Defy or Defend

by Gail Carriger

  Dimity nodded sagely. “Wouldn’t we all, darlings? Wouldn’t we all?”

  She thought about getting flowers in, but then decided perhaps next week would be better, after everything was shipshape and the initial shock had worn off. Fresh flowers might be too much for vampires right away.

  Presuming she had a next week. Sir Crispin had given her some leeway, but she knew that if anything concretely confirmed the drones dead or the hunting deadly, he would whisk her away and the hive would be doomed. He’d been kind to give her this chance, but he was an honest man and he took his duty as safety seriously. Too seriously.

  The unusual amount of activity in the house eventually woke Mr Theris, who came down blinking in the afternoon light, and clearly annoyed by a change to his abode and schedule.

  “What on earth is going on here?”

  Dimity spared a moment to wish Sir Crispin were back, because the actor looked almost violent. Then she remembered that she was trained for this kind of thing, and most people were not at their best when first waking up.

  “Mr Theris, there you are. I thought I would make a few minor improvements to the place while we are staying with you. I need room to paint, you see, breathing space, liberty, freedom! All this clutter and dust about, it interferes with my creative impulses. No doubt, as a noted actor yourself, you feel similarly? Speaking of which, isn’t this terribly early for you? Should you not return to your chambers? I assure you, I have everything well in hand.” She gave him a look that said this was perfectly normal behavior for visitors to a hive.

  The man went from angry to confused. “What? Is this a dream? What is going on? Now, Mrs Carefull, I don’t think you should. Not take down the curtains, Mrs Carefull, they’ve not been moved in a hundred years.”

  “All the more reason to see them cleaned.”

  “Absolutely not!”

  “You’re quite right. Why bother cleaning them? We should replace them entirely. What a good idea, Mr Theris. Blue, do you think?”

  He sputtered at her, now part anger and part confusion, still bleary-eyed.

  Dimity gave him her best, most winsome smile. “No, you’re correct. Not blue. Something lighter. Cream, perhaps? Or pale pink?” Dimity tapped her cheek with the feathered quill (it was the only writing implement she’d been able to find, and frankly, she was startled the ink pot hadn’t dried out). She added wallpaper stripping and whitewashing to her list and then wondered about reupholstering the sitting room, at the very least. Surely it had to be done?

  “Mrs Carefull, stop distracting me. What is this chaos?” He gestured at the three neat maids who were working diligently in an entirely not chaotic manner.

  “Chaos, oh, you are droll. It’s simply a bit of light cleaning. Go back to bed, do. Think of how nice and sweet-smelling everything will be when you rouse again.”

  He looked like he might remove her bodily from the house, and then eject the new maids, except that Sir Crispin returned at that juncture and gave him a threatening glare. Clearly too tired to deal with surprise cleaning sessions from invading artists, the drone threw up his hands. “I can’t cope with this right now! I’ll speak to you both later, after dark, and we’ll see what Lord Finbar makes of these presumptuous ways of yours.”

  “I hardly think cleaning is tricky, Mr Theris. Sensible, more like,” replied Dimity, knowing she shouldn’t press, but Sir Crispin was there making her feel quite safe, as was his wont, and she did so love having the last word.

  Mr Theris glared at them both and then retreated back upstairs.

  “That went well,” said Sir Crispin, putting down his packages.

  “He definitely thinks this is his domain.”

  “He might be quite violent in its defence. A man like that, with a small amount of power. He’ll guard it jealously.”

  Dimity nodded, “I agree, but you forget I can defend myself.”

  “You would show our hand if you did. What would a busybody artist know of such things?”

  “Fair point. Now, about those curtains?”

  With only three maids, she could only get so much done, and Dimity kept having to send Sir Crispin – Cris – out after something or another. He seemed willing. After all, he liked to be given tasks. He liked to be in motion, and Dimity was beginning to suspect, for all his frowns and grumping at her, that he liked pleasing her, too.

  Nevertheless, by the time the sun set and the vampires were scheduled to rise from the dead, Dimity felt that they’d made an excellent start.

