More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Alexia, herself, had always believed good posture was her last best hope
Her husband had a decidedly fine backside, if she did say so herself. And she had said so, to her scandalized friend Miss Ivy Hisselpenny, on more than one occasion. It may be far too early to be awake, but it was never too early to admire something of that caliber.
There was, currently, far more hairy masculinity in her life than any Englishwoman should really have to put up with on a monthly basis.
Professor Lyall merely shrugged. “Some women like that kind of thing.” “And some women like needlepoint,” replied Alexia,
She moved with such purpose it was as though she walked with exclamation marks.
Alexia thought it best to keep her friend ignorant. Ivy was particularly adept at being ignorant but could cause extensive havoc with the smallest scrap of information.
It had to be a product of his human condition; normally his emotions were not so obvious.
CHAPTER THREE Hat Shopping and Other Difficulties
“Yes, Floote, I am sorry you had to see those grapes yesterday,” Alexia apologized. Poor Floote had very delicate sensibilities. “Suffering comes unto us all,” quoth Floote sagely.
“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.
Lady Maccon might be soulless, but the liveliness of her mind was never in question.
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.
Abnormal dress was one thing, but loose morals were an entirely different matter.
“The ruffles contain various hidden pockets and are fluffy enough to disguise small objects.” She reached inside the wide ruffle and pulled out a little vial. “Poison?” asked Lady Maccon, tilting her head to one side. “Certainly not. Something far more important: perfume. We cannot very well have you fighting crime unscented, now, can we?”
“Really, Ivy, if you did not lace your corset so tight, you would not be so prone to the vapors.
Professor Lyall wished he had brought his gun. Difficult to carry, though, in one’s mouth.
Alexia often wondered if Professor Lyall had been an actor before metamorphosis and somehow managed to hold on to his creativity despite sacrificing most of his soul for immortality. He was so very skilled at doing, and being, what was expected.
“However, the situation is very dire. Such poopitations of the heart as you would not believe.”
“And this place could certainly benefit from additional feminine influence. There is not a single doily in sight.”
“But why Scotland? I should hate to have to go to Scotland. It is such a barbaric place. It is practically Ireland!”
Lady Maccon thought they must look like a parade of stuffed pigeons and found it typical of London society that what pleased them annoyed her.
Floote had refused to accompany them to Scotland on the grounds that he might be suffocated by an overabundance of bustle.
“Then I would not dream of prying further,” replied Alexia, dearly wishing to pry.
Felicity, who had the palate of a country goat and tucked in without pause to anything laid before her,
Then again, one never could tell with vampires. They had, after all, dominated the fashion world for decades as a kind of indirect campaign against werewolves and the uncivilized state shifting shape required.
With Ivy walking backward before them and weaving side to side like an iced tea cake with delusions of shepherding,
She was indebted to those few puffy clouds floating below her, for they obscured the distant ground. She did not want to know exactly how far she had to fall.
“Why, Alexia Maccon, what are you doing? You appear to be dangling.” The voice was a little slurred. Ivy was clearly still laboring under the effects of Madame Lefoux’s cognac. “How undignified of you. Stop it at once!”
Felicity was horrible and snide, but then Felicity had been a repulsive earwig ever since she first grew a vocabulary.
Both turned red with mortification, though it must be admitted that Tunstell, being a redhead, was far more efficient at this.
Ivy waved the wet handkerchief, as much as to say, words cannot possibly articulate my profound distress. Then, because Ivy never settled for meaningful gestures when verbal embellishments could compound the effect, she said, “Words cannot possibly articulate my profound distress.”
The dirigible came to rest as lightly as a butterfly on an egg, if the butterfly were to stumble a bit and list heavily to one side and the egg to take on the peculiar characteristics of Scotland in winter: more soggy and more gray than one would think possible.
She spearheaded a parade of bustle-swaying ladies, like so many fabric snails, onto firm (well, truthfully, rather squishy) land.
The change comprised a good deal of biological rearranging. This, like rearranging one’s parlor furniture for a party, involved a transition from tidy to very messy to tidy once more. And, as with any redecoration, there was a moment in the middle where it seemed impossible that everything could possibly go back together harmoniously.
“Miss Hisselpenny is always upset over something. You are a different matter. You don’t do these kinds of things, wife. You are not that feminine.”
“I did so want to see the Highlands,” said Miss Hisselpenny. As though there would be some sort of line, drawn on the ground, that indicated transition from one part of Scotland to the next. Miss Hisselpenny had already commented that Scotland looked a lot like England, in a tone of voice that suggested this a grave error on the landscape’s part.
There was the feel of real age about the place, and Alexia would bet good money that it was a drafty, miserably old-fashioned creature on the inside. First, however, it appeared that they would have to get past a drafty, miserably old-fashioned creature on the outside.
This was the kind of woman who took her tea black, smoked cigars after midnight, played a mean game of cribbage, and kept a bevy of repulsive little dogs. Alexia liked her immediately. The woman shouldered a rifle with consummate skill and pointed it at Lord Maccon. Alexia liked her less.
“Capital. Here I stand, about to meet the dreaded in-laws looking like nothing so much as a drowned rat.” “Be fair, sister,” contradicted Felicity. “You look like a drowned toucan.”
“Alexia,” she hissed to her friend, “there are knees positively everywhere. What do I do?”
“We heard about you,” said the Gamma, whose name sounded like something slippery to do with bogs.
Please do not think I am at all bigoted against the supernatural set, but I simply cannot withstand an overabundance of ghosts, especially not those at the final stage of disanimus. I heard they get all over funny in the head and go wafting about losing bits of their noncorporeal selves. One rounds a corner of some perfectly respectable passageway only to find a disembodied eyebrow floating halfway between ceiling and potted palm.”
“Alexia, I do not mean to be at all rude. But I really do believe your sister may be an actual nincompoop.”
CHAPTER NINE In Which Meringues Are Annihilated
“Being mortal is so inconvenient,”
He died, just after Alexia was born. Such a terribly embarrassing thing to do, simply to up and die like that. Goes to show, Italians cannot be trusted.
Professor Lyall, who had never done anything majestically in all his life, faintly envied the man.
And leagues to the south, at the top of a posh town house, a well-trained vampire drone, dressed like a candied orange peel, who looked as though his gravest concern was whether winter cravats permitted paisley or not, sat up straight and began recording an incoming transmission.
Alexia wondered if vampires ever even made it to bed sport; they were so busy being polite to one another.
Imagine what she will say when I tell her I experienced one in a haunted castle in the Scottish Highlands.” “How do you know Kingair is haunted?” “I know because, obviously, it must be haunted. You could not possibly convince me otherwise. No ghosts have appeared since we arrived, but that is no proof to the contrary,” Felicity defended her future tall tale.
