Soulless (Parasol Protectorate, #1)

by Gail Carriger

Miss Alexia Tarabotti was not enjoying her evening. Private balls were never more than middling amusements for spinsters, and Miss Tarabotti was not the kind of spinster who could garner even that much pleasure from the event. To put the pudding in the puff: she had retreated to the library, her favorite sanctuary in any house, only to happen upon an unexpected vampire. She glared at the vampire. For his part, the vampire seemed to feel that their encounter had improved his ball experience immeasurably. For there she sat, without escort, in a low-necked ball gown.

In this particular case, what he did not know could hurt him. For Miss Alexia had been born without a soul, which, as any decent vampire of good blooding knew, made her a lady to avoid most assiduously.

Yet he moved toward her, darkly shimmering out of the library shadows with feeding fangs ready. However, the moment he touched Miss Tarabotti, he was suddenly no longer darkly doing anything at all. He was simply standing there, the faint sounds of a string quartet in the background a...

Clearly not the sharpest of prongs, he then darted forward from the neck like a serpent, diving in for another chomp. “I say!” said Alexia to the vampire. “We have not even been introduced!”

She whacked the vampire right on top of the head with it as he tried to extract himself from his newly intimate relations with the tea trolley. The buckshot gave the brass parasol just enough heft to make a deliciously satisfying thunk. “Manners!” instructed Miss Tarabotti.

Alexia followed up her advantage with a vicious prod between the vampire’s legs. His howl went quite a bit higher in pitch, and he crumpled into a fetal position. While Miss Tarabotti was a proper English young lady, aside from not having a soul and being half Italian, she did spend quite a bit more time than most other young ladies riding and walking and was therefore unexpectedly strong.

She intended to waltz directly out of the library without anyone the wiser to her presence there. This would have resulted in the loss of her best hair stick and her well-deserved tea, as well as a good deal of drama. Unfortunately, a small group of young dandies came traipsing in at that precise moment. What young men of such dress were doing in a library was anyone’s guess. Alexia felt the most likely explanation was that they had become lost while looking for the card room. Regardless, their presence forced her to pretend that she, too, had just discovered the dead vampire. With a resigned shrug, she screamed and collapsed into a faint.

Then came the sound she had half anticipated, half dreaded. An authoritative voice cleared the library of both young dandies and all other interested parties who had flowed into the room upon discovery of the tableau. The voice instructed everyone to “get out!” while he “gained the particulars from the young lady” in tones that brooked no refusal. Silence descended. “Mark my words, I will use something much, much stronger than smelling salts,” came a growl in Miss Tarabotti’s left ear. The voice was low and tinged with a hint of Scotland. It would have caused Alexia to shiver and think primal monkey thoughts about moons and running far and fast, if she’d had a soul.

The fact that Alexia was preternatural had been explained to her at age six by a nice gentleman from the Civil Service with silver hair and a silver cane—a werewolf specialist. Along with the dark hair and prominent nose, preternatural was something Miss Tarabotti had to thank her dead Italian father for. What it really meant was that words like I and me were just excessively theoretical for Alexia. She certainly had an identity and a heart that felt emotions and all that; she simply had no soul. Miss Alexia, age six, had nodded politely at the nice silver-haired gentleman. Then she had made certain to read oodles of ancient Greek philosophy dealing with reason, logic, and ethics. If she had no soul, she also had no morals, so she reckoned she had best develop some kind of alternative. Her mama thought her a bluestocking, which was soulless enough as far as Mrs. Loontwill was concerned, and was terribly upset by her eldest daughter’s propensity for libraries. It would be too bothersome to have to face her mama in one just now.

He would give a hundred pounds to know what she was thinking just then. He was also certain she would tell him exactly what it was if he asked, but he refused to give her the satisfaction.

