Biffy decided, under the circumstances, it was not too rude to interrupt her. “Miss Loontwill, stop gargling, please. I think you had better tell me what, exactly, you just told Lady Kingair.”
After being warmed by multiple hot water bottles and then cleaned of brine in the plushest of the SS Custard’s bathhouses, Lady Maccon was once more able to carry on a conversation without chattering.
“Alexia,” Ivy reprimanded most severely once she was back in her friend’s presence, “you had my heart in my chest! You really did.”
Alexia disposed of Ivy’s panic and solicitude by sending her off in search of comforting and obscure foodstuffs and took to her bed merely because it seemed the safest way to keep the gossipmongers at bay. Ivy had proved resourceful under such extreme circumstances as her favorite friend and patroness falling overboard. After calling for help, she had extracted the two parts of the new parasol, coiling the grapple about the tip like yarn about a spindle. She even spent time scuttling and hopping about, managing to stomp on the instruction sheet before it flew overboard.
“You see,” said Alexia to her husband as Ivy dashed off to see about custard éclairs, “I told you she had hidden depths.”
“Do you think it’s only saltwater immersion that has this kind of effect?” Lord Maccon was far more interested in their recent revelation. Ivy’s peculiarities of character were nothing on his wife’s peculiarities of ability.
Alexia was most decided on this point. “No. I believe it is any water. Even moisture in the air narrows the scope. Did you never wonder why the Kingair mummy’s effect was so wide in London and so small when we reached Scotland? It was raining in Scotland. Also, there must be some kind of proximity and air contact as well, for I was only affected by the preternatural mummy when I was in the same room with it, unlike you, who could not change into a werewolf within a larger-ranging area.”
“We have always known preternaturals and supernaturals functioned differently. Why should we not react differently to an alien agent in our midst? Werewolves are affected by the sun and moon; preternaturals are not.”
“And it’s clear the water was not enforcing your form?”
“Absolutely. I can change in water. Have done so many times.”
“So it definitely limits preternatural touch.”
“We know your abilities are related to ambient aether. We should not be so very surprised.”
Alexia looked at her husband. “I wonder how wet I have to be.”
“Well, my darling, we will have to perform a series of scientific tests… by bathing together.” Lord Maccon waggled his eyebrows at her and leered.
“Could soap be a factor?” Alexia was willing to play his game.
“And how about underwater kisses?”
“Now you’re getting silly. Do you think that’s why our Prudence hates bath night so much?”
Conall sat up and stopped flirting. “By George, that is an idea! Perhaps she feels a limiting of her abilities, or perhaps she has a way of sensing others out of the aether that she relies upon that is shut off by water.”
“You mean she feels blinded? Goodness, bathing would be quite a torture, then. She does always seem to notice when someone new is in the room before anyone else.”
“That could simply be excellent powers of observation.”
“True. Oh, dear, I wish she would acquire complete sentences. It would be so much more efficient to ask her these questions and get a sensible answer.”
“Our curiosity will have to wait a few years.”
Alexia worried her lower lip. “It’s all to do with the aether in the end.”
“Very poetical, my dear.”
“Was it? I didn’t know I had it in me.”
“Well, do be careful, my love. Poetry can cause irreparable harm when misapplied.”
“Especially with reference to our daughter.”
Very little made Biffy lose his poise or posture, but after Felicity’s story, he was practically slouching. “Let me see if I have this quite clear: Professor Lyall was responsible for Kingair losing Lord Maccon as Alpha?”
Felicity nodded.
“But how could you possibly know a thing like that?”
Felicity flicked a curl of blond hair over one shoulder. “I overheard Alexia accusing him of it when I was staying here. He didn’t deny it and they agreed to keep the whole thing from Lord Maccon. I don’t think that’s right. Do you? Keeping secrets from one’s husband.”
Biffy was sickened, not so much by the information, as he could readily believe such a thing of Professor Lyall, who would do anything for his pack, but by Felicity’s duplicity. “You have been sitting on this information for several years, waiting to distribute it until it could do the most damage. Why, Felicity?”
Felicity huffed out a little breath of aggravation. “You know, I told Countess Nadasdy. I told her! And she did nothing! She said it was a matter of werewolf internal politics and domestic relations, and none of her concern.”
“So you waited, and when you heard Lady Kingair was in town, you decided to tell her? Why?”
“Because she will react badly and tell Lord Maccon in the worst possible way.”
“You may, quite possibly, be evil,” said Biffy in a resigned tone.
“It’s always been Alexia: better, smarter, special in that way of hers. Alexia who married an earl. Alexia who visits the queen. Alexia who lives in town. Alexia with a baby. Who am I to be left behind by my great lump of a sister? Why is she so wonderful? She’s not pretty. She’s not talented. She has none of my finer qualities.”
