Lady Maccon found the whole experience invigorating. The air up high was colder and somehow fresher than that of London or the countryside. She felt strangely comforted by it, as though this were her element. It must be the aether, she supposed, replete with its gaseous mix of aetheromagnetic particles.
However, she liked it far less the next morning when she awoke with a queasy stomach and a feeling of floating inside as well as out.
“Air travel takes some over like that, my lady,” said the steward, adding by way of explanation, “derangement of the digestive components.” He sent round one of the ship’s hostesses with a tincture of mint and ginger. Very little put Alexia off her food, and with the help of the tincture, she recovered a measure of her appetite by midday. Part of the queasiness, she supposed, was the fact that she was readjusting her routine to that of daylight folk, after spending months conducting her business mainly at night.
Felicity only noticed that Alexia was getting new color in her cheeks.
“Of course, not just anyone looks good in a sun hat. But I do believe, Alexia, that you ought to make that sacrifice. If you are wise, you will take my advice in this matter. I know sun hats are not often worn these days, but I think someone of your unfortunate propensities might be excused the old-fashioned nature of the accessory. And why do you go gadding about with that parasol at all times of day and yet never use it?”
“You are sounding more and more like our mama,” replied Lady Maccon.
Ivy, who was flitting from one railing to the other, cooing over the view, gasped at the cutting nature of such a statement.
Felicity was about to respond in kind when Tunstell appeared, entirely distracting her. She’d deduced Ivy and Tunstell’s regard for one another and thus was now committed to securing Tunstell’s affection for herself, for no other reason than to show Ivy that she could.
“Oh, Mr. Tunstell, how lovely of you to join us.” Felicity batted her eyelashes.
Tunstell reddened slightly and bobbed his head at the ladies. “Miss Loontwill. Lady Maccon.” A pause. “And how do you feel today, Lady Maccon?”
“The airsickness fades by luncheon.”
“How terribly convenient of it,” remarked Felicity. “You might hope it would hold on a trifle longer given your inclination toward robustness and obvious affection for food.”
Lady Maccon did not rise to the bait. “It would be better if the luncheons were not so consistently subpar.” All food on board the dirigible appeared to favor the bland and steamed approach. Even the much-lauded high tea had been disappointing.
Felicity carefully knocked her gloves off the little table next to the deck chair in which she lounged.
“Oh, how careless of me. Mr. Tunstell, would you mind?”
The claviger stepped forward and bent to retrieve them for her.
Felicity shifted quickly and angled herself in such a way that Tunstell was now bending over her legs, practically facedown in the skirts of her green dress. It was a rather intimate arrangement, and, of course, Ivy came bouncing around the corner of the deck right at that very moment.
“Oh!” said Ivy, somewhat deflated in her bounciness.
Tunstell straightened, handing Felicity her gloves. Felicity took them from him slowly, allowing her fingers to trail over his hand.
Ivy’s countenance looked remarkably similar to that of a bilious poodle.
Lady Maccon wondered that her sister had not gotten herself into trouble before now, with such behavior. When had Felicity turned into such a hardened little flirt?
Tunstell bowed to Ivy. “Miss Hisselpenny. How do you do?”
“Mr. Tunstell, please do not let my presence disturb you.”
Lady Maccon stood up, ostentatiously fixing the ear flaps of her flying hat. Really, it was too vexing: Felicity overly bold, Ivy engaged to another, and poor Tunstell stuck making puppy eyes at the both of them in his confusion.
Tunstell went to bow over Miss Hisselpenny’s hand. The dirigible encountered turbulence in the aether and lurched, causing Ivy and Tunstell to blunder into one another. Tunstell caught at her arm, helping her to stay upright while Ivy blushed like an overripe strawberry, her eyes downcast.
Alexia decided she needed a brisk walk on the forward deck.