  Lord Finbar came down first. He blinked, made a snuffling noise that might have been approval when he noticed a maid and her duster. He even, perhaps, understood on some level that things downstairs had all been cleaned. Of course, he muttered something about how dusters intruded on the sanctity of his enduring loneliness.

  “Now, Lord Finbar,” Dimity made herself known to the vampire, bustling up to him and taking his arm in a comforting manner, “you leave the nice girl to her duties. She’s doing an excellent job. Come along with me and see what I’ve discovered in the library. That painting I wrote to you about, the one I found the record of the baroness buying? Well, it is indeed here in your collection. It’s hanging in the library and it’s so very beautiful! I know my friend coordinating the Dutch masters exhibition in London would simply love to borrow it.”

  Lord Finbar was clearly befuddled, but he was passive enough under her influence.

  Dimity wondered if he had even noticed the staff had gone in the first place, and whether the reappearance of parlormaids felt more to him as if they had never been gone.

  “But could they not dust during the daylight hours?” he complained.

  Dimity patted his velvet-covered arm. “It’s only just after sunset. And while I’m sure they could, there’s a bit of extra tidying to do, this once. Could you not be patient, for me?” She made her eyes big and looked longingly up into his long, somber face.

  “But what about the depths of my ennui? Have you considered that, my dear Mrs Carefull? No, you have not. Why? Because everyone always forgets about me and my woes.”

  Dimity guided him towards the library, one of the first rooms she’d had cleaned, exactly for this reason – because she’d guessed it was Lord Finbar’s territory and she wanted it ready when he came down. Lord Finbar seemed like the kind of man, vampire or not, who liked a library above all else. “I’m here for you now, dear Lord Finbar. And I was thinking of you and your melancholy when I realized that a few teeny-weeny, oh-so-minor changes would improve matters for you no end. Just think, no dust means no sneezing. Nothing disturbs a good despondency like a sneeze. Don’t you agree? So, this will help you with that. I’m so charmed by your wonderful house, but don’t you think it a touch gloomy? Just brightening it up a mite will mean your own natural moroseness will be more striking by contrast. When you’re feeling better, we’ll discuss replacing the throw rugs. They’re doing wonderful things with color these days, you know? I was thinking something restful for the sitting room. What’s that color of the sky midafternoon?”

  “Blue?” suggested Lord Finbar, looking lost.

  “Yes, but what’s it named?”

  “Sky blue?”

  “Yes, that’s the stuff. Or robin’s egg. So lovely in the spring, don’t you feel? Although of course you don’t have the opportunity see a blue sky, do you? Well never you mind about that. I’ll simply do over the whole sitting room to remind you of how lovely the spring is.”

  “In blue?”

  “Exactly, as you say, blue. What an excellent suggestion, Lord Finbar. You’re brilliant! Blue is exactly the thing for the sitting room. Why didn’t I think of it?”

  “I am? You didn’t?”

  Dimity nodded reassuringly, and guided him into the library at last. “We will design it to remind you of all the possibilities in life and daylight. It will inspire considerable verse, I promise. Now, about this painting...”

  She’d left Lord Fin
bar staring at an oil of an unfortunately chubby horse, cheeky goat, and three chickens that had hung in the library for two hundred years as though he had never seen it before.

  When Lord Kirby emerged, on the other hand, he said nothing. Dimity was thinking about how to balance her new housekeeper duties with her front as an artist, and was considering getting out her paints or sketching a bit while the maids worked.

  Lord Kirby ran his hand down the newly waxed stair railing as he mooched downstairs.

  “Did you know there was mahogany under all that dust, Lord Kirby?”

  “I did, Mrs Carefull.” He spoke at last, in a low, sharp voice, but clear, with bite to it. A pudgy man like that ought not to be birdlike, but Dimity found him so. His eye movements were almost too quick, unnaturally so. His steps too, especially when compared to Lord Finbar’s oozing slouch.

  As he ran his fingers down the banister, the long sleeve of his robe trailed becomingly. Dimity would have said something complimentary to that effect, but she wasn’t certain yet what her tactics should be with this vampire.

