The visiting intellectuals sat in enthralled fascination. They murmured questions to one another, discussing the allegorical nature of this particular piece. Were the performative introductions meant to symbolize man’s frail relationship to his own conception of social constructs within the context of a broader society?
Then the queen commented that Lord Finbar looked very handsome in green, and wasn’t Rosie a lovely little creature, and of course she could be official too. After all, she herself intended Betsy for permanence, and the more the merrier.
Dimity knew both young ladies were soon to be drones as well, but one audience member explained to his friend that he thought it “a commentary on the transformative nature of the aristocracy.”
“Yes, yes, but would you look at her dress! It’s too modern for the aristocracy. Surely it’s a statement on the conflicts inherent in a class-driven system?” objected his companion.
Then the hive’s new Corgi had to be introduced as well. He looked up at his new mistress all big eyes and huge ears, madly wagging a tail he didn’t have. Baroness Ermondy was charmed into complete submission.
She stood and produced from some secret stash about her person a collection of blank Valentine’s cards. These she cast out in a wild flutter into the crowd. “I shall not need them anymore,” she proclaimed.
The charmed crowd applauded politely.
“Very existential,” reiterated the gentleman to his friend.
“Yes, but what does it mean?” lamented the other.
“Meaning is not important. That is the entire point – the search for meaning is what matters, you see? What are we but questions? Who are we really, what is there but the search itself? Hence, the casting of the blank cards.”
“I didn’t get that at all. Really, Arlington, why must you insist on attending these bloody things?”
“Hush now, there’s one more coming. And I insist on attending because everyone should broaden his mind, Quattermud, even you. Do try to keep up.”
The baroness ceded the limelight, taking a seat in the front row next to Lord Finbar. She expressed regret at having missed the first two orations, and thanked him for his thoughtfulness in reserving her a seat.
Dimity grinned. What more did a vampire want in afterlife, after emerging from six months of seclusion in a cave, than a presentation on the higher nature of common sense while a man interpreted it balletically? That was, after all, what was up next.
The crowd quieted once more, most of them apparently under the impression that they had just witnessed an allegory so brilliant, it eluded even their intellects. Dimity had no doubt that more than one paper would be written on this evening’s events in the months to come.
Lord Kirby sat on the other side of Baroness Ermondy. She had not yet been told of his wish to increase rank in the hive, and of Lord Finbar’s to be reduced, but Dimity had no doubt of their success. The dog lay at their feet. Rosie sat beside Lord Finbar while on Lord Kirby’s other side, Justice cuddled next to Gantry, Betsy at the end of the row. Mr Theris was (presumably) still in the garden being seduced to the furry side.
Dimity was very, very pleased with herself. She sat near the back, where she could keep an eye on everything.
The final performance of the evening began.
Professor Fausse-Maigre droned on in typical academic style as to the nature of truth and the importance of scientific inquiry. He talked about reason and ethical grounding and the profundity of logic. But meanwhile, ah, meanwhile, Sir Crispin, behind him, pranced about performing an impressive arabesque every time the word higher was used, small leaps at the word truth, and those double knee-bend things whenever the man spoke of logic or reason.
It was certainly something to behold.
Something.
Dimity enjoyed the play of muscles on Sir Crispin’s arms and back, the line of his long legs, and the way he pointed his toes just so.
And when Professor Fausse-Maigre ended with a flourish and a bow, Crispin whipped into a perfect pirouette. The assembled company surged to their feet and erupted into resounding applause.
Certainly, they had just witnessed greatness.
Certainly, they had witnessed remarkably innovative and deeply moving originality.
Certainly, they would never again witness anything like it in their lifetimes.
Especially if Sir Crispin had anything to say about it.
Dimity turned up the gas, brightening the room, and bustled out to the kitchen encouraging the newly hired staff to serve the whiskey now, and some sugared fruit.
The rest of the night was a veritable triumph.
