Lord Maccon inhaled a few last bites and then took off after his wife, catching up to her in the hallway.
“That was not a cockroach, was it?” she asked.
“Aye. It wasna.”
“Well?”
He shrugged, his big hands spread wide in confusion. “Strangely colored, all shiny.”
“Oh, thank you for that.”
“Why bother? ’Tis dead now.”
“Point taken, husband. So, what are we planning for today?”
He nibbled a fingertip thoughtfully. “You know, I thought we might discern exactly why the supernatural isna working properly here.”
“Oh, darling, what a unique and original idea.”
He paused. The subject of Kingair’s little affliction of humanity seemed not to actually be foremost in his mind. “Red jacket and shiny boots, you say?”
Lady Maccon looked at her husband, confused for a moment. Where was he going with this line of reasoning? “Boots are causing the illness?”
“No,” he grumbled, shamefaced, “on me.”
“Ah!” She grinned hugely. “I believe I might have mentioned something to that effect.”
“Anything else?”
The grin widened. “Actually, I was envisioning boots, jacket, and nothing else at all. Mmm, perhaps just boots.”
He swallowed, nervous.
She turned to him, upping the odds. “If you were to make this fashion event happen, I might be open to a little negotiating about which of us will be doing the riding.”
Lord Maccon, werewolf of some two hundred years, blushed beet red at that. “I am eternally grateful you have not taken up gambling, my dear.”
She wormed herself into his arms and raised her lips to be kissed. “Give me time.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Chief Sundowner
That afternoon, Lord and Lady Maccon decided to take a walk. The rain had let up slightly, and it looked to be turning into a passable day, if not precisely pleasant. Lady Maccon decided she was in the country and could relax her standards slightly, so did not change into a walking dress, instead simply slipping on practical shoes.
Unfortunately for Lord and Lady Maccon, Miss Loontwill and Miss Hisselpenny decided to join them. This occasioned a wait while both ladies changed, but since Tunstell had made himself scarce, there was less competition than there might otherwise have been in this endeavor. Alexia was beginning to think they wouldn’t get out of the house before teatime when both girls appeared sporting parasols and bonnets. This reminded Alexia to get her own parasol, causing yet another delay. Really, mobilizing an entire fleet for a great naval battle would probably have been easier.
Finally they set forth, but no sooner had they attained the small copse on the southern end of the grounds than they came across the Kingair Gamma, Lachlan, and Beta, Dubh, having some sort of heated argument in low, angry voices.
“Destroy it all,” the Gamma was saying. “We canna continue ta live like this.”
“Not until we ken to which and why.”
The two men spotted the approaching party and fell silent.
Politeness dictated they join the larger group, and, with Felicity and Ivy’s assistance, Alexia actually managed to get some semblance of polite conversation going. Both men were reluctant to say much at the best of times, and, clearly, the pack was under a gag order. However, such orders did not take into account the success with which sharp determination and frivolity could loosen the tongue.
“I know you gentlemen were on the front lines in India. How brave you must be, to fight primitives like that.” Miss Hisselpenny widened her eyes and looked at the two men, hoping for tales of heroic bravery.
“Not much fighting left to do out there anymore. Simply some minor pacification of the locals,” objected Lord Maccon.
Dubh gave him a dirty look. “And how would you know?”
“Oh, but what’s it really like?” asked Ivy. “We get the stories in the papers now and again, but no real feel for the place.”
“Hotter than hell’s—”
Miss Hisselpenny gasped in anticipation of lewd talk.
Dubh civilized himself. “Well, hot.”
“And the food doesna taste verra good,” added Lachlan.
“Really?” That interested Alexia. Food always interested Alexia. “How perfectly ghastly.”
“Even Egypt was better.”
“Oh.” Miss Hisselpenny’s eyes went wide. “You were in Egypt too?”
“Of course they were in Egypt,” Felicity said snidely. “Everyone knows it is one of the main ports for the empire these days. I have a passionate interest in the military, you know? I heard that most regiments have to stop over there.”
“Oh, do they?” Ivy blinked, trying to comprehend the geographic reason behind this.
“And how did you find Egypt?” asked Alexia politely.
“Also hot,” snapped Dubh.
“Seems to me most places would be, compared to Scotland,” Lady Maccon snapped back.
“You chose to visit us,” he reminded her.
“And you chose to go to Egypt.” Alexia was not one to back down from a verbal battle.
“Not entirely. Pack service to Queen Victoria is mandatory.” The conversation was getting tense.
“But it does not have to take the form of military service.”
“We are not loners to slink about the homeland with tails twixt our legs.” Dubh actually looked to Lord Maccon for assistance in dealing with his irascible wife. The earl merely winked at him.
Help came from an unlooked-for source. “I hear Egypt has some very nice, old”—Ivy was trying to keep matters civil—“stuff.”
“Antiquities,” added Felicity, proud of herself for knowing the word.
In a desperate attempt to keep Lady Maccon and the Beta from killing one another, Lachlan said, “We picked up quite a collection while we were there.”
Dubh growled at his pack mate.
“Isn’t that illegal?” Lord Maccon wondered softly in his BUR voice. No one paid him any attention, except for his wife, who pinched him.
She said, “Oh, really? What kind of artifacts?”
“A few bits of jewelry and some statuary to add to the pack vault and, of course, a couple of mummies.”
Ivy gasped. “Real live mummies?”