“Speaking of gentlemen’s clubs,” interrupted Felicity, still immersed in the paper, “a new one opened last week in Mayfair. It caters to intellectuals, philosophers, scientists, and their ilk—of all things. It calls itself the Hypocras Club. How absurd. Why would such a class of individual need a club? Isn’t that what they have public museums for?” She frowned over the address. “Terribly fashionable location, though.” She showed the printed page to her mother. “Isn’t that next door to the Duke of Snodgrove’s town house?” Mrs. Loontwill nodded. “Quite right, my dear. Well, a parcel of scientists coming and going at all hours of the day and night will certainly lower the tenor of that neighborhood. I should think the duchess would be in a veritable fit over this occurrence. I had intended to send round a thank-you card for last night’s festivities. Now I think I might pay her a call in person this afternoon. As a concerned friend, I really ought to check on her emotional state.” “How ghastly for her,” said Alexia, driven beyond endurance into comment. “People actually thinking, with their brains, and right next door. Oh, the travesty of it all.”

Mrs. Loontwill had never quite managed to figure out her eldest daughter. She had thought that putting Alexia on the shelf would keep the exasperating girl out of trouble. Instead, she had inadvertently managed to give Alexia an ever-increasing degree of freedom. Thinking back on it, she really ought to have married Alexia off instead. Now they were all stuck with her outrageous behavior, which seemed to be progressively worsening as she got older. Alexia added peevishly, “I did wake up this morning thinking of all the rude things I could have said but did not. I call that most aggravating.”

Tarabotti was not one of life’s milk-water misses—in fact, quite the opposite. Many a gentleman had likened his first meeting with her to downing a very strong cognac when one was expecting to imbibe fruit juice—that is to say, startling and apt to leave one with a distinct burning sensation.

She knew how very trying her second husband found her eldest daughter. Really, what had she been thinking, marrying an Italian? Well, she had been young and Alessandro Tarabotti so very handsome. But there was something else about Alexia, something… revoltingly independent, that Mrs. Loontwill could not blame entirely on her first husband. And, of course, she refused to take the blame herself. Whatever it was, Alexia had been born that way, full of logic and reason and sharp words. Not for the first time, Mrs. Loontwill lamented the fact that her eldest had not been a male child; it would have made life very much easier for them all.

Under ordinary circumstances, walks in Hyde Park were the kind of thing a single young lady of good breeding was not supposed to do without her mama and possibly an elderly female relation or two in attendance. Miss Tarabotti felt such rules did not entirely apply to her, as she was a spinster. Had been a spinster for as long as she could remember. In her more acerbic moments, she felt she had been born a spinster. Mrs. Loontwill had not even bothered with the expenditure of a come-out or a proper season for her eldest daughter. “Really, darling,” Alexia’s mother had said at the time in tones of the deepest condescension, “with that nose and that skin, there is simply no point in us going to the expense. I have got your sisters to think of.” So Alexia, whose nose really wasn’t that big and whose skin really wasn’t that tan, had gone on the shelf at fifteen.

Not that she had ever actually coveted the burden of a husband, but it would have been nice to know she could get one if she ever changed her mind. Alexia did enjoy dancing, so she would have liked to attend at least one ball as an available young lady rather than always ending up skulking in libraries. These days she at...

“Ivy, my dear,” said Miss Tarabotti as her friend bustled up, “how marvelous of you to find time to walk at such short notice! What a hideous bonnet. I do hope you did not pay too much for it.” “Alexia! How perfectly horrid of you to criticize my hat.

Drones were vampire companions, servants, and caretakers who were paid with the possibility of eventually becoming immortal themselves. But vampires rarely chose drones from among those who occupied the limelight. They preferred a more behind-the-scenes approach to soul hunting: recruiting painters, poets, sculptors, and the like. The flashier side of creativity was universally acknowledged werewolf territory, who chose thespians, opera singers, and ballet dancers to become clavigers.

Lord Akeldama never drank anything but champagne. Well, that is to say, except when he was drinking blood. He was reputed to have once said that the best drink in existence was a blending of the two, a mix he referred to fondly as a Pink Slurp. “You know why I invited you over, then?” Alexia asked instead, offering him a cheese swizzle. Lord Akeldama waved a limp wrist about dismissively before taking the swizzle and nibbling its tip. “La, my dearest girl, you invited me because you could not bear to be without my company a single moment longer. And I shall be cut to the very quick of my extensive soul if your reason is anything else.”

In this particular instance, he stroked her hand fondly. There was no attraction in the movement. “Sweetling,” he had once said, “you are at no more risk with me in that regard than you are in danger of me unexpectedly biting you—both being equal impossibilities. In the one case, I do not possess the necessary equipment upon contact, in the other case you do not.”