Usually uninhabited, the forward deck was the windiest the dirigible had to offer. Both ladies and gentlemen tended to give it a miss, as it upset the hair something dreadful, but Alexia had no such qualms, even knowing she would earn a heavily accented chiding from Angelique upon her return. She turned the muffs down about her ears, donned her goggles, grabbed her parasol, and sallied forth.
The forward deck was, however, already occupied.
Madame Lefoux, dressed as impeccably and as inappropriately as always, stood next to that very same Angelique at the rails to one side, looking down over the patchwork of the British landscape spread below them like some sort of ill-designed and asymmetrical quilt. The two were whispering to each other heatedly.
Lady Maccon cursed the wind of air travel, for it carried their words away before reaching her, and she would have dearly loved to know what was being said. She thought of her dispatch case. Had Floote packed any listening mechanicals?
Deciding there was nothing else for it but a direct frontal attack, Alexia moved as quietly as possible across the deck, hoping to catch some part of the conversation before they noticed her presence. She was in luck.
“… assume proper responsibility,” Madame Lefoux was saying in French.
“Cannot happen, not yet.” Angelique moved closer to the other woman, placing small, pleading hands on the inventor’s arm. “Please do not ask it of me.”
“Better happen soon or I’ll tell. You know I will.” Madame Lefoux tossed her head, top hat tilting dangerously but staying in place, as it was tied on for travel. She shrugged off the blond woman’s grip.
“Soon, I promise.” Angelique pressed herself against the inventor’s side and nested her head on the other woman’s shoulder.
Again Madame Lefoux shrugged her off. “Games, Angelique. Games and fancying up a lady’s hair. That is all you have now, isn’t it?”
“It is better than selling hats.”
Madame Lefoux rounded on the maid at that, gripping the woman’s chin in her hand, one set of goggle-covered eyes meeting another. “Did she really kick you out?” Her tone was both vicious and disbelieving.
Lady Maccon was close enough by then to meet her maid’s big violet eyes behind the plain brass goggles when the girl looked away. Angelique started at the appearance of her mistress, and her eyes filled with tears. With a little sob, she cast herself at Lady Maccon so that Alexia had no choice but to catch her.
Alexia was disturbed. Even though she was French, Angelique was rarely given to displays of emotion. Angelique composed herself, hurriedly withdrew from her mistress’s arms, bobbed a curtsy, and rushed away.
Alexia had liked Madame Lefoux, but she could hardly condone her distressing the domestic staff. “The vampires rejected her, you know. It is a sensitive subject. She does not like to talk about the hive giving her up to me.”
“I wager she doesn’t.”
Lady Maccon bristled. “Any more than you would tell me the real reason you are on board this dirigible.” The Frenchwoman would have to learn: a pack protected its own. Alexia might only be pack by proxy, but Angelique was still in its service.
Green eyes met her brown ones for a long moment. Two sets of goggles were no impediment, but Lady Maccon could not interpret that expression. Then the inventor reached up and stroked the back of her hand down the side of Alexia’s face. Alexia wondered why the French were so much more physically affectionate than the English.
“Did you and my maid have some kind of association in the past, Madame Lefoux?” Alexia asked, not responding to the touch, although it made her face feel hot even in the cold aether wind.
The inventor dimpled. “We did once, but I assure you I am currently free of all s
uch entanglements.” Was she being purposefully obtuse? She moved closer.
Alexia, always blunt, cocked her head to one side and asked, “Who are you working for, Madame Lefoux? The French government? The Templars?”
The inventor backed away slightly, strangely upset by the question. “You misconstrue my presence here, Lady Maccon. I assure you, I work only for myself.”
“I would not trust her if I were you, my lady,” said Angelique, fixing Alexia’s hair before supper that evening. The maid was ironing it straight with a specially provided steam iron, much to both their disgust. Straight and loose was Ivy’s idea. Miss Hisselpenny had insisted Alexia be the one to try the fancy iron invention out, because Alexia was married and could suffer the burden of risky hair.
“Is there something I should know, Angelique?” Lady Maccon asked gently. The maid so rarely offered up an opinion that was not fashion related.