Felicity snorted. “I should hope they are not alive.” But even she seemed excited by the idea of mummies in residence. Alexia supposed that, in her sister’s world, such things were considered glamorous.
Lady Maccon said, pressing her advantage, “We should have a mummy-unwrapping party. They are all the rage in London.”
“Well, we shouldna want to be thought backward,” said Lady Kingair’s abrasive voice. She had come upon them all unnoticed, looking gray and severe. Lord Maccon, Lachlan, and Dubh all started upon hearing her speak. They were accustomed to having their supernatural sense of smell tell them when anyone approached, no matter how stealthily.
Sidheag turned to the Gamma. “Lachlan, get the clavigers to arrange it.”
“Are you certain, my lady?” he questioned.
“We could do with a bit of fun. We wouldna want to disappoint the visiting ladies, now, would we? We are in possession of the mummies. Might as well unwrap them. We were after the amulets anyway.”
“Oh, how thrilling,” said Miss Hisselpenny, practically bouncing in her excitement.
“Which mummy, my lady?” asked Lachlan.
“The smaller one, with the more nondescript coverings.”
“As you say.” The Gamma hurried off to arrange for the event.
“Oh, I shall find this so very diverting,” crowed Felicity. “You know Elsie Flinders-Pooke was lording it over me just last week that she had been to an unwrapping. Imagine what she will say when I tell her I experienced one in a haunted castle in the Scottish Highlands.”
“How do you know Kingair is haunted?”
“I know because, obviously, it must be haunted. You could not possibly convince me otherwise. No ghosts have appeared since we arrived, but that is no proof to the contrary,” Felicity defended her future tall tale.
“Delighted we could provide you with some significant social coup,” sneered Lady Kingair.
“Your pleasure, I’m sure,” replied Felicity.
“My sister is a woman of mean understanding,” explained Lady Maccon apologetically.
“And what are you?” asked Sidheag.
“Oh, I am simply mean.”
“And here I was, thinking you were the sister with the understanding.”
“Not just yet. Give me time.”
They turned around and headed back toward the castle. Lord Maccon moved to draw his wife back slightly so they could converse privately.
“You believe one of the artifacts to be a humanization weapon?”
She nodded.
“But how would we know which one?”
“You may have to come allover BUR on the Kingair Pack and simply confiscate all their collected antiquities as illegal imports.”
“And then what? See them all incinerated?”
Lady Maccon frowned. She fancied herself a bit of a scholar and was not generally in favor of wanton destruction. “I had not thought to take things quite so far.”
“It would be a terrible destruction, and I should be opposed, save that we canna simply have these things wandering around the empire. Imagine if they fell into the wrong hands?”
“Such as the Hypocras Club?” Lady Maccon shuddered to even think it.
“Or the vampires.” No matter how integrated the two became into civilized society, werewolves and vampires would never really trust one another.
Lady Maccon stopped suddenly. Her husband got four long strides ahead before he realized she had paused. She was staring thoughtfully up into the aether, twirling the deadly parasol about her head.
“I have just remembered something,” Alexia said when he returned to her side.
“Oh, that explains everything. How foolish of me to think you could walk and remember at the same time.”
She stuck her tongue out at him but began drifting toward the house once more. He slowed to match her pace. “That bug, the one that scared me at breakfast. It was not a cockroach at all. It was a scarab beetle. From Egypt. It must have something to do with the artifacts they brought back.”
Lord Maccon’s lip curled. “Yuck.”
They had fallen some distance behind the rest of the party. The others were busy entering the castle just as someone else emerged. There was a pause while they all politely greeted one another, and then the new figure headed purposefully in the direction of Lord and Lady Maccon.
The figure rapidly resolved itself into the personage of Madame Lefoux.
Alexia waved a “how do you do” at the Frenchwoman. She was wearing her beautiful morning coat of dove-gray, striped trousers, a black satin waistcoat, and a royal-blue cravat. It made for a pretty picture, the Kingair castle—mist-shrouded and gray in the background—and the attractive woman, as improperly dressed as she may be, hurrying toward them. Until Madame Lefoux neared enough for them to realize she was also wearing something else: a concerned expression.
“I am glad I ’ave found you two.” Her accent was unusually strong. She sounded almost as bad as Angelique. “Ze most extraordinary thing, Lady Maccon. I waz looking for you just now to let you know, we went to check on the aethographor; then I saw—”
The most tremendous clap resounded through the Scottish air. Alexia felt certain she could see the mist shake with the noise. Madame Lefoux, her face changing from worry to surprise, stopped midsentence and midstep and tumbled forward, as limp as overcooked pasta. A bloom of red appeared on one immaculate gray lapel.
Lord Maccon caught the inventor before she could fall completely to the ground and carefully lowered her there instead. He held his hand briefly before her mouth to see if she was breathing. “She is still alive.” Alexia quickly pulled her shawl from about her shoulders and handed it to him to use as a bandage. No sense in his spoiling the last of his good cravats.
Alexia looked up at the castle, scoping the battlements for a glint of sun on a rifle barrel, but there were too many battlements and there was too little sun. The sharpshooter, whoever he might be, was not visible.
“Get down this instant, woman,” ordered her husband, grabbing her by one skirt ruffle and yanking her down next to the fallen Frenchwoman. The ruffle ripped. “We dinna know if the shooter was aiming at her or at us,” he growled.
“Where’s your precious pack? Shouldn’t they be hightailing it to our rescue?”
“How do you ken it isna them shooting?” her husband wondered.
