Rue perused further. Then she encountered the name Dama was really nervous about. “Absolutely not.”
“Now, now, Puggle, darling––”
“Dama! No.”
“Just think about it, my dear. He is absolutely perfect for chief engineer.”
“She’ll never let him go.”
“Which she?”
“Either she.”
“I think you’ll find he’s got a mind of his own these days.”
“Oh, you think so, do you? That’s a manifold problem. I don’t like men who won’t listen to my mind over theirs.”
“He designed most of the boilers and steam engine controls on The Spotted Custard.”
Rue shook the piece of paper at Dama in violent exasperation. “Of course he did. I should have known from the kettles.”
“And he might have mentioned recently to Winkle how eager he is to leave London for a while.”
“Got some poor young tradesman’s daughter pregnant, did he?”
Dama was truly appalled at such crassness. “Prudence Alessandra Maccon Akeldama that is enough.”
Rue admitted she might have gone a little far. “I suppose you did just give me charge of the best ship ever made. I could think about it.”
“Perhaps even meet him?”
Rue sighed. “I do love you, Dama, but sometimes you can be the most vexing of all my parents.”
Dama accepted victory and shifted to look fondly over at his cadre of drones. “Come along, darlings, we must take the Puggle to the train station. She must visit Woolsey Hive.”
The drones were re-enacting the balcony seen from Romeo and Juliet over the edge of the middle squeak deck of the ship. Winkle was back on board, draped in a tablecloth for hair and gesticulating dramatically at his doomed lover below.
Rue could not resist one last complaint. “He’s so very difficult.”
“The best ones are, my darling.” Dama’s eyes were misty with memory.
Woolsey Castle was situated some two hours outside London in particularly lush countryside. The rolling unspoiled beauty of it gave most vampires the screaming willies, for vampires vastly preferred city life. The Woolsey Hive had settled in a swarm of desperation, and was as ill-suited to the green as a family of goats would be to sitting in the House of Lords. Since their move, the Express Whistler, intended to steam straight through to Barking, would stop at an unmarked and unnamed station by special request. No one but the conductor knew the location and everyone was afraid to ask. From that station – the Countess’s Crouch as some called it – there was a tiny automated tram that puffed up the long low hill to Woolsey proper. The tram only ran if the vampires approved the visitor, and there were still check-points to clear, manned by large, muscled drones with more cravat than cranial capacity.
The most aggravating aspect of the Woolsey Hive was not its location, rustic though it might be to a young lady of Rue’s urban sensibilities. Nor was it Woolsey Castle’s appearance, that of a hodgepodge manor house with too many flying buttresses and too little symmetry. No, the most irritating thing about Woolsey Hive was its queen, Countess Nadasdy.
Countess Nadasdy was always extremely nice to Rue. Most vampires were, outwardly. Woolsey Hive made a particular effort – an unpleasantly particular effort. Lady Prudence Akeldama was always invited to all hive events. Never had a single gold-embossed invitation passed Rue by since she first came into society at seventeen. The countess made it a point to leave her inner sanctum, the back parlour, and walk out to meet Rue in the hallway any time Rue visited, a courtesy she did not extend to muhjah or dewan. She never failed to compliment Rue on some part of her attire, seeming genuinely interested in what the young people were wearing these days. She intended Rue to be aware of her approval of Rue’s unflaggingly stylish choices. As if Rue would dare go calling less than perfectly turned out with Dama for a father and Rabiffano for an uncle.
None of this made up for the fact that the entire hive would quite happily see Rue fried like an apple fritter and take turns dipping her into the brandy sauce. Quite frankly, it was not comfortable paying a call on an aristocrat who wanted one dead, particularly not when that aristocrat is a very old vampire of means and social skill. It became, in a word, incommodious.
“My dear Cousin Prudence.” The countess advanced, both gloved hands out in the greeting vampires extended to family members. Vampires took the concept of adoption seriously. In the hive mind, Rue was solely and entirely Dama’s daughter. The Maccons had relinquished their lawful right to her, and as such their parental control. The fact that they remained next door was a source of aggravation but not contention. As long as Rue was legally the child of a vampire, she was one of theirs. And by George they would treat her as such.
The countess grasped Rue, carefully, by the upper arms. Her hands were well shielded from Rue’s skin by several layers of cloth. The vampire kissed the air a good six inches away from Rue’s cheek. “Welcome. To what do we owe the honour of you gracing us with your delightful presence?”
She was laying it on rather thick, but Rue was Dama’s daughter and, if nothing else, she could entertain and rebut flattery in all its forms.
“My dear Cousin Nadasdy, how stunning you look this evening. Is that a new gown? How very modern.”
Rue was not exaggerating. The outfit was lovely – a blood-red velvet reception gown with rose-printed cream silk sleeves, divided overskirt, and scalloped hem, all trimmed in the barest hint of Chantilly lace. The countess wore her honey-coloured hair piled in a profusion of curls atop her head with red roses nested throughout. She was a mite round for such an elegant gown but she carried it off by dint of regal bearing and the certain fear always bestowed upon those in her company that she was far more interested in nibbling one’s neck than anything else. Even fashion.
“Do come in, Cousin Prudence. You are always invited. But such an unexpected call. And without a chaperone. We did not receive your card. Did it go astray?”
“No, no, forgive my horrid bumbling. I must presume upon our familial relationship to call unannounced. I did not have time to send ’round as this is a matter most urgent. Since we are practically family, I thought this once I could leave off my customary escort.”