Angelique paused in her ministrations, her hand fluttering a moment about her face as only the French could flutter. “Only zat I knew her before I became drone, in Paris.”
“And?”
“And we did not part with ze friendly terms. A matter, how do you say, personal.”
“Then I would not dream of prying further,” replied Alexia, dearly wishing to pry.
“She did not say anything about me to you, my lady?” the maid asked. Her hand went up to stroke the high collar about her neck.
“Nothing of consequence,” replied Lady Maccon.
Angelique did not look convinced. “You do not trust me, do you, my lady?”
Alexia looked up in surprise, meeting Angelique’s eyes in the looking glass. “You were drone to a rove, but you also served the Westminster Hive. Trust is a strong word, Angelique. I trust that you will do my hair to the height of fashion and that your taste should govern my own disinterest in the matter. But you cannot ask me for more than that.”
Angelique nodded. “I see. So it iz not something Genevieve said?”
“Genevieve?”
“Madame Lefoux.”
“No. Should it be?”
Angelique lowered her eyes and shook her head.
“You will tell me nothing more about your previous relationship?”
Angelique remained silent but her face seemed to indicate that she thought this inquiry excessively personal.
Lady Maccon excused her maid and went to find her little leather journal, the better to collect her thoughts and make a few notations. If she suspected Madame Lefoux of being a spy, she ought to jot this down, along with her reasoning. Part of the purpose of the notebook was to leave adequate record should anything untoward happen to her. She had commenced the practice upon assuming her position as muhjah, though she used the journal for personal notes, not state secrets. Her father’s journals had proved helpful on more than one occasion. She would like to think her own might be of equal assistance to future generations. Although probably not in quite the same way as Alessandro Tarabotti’s. She didn’t go in for recording that type of information.
The stylographic pen was where she had left it, on the nightstand, but her notebook had vanished. She checked all about—under the bed, behind the furniture—but could find it nowhere. With a sinking feeling, she went looking for her dispatch case.
A knock came at her door, and before she could come up with some excuse to keep the visitor at bay, Ivy trotted into the room. She looked flushed and nervous, her hat of the day a floof of black lace draped over masses of dark side curls, the earmuffs underneath only visible because Ivy was tugging at them.
Alexia paused in her hunt. “Ivy, what is wrong? You look like a perturbed terrier with an ear mite problem.”
Miss Hisselpenny cast herself dramatically facedown on Alexia’s small bed, clearly in some emotional distress. She mumbled into the pillow. Her voice was suspiciously high.
“Ivy, what is wrong with your voice? Have you been up in engineering, on the Squeak Deck?” Since the dirigible maintained buoyancy through the application of helium, it was a legitimate assumption for any vocal abnormalities.
“No,” squeaked Ivy. “Well, maybe for a short while.”
Lady Maccon stifled a laugh. Really, it was too absurd-sounding. “Who were you up there with?” she inquired archly, although she could very well hazard a guess.
“No one,” squeak, squeak. “Well, in actuality, I mean to say, I might have been with… uh… Mr. Tunstell.”
Lady Maccon snickered. “I wager he sounded pretty funny too.”
“A slight leak occurred while we were up there. But there was grave need for a small moment of privacy.”
“How romantic.”
“Really, Alexia, this is no time for levity! I am all aquiver, facing a ghastly emotional crisis, and you issue forth nothing more than scads of unwanted jocularity.”
Lady Maccon composed her features and tried to look like she was not amused at her friend’s expense, annoyed at her friend’s appearance, nor still glancing about her room in search of the missing dispatch case. “Let me hazard a guess. Tunstell has professed his undying love?”
“Yes,” Ivy wailed, “and I am engaged to another!” On the word engaged, she finally stopped squeaking.
“Ah, yes, the mysterious Captain Featherstonehaugh. And let us not forget that, even if you were not affianced, Tunstell is an entirely unsuitable match. Ivy, he makes his living as a thespian.”