Lord Maccon scrubbed his face with his hand, reached desperately for a nearby teapot, and drained it through the spout. Miss Tarabotti looked away from the horrible sight. Who was it that had said “only just civilized”? She closed her eyes and considered, realizing it must have been she. She fluttered one hand to her throat. “Please, Lord Maccon, use one of the cups. My delicate sensibilities.” The earl actually snorted. “My dear Miss Tarabotti, if you possessed any such things, you certainly have never shown them to me.” But he did put down the teapot.

“Why do you persist in associating with that creature?” Miss Tarabotti straightened her skirts, draping the pleated hem more carefully over her kid boots. She demurred. “I like Lord Akeldama.” The earl abruptly looked more livid than tired. “Do you, by George! What has he been luring you in with? Little pip-squeak, I shall wallop his scrawny hide to ribbons.” “I suspect he might enjoy that,” murmured Alexia, thinking of what little she knew of her vampire friend’s proclivities.

What she wanted to say was, Do not be an idiot. What she actually said was, “I needed Lord Akeldama’s advice on supernatural matters. I did not want to disturb you for anything trivial.”

Miss Tarabotti’s hand became very warm, and she was finding that her knees reacted in a decidedly wobbly way to such close proximity to the earl. Stop it! she instructed them fiercely. What was she supposed to say next? Right: Do not be an idiot. And then: I needed help with a vampire, so I went to a vampire for help. No, that was not right. What would Ivy say? Oh yes. “I was so upset, you see? I encountered a drone in the park yesterday, and Countess Nadasdy has requested my presence, this very night.”

Miss Tarabotti commenced with Felicity reading aloud the newspaper, went on to the walk with Ivy and the meeting with Miss Dair, and ended with Lord Akeldama’s perspective on the situation. “You know,” she added when she felt the earl tense at the vampire’s name, “he was the one who suggested I see you.” “What!” “I must know as much as possible about this situation if I am to go into a hive alone. Most supernatural battles are over information. If Countess Nadasdy wants something from me, it is far better if I know what it is and whether I am capable of providing it.” Lord Maccon stood, slightly panicked, and said exactly the wrong thing. “I forbid you to go!” He had no idea what it was about this particular woman that made him lose all sense of verbal decorum. But there it was: the unfortunate words were out. Miss Tarabotti stood as well, instantaneously angry, her chest heaving in agitation.

His voice, annoyed as always, belied the gentleness in his big hands as he took the excuse of removing Alexia’s generous curves from his person to check for injuries. “Are you unhurt, Miss Tarabotti?” “You mean, aside from my dignity?” Alexia suspected Lord Maccon’s handling was a tad more than was strictly called for under the circumstances, but she secretly enjoyed the sensation. After all, how often did a spinster of her shelf life get manhandled by an earl of Lord Maccon’s peerage? She had better take advantage of the situation. She smiled at her own daring and wondered who could be said to be taking advantage of whom!

“Wait just a moment now! How did you find me here? Have you been following me?” Lord Maccon had the good grace to look sheepish—if a werewolf can be said to look sheepish. “I do not trust vampire hives,” he grumbled, as though that were an excuse. “I told you not to come. Didn’t I tell you not to come? Well, look what happened.” “I would have you know I was perfectly safe in that hive. It was only when I left that things went all”—she waved a hand airily—“squiffy.” “Exactly!” said the earl. “You should go home and stay inside and never go out again.”

Alexia got on her proverbial high horse. “I will not have strangers dogging my every step, thank you. You, certainly, Professor Lyall if I must, but others…” Lord Maccon grinned foolishly at that particular prioritization. His company had just merited a “certainly.” What she said next, however, drove the smile right off his face. “What if I arrange to be around Lord Akeldama during the full moon?” The earl looked daggers. “I am certain he would be extremely helpful in a fight. He could ruthlessly flatter all your attackers into abject submission.” Miss Tarabotti grinned. “You know, your intense dislike of my dear vampire friend could almost sound like jealousy if the idea were not so patently absurd. Now, listen, my lord, if you simply let me—” Lord Maccon let go of her arm, stopped, turned, and, to her complete surprise, kissed her full on the lips.

