the deuce is she wearing?

Alexia wandered over to the offensive yellow toque she and Madame Lefoux had so hastily warned Ivy off of. It completely contrasted
with the general sophisticated tenor set by the other hats. Almost as though it wasn't meant to be purchased.

As the extraordinary patroness seemed to be thoroughly distracted by Ivy (well, who wouldn't be?), Alexia used the handle
of her parasol to gently lift the toque and peek underneath. It was at that precise moment she deduced why it was her husband
had sent her to Chapeau de Poupe.

There was a hidden knob, disguised as a hook, secreted under the hideous hat. Alexia quickly replaced the hat and turned away
to begin innocently wandering about the shop, pretending interest in various accessories. She began to notice that there were
other little hints as to a second nature for Chapeau de Poupe: scrape marks on the floor near a wall that
seemed
to have no door and several gas lights that were not lit. Alexia would wager good money that they were not lights at all.

Lady Maccon would not have thought to be curious, of course, had her husband not been so insistent she visit the establishment.
The rest of the shop was quite unsuspicious, being the height of la mode, with hats appealing enough to hold even
her
unstylish awareness. But with the scrapes and the hidden knob, Alexia became curious, both about the shop and its owner.
Lady Maccon might be soulless, but the liveliness of her mind was never in question.

She wandered over to where Madame Lefoux had actually persuaded Miss Hisselpenny to don a becoming little straw bonnet with
upturned front, decorated about the crown with a few classy cream flowers and one graceful blue feather.

“Ivy, that looks remarkably well on you,” she praised.

“Thank you, Alexia, but don't you find it a tad reserved? I'm not convinced it quite suits.”

Lady Maccon and Madame Lefoux exchanged a
look.

“No, I do not. It is nothing like that horrible yellow thing at the back you insisted on at first. I went to take a closer
look, you know, and it really is quite ghastly.”

Madame Lefoux glanced at Alexia, her beautiful face suddenly sharp and her dimples gone.

Alexia smiled, all teeth and not nicely. One couldn't live around werewolves and not pick up a few of their mannerisms. “It
cannot possibly be your design?” she said mildly to the proprietress.

“The work of an apprentice, I do assure you,” replied Madame Lefoux with a tiny French shrug. She put a new hat onto Ivy's
head, one with a few more flowers.

Miss Hisselpenny preened.

“Are there any more… like it?” wondered Alexia, still talking about the ugly yellow hat.

“Well, there is that riding hat.” The proprietress's voice was wary.

Lady Maccon nodded. Madame Lefoux was naming the hat nearest to the scrape marks Alexia had observed on the floor. They understood
one another.

There came a pause in conversation while Ivy expressed interest in a frosted pink confection with feather toggles. Alexia
spun her closed parasol between two gloved hands.

“You seem to be having problems with some of your gas lighting as well,” said Alexia, all mildness and sugar.

“Indeed.” A flicker of firm acknowledgment crossed Madame Lefoux's face at that. “And, of course, there is the door handle.
But you know how it goes—there are always kinks to work out after opening a new establishment.”

Lady Maccon cursed herself. The door handle—how had she missed that? She wandered over casually, leaning on her parasol to
look down at it.

Ivy, all insensible of the underpinnings to their conversation, went on to try the next hat.

The handle on the inside of the front door was far larger than it ought to be and seemed to be comprised of a complicated
series of cogs and bolts, far more security than any ordinary hat shop required.

Alexia wondered if Madame Lefoux was a French spy.

“Well,” Ivy was telling Madame Lefoux in a chatty manner when Alexia rejoined them, “Alexia always says my taste is abysmal,
but I can hardly see how she has much ground. Her choices are so often banal.”

“I lack imagination,” admitted Alexia. “Which is why I keep a highly creative French maid.”

Madame Lefoux looked mildly interested at that. Her dimples showed in a little half-smile.

“And the eccentricity of carrying a parasol even at night? I take it I am being honored by a visit from Lady Maccon?”