Biffy could hardly believe such pettiness. “You did this to destroy your sister’s marriage?”
“Alexia had me exiled to Europe for two years! Now I’m too old for the marriage mart. But what does she care for my problems? She’s well set up. Wife of an earl! She doesn’t deserve to have any of it! It should be mine!”
“Why, you horrible little creature.”
“No wife should keep a confidence from her husband like that.” Felicity struggled to find the moral high ground.
“And no thought of what this will do to Professor Lyall or this pack?”
“What do I care for a middle-class professor or a gaggle of werewolves?”
Biffy suddenly couldn’t stand to even look at the girl. “Get out.”
“What?”
“Get out of my house, Miss Loontwill. And I hope never to see you again.”
“What do I care for your ill opinion, either, Mr. Rabiffano? A mere hat-shop owner and a low-ranked werewolf.”
“You may not care for mine, Miss Loontwill, but I still enjoy the friendship of Lord Akeldama, and I will see he knows exactly what you have done. Lady Maccon is his very dear friend and he will see you ostracized from polite society because of this. Rest assured, Miss Loontwill, you will become a social pariah. I recommend you plan an emigration of some kind. Perhaps to the Americas. You will no longer be welcome in any parlor in London.”
“But—”
“Good evening, Miss Loontwill.”
Biffy didn’t know what good he thought it might do, but it was quarter moon—enough for him to change without difficulty and not so full he might lose control. Not that he did that much anymore. He was getting better and better at the shift, almost like adjusting to a new haircut or cravat. It still hurt like nothing else on earth, which made it less cravatlike than one would prefer, but at least now when he was a wolf, he was still himself. There had been some doubt of that once.
He had only one advantage over Lady Kingair. He already knew where Professor Lyall was supposed to be. He did not have to track him through the city. He ran straight there, a lean chocolate-colored wolf with an oxblood stomach and a certain mottling about his neck that was almost, Lady Maccon had kindly noted, cravatlike. He used the back alleys and side streets so as not to disturb anyone. Most of London knew they now boasted a werewolf pack residing in the city center, but there was a difference between knowing and meeting a wolf face-to-face when engaging in an evening constitutional. That said, he did encounter a group of sporting blunts at their cups, who all politely raised their hats to him as he passed.
The Bureau of Unnatural Registry occupied the first few stories of an unassuming Georgian near the London Times offices and generally kept itself to itself in the manner of all semisecret government operations. Tonight, however, there was clearly something afoot even from outside the building. Had not the bright lights and rapidly shifting shadows given this indication, the yells loud enough for even a normal human to hear would have. Not to mention the fact that the front door was wide open and hanging askew on its hinges.
Biffy nosed his way inside.
The hallway was filled with running men, demands for numbing agents, calls for the constabulary, and arguments over whether they were authorized to interfere.
“Clearly a personal werewolf matter!”
“Oh, you think so, Phinkerlington? Then why bring it to BUR?”
“Who knows the ways of werewolves? Ours is not to question pack protocol.”
“But… but… but Professor Lyall never fights!”
“This is a matter of enforcement. BUR must enforce!”
At that juncture, the collective in the hallway noticed Biffy slinking in among them.
“Oh, spiffing, here’s another one!”
“Now, now, perhaps he can help.”
“They’re in the stockroom, Mr. Werewolf, sir, and we may not have a stockroom soon if they don’t quiet down.”
Biffy was not all that familiar with the layout of BUR, but he could follow his ultrasensitive hearing, which directed him up the stairs toward a large cavernous room. The door to this room was also open, although unbroken, and crowded round it stood a group of BUR officers and agents watching a battle within. Money was exchanged as wagers were taken on the outcome, and now and then a cry of distress went up as something particularly dramatic occurred.
Biffy forced his way through the onlookers’ legs and entered the room, still not certain what good he might do but determined to try.
Professor Lyall and Lady Kingair were faced off against one another. Professor Lyall was not doing well.
If one were to pass the professor in wolf form in the countryside, one might mistake him for some kind of overgrown off-color fox. He was a slender, elegant creature and not one to inspire confidence in battle. Biffy had learned since joining the pack that Professor Lyall’s skill lay in his ability to fight smart and in his quickness and dexterity. He was almost beautiful as he battled the Alpha of Kingair, his movements lithe and graceful, calculated, yet impossibly swift.
But he was only a Beta. He simply wasn’t strong enough. He was holding his own, but his body was ripped open in a thousand places and he was fighting pure defense. Every good general knows that defense will never win.
Biffy couldn’t help himself. Instinct took over. He’d been learning his werewolf instincts for two years now, so he was cogent enough to analyze their meaning. One urged him not to face an Alpha, but it was balanced out by another that urged him to help his packmate, to protect his Beta. That second instinct was the one that won.