Heartless: The Parasol Protectorate: Book the Fourth by Carriger Gail

Author:Carriger, Gail [Carriger, Gail]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: FIC027120
ISBN: 9780316179959
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 2011-06-30T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

In Which the Past Complicates the Present

A knock came at the back parlor door, and Floote stuck his debonair head around the side. “Madame Lefoux to see you, madam.”

Lady Maccon placed her parasol carefully to one side, pretending her husband had not just given her due warning. “Ah, yes, show her into the front parlor, would you, please, Floote? I’ll be in shortly. We simply can’t have company in this room yet—it’s not decent.”

“Very good, madam.”

Alexia turned back to her husband, beckoning with one hand to get him to come help her stand. He did, bracing himself.

“Oomph,” she said, attaining her feet. “Very well, I shall add Lord Woolsey to our ever-growing list of suspects who are now dead and thus useless. Death can be jolly well inconvenient, if you ask me. We can’t possibly prove his involvement.”

“Or what bearing it might have on this new threat to the queen.” The earl placed a casual arm about his wife, assistance couched in a more Alexia-acceptable act of affection. Nearly a year of marriage and he was finally learning.

“True, true.” His wife leaned against him.

Another knock sounded at the back parlor door.

“What now!” growled Lord Maccon.

Professor Lyall’s sandy head popped in this time. “You’re wanted, my lord, on a matter of pack business.”

“Oh, very well.” The earl helped his wife waddle down the hallway. He abandoned her at the door to the front parlor and then followed his Beta out into the night.

“Hat, my lord,” came Professor Lyall’s mild rebuke, a disembodied voice from the darkness.

Conall came back inside, scooped a convenient top hat off of the hall stand, and disappeared outside again.

Alexia paused at the door to the front parlor. Floote had left it slightly ajar, and she overheard conversation drifting from within, Madame Lefoux’s mellow voice and that of another, clear and erudite, confident with age and authority.

“Mr. Tarabotti had significant romantic success. I often wondered if the soulless weren’t dangerously attractive to those with too much soul. You, for example, probably have excess. You like her, don’t you?”

“Oh, really, Mr. Floote, why this sudden interest in my romantic inclinations?”

Lady Maccon started at that. She might have recognized Floote’s voice, of course, except that she had never heard him string so many words together at once. It must be admitted, she had privately doubted his ability to formulate a complete sentence. Or at least his willingness to do so.

“Be careful, madam.” The butler’s voice was stiff with rebuke.

Alexia flushed slightly at the very idea of her staff taking such a tone with a guest!

“Is it my care you are concerned with or Alexia’s?” Madame Lefoux seemed well able to withstand such a grave breach in domestic protocol.

“Both.”

“Very well. Now, would you be so kind as to check up on Her Highness? I am in a bit of a rush and the evening isn’t getting any longer.”

At this juncture, Lady Maccon made a great blundering noise and entered the room.

Floote, unflappable, backed away from his intimate proximity to the French inventor as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

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