Ivy groaned. “I know! In addition, he is your husband’s valet! Oh, it is all so messily plebeian.” Ivy rolled over on the bed, the back of her wrist pressed to her forehead. She kept her eyes tightly shut. Lady Maccon wondered if Miss Hisselpenny did not have a possible future career on the stage herself.
“Which also makes him a claviger. Well, well, well, you have got yourself into a pretty pickle.” Lady Maccon tried to sound sympathetic.
“Oh, but, Alexia, I am quite fearfully afraid that I might just possibly, maybe a little itty-bitty bit, love him back.”
“Shouldn’t you be certain of a thing like that?”
“I do not know. Should I be? How does one determine one’s own state of enamorment?”
Lady Maccon snickered. “I am hardly one to elucidate. It took me ages to realize I had feelings for Conall beyond abhorrence, and quite frankly, I am still not certain that feeling does not persist unto this very moment.”
Ivy was taken aback. “Surely you jest?”
Alexia cast her mind back to the last time she had engaged in a protracted encounter with her husband. There had been a good deal of moaning at the time, if memory served. “Well, he has his uses.”
“But, Alexia, what do I do?”
At that moment, Lady Maccon spotted her missing dispatch case. Someone had shoved it in the corner between the wardrobe and the door to the washroom. Alexia was quite certain that was not where she had left it.
“Aha, how did you get there?” she said to the missing accoutrement, and went to retrieve it.
Ivy, eyes still shut, pondered this question. “I have no idea how I allowed myself into such an untenable position. You must help me, Alexia. This is a cataplasm of epic proportions!”
“Too true,” agreed Lady Maccon, considering the state of her beloved dispatch case. Someone had tried to break open the catch. Whomever it was must have been disturbed in the act, or they would have stolen the case as well as her notebook. Her little leather journal would fit inside a vest or under a skirt, but the dispatch case would not. The villain must have left it behind as a result. Lady Maccon considered possible suspects. The ship’s domestic staff had access to her rooms, of course, and Angelique. But, really, given the state of the locks on board, it could have been anyone.
“He kissed me,” Miss Hisselpenny keened.
“Ah, well, that is something like.” Alexia decided nothing more could be determined from the dispatch case, at least not with Ivy still in the room. She went to sit next to her friend’s prostrate form. “Did you enjoy kissing him?”
Ivy said
nothing.
“Did you enjoy kissing Captain Featherstonehaugh?”
“Alexia, the very idea. We are only engaged, not married!”
“So you have not kissed the good captain?”
Ivy shook her head in an excess of embarrassment.
“Well, then, what about Tunstell?”
Miss Hisselpenny flushed even redder. Now she looked like a spaniel with a sunburn. “Well, maybe, just a little.”
“And?”
Miss Hisselpenny opened her eyes, still blushing furiously, and looked at her married friend. “Is one supposed to enjoy kissing?” she practically whispered.
“I believe it is generally thought to be a pleasant pastime. You read novels, do you not?” replied Lady Maccon, trying desperately to keep a straight face.
“Do you enjoy doing… that with Lord Maccon?”
Lady Maccon did not hesitate, credit where it was due and all. “Unreservedly.”
“Oh, well, I thought it was a little”—Ivy paused—“damp.”
Lady Maccon cocked her head to one side. “Well, you must understand, my husband has considerable experience in these matters. He is hundreds of years older than I.”
“And that does not trouble you?”
“My dear, he will live hundreds of years longer than I as well. One must come to terms with these things if one fraternizes with the supernatural set. I admit it is hard, knowing we will not grow old together. But if you choose Tunstell, you may eventually have to face the same concerns. Then again, your time together could be cut short, as he may not survive metamorphosis.”
“Is that likely to occur soon?”
Lady Maccon knew very little about this aspect of pack dynamics. So she only shrugged.
Ivy sighed, a long, drawn-out exhalation that seemed to encompass all the problems of the empire. “It is all too much to think about. My head is positively awhirl. I simply do not know what to do. Don’t you see? Don’t you comprehend my cacophony?”
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