Changeless

“Oh, I am certain I should not be at all disconcerted,” interrupted Miss Hisselpenny.



Lady Maccon was not convinced. Ivy was, circumstances had shown, prone to fainting. She continued her explanation. “And Conall will not be clothed when the transformative event has completed.”



“Oh!” Miss Hisselpenny put a hand to her mouth in alarm. “Of course.” She turned quickly away.



Still, one could not help but hear, even if one did not look: that slushy crunchy noise of bones breaking and reforming. It was similar to the echoing sound that dismembering a dead chicken for the stew pot makes in a large kitchen. Alexia saw Ivy shudder.



Werewolf change was never pleasant. That was one of the reasons pack members still referred to it as a curse, despite the fact that, in the modern age of enlightenment and free will, clavigers chose metamorphosis. 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. In the case of werewolves, this moment involved fur retreating to become hair, bones fracturing and mending into new configurations, and flesh and muscle sliding about on top of or underneath the two. Alexia had seen her husband change many times, and every time she found it both vulgar and scientifically fascinating.



Conall Maccon, Earl of Woolsey, was considered proficient at the change. No one could beat out Professor Lyall for sheer elegance, of course, but at least the earl was fast, efficient, and made none of those horribly pugilistic grunting noises the younger cubs were prone to emitting.



In mere moments, he stood before his wife: a big man, without being fat. Alexia had commented once that, given his love of food, he probably would have become portly had he aged as normal humans did. Luckily, he had elected for metamorphosis sometime in his midthirties and so had never gone to seed. Instead he remained forever a well-muscled mountain of a man who needed the shoulders of his coats tailored, his boots specially ordered, and near constant reminding that he must duck through doorways.



He turned eyes, only a few shades darker than they had been in wolf form, to his wife.



Lady Maccon stood to help him pull on his cloak but sat back down before she could do so. She was still not steady on her feet.



Lord Maccon immediately stopped shaking out the garment in question and knelt, naked, before her.



“What’s wrong?” he practically yelled.



“What?” Ivy turned to see what was going on, caught a glimpse of the earl’s naked backside, squeaked, and turned back away, fanning herself with one gloved hand.



“Do not fuss, Conall. You are upsetting Ivy,” grumbled Lady Maccon.



“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.”



“Well, I like that!” Lady Maccon took offense.



“You understand my meaning perfectly. Stop trying to distract me. What’s wrong?” He drew entirely the wrong conclusion. “You’re sickening! Is that why you’ve come, to tell me you’re ill?” He looked like he wanted to shake her but did not dare.



Alexia looked straight into his worried eyes and said slowly and carefully, “I am perfectly fine. It is simply taking a little time for me to get my land legs back. You know how it can be after a long air or sea journey.”



The earl looked vastly relieved. “Not a very good floater, my love, as it turned out?”



Lady Maccon gave her husband a reproachful look and replied petulantly, “No, not so very good at the floating. No.” Then she changed the subject. “But, really, Conall, you know I welcome the spectacle, but poor Ivy! Put your cloak on, do.”



The earl grinned, straightened under her appreciative eye, and wrapped his long cloak about his body.



“How did you know I was here?” Alexia asked as soon as he was decent.



“The lewd display has ended, Miss Hisselpenny. You are safe,” Lord Maccon informed Ivy, settling his massive frame next to his wife. The trunk creaked at the added weight.



Lady Maccon snuggled against her husband’s side happily.



“Simply knew,” he grumbled, wrapping one long, fabric-shrouded arm about her and hauling her closer against him. “This landing patch is just off my route to Kingair. I caught your scent about an hour ago and saw the dirigible coming in for a landing. Figured I had better come see what was going on. Now you, wife. What are you doing in Scotland? With Miss Hisselpenny no less.”



“Well, I had to bring some kind of companion. Society would not very well condone my floating across the length of England by myself.”



“Mmm.” Lord Maccon glanced over, eyes heavy-lidded, at the still-nervous Ivy. She had not yet reconciled herself to talking with an earl dressed only in a cloak so was standing a little distance off with her back to them.



“Give her a bit more recuperation time,” advised Alexia. “Ivy’s sensitive, and you are such a shock to the system, even fully dressed.”



The earl grinned. “Praise, wife? How unusual from you. Nice to know I still have the capacity to unsettle others, even at my age. But stop trying to avoid the subject. Why are you here?”



“Why, darling”—Lady Maccon batted her eyelashes at him—“I was coming to Scotland to see you of course. I missed you so.”



“Ah, wife, how romantic of you,” he replied, not believing a word of it. He looked down at her fondly. Not as far down as he would have had to on most women, mind you. His Alexia was rather strapping. He preferred her that way. Undersized women reminded him of yippy dogs.



He rumbled softly, “Lying minx.”



She leaned in. “It will have to wait until later, when others cannot overhear,” she whispered against his ear.



“Mmm.” He turned in toward her and kissed her lips, warm and adamant.



“Ahem.” Ivy cleared her throat.



Lord Maccon took his time breaking off the kiss.



“Husband,” said Lady Maccon, her eyes dancing. “You remember Miss Hisselpenny?”



Conall gave his wife a look, and then stood and bowed. As though he and the nonsensical Miss Hisselpenny had not formed a lasting acquaintance these three months since his marriage.



“Good evening, Miss Hisselpenny. How do you do?”