The hive queen mingled with her new friends, her gown received endless compliments, the death of the crinoline heralded by most ladies present with profound relief.
“Just think, it will make these gatherings much easier to manage. Not to be crashing and bashing about so! I have nearly upended three tables and a chair already,” lamented one elderly matron.
Dimity glided amongst the intellectuals. Her brother was trapped in a corner, surrounded by several young ladies of marriageable age, which always happened to him at parties. Poor old sod. He was telling them, in excruciating detail, about his current research into the grammatical construction of Roman political speeches.
Professor Fausse-Maigre, who proved to be rather shy and retiring when he was not speaking on matters well rehearsed, had found his way to the piano in the drawing room and was plonking at it with some skill. The ladies in the corner eventually dragged Pillover, Justice, Gantry, and a few others off to that room to dance.
Mrs Ogdon-Loppes summoned Dimity over with an autocratic finger. She and her husband, having consumed six glasses of whiskey between them, were sitting rather floppily together on one of more plush leather sofas.
“Mrshh Carefull. You lovely thing, you! Gantry tells us thissh is all your fault.”
Dimity went over to them with alacrity. “Oh, I assure you it is not so, madam. I am a mere instrument of aesthetic order.”
“Well, whatever you did, it fixed my son’s instrument right up, now, didn’t it,” blustered Mr Ogdon-Loppes, a little too loudly.
Mrs Ogdon-Loppes guffawed. “Oh, Henry, you’re too droll!” She tried to lower her voice to a whisper, but it more closely resembled a hissing roar. Dimity didn’t mind.
“We thought he’d formed an inappropriate connection to a young local lad – you know how it goesh, dear. A right ruffian, we thought. They kept meeting in woods, if you would believe it. Woods! So muddy. Gantry always did have an obsession with Robin Hood. We suspected something quite low indeed, a highwayman, or perhashpss even flywaymen.” Mrs Ogdon-Loppes nodded so hard she drifted forwards and began to slide off the couch.
Dimity steadied her, smiling at them both.
Mr Ogdon-Loppes picked up the story. “And here we find instead such a lovely, respectable young thing, all proper, and a girl besides! Never expected a girl. Not of Gantry. Blasted brilliant, that is!”
Mrs Ogdon-Loppes recovered her tongue, if not her head, which kept nodding, only now from side to side. “It’s really quite extraordsh... Extraordinarish... great! And we understand the family is well connected. Titled. Little Justice isn’t, erm, the heir, is she?”
“I’m afraid not. But she is very well set up. Your Gantry will never want for anything.”
“Oh, of courshh, of courshh not.” Mrs Ogdon-Loppes went serious, still nodding.
Mr Ogdon-Loppes started nodding along with his wife. “Too much to ask, that. Still, it seems like an excellent match for a third son. It’s enough to know the family likes our Gantry. We never expected him to amount to much, quite honestly. All that larking about on horseback and riding after foxes.”
“You’re pleased, then, with the match?” Dimity was having rather too much fun with the nodding Ogdon-Loppeses. Someday soon they’d likely need to be told their son was taking drone status with a vampire hive, not actually marryin
g into a family of extremely esoteric aristocrats. But that would require a more private audience with the baroness. Dimity had no doubt that a satisfactory blood dowry could be arrived at, and the couple seemed progressive enough to accept this alternate outcome with grace and discretion. At least, Dimity hoped so.
“Profundently. Couldn’t have worked out better, really.”
Dimity arched her brows. “I couldn’t agree more.”
Cris was next to her then, having gone and changed and come back down looking perfectly respectable and completely handsome in a pristine evening suit.
Together they approached Lord Maccon, who, having apparently finished all of the ice cream and most of the whiskey, was looking twitchy and eager to leave.
“You two, pirouettes indeed,” he growled at them, not really angry. He seemed to be rather a growly person. Dimity knew the type – her friend Sidheag was very like him. Not unsurprising, actually, since the two were distantly related.