“Alexia,” Miss Hisselpenny asked, scandalized, “you never introduced yourself?”

“Well I—” Alexia was grappling for an excuse, when…

Boom!

And the world about them exploded into darkness.

A
n enormous noise shook the structure around them. All of the hats on the ends of their long chains swung about violently.
Ivy let out the most milk-curdling scream. Someone else yelled, rather soberly by comparison. The gas lighting went out, and
the shop descended into darkness.

It took a moment for Lady Maccon to realize that the explosion had not, in fact, been intended to kill
her.
Given her experiences over the past year, this was a novel change of pace. But it also made her wonder if the explosion had
been intended to kill someone else.

“Ivy?” Alexia asked the darkness.

Silence.

“Madame Lefoux?”

Further silence.

Alexia crouched down, as much as her corset would allow, and felt about, willing her eyes to acclimatize to the black. She
felt taffeta: the ruffles attached to Ivy's prone form.

Alexia's heart sank.

She patted Ivy all about for injury, but Miss Hisselpenny seemed unscathed. Light puffs of breath hit the back of Lady Maccon's
hand when she passed it under Ivy's nose, and there was a pulse—shallow but solid. Apparently, Miss Hisselpenny had simply
fainted.

“Ivy!” she hissed.

Nothing.

“Ivy, please!”

Miss Hisselpenny shifted slightly and murmured, “Yes, Mr. Tunstell?” under her breath.

Oh dear
, thought Alexia. What a terribly unsuitable match, and Ivy already engaged to someone else. Lady Maccon had no idea that
things had progressed so far as to involve
murmurings
in times of distress. Then she felt a stab of pity. Better to let Ivy have her dreams while she could.

So Lady Maccon left her friend as she lay and did not reach for the smelling salts.

Madame Lefoux, on the other hand, was nowhere to be found. She had apparently vanished into the blackness. Perhaps seeking
the source of the explosion. Or perhaps being the source of the explosion.

Alexia could guess as to where the Frenchwoman had disappeared. Her eyes now partly adjusted to the gloom, she made her way
along the wall toward the back of the shop, where the scrape marks were located.

She felt all about the wallpaper for a switch or a knob of some kind, finally finding a lever hidden under a glove display
box. She pressed it sharply down, and a door swung open before her, nearly cracking her on the nose.

Lady Maccon managed to determine that it was no room or passageway but a large shaft with several cables down the middle and
two guide rails on the side. She craned her head inside and looked up, hanging on to the doorjamb. What appeared to be a steam-powered
windlass occupied the whole of the top of the shaft. She found a cord to one side of the doorway that, when pulled upon, engaged
the windlass. With many puffs of steam and some creaking and groaning, a boxy cage appeared from out of the shaft depths.
Alexia was familiar with the concept—an ascension room. She'd had previous dealings with a less sophisticated version at the
Hypocras Club. She had found that they did not suit her stomach, but she stepped into the cage regardless, closing the grate
behind her, and turned a crank on one side to lower the contraption.

The cage bumped when it hit the ground, causing Alexia to stumble violently up against the side. Parasol held defensively
before her as though it were a cricket bat, she opened the grate and stepped out into an illuminated underground passageway.

The lighting mechanism was like nothing Lady Maccon had ever seen. It must be some kind of gas, but it appeared as an orange
tinted mist inside glass tubing set along the ceiling. The mist swirled about within its confines, causing the illumination
to be patchy and faint in odd, shifting patterns.
Light cast as clouds
, thought Alexia fancifully.

At the end of the passage was an open doorway, out of which spilled a mass of brighter orange light and three voices raised
in anger. As she neared, Alexia realized the passage must traverse directly underneath Regent Street. She also realized the
voices were arguing in French.

Alexia had a good grasp of the modern languages, so she followed the gist of the conversation without difficulty.

“What could possibly have possessed you?” Madame Lefoux was asking, her voice still smooth despite her annoyance.

