Part 26 (2/2)
Lady Maccon took her husband's face in her hands. His skin was rough with a day's growth of beard; she would have to remind him to shave, now that he was human all the time. ”Husband, you are not here to kill someone, are you? I should hate to find out that you and I were working at cross purposes.”
”Simply a precautionary measure, my love, I a.s.sure you.”
She was not convinced. Her fingers tightened about his jaw. ”When did you start carrying the deadliest supernatural weapon known to the British Empire as a precaution precaution?”
”Professor Lyall had Tunstell bring it for me. He guessed I'd be mortal while I was here and thought I might want the added security.”
Alexia let go of his face and watched as he wrapped the deadly little device back up and returned it to its hidey-hole just outside the window.
”How easy is that to use?” she asked, all innocence.
”Dinna even consider it, wife. You've got that parasol of yours.”
She pouted. ”You are no fun as a mortal.”
”So,” he said, deliberately changing the subject, ”where did you hide your dispatch case, then?”
She grinned, pleased that he would not think her so feeble as to have kept it where it could be stolen. ”In the least likely place, of course.”
”Of course. And are you going to tell me where?”
She widened her large brown eyes at him, batting her eyelashes and attempting to look innocent.
”What is in it that someone might want?”
”That's the odd thing. I really have no idea. I took the smallest things out and stashed them in my parasol. So far as I can tell, there is nothing too valuable left: the royal seal; my notes and paperwork on this latest issue with the humanization plague, minus my personal journal, which got pinched; the codes to various aethographors; a stash of emergency tea; and a small bag of gingersnaps.”
Her husband gave her his version of the look. look.
Lady Maccon defended herself. ”You would not believe how long those Shadow Council meetings are p.r.o.ne to running, and being as the dewan and the potentate are supernatural, they don't seem to notice when it's teatime.”
”Well I hardly think anyone is ransacking our rooms in a desperate bid to acquire gingersnaps.”
”They are very good good gingersnaps.” gingersnaps.”
”I suppose it could be something other than the dispatch case?”
Lady Maccon shrugged. ”This is useless speculation for the time being. Here, help me on with this. Where is Angelique?”
In the absence of the maid, Lord Maccon b.u.t.toned his wife up into her dinner dress. It was a gray and cream affair with a mult.i.tude of pleated gathers all up the front and a long, rather demure ruffle at the hem. Alexia liked the gown, except that it had a cravatlike bow at the neck, and she wasn't entirely behind this latest fas.h.i.+on for incorporating masculine elements into women's garb. Then again, there was Madame Lefoux.
Which reminded her that, since Tunstell was on French-inventor guard detail, she would have to help her husband dress. It was a mild disaster: his cravat came out lopsided and his collar limp. Alexia was resigned. She had, after all, been a spinster most of her life, and cravat-tying was not a proficiency generally acquired by spinsters.
”Husband,” she said as they finished their preparations and headed downstairs for dinner, ”have you considered biting your many-times great-granddaughter to change?”
Lord Maccon stopped abruptly at the head of the staircase and growled, ”How on G.o.d's green earth did that b.l.o.o.d.y woman persuade you you to to her her cause?” cause?”
Alexia sighed. ”It makes sense, and it is an elegant solution to Kingair's current problems. She is already acting like an Alpha; why not make it official?”
”It isna as simple as that, wife, and you verra well know it. And her chances of survival-”
”Are very slim. Yes, I am well aware of that.”
”Not simply slim-they are beyond salvation. You are essentially suggesting that I kill the last living Maccon.”
”But if she survived...”
”If.”
Lady Maccon tilted her head. ”Isn't it her risk to take?”
He remained silent and continued on down the ma.s.sive staircase.
”You should think about it, Conall, as BUR, if nothing else. It is the most logical course of action.”
He kept on walking. There was something about the set of his shoulders.
”Wait a moment.” She was suddenly suspicious. ”That was the reason you came back here all along, wasn't it? The family problem. You intend to fix the Kingair Pack? Despite the betrayal.”
He shrugged.
”You wanted to see how Sidheag was handling things. Well?”
”There's this changeless issue,” he prevaricated.
Alexia grinned. ”Yes, well, apart from that. You must agree I have a point.”
He turned to frown up at her. ”I hate it when you come over all correct.”
Alexia trotted down the staircase until they were nose to nose. She had to stand one step up from him for it to be so. She kissed him softly. ”I know. But I am so very good at it.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Great Unwrapping
They decided the mummy would be unwrapped, for the t.i.tillation of the ladies, just after dinner. Alexia was not convinced as to the cleverness of this plan. Knowing Miss Hisselpenny's const.i.tution, if the mummy were gruesome enough, dinner might just be revisited. But it was believed that darkness and candlelight best suited such an ill.u.s.trious event.
None of the ladies present had ever before been to a mummy-unwrapping party. Lady Maccon expressed some distress that Madame Lefoux and Tunstell would be missing the fun. Lord Maccon suggested that as he had little interest and he would go relieve Tunstell, thus allowing the claviger at least to partic.i.p.ate. Tunstell, everyone knew, enjoyed drama.
Alexia looked sharply at Miss Hisselpenny, but Ivy held herself composed and untroubled by the possibility of a redheaded thespian and naked mummy in the same room. Felicity licked her lips in antic.i.p.ation, and Lady Maccon prepared herself for inevitable histrionics. But it was she, not Felicity or Ivy, who felt most uncomfortable in the presence of the ancient creature.
Truth be told, it was a rather sad-looking mummy. It resided in a not-very-big boxlike coffin that had only minimal hieroglyphic decorations upon it. Once removed from the coffin, the wrappings on the mummy were revealed to be minimally painted with one repeated motif: what looked to be an ankh, broken. The dead thing did not disgust or frighten Alexia in any way, and she had seen mummies before in museums without desultory effects. But there was something about this particular mummy that, simply put, repulsed her.
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