“Is everything all right, sir?” asked Dimity.
“Could use something raw to eat,” grumbled the werewolf.
“No, sir, is everything all right?” She pressed the advantage afforded her by the success of the evening.
He coughed. “Aye. Aye. Bloody waste of my time, coming here. Place seems bally well in order. Not sure what the fuss was about. Bah. I’m off. Might I make use of your cloakroom for the night? I hear there’s good rabbit hunting ’round these parts.”
Dimity took that to mean he wished to strip, change shape, hunt, and then return later.
“I’m sure that would be fine, Lord Maccon,” she said, feeling very gracious in her victory.
He nodded at them both. “I bid you good evening. Sir. Madam.”
They waved the werewolf off.
“All done, then, Sparkles?”
“Yes, my tuppenny knight, I made it all quite pretty in the end. Look at how happy they all are. And it’s lovely and tidy.”
“Very good, my love.”
“And you even ended on a pirouette.”
“Only the very best for my Sparkles.”
EPILOGUE
Dimity married her tuppenny knight in modest style, although her dress was so very fashionable there were some who claimed that she singlehandedly started the new trend for very impressive bustles. However, she was careful to credit the Nottingham Hive queen when anyone asked her directly. She wore dangling opal earrings, and an opal poison ring (just in case) to match her new wedding ring (more opals), because her husband paid attention and was an extremely thoughtful man. Fortunately, the ceremony went off without a hitch, and there was no reason for her to test the usefulness of any of her jewelry – least of all the wedding ring.
To everyone’s delight, Sir Crispin’s wastrel of a father was found to have not, in fact, squandered the entire family fortune, but instead invested it in a rather impressive jewelry collection discovered in a butter churn, which he left to his only son. But despite her vast options, the new Lady Bontwee was noted to have a marked preference for those opal earrings.
Upon returning from an extended tour of the Mediterranean, Lady Bontwee spent her days happily guiding her adored husband into becoming a prominent member of Parliament. She threw numerous, increasingly desirable evening parties to which she wore her inherited jewelry (only lightly modernized to her exacting standards of deadliness) and which resulted in rather unprecedented political influence. Possibly because of Dimity, possibly because of the jewelry.
She mostly behaved like a lady, and to all appearances had given up her Honey Bee ways and War Office position, becoming nothing more than a grande dame of London society. Whether this was the truth or not, who’s to tell? The government certainly had no record of anything subversive.
Sir Crispin and Lady Bontwee produced, in embarrassingly rapid succession, five boy children, who entirely cured their mother of any inclination to faint at the sight of blood.
The family visited their friends at Budgy Hall regularly, and always knew all the gossip. Eventually Dimity and her tuppenny knight took a country seat outside of Nottingham – a smallish Grecian-inspired mansion on a stream – called Coot’s Crest. It boasted a diminutive thatched-roof cottage in the back named Coot’s Bottom. The couple kept some very discreet servants who never mentioned to anyone that a tough-looking lady with sharp green eyes and a dark-skinned man with nighttime habits (Dimity’s true friends, as she always called them), stayed at Coot’s Bottom regularly. And if, upon occasion, Lady Bontwee and her husband were seen skittering down the garden path in trailing dressing gowns, and laughing uproariously into the wee hours of the night, well, every toff has a few eccentricities.
As Justice would have it, we should all be so lucky as to go wafting about dramatically in a trailing nightgown on occasion.
Want more awesome ladies and deadly gentlemen?
Try How to Marry a Werewolf, here’s a sample…
STEP ONE
Make Yourself Readily Available
April 1896
When a young American lady of good standing is indiscreet, kind parents retire her quietly to the country with a maiden aunt and a modest stipend. Faith’s parents decided to marry her off to a werewolf.
“Though you’re too soiled for even those unnatural beasts.” Faith’s mother was not looking at her. Mrs Wigglesworth hadn’t really looked at her daughter for nearly two months. Faith was more reassured by this than not. To be noticed might tempt her mother’s temper, and that was never pretty.
