Changeless

Lady Maccon said nothing, simply crossed her arms over her ample bosom and stared pointedly at him.



“Madame Lefoux was working for me,” he admitted, his voice so low it was almost a growl. “I asked her to keep an eye on you while I was away.”



“And you did not tell me?”



“Well, you know how you get.”



“I most certainly do. Really, Conall, imagine assigning a BUR agent to track me, as though I were a fox in the hunt. That is simply the living end! How could you?”



“Oh, she isn’t BUR. We’ve known each other a long time. I asked her as a friend, not an employee.”



Alexia frowned. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. “How long a time and how good a friend?”



Madame Lefoux gave a watery little smile.



Lord Maccon looked genuinely surprised. “Really, wife, you are not usually given to such denseness. I dinna fit Madame Lefoux’s preferences.”



“Ah, any more than I fit Lord Akeldama’s?”



Lord Maccon, who was prone to getting a mite jealous of the effete vampire and resented the man’s close relationship with Alexia, nodded his understanding. “Verra well, I take your point, wife.”



“Admittedly,” interjected Madame Lefoux, her voice soft and tear-strained, “I was also interested in contacting Angelique, and she is Lady Maccon’s maid.”



“You had your own agenda,” accused Lord Maccon, looking with suspicion at the Frenchwoman.



“Who doesn’t?” wondered Lady Maccon. “Angelique told me you used to be intimate and that Quesnel is hers, not yours.”



“When did she tell you this, before she died?” wondered Lord Maccon.



Alexia patted his arm. “No, dear, after.”



Madame Lefoux brightened considerably. “She is a ghost?”



Lady Maccon waggled her fingertips about. “Not anymore.”



The inventor gasped, what appeared to have been a strange kind of hope quickly followed by a return to sadness. “You exorcised her? How cruel.”



“She asked, and we struck a bargain. I am sorry. I did not think to take your feelings into account.”



“These days, no one seems to.” The inventor sounded bitter.



“There is no need to wallow,” replied Lady Maccon, who did not approve of maudlin humors.



“Really, Alexia, why such sharpness with the woman? She is overset.”



Lady Maccon looked more closely into Madame Lefoux’s face. “I believe there may be cause. You are not so sad over lost love as you are over a lost past. Is that not so, madame?”



Madame Lefoux’s face lost a modicum of its grief, and her eyes narrowed, sharpening on Alexia. “We were together for a long time, but you are right. I did want her back—not for me but for Quesnel. I thought perhaps a son would ground her in the daylight world. She changed so very much after she became a drone. They tapped into the hardness Quesnel and I had once managed to temper.”



Alexia nodded. “I deduced as much.”



Lord Maccon looked at his wife appreciatively. “Good Lord, woman, how could you have possibly known that?”



“Well”—Lady Maccon grinned—“Madame Lefoux here did play a bit of the coquette with me while we were traveling. I do not think she was entirely shamming.”



Madame Lefoux flashed a sudden smile. “I did not know you were even aware.”



Alexia arched both eyebrows. “I was not until recently; hindsight can be most illuminating.”



Lord Maccon glowered at the Frenchwoman. “You were flirting with my wife!” he roared.



Madame Lefoux straightened her spine and looked up at him. “No need to raise your hackles and get territorial, old wolf. You find her attractive—why shouldn’t I?”



Lord Maccon actually sputtered.



“Nothing happened,” corroborated Alexia, smiling broadly.



Madame Lefoux added, “Not that I wouldn’t like—”



Lord Maccon growled and loomed even more menacingly in Madame Lefoux’s direction. The inventor rolled her eyes at his posturing.



Alexia’s grin widened. It was rare to have someone else around brave enough to tease the earl. She shot a quick glance in the Frenchwoman’s direction. At least, she thought they were teasing. Just to be on the safe side, she hastily switched topics. “This is all very flattering, but could we return to the subject at hand? If Madame Lefoux was on board the dirigible to keep an eye on me and to blackmail Angelique with parental duties, then it was not she who tried to poison me and got Tunstell instead. And I now know it was not Angelique either.”



“Poison! You didna tell me about a poisoning, wife! You only mentioned the fall.” Lord Maccon began to vibrate with suppressed anger. His eyes had turned feral, solid yellow now instead of tawny brown. Wolf eyes.



“Yes, well, the fall was Angelique.”



“Dinna change the subject, you impossible woman!”



Lady Maccon switched to defending herself. “Well, I did suppose Tunstell would have told you. He took the brunt of the incident, after all. And he is your claviger. Normally he tells you everything. Regardless”—she turned back to Madame Lefoux—“you are after the humanization weapon as well, aren’t you?”



Madame Lefoux smiled again. “How did you guess?”



“Someone keeps trying to break into or steal my dispatch case. Since you knew about the parasol and all its secret pockets, I figured it had to be you, not Angelique. And what could you possibly want with it except my records as muhjah on the London humanization and the dewan and potentate’s findings?” She paused, her head cocked to one side. “Would you mind stopping now? It is most aggravating. There is nothing of import in the case, you do realize?”



“But I am still eager to know where you hid it.”



“Mmm, ask Ivy about lucky special socks.”



Lord Maccon gave his wife a funny look.



Madame Lefoux ignored that bizarre statement and moved on. “You did figure it out in the end, didn’t you? The source of the humanization? You must have, because”—she gestured to Lord Maccon’s wolf eyes—“it seems to have been reversed.”



Lady Maccon nodded. “Of course I did.”



“Yes, I thought you might. That was the real reason I followed you.”