Ivy curtsied. “Lord Maccon, how unexpected. You were notified of our arrival time?”



“No.”



“Then how?”



“It is a werewolf machination, Ivy,” explained Alexia. “Do not trouble yourself.”



Ivy did not.



Lady Maccon said to her husband carefully, “I also have my sister and Tunstell accompanying me. And Angelique, of course.”



“I see, an unexpected wife and reinforcements. Are we anticipating a battle of some kind, my dear?”



“If I were, I should only have to set the enemy against the sharp barbs of Felicity’s tongue to rout them thoroughly. The size of my traveling party is, however, entirely unintentional.”



Miss Hisselpenny acted a bit guilty at that statement.



Lord Maccon gave his wife a look of profound disbelief.



Alexia went on. “Felicity and Tunstell are procuring transportation as we speak.”



“How thoughtful of you, to bring me my valet.”



“Your valet has been a resounding nuisance.”



Miss Hisselpenny gasped.



Lord Maccon shrugged. “He usually is. There is an art to irritation that only few of us can achieve.”



Lady Maccon said, “That must be how werewolves select personalities for metamorphosis. Regardless, Tunstell was required. Professor Lyall insisted upon a male escort, and as we were traveling by dirigible, we could not bring a member of the pack.”



“Better not to anyway, seeing as this is someone else’s territory.”



A polite clearing of the throat occurred at that juncture, and the Maccons turned about to find Madame Lefoux hovering nearby.



“Ah, yes,” said Lady Maccon. “Madame Lefoux was also on board the dirigible with us. Quite unexpectedly.” She emphasized the last word for her husband’s benefit so that he might understand her concern over the inventor’s presence. “I believe you and my husband are already acquainted, Madame Lefoux?”



Madame Lefoux nodded. “How do you do, Lord Maccon?”



The earl bowed slightly and then shook Madame Lefoux’s hand, as he would a man. Lord Maccon’s opinion appeared to be that if Madame Lefoux dressed as a male, she should be treated as such. Interesting approach. Or perhaps he knew something Alexia did not.



Lady Maccon said to her husband, “Thank you for the lovely parasol, by the way. I shall put it to good use.”



“I never doubted that. I am a little surprised you have not already.”



“Who says I have not?”



“That’s my sweet, biddable little wife.”



Ivy said, surprised, “Oh, but Alexia is not sweet.”



Lady Maccon only grinned.



The earl seemed genuinely pleased to see the Frenchwoman. “Delighted, Madame Lefoux. You have business in Glasgow?”



The inventor inclined her head.



“I don’t suppose I could persuade you to visit Kingair? I just heard in town that the pack is experiencing some technical difficulties with its aethographic transmitter, newly purchased, secondhand.”



“Good Lord, husband. Does everyone have one but us?” his wife wanted to know.



The earl turned sharp eyes on her. “Why? Who else acquired one recently?”



“Lord Akeldama, of all people, and he has the latest model. Would you be very cross if I said I rather covet one myself?”



Lord Maccon reflected upon the state of his life wherein he had somehow gained a spouse who could not give a pig’s foot for the latest dresses out of Paris but who whined about not owning an aethographic transmitter. Well, at least the two were comparable obsessions so far as expense was concerned.



“Well, my little bluestocking bride, someone has a birthday coming up.”



Alexia’s eyes shone. “Oh, splendid!”



Lord Maccon kissed her softly on the forehead and then turned back to Madame Lefoux. “Well, can I persuade you to stop over at Kingair for a few days and ascertain if there is anything you can do to help?”



Alexia pinched her husband in annoyance. When would he learn to ask her about these things first?



Lord Maccon captured his wife’s hand in one big paw and shook his head ever so slightly at her.



The inventor frowned, a little crease in her creamy forehead. Then, as though the crease had never been, the dimples appeared, and she accepted the invitation.



Alexia managed only a brief, private word with her husband as they piled their luggage into two hired carriages.



“Channing says the werewolves couldn’t change all the boat ride over.”



Her husband blinked at her, startled. “Really?”



“Oh, and Lyall says the plague is moving northward. He thinks it beat us to Scotland.”



Lord Maccon frowned. “He thinks it’s something to do with the Kingair Pack, doesn’t he?”



Alexia nodded.



Strangely, her husband grinned. “Good, that gives me an excuse.”



“Excuse for what?”



“Showing up on their doorstep; they’d never let me in otherwise.”



“What?” Alexia hissed at him. “Why?” But they were interrupted by Tunstell’s return and unparalleled excitement at seeing Lord Maccon.



The rented carriages rattled down the track to Kingair in ever-growing darkness. Alexia was bound to either silence or inanities by the presence of Ivy and Madame Lefoux in their carriage. It was too dark and rainy to see much outside the window, a fact that upset Ivy.



“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.



Inexplicably tired, Alexia dozed, her cheek resting on her husband’s large shoulder.



Felicity, Tunstell, and Angelique rode in the other carriage, emerging with an air of chummy gaiety that confused Alexia and tormented Ivy. Felicity was flirting shamelessly, and Tunstell was doing nothing to dissuade her. But the sight of Castle Kingair dampened everyone’s spirits. As if to compound matters, as soon as they and all their luggage had alighted and the carriages trundled off, the rain began to descend in earnest.



Castle Kingair was like something out of a Gothic novel. Its foundation was a huge rock that jutted out over a dark lake. It put Woolsey Castle to shame. 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.