Part 30 (2/2)

Formerly Angelique now had three fingers bent. ”Zat was not me. I am thinking, my lady, zat someone else wants you dead. And your fourth question?”

”Do you believe it is Madame Lefoux trying to kill me?”

”I think not, but it iz hard to tell with Genevieve. She iz, how do you say? Ze smart one. But should she want you dead, it would be your body lying there, not mine.”

”So why do you you wish our little inventor dead?” wish our little inventor dead?”

”Your fifth question, my lady, and you waste it on Genevieve? She 'az something of mine. She insisted on giving it back or telling the world.”

”What could be so horrible?”

”It would have ruined my life. Ze comtesse, she insists, no family. She will not bite to change if there iz children-part of vampire edict. A lesser regulation but the comtesse 'az always played hive politics close. And seeing how Lady Kingair complicates your husband's life, I begin to understand why the rule waz in place.”

Lady Maccon put all things together. She knew those violet eyes had been familiar. ”Madame Lefoux's son, Quesnel. He is not her child, is he? He is yours.”

”A mistake that no longer matters.” Another finger went down. Three questions left.

”Madame Lefoux was on board the dirigible tracking you, not me! Was she blackmailing you?”

”Yez, either I take up my maternal duty or she'd tell the countess. I could not have that, you understand? When I had worked so hard for immortality.”

Alexia blushed, grateful for the cool night air. ”You two were...”

The ghost gave a kind of shrug, the gesture, still so casual, even in specter form. ”Of course, for many years.”

Lady Maccon felt her face go even hotter, erotic images flas.h.i.+ng through her brain: Madame Lefoux's dark head next to Angelique's blond one. A pretty picture the two of them would have made, like something out of a naughty postcard. ”Well, I say, how extraordinarily French.”

The ghost laughed. ”Hardly that. How do you think I caught Comtesse Nadasdy's interest? Not with ze hairdressing skills, let me a.s.sure you, my lady.”

Alexia had seen something of the kind in her father's collection, but she had never imagined it might be based on anything more than masculine wistfulness or performances put on to t.i.tillate a john's palate. That two women might do such things voluntarily with one another and do so with some degree of romantic love. Was this possible?

She did not realize she had voiced this last question aloud.

The ghost snorted. ”All I can say iz, I am certain she loved me, at one time.”

Lady Maccon began to see much more in the inventor's actions and comments over the past week than she had originally. ”You are a hard little thing, aren't you, Angelique?”

”What a waste of your last question, my lady. We all become what we are taught to be. You are not so hard as you would like. What will that husband of yours say, when he finds out?”

”Finds out what?”

”Oh, you really do not know? I thought you were playacting.” The ghost laughed, a genuine laugh, harsh and directed at the confusion and future misery of another.

”What? What do I not know?”

”Oh no, I have fulfilled my half of the bargain. Ten questions, fairly answered.”

Alexia sighed. It was true. She reached forward, albeit reluctantly, to perform her very first exorcism. Odd that the government had known of her preternatural state for her whole life, had recorded her in the BUR Files of Secrecy and Import as the only preternatural in all of London, yet never used her in her kind's most common capacity-that of exorcist. Odd, too, that her first use of this ability should be at a ghost's request, in the Highlands of Scotland. And odd, last of all, that it should be so dreadfully easy.

She simply laid her hand upon Angelique's broken body, performing the literal application of the term laying the body to rest. laying the body to rest. As quick as that, the ghostly form disappeared, tethers broken, and all excess soul was terminated. With no living body to call it back when Alexia raised her hands, it was gone forever: complete and total disanimus. The soul could never return, as it did with werewolves and vampires. With the body dead, such a return was fatal. Poor Angelique, she might have been immortal, had she made different choices. As quick as that, the ghostly form disappeared, tethers broken, and all excess soul was terminated. With no living body to call it back when Alexia raised her hands, it was gone forever: complete and total disanimus. The soul could never return, as it did with werewolves and vampires. With the body dead, such a return was fatal. Poor Angelique, she might have been immortal, had she made different choices.