  “Lord Finbar is in the library,” she informed him.

  “Lord Finbar is always in the library,” grumbled Lord Kirby, darting down the hall presumably towards one of the other rooms. He barely glanced at the new maids – if anything, he seemed shy of them.

  Sir Crispin returned shortly after that, to find Dimity rearranging the sitting room to better aesthetic effect. This had started because she wanted to use a writing desk there on which to paint.

  “You’re a menace, you are,” he said, fondly. He had packages under one arm and more beeswax in hand.

  Dimity put her hands on her hips and grinned at him. “This is so much fun.” Rearranging furniture was leagues better than seducing people.

  “Bed anytime soon?” he asked.

  Dimity thought he sounded hopeful, or she hoped he sounded hopeful. By rights they should be trying to stay awake, to learn more about the hive and adjust to entirely night-time hours, but they’d had a very long day already.

  Justice came flitting downstairs then. He cast himself dramatically over the railing at the top and then sort of a wafted down like a leaf waving back and forth, side to side, in the breeze.

  Lord Kirby re-emerged form wherever he’d gone and said in his cutting voice, “You saw that human again last night, didn’t you, Justice? He’ll break your heart into a thousand pieces, he will.”

  Dimity stared at Lord Kirby in amazement. Who knew the man was capable of such emotion? True, it seemed to be exasperated contempt, and he was reprimanding a fellow vampire of at least fifty years old as though he were his father. But at least Lord Kirby was reacting to something.

  Justice, waifish and frail, paused in mid-descent and pressed a hand to his perfect forehead. “Oh, but I love him so ardently. How can I resist such a man as Gantry Ogdon-Loppes? I ask you?” He spread his delicate fingers wide and cast them over Dimity, Cris, and Lord Kirby below, as if in benediction. The single gas sconce on the wall behind him cast a nimbus of pale light about his thick curls. He pouted fiercely.

  Lord Kirby persisted. “You’re a vampire. He’s a human. It’ll never work.”

  “Oh, I know it won’t work! But what magic we shall wring from out our hearts with the trying of it – until we both fail tragically and all is in ruins!”

  With which he whirled about and drifted back up the stairs, apparently having decided he was not yet ready to face the world. He had not noticed the cleaning at all. Clearly, he had other concerns.

  Dimity made certain the maids were out of hearing and well occupied before she turned curiously to Lord Kirby. “Why not turn the lucky fellow into a drone?”

  Lord Kirby only held up a hand and walked away.

  Dimity looked to Cris. A glimmer of hope! “My darling husband, embrace me.”

  Sir Crispin rolled his eyes and did so, allowing her to stand on tippy-toe in order to whisper as quietly as might be, directly in his ear. “If Justice’s amore is a younger son of a progressive family, offering him a drone position should be a very tempting prospect.”

  “Unless he’s married, of course,” Sir Crispin whispered (sensibly) back.

  Dimity could not help but be a little shocked. “Do you think that likely?”

  Cris leaned back and glowered at her, clearly not caring if this bit were overheard by the sensitive ears of a vampire or a parlormaid. “We are dealing with the country gentry, Sparkles. Anything scandalous is possible. Now, I’m for bed, before you send me on another errand.”

  Dimity watched him climb the stairs. It must be admitted she did this with a great deal of enjoyment. Sir Crispin did have very fine legs.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  In Which Sir Crispin Critiques Tennyson

  Cris had another restless sleep due to torturous cuddles from Sparkles. They still had no fire in their room, as the chimney had yet to be cleaned, so it was quite frigid. He couldn’t very well deny her his warmth, now, could he? He arranged himself innocently in bed well before her. She climbed in with a great deal more alacrity than previously, and curled up against him without flinching at all.

  He adored it, of course. Therein lay the problem.

  Apparently, she was already accustomed to him in her bed. A truly dangerous situation because accustomed would lead to expectation and that edged into need, a potent aphrodisiac indeed. Cris knew himself well enough to understand how much he enjoyed being needed. Even if it was only for warmth.

  He thought she might be sniffing him, for as she nuzzled up against his shoulder, puffs of breath ghosted over his skin.

