“Difficult to find? We are talking about the same Lord Akeldama?” The vampire in question had many sterling qualities admirable taste in waistcoats and an acerbic wit to name but a few but subtlety was not among them.
Professor Lyall grinned. “I should rest easy if I were you, Lady Maccon. Lord Akeldama can take care of himself.”
“Somehow I do not find a werewolf’s reassurances on behalf of a vampire all that heartening.”
“Shouldn’t you be worrying about your own problems?”
“What enjoyment is there in that? Other people’s are always far more entertaining.”
With that, Lady Maccon led the way back into the hallway, up in the ascension room, through the hat shop, and out into the street. There she supervised the removal of her luggage and sent the waiting coachman off. He was clearly pleased to be heading back toward the comparative sanity of the Loontwill household, where excitable members of the aristocracy did not hurl mechanical beetles at him.
Professor Lyall hailed a hansom and directed it to BUR headquarters to continue on with what looked to be a most demanding day. Floote used the Woolsey carriage to return to the castle and collect his own meager belongings. He arranged to meet the ladies back at the Chapeau de Poupe in under four hours. They agreed that they should depart as quickly as possible, thus traveling under the comparative protection of daylight. Madame Lefoux, of course, was already packed.
Lady Maccon immediately began upending her many suitcases, with Tunstell’s assistance, right there in the midst of the forest of hats. The bags had been hastily and rather upsettingly packed by the petulant Swilkins, and Alexia couldn’t seem to find anything she might require for a trip to Italy. Mindful of Lord Akeldama’s message, she eliminated all articles of clothing afflicted by the presence of embroidery.
Madame Lefoux contented herself with puttering about with her hats, putting them in order in anticipation of their abandonment. They were all thus agreeably occupied when an enthusiastic rat tat tatting at the door interrupted them. Alexia looked up to see Ivy Tunstell, black curls bouncing in her eagerness, waving madly from the other side of the glass.
Madame Lefoux went to let her in.
Ivy had taken to both married life and a considerable fall in social station with unexpected gusto. She seemed to genuinely enjoy her new role as wife to an actor of middling reputation and denizen of gasp rented apartments in Soho. She spoke with pride of entertaining poets on a regular basis. Poets, of all things! She even made murmurs about treading the boards herself. Alexia thought this might be a good plan, for Ivy had just the right kind of pleasant, animated face and inordinately melodramatic temperament to suit life as a thespian. She certainly needed little help in the wardrobe department. Always one for the outrageous hat in her unmarried state, her taste, cut free of her mother’s apron strings, now extended to the rest of her attire. Today’s offering was a bright apple green, pink, and white striped visiting gown, with a matching hat that boasted feathers of such epic proportions that Ivy actually had to duck slightly upon entering the shop.
“There you are, you wretched man,” she said affectionately to her husband.
“Hello, magpie,” was his equally warm response.
“In my favorite hat shop.” Ivy tapped Tunstell coquettishly on the arm with her fan. “I wonder what could ever have brought you here.”
Tunstell looked desperately at Lady Maccon, who flashed him an unhelpful smirk.
“Well” he cleared his throat “I thought you might want to pick out some new frippery or another, on the occasion of our” he scrabbled wildly “month anniversary?” Alexia gave him a slight nod, and he let out a sigh of relief.
Trust Ivy to see nothing but the hats and not notice Lady Maccon’s copious luggage strewn about the place, or, for a few moments, Lady Maccon herself. When Ivy finally did, she was quite forward in her questioning.
“Alexia, good gracious me! What are you doing here?”
Alexia looked up. “Oh, hello, Ivy. How are you? Thank you kindly for the hat you sent over this morning. It was very, um, uplifting.”
“Yes, well, never mind that now. Pray tell, what are you about?”
“I should think that was perfectly obvious, even to you, my dear. I am packing.”
Ivy shook her head, plumage swaying back and forth. “In the middle of a hat shop? There is something amiss with such a situation.”
“Needs must, Ivy. Needs must.”
“Yes, I can see that, but what one must need to know at this juncture is, not to put too fine a point on it, why?”
“I should think that, too, would be perfectly obvious. I am in imminent danger of traveling.”
“Not because of this upsetting business with the morning papers?”
“Precisely so.” Alexia figured it was as good an excuse as any. It went against her nature to be seen fleeing London because she was thought adulterous, but it was better than having the real reason known to the general public. Just imagine what the gossipmongers would say if they knew vampires were intent on assassinating her so embarrassing. Look at her, they would say. Oh, la, multiple assassination attempts, indeed! Who does she think she is, the Queen of Sheba?
And really, wasn’t that what all disreputable ladies did in the end escape to Europe?
Ivy knew nothing of Alexia’s soulless state. She did not even know what preternatural meant. Lady Maccon’s affliction was a not very well kept secret, what with BUR and all the local werewolves, ghosts, and vampires in on it, but the majority of the daylight folk were ignorant of the fact that there was a preternatural in residence in London. It was generally felt, by Alexia and those intimate with her, that if Ivy knew of this, all attempts at anonymity would be null and void within several hours. Ivy was a dear friend, loyal and entertaining, but circumspection could not be listed among her more sterling qualities. Even Tunstell acknowledged this flaw in his wife’s nature and had refrained from informing the new Mrs. Tunstell of her old friend’s real eccentricity.
“Yes, well, I suppose I can understand the need to absent yourself from town. But where are you going, Alexia? To the country?”
“Madame Lefoux and I are traveling to Italy, for my low spirits, you understand.”
“Oh, dear, but, Alexia, you do realize” Ivy lowered her voice to a whisper “that Italy is where they keep Italians. Are you quite certain you are adequately prepared to cope?”
Lady Maccon suppressed a smile. “I think I might just be able to muddle along.”
“I am certain I heard the most horrible thing about Italy recently. I am failing to recall quite what it was, but it cannot possibly be a healthy place to visit, Alexia. I understand that Italy is the place vegetables come from all that weather. Terribly bad for the digestion vegetables.”
Lady Maccon could think of nothing to say in response to that, so she continued packing.
Ivy returned to perusing the hats, finally settling on a flowerpot style covered in striped purple and black tweed, with large purple rosettes, gray ostrich plumes, and a small feathered pouf at the end of a long piece of wire that stuck straight out of the crown. It looked, when Ivy proudly donned said hat, as though she were being stalked by an enraptured jellyfish.
“I shall have a new carriage dress made to match,” she announced proudly while poor Tunstell paid for the atrocity.
Lady Maccon remarked, under her breath, “Wouldn’t it be more sensible to, for example, simply throw yourself off a dirigible?”
Ivy pretended not to hear, but Tunstell shot his wife’s friend a wide smile.
Madame Lefoux cleared her throat, looking up from the transaction.
“I was wondering, Mrs. Tunstell, if you might do me a very great favor.”
Ivy was never one to let down a friend in need. “Delighted, Madame Lefoux. How may I be of assistance?”
“Well, as you may have surmised” never a good phrase when applied to Ivy “I will be accompanying Lady Maccon to Italy.”