Changeless: The Parasol Protectorate: Book the Second (22 page)

“Well,” said Lady Maccon, driven to annoyance, “this
is
the north. Do stop being silly about it.”

Her sister continued to complain, and Alexia watched out of the corner of her eye as Tunstell veered near to Ivy on his way
across the landing green and hissed something in her ear. Ivy said something back, an excess of emotion coloring the sharp
movements of her head. Tunstell’s back straightened and he turned away to walk on.

Ivy came to sit next to Alexia, trembling lightly.

“I do not know what I
ever
saw in that man.” Miss Hisselpenny was clearly overwrought.

“Oh dear, has something come between the lovebirds? Is there trouble afoot?” said Felicity.

When no one answered her, she trotted after the rapidly departing claviger. “Oh, Mr. Tunstell? Would you like some company?”

Lady Maccon looked to Ivy. “Am I to understand that Tunstell did not take your rejection well?” she inquired, trying not to
sound as weak as she felt. She was still dizzy, and the ground seemed quite taken with shifting about like a nervous squid.

“Well, no, not as such. When I…” Ivy started and then broke off, her attention diverted by an exceedingly large dog charging
in their direction. “Mercy me, what is that?”

The immense dog resolved into being, in actuality, a very large wolf, with a wad of fabric wrapped about its neck. Its fur
was a dark brown color brindled gold and cream, and its eyes were pale yellow.

Upon reaching them, the wolf gave Miss Hisselpenny a polite little nod and then put its head in Lady Maccon’s lap.

“Ah, husband,” said Alexia, scratching him behind the ears, “I figured you would find me, but not so quickly as this.”

The Earl of Woolsey lolled his long pink tongue at his wife good-naturedly and tilted his head in Miss Hisselpenny’s direction.

“Yes, of course,” replied Alexia to the unspoken suggestion. She turned to her friend. “Ivy, my dear, I suggest you look away
at this juncture.”

“Why?” wondered Miss Hisselpenny.

“Many find a werewolf’s shape change rather unsettling and—”

“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.