  “I think things are coming along very well, don’t you?” she whispered. His skin pricked under the sensation of her words.

  “Clean curtains might have been enough. You seem intent on miracles.”

  “Pish-tosh, this place needs brightening and organization if we’re to lure the queen above ground. The supernatural is all very well and good, but it mustn’t be allowed to get untidy. What we have here is a veritable horror.”

  “Why do you think they call it going to Goth?”

  “Well, I intend to put a stop to it.”

  “Might not work – we still don’t know what drove away the queen.”

  “Give me time.”

  “I don’t want you going to confront her alone, Sparkles. Too dangerous.”

  “I can take care of myself, thank you very much.”

  “I’m your safety, remember? Allow me some use beyond fetching and carrying beeswax.”

  “If you insist.” She inhaled him again, a little more obviously this time. Dimity never did anything obviously without intent, so he took that as permission to relax into his own inclinations.

  He allowed himself the luxury of bending his head to bury his nose in the crown of her sweet-smelling hair. He hadn’t helped brush it tonight and she had it plaited back for sleep. A great loss. “Why, for goodness sake, must you smell like lemon and honey? And is that milk as well?”

  “Mmm.” She was falling asleep, comforted by his annoyance. It was familiar ground.

  “It’s ridiculous that you look the way you do and also smell heavenly.”

  “I wash my hair in a lemon rinse twice a week, when I can get the fruit. And then bicarbonate of soda, to keep it soft afterwards. I’m terribly vain, you see. The lemon keeps my color bright. I could go out in the sun, of course, but that would ruin my complexion. Which is why I use milk and honey on my face most nights.” Her voice was muffled in his nightshirt. She yawned and her jaw creaked. “I wash it off with cold water after. You should try it sometime. Leaves the skin nice and soft. Not that you—” She yawned again. “—should necessarily muck about with your face at all. It’s lovely the way it is.”

  And she drifted off.

  He lay, still as he could, once again trying desperately not to scare her off with the depths of his wanting. Although, since she had openly admitted to thinking his fac
e lovely, perhaps the wanting was mutual?

  He found himself wondering how her milk-scented skin would look against the roughened darkness of his. He lifted his hand, the one that she wasn’t leaning against, and covered her small one where it rested on his chest. He entwined their fingers, lightly.

  So far as the cleaning and redecorating was concerned, Dimity was having a wonderful time. The hive house was beginning to smell less musty. Sir Crispin, while eager to assist with cleaning and curtains, was proving difficult as a prospective husband. Dimity had decided to seduce him, but she had less than a fortnight in which to do it. It seemed to her quite easy to fix an entire hive, spruce it up, make it happy again, in the space of two weeks, but seducing Sir Crispin? That looked likely to be the work of months. He was awfully resistant to her charms. Last night she’d draped herself over him, and nuzzled.

  Nothing.

  Nuzzled, mind you. What was a girl to do when a light nuzzling didn’t encourage at least a kiss on the cheek? He’d nuzzled back, but only the top of her head. It wasn’t like that was a significant location. At least, her seduction lessons hadn’t said so. She wished suddenly for her dear friend Sophronia, who had herself a lover of many years, and could explain the significance of a reciprocal nuzzle. Unfortunately, Sophronia was most likely off killing a tyrannical mastermind, or overthrowing a secret society, or stopping a pudding war, or some other such nonsense of deep political importance.

  No one would ever accuse Dimity of being ambitious. In fact, her stated goal in life had never been espionage, even though both her parents were evil geniuses. She came by her skills naturally and honed them with training, so she ended up in a devious career despite herself. But she had always wanted to do something she really loved, one day. And that one day had come, and that something was Sir Crispin.

  He was proving impossibly stoic, always had done. She suspected that was why she’d come to adore him. But her usual tactics of flirtation were not effective on a man who worked alongside professional flirts, and thus saw wiles applied on the regular. He was disposed to find her disingenuous. Which was not unfair. It was only that Dimity had been at the game so long, she wasn’t sure she remembered how to actually be genuine.