Lady Maccon found a very strange scene when she made her way back inside the castle and up the stairs into the mummy room. Tunstell was awake, his shoulder and upper arm bandaged with a red-checked handkerchief of Ivy's origination, and he was busy applying a good deal of excellent brandy to his mouth as a curative addendum. Miss Hisselpenny was kneeling next to him, cooing unhelpfully, having recovered her senses, at least enough to attain wakefulness, if not actual sense.

”Oh, Mr. Tunstell, how exceedingly brave you were, coming to my rescue like that. So heroic,” she was saying. ”Imagine if it got known that I had been knifed by a maid, a French French maid, no less? Had I died, I should maid, no less? Had I died, I should never never have lived it down! How can I possibly thank you enough?” have lived it down! How can I possibly thank you enough?”

Madame Lefoux stood next to Lord Maccon, looking composed, if a little drawn about the eyes and mouth, her dimples secured away for the time being. Alexia could not interpret this expression. She was not yet confident in the inventor's trustworthiness. Madame Lefoux had entertained some considerable vested interest in the proceedings from the start. Not to mention that suspicious octopus tattoo. If nothing else, Alexia's experience with the bedeviled scientists of the Hypocras Club had taught her not to trust octopuses.

She strode up to the Frenchwoman and said, ”Angelique has had her say. It is time, Madame Lefoux, for you to do the same. What did you really want-simply Angelique or something more? Who was trying to poison me on board the dirigible?” Without pause, she turned her attention onto Tunstell, eyeing his wound critically. ”Did he get vinegar put on that?”

”Had?” Madame Lefoux asked, apparently grappling with only one of the many words Lady Maccon had uttered. ”Did you say had had? Is she dead, then?”

”Angelique?”

Teeth nibbling fretfully at her bottom lip, the Frenchwoman nodded.

”Quite.”

Madame Lefoux did the most curious thing. She opened her green eyes wide, as though in surprise. And then, when that did not seem to help, turned her dark head aside and began to cry.

Lady Maccon envied her the skill of crying with aplomb. She herself went allover splotchy, but Madame Lefoux seemed to be able to execute the emotional state with minimal fuss: no gulps, no sniffles, just silent fat tears falling down her cheeks and dripping off her chin. It seemed all the more painfully sad, immersed in unnatural silence.

Lady Maccon, never one to be moved by sentiment, cast her hands up to heaven. ”Oh, by glory, what now?”

”I ken, wife, now is the time for us all to be a tad more forthcoming with one another,” said Conall. He was a softer touch. He steered both Alexia and Madame Lefoux away from the scene of battle (and Ivy and Tunstell, who were now making horrible kissy noises at one another) to a different part of the room.

”Oh dear.” Lady Maccon glared at Lord Maccon. ”You said 'us all.' Were you involved as well, my darling husband? Have you, perhaps, been less forthcoming than you should with your loving wife?”

Lord Maccon sighed. ”Why must you always be so difficult, woman?”

Lady Maccon said nothing, simply crossed her arms over her ample bosom and stared pointedly at him.

”Madame Lefoux was working for me,” he admitted, his voice so low it was almost a growl. ”I asked her to keep an eye on you while I was away.”

”And you did not tell me?”

”Well, you know how you get.”

”I most certainly do. Really, Conall, imagine a.s.signing a BUR agent to track me, as though I were a fox in the hunt. That is simply the living end! How could you?”

”Oh, she isn't BUR. We've known each other a long time. I asked her as a friend, not an employee.”

Alexia frowned. She wasn't sure how she felt about that. that. ”How long a time and how good a friend?” ”How long a time and how good a friend?”

Madame Lefoux gave a watery little smile.

Lord Maccon looked genuinely surprised. ”Really, wife, you are not usually given to such denseness. I dinna fit Madame Lefoux's preferences.”

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