So, she was careful with her words. “Now, Mother, I don’t think they quibble about such things, so long as I’m fresh meat.”
“None of your lip, girl. That’s what got you into this predicament.” Faith’s mother had a voice like cracked peppercorns and the face of an offended jackrabbit – all ears, red-rimmed eyes, and wrinkled nose.
No, it isn’t what got me here, thought Faith. In fact, it was the opposite. If I'd said something – if I'd lied about it – there would have been shame but no ruination.
“Face it, my dear, she’s spoiled goods by everyone’s standards. Even the werewolves.” Mr Wigglesworth chewed his overcooked beef wetly, with a sound like the squelching of boots in a vat of gravy.
“I don’t know where we went wrong with her. The others all turned out well enough.” Mrs Wigglesworth gave a long-suffering sigh. “I did so well with them, and then this one. Rotten to the core.”
Faith looked down at her food. It sat untouched. She didn’t feel like eating; nothing worked to fill that odd lingering emptiness. Certainly not beef, at any rate. She speared a potato and ruminated over its roundness.
They must be desperate to be rid of me, she thought, to be considering werewolves. Or Mother hates werewolves so much, she would use me to punish them.
Prior to this particular conversation, Faith could not remember the word werewolf ever spoken in the Wigglesworth household, let alone at the dinner table. For while the packs may have helped the North with their Union troubles, they still weren’t considered civilized. Now they weren’t even allowed into the city without escort. A werewolf was lower than a Californian, all things considered – rough rural hillbillies with too much hair. And open shirt collars. And no table manners.
Faith shivered in titillated horror. Werewolves were not permitted in any of Boston society’s conservatories, let alone received into drawing rooms. Certainly not by the Wigglesworths. No one would make the mistake of calling Faith’s papa a progressive. But he was a pragmatist. And everyone in Boston now knew of his daughter’s shame. And Faith’s mother? Well, she made no bones about her hatred for the beasts.
Her mother’s hand, suddenly and without warning, slapped the table. “Don’t play with your food, girl.” She barked the words so sharply that spittle sprayed the table.
Faith put down her fork.
Her mother went back to not looking at Faith. Already, in one of those lightning mood switches that had so terrified
Faith as a child, Mrs Wigglesworth was directing soft lips and coy eyes at her husband and his indifference. “You see what a bother she is to me? To this family?”
“So, how do we safely dispose of her?” Mr Wigglesworth asked his wife, because it really was Mrs Wigglesworth’s responsibility. A daughter embroiled in scandal was of little political value to him. He’d never paid Faith any attention anyway, not until her indiscretion.
Mrs Wigglesworth sighed again, louder and with more force. “We must still try for an advantageous match. Your cousin offers us a relatively inexpensive option – a London season.” She tapped the letter that had started the whole conversation. “Since I’d never allow American werewolves to darken our door, I was thinking of something grander. England. Some of those British monsters are even titled.”
Faith couldn’t face the potato. She slid it off her fork untouched. Not more society. Critical eyes, and uncomfortable clothes, mixed with monsters. The potato wobbled. Imagine having to sit across the table from a real vampire. Those fangs. Do they suck blood at dinner? She shuddered.
Mrs Wigglesworth continued, “Then she might marry and stay across the ocean.”
“To rot,” added Faith under her breath. The subtext being that then the Wigglesworths would never have to see their youngest daughter again.
Her mother gave a tight smile. “Cursing some monster with her wicked ways and amoral behavior, instead of us and our good name.”
Faith tried not to find that funny. Isn’t that what they call the irresistible need to shapeshift every full moon – werewolf’s curse? Midnight special, she thought, curse now comes with your very own indiscreet American fortune hunter. Buy while fresh.
Papa made his decision. “Send her to England then, my dear. No one will have heard of her shame there.”
Defy or Defend Page 20