She leaned into him even more, too lost in the gathering feelings to really register the fact that his left hand, which had been residing comfortably at the small of her back, had worked its way downward and, apparently unhindered by her bustle, was forming a newly intimate association with her posterior.

Miss Tarabotti, knowing she should straighten her hat and probably the bodice of her dress and the fall of her bustle as well, could do nothing more than lean forward limply against Lord Maccon’s back. “Randolph, you could have chosen a better time,” said the earl in exasperation. Professor Lyall stood diffidently in front of his Alpha. “Possibly. But this is pack business, and it is important.” Alexia blinked stupidly at the Beta from around the earl’s upper arm. Her heart was doing crazy things, and she still could not locate her kneecaps. She took a deep breath and put some serious attention into tracking them down.

Alexia decided, then and there, that Lord Conall Maccon clearly had only two modes of operation: annoyed and aroused. She wondered which one she would prefer to deal with on a regular basis.

Alexia realized that she was still plastered against his back. She stepped away and to one side quickly. Her knees were back in working order. With a growl of possession, Lord Maccon snaked out one long arm and yanked her back against his side.

“Well, you know how conservative the Shadow Council tends to be.” Miss Tarabotti, who did not, as she had very little to do with Queen Victoria’s government, nodded as though she knew exactly what they were talking about.

Lord Maccon would never have noticed. He greeted her with a shamefaced “Miss Tarabotti” and then seemed at a loss. He did not deliver her the cut direct, or imply anything that might affect her social standing; he simply seemed to have nothing to say to her. Nothing at all. For the entire evening. Alexia almost wished they were back at loggerheads. She felt compelled to conclude that he was mortified to have kissed her in the first place and was hoping she would forget it ever happened. While knowing any well-bred lady would do simply that, Alexia had enjoyed the experience and did not feel like behaving properly over it. Still, she must conclude that all agreeable sensations were entirely one-sided, and now Lord Maccon felt nothing more than a palpable wish never to see her again. He would treat her with painful correctness in the meantime.

She must accept that Lord Maccon was providing her, to the best of his ability, with an out. He was being agonizingly polite about it. Throughout the Blingchesters’ aperitifs, he arranged things so they were in each other’s company, but when they were, he then had nothing to say to her. His behavior screamed acute embarrassment. He could barely stand to look in her direction. Miss Tarabotti tolerated the ridiculous behavior for about half an hour and then went from confused and unhappy to extremely angry. It did not take much with Alexia. Italian temperament, her mother always said. She, unlike Lord Maccon, did not feel like being polite.

From that moment on, every time Lord Maccon entered a room, Miss Tarabotti arranged to leave it. When he moved purposefully across the receiving area toward her, Alexia sidled sideways and inserted herself seamlessly into a nearby conversation. It was usually something inane like the latest perfume from Paris, but it also involved various marriageable girls causing Lord Maccon to balk. When she sat, she did so between occupied chairs, and she was careful never to be alone or in any untenanted corner of a room. When time came for supper, Lord Maccon’s place card, originally near hers, had magically migrated to the other end of the table. There he spent an uncomfortable evening talking with a young Miss Wibbley on a string of utterly frivolous topics. Miss Tarabotti, half a world away—eight whole place settings!—still managed to overhear the conversation. Her dinner partner, a scientist in some socially acceptable form, was ordinarily just the kind of personage Alexia hoped to be seated next to. In fact, her ability to converse comfortably with the intellectual set was openly acknowledged as the main reason a spinster of her shelf life continued to be invited to dinner parties.

“Is not that an Italy sort of a name?” asked the scientist timidly. Miss Tarabotti, who always thought her Italian heritage far more embarrassing than her soulless state, considered this a weak topic—especially from an American. “My father,” she admitted, “was of Italian extraction. Unfortunately, not an affliction that can be cured.” She paused. “Though he did die.”

Hahahaha

At the far end of the table, Lord Maccon’s dinner companion let out a tinkling laugh. Miss Tarabotti asked Mr. MacDougall quite out of the blue, “Miss Wibbley is very attractive, wouldn’t you say?” She tipped her rib from its upright presentation position and sawed away at the meat viciously. The American, being an American, looked openly over at the girl in question. He blushed and said timorously into his food, “I prefer ladies with dark hair and a bit more personality.” Alexia was charmed despite herself. She decided she had wasted enough of the evening, not to mention the delicious meal, agonizing over Lord Maccon. She proceeded to give the hapless Mr. MacDougall the full force of her attention for the remainder of supper. A situation he seemed to regard with mixed terror and delight.