The entranceway appeared to service a laboratory of some kind, although it was nothing like those Alexia had seen at the Hypocras
Club or the Royal Society. It had more the look of an apparatus factory, with massive machine components and other gadgetry.

“Well, you see, I could not for the life of me get the boiler running.”

Alexia peeked into the room. It was huge and in a complete and utter muddle. Containers had been knocked off tables, glass
had shattered, and thousands of tiny gears were scattered across the dirt floor. A jumble of cords and wire coils lay on the
ground along with the hat stand they had once been hanging on. There was black soot everywhere, coating both those tubes,
gears, and springs that had not fallen and the larger pieces of machinery. Outside the blast zone, things were also in disarray.
A pair of glassicals lay atop a pile of research books. Large diagrams drawn in black pencil on stiff yellow paper were pinned
haphazardly to the walls. It was clear that some accident had disrupted matters, but it was equally clear the place had been
untidy well before the unfortunate event.

It was noisy, as many of those mechanisms and gadgets not affected by the blast were running. Steam puffed out in little gasps
and whistles, gears clanked, metal chain links clicked, and valves squealed. Such a cacophony of noises as only the great
factories of the north might make. But it wasn't an invasive noise, more a symphony in engineering.

Partly hidden behind the piles, Madame Lefoux stood, hands on angular trouser-clad hips, legs wide like a man, glaring down
at some species of grubby child. The urchin came complete with grease-smeared face, filthy hands, and jaunty tilt to his newsboy
cap. He was clearly in a hot spot of bother but seemed less apologetic than excited about his inadvertent pyrotechnics.

“So, what did you do, Quesnel?”

“I just soaked a bit of rag in ether and tossed it into the flame. Ether catches fire, no?”

“Oh, for goodness sake, Quesnel. Don't you ever listen?” This came from a new voice, a ghost, who was making a show of sitting
sidesaddle on an overturned barrel. She was a very solid-looking specter, which meant her dead body must be relatively close
and well preserved. Regent Street was well north of the exorcised zone, so she would have escaped last night's incident undead.
If the ghost's speech was anything to go by, her body must have traveled over from France, or she had died in London an immigrant.
Her face was sharply defined, her visage that of a handsome older woman who resembled Madame Lefoux. Her arms were crossed
over her chest in annoyance.

“Ether!” shrieked Madame Lefoux.

“Well, yes,” said the ragamuffin.

“Ether is explosive, you little…” After which followed a stream of unpleasant words, which still managed to sound pleasant
in Madame Lefoux's mellow voice.

“Ah,” replied the boy with a shameless grin. “But it did make a fantastic bang.”

Alexia could not help herself; she let out a little giggle.

All three gasped and looked over at her.

Lady Maccon straightened up, brushed her blue silk walking dress smooth, and entered the cavernous room, swinging her parasol
back and forth.

“Ah,” said Madame Lefoux, switching back to her impeccable English. “Welcome to my contrivance chamber, Lady Maccon.”

“You are a woman of many talents, Madame Lefoux, an inventor as well as a milliner?”

Madame Lefoux inclined her head. “As you see, the two more often cross paths than one would think. I should have realized
you would deduce the function of the windlass engine and the location of my laboratory, Lady Maccon.”

“Oh,” replied Alexia. “Why should you have?”

The Frenchwoman dimpled at her and bent to retrieve a fallen vial of some silvery liquid, which had managed to escape Quesnel's
explosion unbroken. “Your husband informed me that you were clever. And prone to interfering overmuch.”

“That sounds like something he would say.” Alexia made her way through the shambles, lifting her skirts delicately to keep
them from getting caught on fragments of glass. Now that she could see them closer up, the gadgets lying about Madame Lefoux's
contrivance chamber were amazing. There seemed to be an entire assembly line of glassicals in midconstruction and a massive
apparatus that looked to be composed of the innards of several steam engines welded to a galvanometer, a carriage wheel, and
a wicker chicken.

