It was clear he was skidding the conversation off track, but Miss Tarabotti did not mind. She responded to his distress with a noncommittal murmur of sympathy.
“Pardon me, my fluffy cockatoo,” he said, pretending to rein in an excessively emotional state. “Please ignore my ramblings as those of a madman. It is just so uncomfortable to have two not of m/bloodline in proximity to my home, you understand? It is a little like having those disagreeable shivers constantly running up and down one's spine. Something does not feel right with the universe when one's territory is invaded. I can bear it, but I do not like it. It makes me quite edgy and off kilter.”
Lord Akeldama put the fan down. A personable young man appeared at his elbow with a solicitous cooling cloth draped artistically on a silver tray. Lord Akeldama dabbed at his brow delicately. “Oh, thank you, Biffy. So thoughtful.” Biffy winked and skipped off again. He displayed impressive musculature for all his grace. Acrobat? wondered Alexia. Lord Akeldama watched the young man walk away appreciatively. “I should not have favorites, of course...” He sighed and turned to Miss Tarabotti. “But, now, on to more important topics! Such as your scrumptious self. To what do I owe the singular pleasure of your company this evening?”
Miss Tarabotti refrained from any direct answer. Instead, she looked about the interior of his house. She had never been inside before, and she was overwhelmed. Everything was to the height of style, if one were thinking in terms of style round about a hundred years ago. Lord Akeldama possessed real, substantial wealth and was not afraid to display it openly. Nothing in his home was substandard, or faux, or imitation, and all of it was well beyond the pale. The carpets were not Persian but were instead vibrant flower-ridden images of shepherds seducing shepherdesses under intense blue skies. Were those puffy white clouds? Yes, they were. The arched ceiling of the entrance hall was actually frescoed like the Sistine Chapel, only Lord Akeldama's ceiling depicted cheeky-looking cherubs up to nefarious activities. Alexia blushed. All kinds of nefarious activities. She turned her eyes hurriedly back down. Small Corinthian columns stood proudly all around, supporting marble statues of naked male gods that Miss Tarabotti had no doubt were authentically ancient Greek in origin.
The vampire led her through to his drawing room. It contained none of the style clutter but instead harkened back to a time before the French Revolution. The furniture was all white or gilded gold, upholstered in cream and gold striped brocade and riddled with fringe and tassels. Heavy layers of gold velvet curtains shielded the windows, and the plush rug on the floor sported yet another proximate shepherding event. Lord Akeldama's had only two nods to modern life. The first was evident in the room being well lit, with multiple gas lamps no less, elaborate candelabras appearing to be only for decorative purposes. The second facet of modernity took the form of a gilded pipe with multiple joints, mounted on the mantel. Alexia figured it must be some modern artwork. Such an expense! thought Miss Tarabotti.
She took a seat in a thronelike armchair and removed her hat and gloves. Lord Akeldama sat across from her. He produced the strange crystal tuning fork device, flicking it into dissonant resonance and placing it on a side table.
Alexia wondered that he thought such caution necessary inside his own home. Then she figured no one would be more worried about eavesdropping than a lifelong eavesdropper.
“Well,” he demanded, “what do you think of my humble abode?”
For all its gilt pomposity and grandeur, the room had a feeling of regular use. There were multiple hats and gloves strewn about, here-and-there notes on slips of paper, and the odd abandoned snuffbox. A fat calico cat lounged in possession of an overstuffed hassock and one or two dead tassels near the fire. A grand piano stood prominently in one corner, well dusted, with sheets of music lying atop it. It clearly underwent more regular use than the one in the Loontwills' front parlor.
“It is unexpectedly welcoming,” Miss Tarabotti replied.
Lord Akeldama laughed. “So speaks one who has visited the Westminster hive.”
“It is also very, uh, Rococo,” she said, attempting not to intimate she found it at all old-fashioned.
Lord Akeldama clapped his hands delightedly. “Isn't it just? I am afraid I never quite left that particular era. It was such a glorious time to be alive, when men finally and truly got to wear sparkly things, and there was lace and velvet everywhere.”
A gentle hubbub arose outside the drawing room door, then subsided, and then broke into raucous laughter.
Lord Akeldama smiled affectionately. His fangs showed clearly in the bright light. “There are my little ' drone-y-poos!” He shook his head. “Ah, to be young again.”
They were left untroubled by whatever it was that was occurring in the hallway. Apparently a closed door meant a well-respected “stay out” in Lord Akeldama's household. However, Alexia soon discovered that her vampire friend's domicile seemed to exist in a constant state of tumult-in-the-hallway.
Miss Tarabotti imagined this must be what it was like inside a gentlemen's club. She knew that there were no women among Lord Akeldama's drones. Even if his taste had extended in that direction, Lord Akeldama could hardly hope to present a female to Countess Nadasdy for metamorphosis. No queen would willingly turn a woman of a rove household; the chance of making a renegade queen, however slim, would never be risked. The countess probably only bit Lord Akeldama's male drones under sufferance—for the good of increasing the population. Unless, of course. Lord Akeldama was allied to a different hive. Miss Tarabotti did not ask. She suspected such a question might be impertinent.
Lord Akeldama sat back and twiddled his amethyst cravat pin with thumb and forefinger, pinky raised high into the air. “Well, my captivating crumpet, tell me about your visit to the hive!”
Alexia told him, as briefly as possible, about the experience and her evaluation of the characters involved.
Lord Akeldama seemed to agree with her general assessments. “Lord Ambrose you can disregard; he is her pet favorite but hasn't the brains of a peahen, I am afraid, for all his pulchritude. Such a waste!” He tut-tutted and shook his blond head sadly. “Now, the Duke of Hematol, he is a tricky character and in an outright sense of a one-on-one match, the most perilous of the Westminster inner circle.”
Alexia ruminated on that nondescript vampire who had reminded her so strongly of Professor Lyall. She nodded. “He certainly gave that impression.”
Lord Akeldama laughed. “Poor old Bertie, he works so hard nor to!” Miss Tarabotti raised her eyebrows. “Which is exactly why he does.”
“But you are, my daffodil, and I do not mean to cause offense, a tad insignificant fox his attentions. The duke contents himself mainly with attempting to rule the world and other suchlike nonsense. When one is guiding the patterns of the social universe, a single spinster preternatural is unlikely to cause one undue distress.”
Miss Tarabotti fully understood where he was coming from and was not in the least offended.
Lord Akeldama continued. “But, my treasure, under your particular circumstances, I suggest Dr. Caedes is the one to be most wary of. More mobile than the countess, and he is... How do I put this?” He stopped spinning his amethyst pin and began tapping it with one finger. “He is interested in minutia. You know he takes an interest in modern inventions?”
“That was his collection on display in the hallway of the hive house?”
Lord Akeldama nodded. “He dabbles himself, as well as investing and collecting like-minded drones. He is also not altogether compos mentis in the daylight sense of the term.”
“As opposed to?” Alexia was confused. Sanity was sanity, was it not?