Lord Maccon sighed. “Really, Madame Lefoux, why not wait until BUR had it cleared and simply ask what had happened?”



The inventor gave him a hard look. “When has BUR, or the Crown for that matter, ever shared such information openly with anyone? Let alone a French scientist? Even as a friend, you would never tell me the truth of it.”



Lord Maccon looked like he would rather not comment on that statement. “Were you, like Angelique, being paid by the Westminster vampires to find this information out?” he asked, looking resigned.



Madame Lefoux said nothing.



Alexia felt rather smug at this point. It was rare for her to be able to put one over on her husband. “Conall, you mean to say you did not know? Madame Lefoux is not really working for you. She is not working for the hives either. She is working for the Hypocras Club.”



“What! That canna be possible.”



“Oh yes, it can. I saw the tattoo.”



“No, really it is not,” Lord Maccon and Madame Lefoux said at the same time.



“Trust me, my dear, we saw to it that the entire operation was disbanded,” added the earl.



“That explains why you turned so cold toward me all of a sudden,” said Madame Lefoux. “You saw my tattoo and jumped to conclusions.”



Lady Maccon nodded.



“Tattoo, what tattoo?” Lord Maccon growled. He was looking ever more annoyed.



Madame Lefoux yanked down her collar, which was easy without her cravat, exposing the telltale mark upon her neck.



“Ah, my dear, I see the source of the confusion.” The earl seemed suddenly much calmer, rather than launching into violence over the octopus as Alexia had expected.



He took his wife’s hand softly in his large paw. “The Hypocras was a militant branch of the OBO. Madame Lefoux is a member in good standing. Are you not?”



The inventor gave a little half-smile and nodded.



“And what, pray tell, is the OBO?” Lady Maccon yanked her hand out of her husband’s patronizing grip.



“The Order of the Brass Octopus, a secret society of scientists and inventors.”



Lady Maccon glared at the earl. “And you did not think to tell me about this?”



He shrugged. “It is meant to be secret.”



“We really must work on our communication. Perhaps if you were not so constantly interested in other forms of intimacy, I might actually have access to the information I need to survive with my temper intact!” Alexia poked at him with a sharp finger. “More talk, less bed sport.”



Lord Maccon looked alarmed. “Fine, I shall make time to discuss these things with you.”



She narrowed her eyes.



“I promise.”



She whirled about to look at Madame Lefoux, who was unsuccessfully trying to hide her amusement at Lord Maccon’s discomfort.



“And this Order of the Brass Octopus, what are its policies?”



“Secret.”



A hard look met that remark.



“In all honesty, we do agree with the Hypocras Club to a certain degree: that the supernatural must be monitored, that there should be checks in place. I am sorry, my lord, but it is true. Supernaturals continue to tamper with the world, particularly the vampires. You get greedy. Look at the Roman Empire.”



The earl snorted but was not particularly offended. “As though the daylight folk have done so well: never forget, your lot boasts the Inquisition.”



Madame Lefoux turned to Alexia, trying to explain. Her green eyes were oddly desperate, as though this, of all things, was terribly important. “You, as a preternatural, must understand. You are the living representation of the counterbalance theorem in action. You are supposed to be on our side.”



Alexia did understand. Having worked alongside the dewan and the potentate for several months, she could comprehend this desperate need the scientists felt to constantly monitor the supernatural set. She wasn’t yet quite certain which side she came down on, but she said firmly, “You understand Conall has my loyalty? Well, him and the queen.”



The Frenchwoman nodded. “And now that you know my allegiances, will you tell me what caused the mass negation of the supernatural?”



“You want to harness it into an invention of some kind, don’t you?”



Madame Lefoux looked arch. “I am convinced there is a market. How about it, Lord Maccon? Imagine what I could do for a sundowner, with the ability to turn vampires and werewolves mortal. Or, Lady Maccon, what new gadget I might install in your parasol? Think of the control we could have over supernaturals.”



Lord Maccon gave the inventor a long, hard look. “I didna realize you were a radical, Madame Lefoux. When did that happen?”



Lady Maccon decided then and there not to tell the inventor about the mummy. “I am sorry, madame, but it would be best if I kept this to myself. I have removed the cause, obviously”—she gestured to the pack, still hovering hopefully in the doorway—“with the help of your excellent parasol, but I am thinking this is knowledge best kept out of the public domain.”



“You are a hard woman, Lady Maccon,” replied the inventor, frowning. “But you do realize, we will figure it out eventually.”



“Not if I have anything to do with it. Although it may be too late. I believe our little spy may have managed to get the word out to the Westminster Hive despite my precautions,” said Lady Maccon, suddenly remembering the aethographic transmitter and Angelique’s message.



She turned and strode toward the door. Madame Lefoux and Lord Maccon followed.



“No.” She looked at the inventor. “I am sorry, Madame Lefoux. It is not that I do not like you. It is simply that I do not trust you. Please remain here. Oh, and give me back my journal.”



The inventor looked confused. “I did not take it.”



“But I thought you said…”



“I looked for the dispatch case, but it was not me who broke into your room on board the dirigible.”



“Then who did?”



“The same person who tried to poison you, I suppose.”



Alexia threw her hands up. “I don’t have time for this.” And with that, she led her husband from the room at a brisk trot.



CHAPTER FOURTEEN



Changes



Lord Maccon checked the hall. It was empty, the pack having filed into the mummy room or gone to collect Angelique’s body. Seeing no one around to forestall his action, the earl slammed his wife up against the wall, pressing the full length of his body against hers.

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