Alexia, tripping only once over a large valve, completed her trek across the room and nodded politely to the child and the
ghost.

“How do you do? Lady Maccon, at your service.”

The scrap of a boy grinned at her, made an elaborate bow, and said, “Quesnel Lefoux.”

Alexia gave him an expressionless look. “So,
did
you get the boiler started?”

Quesnel blushed. “Not exactly. But I did get a fire started. That should count for something, don't you feel?” His English
was superb.

Madame Lefoux cast her hands heavenward.

“Indubitably,” agreed Lady Maccon, endearing herself to the child for all time.

The ghost introduced herself as Formerly Beatrice Lefoux.

Alexia nodded to her politely, which surprised the ghost. The undead were often subjected to rudeness from the fully alive.
But Lady Maccon always stood on formality.

“My impossible son and my noncorporeal aunt,” explained Madame Lefoux, looking at Alexia as though she expected something.

Lady Maccon filed away the fact that they all had the same last name. Had Madame Lefoux not married the child's father? How
very salacious. But Quesnel did not look at all like his mother. She need not have claimed him. He was a towheaded, pointy-chinned
little creature with the most enormous violet eyes and not a dimple in sight.

The lady inventor said to her family, “This is Alexia Maccon, Lady Woolsey. She is also muhjah to the queen.”

“Ah, my husband saw fit to tell you that little fact, did he?” Alexia was surprised. Not many knew about her political position,
and, as with her preternatural state, both she and her husband preferred to keep it that way: Conall, because it kept his
wife out of danger; Alexia, because it caused most individuals, supernatural or otherwise, to come over all funny about soullessness.

The ghost of Beatrice Lefoux interrupted them. “You are ze muhjah? Niece, you allow an exorcist into ze vicinity of my body?
Uncaring, thoughtless child! You are ze worse than your son.” Her accent was far more pronounced than her niece's. She moved
violently away from Alexia, floating back and upward off the barrel upon which she had pretended to sit. As though Alexia
could
do
anything damaging to her spirit. Silly creature.

Lady Maccon frowned, realizing that the aunt's presence eliminated Madame Lefoux as a suspect in the case of the mass exorcism.
She could not have invented a weapon that acted like a preternatural, not here, not if her aunt's spirit resided in the contrivance
chamber.

“Aunt, do not get so emotional. Lady Maccon can only kill you if she touches your body, and only I know where that is kept.”

Alexia wrinkled her nose. “Please do not agitate yourself so, Formerly Lefoux. I prefer not to perform exorcisms in any event:
decomposing flesh is very squishy.” She shuddered delicately.

“Oh, well, thank you for that,” sneered the ghost.

“Ew!” said Quesnel, fascinated. “Have you conducted simply masses of them?”

Alexia narrowed her eyes at him in a way she hoped was mysterious and cunning, and then turned back to his mother. “So, in
what capacity did my husband see fit to inform you of my nature and my position?”

Madame Lefoux was leaning back slightly, a faint look of amusement on her lovely face. “What could your ladyship possibly
mean?”

“Was he in attendance upon you as Alpha, as earl, or as the head of BUR investigations?”

Madame Lefoux dimpled once more at that. “Ah, yes, the many faces of Conall Maccon.”

Alexia bridled at the Frenchwoman's use of Conall's first name. “And how long, exactly, have you known my husband?” Abnormal
dress was one thing, but loose morals were an entirely different matter.

“Calm yourself, my lady. My interest in your husband is purely professional. He and I know each other through BUR transactions,
but he visited me here a month ago as the earl and your husband. He wished me to make you a special gift.”

“A gift?”

“Indeed.”

“Well, where is it?”

Madame Lefoux looked to her son. “Scat, you. Go find the cleaning mechanicals, hot water, and soap. Listen to your former
great-aunt; she will tell you what can take water immersion and what will need to be cleaned and repaired by some other means.
You have a very long night ahead of you.”