Alexia, clutching her new parasol to her ample bosom like a newborn child, nodded.
They did so, to find that the gas lighting was up and running once more. And that, under the bright lights of the empty shop, Miss Hisselpenny was still reposing on the floor, but now seated upright and looking pale and confused.
“What happened?” she demanded as Lady Maccon and Madame Lefoux approached.
“There was a loud bang, and you fainted,” replied Alexia. “Really, Ivy, if you did not lace your corset so tight, you would not be so prone to the vapors. It is reputed to be terribly bad for your health.”
Miss Hisselpenny gasped at the mention of underclothing in a public hat shop. “Please, Alexia, do not spout such radical folderol. Next thing, you will want me to engage in dress reform!”
Lady Maccon rolled her eyes. The very idea: Ivy in bloomers!
“What have you got there?” Miss Hisselpenny asked, focusing on the parasol Lady Maccon clasped to her chest.
Alexia crouched down to show the parasol to her friend.
“Why, Alexia, that is quite beautiful. It does not reflect your customary taste at all,” approved Miss Hisselpenny with glee.
Trust Ivy to like the hideous thing for its looks.
Miss Hisselpenny glanced eagerly up at the Frenchwoman. “I should like one just like it, in perhaps a nice lemon yellow with black and white stripes. Would you have such an item to hand?”
Alexia giggled at Madame Lefoux’s shocked expression.
“I should think not,” the inventor croaked out finally, having cleared her throat twice. “Should I”—she winced slightly—“order you one?”
“Please do.”
Alexia stood and said softly in French, “Perhaps without the additional garnishing.”
“Mmm,” replied Madame Lefoux.
A little bell chimed cheerfully as someone new wandered into the shop. Miss Hisselpenny struggled to rise from her undignified lounge upon the floor.
The newcomer approached them, parting the forest of dangling hats and, upon seeing Ivy’s plight, leaped to her aid.
“Why, Miss Hisselpenny, are you unwell? Let me offer my most humble services.”
“Tunstell,” interjected Alexia, glaring at the young man. “What are you doing here?”
The redheaded claviger ignored her, cooing over Miss Hisselpenny solicitously.
Ivy attained her feet and clutched at his arm, leaning against his side weakly and looking up at him out of big dark eyes.
Tunstell seemed to be taking a long, leisurely swim in those eyes, like some sort of gormless guppy.
Actors, the lot of them. Alexia poked at his bottom, nicely packaged in some excessively tight britches, with the tip of her new parasol. “Tunstell, explain your presence at once.”
Tunstell jumped slightly and looked at her in a maltreated manner.
“I have a message from Professor Lyall,” he said, as though she were somehow to blame for this.
Lady Maccon did not ask how Lyall had known she would be at Chapeau de Poupe. The ways of her husband’s Beta were often mysterious and better left unquestioned.
“Well?”
Tunstell was staring once more into Miss Hisselpenny’s eyes.
Alexia tapped the parasol on the wooden floor, enjoying the metallic clicking noise it made. “The message.”
“He requests for you to visit with him at BUR as a matter of some urgency,” said Tunstell without looking at her.
A matter of urgency was pack code for activation of Lady Maccon as muhjah. Lyall had some information for the Crown. Alexia nodded. “In that case, Ivy, you would not mind if I left you under Tunstell’s care while you complete your shopping? He will see you safely off. Won’t you, Tunstell?”
“It would be my very great pleasure.” Tunstell beamed.
“Oh, I believe that would suit adequately,” breathed Ivy, smiling back.
Lady Maccon wondered if she had ever been so foolish over Lord Maccon. Then she recalled that her affection generally took the form of threats and verbal barbs. She gave herself a pat on the back for avoiding sentimentality.
The inventor-cum-milliner walked her to the front door.
“I shall send a card around presently when I determine Lord Akeldama’s availability. He should be at home, but you never can tell with roves. This summons from Professor Lyall cannot possibly take long.” Alexia looked back at Tunstell and Ivy, engaged in an overly familiar tête-à-tête. “Please, do try to prevent Miss Hisselpenny from purchasing anything too hideous, and see that Tunstell puts her into a hackney but does not get into it himself.”
“I shall do my level best, Lady Maccon,” replied Madame Lefoux with an abbreviated bow—so short as to be almost rude. Then, in a quick-fire movement, she caught one of Alexia’s hands with her own. “It was a great pleasure to meet you at last, my lady.” Her grip was firm and sure. Of course, lifting and building all that machinery below street level would give anyone a certain degree of musculature, even the rail-thin woman before her. The inventor’s fingers caressed Alexia’s wrist just above the perfect fit of her gloves, so quickly that Alexia was not certain the action had occurred. There was that faint scent of vanilla mixed with gear oil once more. Then Madame Lefoux smiled, dropped Alexia’s hand, and turned back into the shop, disappearing among the swinging jungle of fashionable headgear.
Professor Lyall and Lord Maccon shared an office at BUR headquarters, on Fleet Street, but it was always considerably cleaner whenever the earl was not in residence. Lady Alexia Maccon breezed in, swinging her new parasol proudly and hoping Lyall would ask about it. But Professor Lyall was mightily distracted behind a pile of paperwork and a stack of metal scrolls with acid-etched notes upon them. He stood, bowed, and sat back down again as a matter of course rather than courtesy. Whatever had occurred was clearly occupying all of his considerable attention. His glassicals were perched upon his head, mussing his coiffure. Was it possible that his cravat could be minutely askew?
“Are you well, Professor Lyall?” Alexia asked, quite worried by the cravat.
“I am in perfect health, thank you for asking, Lady Maccon. It is your husband who concerns me, and I have no way to get through to him at present.”
“Yes,” said the earl’s wife, deadpan, “I daily face a similar dilemma, frequently when he and I are in conversation. What has he gone and done now?”
Professor Lyall smiled slightly. “Oh no, nothing like that. It is simply that the plague of humanization has struck again, moving northward as far as Farthinghoe.”
Alexia frowned at this new information. “Curious. It is on the move, is it?”
“And heading in the same direction as Lord Maccon. Though slightly ahead of him.”
“And he doesn’t know that, does he?”
Lyall shook his head.
“That family matter, it’s the dead Alpha, isn’t it?”
Lyall ignored this and said, “Don’t know quite how it’s moving so fast. The trains have been down since yesterday—strike. Trust the daylight folk to become inefficient at a time like this.”
“By coach, perhaps?”
“Could be. It seems to be moving quickly. I should like to make the earl aware of this information, but there is no way to contact him until he arrives at the Glasgow offices. Not to mention Channing’s blather about the boat ride over. This thing is mobile and Conall doesn’t know that.”
“You think he might overtake it?”
The Beta shook his head again. “Not at the rate it is moving. Lord Maccon is fast, but he said he was not going to push this run. If it keeps traveling north at the rate I predict, it will hit Scotland several days before he does. I have sent a note to our agents in the north, but I thought you should know as well, as muhjah.”
Alexia nodded.
“Will you inform the other members of the Shadow Council?”
Lady Maccon frowned at that. “I do not think that is entirely wise just yet. I think it might wait until our next meeting. You should file a report, of course, but I shall not go out of my way to tell the potentate and the dewan.”