“She completely ignored me, blasted female! Spent the entire evening flirting with a scientist. An American scientist, if you ken such an appalling thing!” The Alpha sounded particularly Scottish in his dudgeon. Professor Lyall ceded to the fact that, for the moment, he was not likely to get any real work done. “Be fair, my lord. You undertook to ignore her first.” “Of course I ignored her! It is her responsibility to come to me at this juncture. I made my initial interest perfectly clear.” Silence. “I kissed her,” he explained, aggrieved. “Mmm, yes, I had the dubious pleasure of witnessing that, ah-hem, overly public occurrence.”

“Well! Why hasn’t she done anything about it?” the Alpha wanted to know. “You mean like whack you upside the noggin with that deadly parasol of hers? I would be cautious in that area if I were you. I am reasonably certain she had it custom made and tipped with silver.” Lord Maccon looked petulant. “I mean like attempt to talk to me, or perhaps not talk at all but simply drag me off somewhere…” He trailed off.

“But, no. Instead she utterly dismissed me, not a single word. I believe I liked it better when she was yelling at me.” He paused and then nodded to himself. “I know I liked it better.”

“Alexia Tarabotti is not going to behave in accordance with pack dynamics. You are enacting the traditional courting ritual for Alpha females. It may be instinct for you, but this is the modern age; many things have changed.” “That woman,” Lord Maccon spat, “is definitely alpha and most certainly female.” “But not a werewolf.” Professor Lyall’s voice was aggravatingly calm. Lord Maccon, who had been behaving entirely on instinct, looked suddenly crestfallen. “Have I handled this situation entirely wrong?”

All the London ton acknowledged Scotland as a barbaric place. The packs there cared very little for the social niceties of daytime folk. Highland werewolves had a reputation for doing atrocious and highly unwarranted things, like wearing smoking jackets to the dinner table. Lyall shivered at the delicious horror of the very idea. “Yes. You have behaved, I would go so far as to say, badly. I suggest a well-crafted apology and an extended session of abject groveling,” said the Beta.

“I am not a groveler!” “It is possible to learn many new and interesting skills in one lifetime,”

Alexia, he often felt, would adapt well to rough Scottish cold, and rock, and plaid. Was that the source of the fascination? Alexia in plaid? His mind carried that image one or two steps further, taking her out of the plaid and then on top of it.

“They are suited,” said their mother. “He is clearly bookish. I did not follow a single word of their conversation at dinner last night, not one jot of it. He must be bookish.”

“You know what the best of this situation is?” added Felicity, catty to the last. Her father’s murmur of “All that money” going either unheard or unacknowledged, she answered her own question. “If they do marry, he will take her all the way back to the Colonies with him.” “Yes, but we will have to put up with the fact that everyone important will know we have an American in the family,” pointed out Evylin, her eyes narrowing.

It was not an explanation, but Alexia decided she would have to settle for it. “That was an apology, was it?” she asked, just to make perfectly certain. It seemed to have taken almost everything out of him. Instead of answering her in the affirmative, he stroked her face with his free hand, as though she were an animal that needed soothing. Alexia wondered what he thought of her as—a cat perhaps? Cats were not, in her experience, an animal with much soul. Prosaic, practical little creatures as a general rule. It would suit her very well to be thought catlike.

“These feelings you engender in me, my lord, are most indelicate. You should stop causing them immediately.”

“Aluminum,” she said. “I have read about it in several Royal Society publications. It has finally debuted in the London shops, has it? How splendid! You know, it is nonmagnetic, nonaetheric, and anticorrosive.” “It is what and what?” Felicity bit her bottom lip in confusion. “Oh dear,” said Evylin, “there she goes, no stopping her now. Oh, why did I have to have a bluestocking for a sister?” Miss Hisselpenny stood. “Ladies,” she said, “you really must excuse me. I should be getting on.” The Miss Loontwills nodded. “Quite right. That is how we feel when she goes all scientificish as well,” said Evylin with feeling. “Only we have to live with her, so we cannot escape,” added Felicity.