Madame Lefoux’s laboratory might have been a great wonder of the world, if only because it was a wonder the Frenchwoman could ever find anything inside it. The massive, cavelike laboratory was not only messy, but it was also noisy. Alexia often thought that the only reason it could not be heard in the street above was that Regent was one of the busiest thoroughfares in London. Then she wondered if that was why Madame Lefoux had chosen this particular spot.
As ever, Lady Maccon took in her surroundings with a kind of reverence that was part appreciation, part horror. There were engines and mysterious constructs galore, some of them running, many of them disassembled into component parts. There were diagrams and sketches of larger projects strewn about, mostly aeronautical devices such as ornithopters, as aetheric travel was one of Madame Lefoux’s specialties. It smelled of oil.
“Oh, my, is that a new commission?” Alexia picked her way slowly through the clutter, holding her skirts well out of the way of any possible grease stains.
Dominating the chamber was a partly assembled transport contraption. Or Alexia assumed it was a transport—as yet, it had no apparent wheels, rails, or legs. It was shaped like a massive bowler hat without a brim, so she supposed it might be an underwater conveyance. Inside were levers and pull cords, an operator’s seat, and two small slits at the front for visibility. It was almost buglike and well outside of the Frenchwoman’s ordinary principles of subtlety. Alexia’s parasol with all its secret pockets and component parts was far more to Genevieve’s taste. Traditionally, she did not go in for big and flashy.
“Something I’ve been working on of late.”
“Is it armored?” Lady Maccon had an embarrassingly unladylike interest in modern technology.
“In part.” Something in Madame Lefoux’s tone warned Alexia off.
“Oh, dear, is it under contract from the War Office? I’m probably not supposed to know. I do apologize for asking. We shall say no more about it.”
“Thank you.” Madame Lefoux smiled in tired gratitude. Her dimples barely showed.
Government defense commissions were lucrative but not something one could speak of openly, even to the queen’s muhjah. The inventor moved to take Alexia’s hand, her own work-hardened by decades of tool use. Alexia could feel the roughness even through her gloves, along with a companion thrill she had grown to accept was part of the price of intimacy with this woman. Genevieve was so very intriguing.
“Was there something specific you wanted, my dear Alexia?”
Alexia hesitated and then, without subtlety, jumped right to the point. “Genevieve, do you know anything about the Kingair assassination attempt on Queen Victoria of twenty years ago? I mean, anything from the Order of the Brass Octopus?”
Madame Lefoux started in genuine surprise. “My goodness, what has brought you back around to that?”
“Let us say I made a contact recently who has led me into explorations of the past.”
Madame Lefoux crossed her arms and leaned back against a coiled roll of brass plating. “Hmm. I personally know nothing. I would have been no more than thirteen at the time, but we could ask my aunt. I’m not certain how useful she might be but the attempt can’t hurt.”
“Your aunt? Oh you mean?.?.?.??”
Madame Lefoux nodded, her face sad. “She’s finally undergoing diminished spectral cohesion. Even with all my preservation techniques and chemical expertise, it was inevitable. However, she does have her lucid moments.”
Alexia realized this must be the true source of Genevieve’s distress. She was losing a treasured family member. The woman who had raised her. Genevieve may have a well-developed mystique, but she was not emotionally reserved and she loved deeply. Alexia moved to her friend and stroked her upper arm where the muscles tensed. “Oh, Genevieve, I am so very sorry.”
The inventor’s face crumpled slightly at the sympathy. “I cannot help but think that this is to be my fate, too. First Angelique and now Beatrice.”
“Oh, surely not! You cannot be so confident you have excess soul.” Alexia would have offered to ensure exorcism, but Genevieve had been so angry when she performed the service for Angelique.
“No, you are correct. I have been traveling, researching, studying, trying to find a way to extend my aunt’s afterlife. But there is nothing.” Her tone was anguished, that of a scientist who sees a problem but no solution.
“Oh, but you have done your level best! You have given her years, far longer than any ghost has a right to expect.”
“Years for what? Humiliation and madness?” Genevieve took a breath, then placed her hand over Alexia’s where it stroked her arm, stilling the movement. “I do apologize, my lovely Alexia. This is not your burden. You still wish to speak to her?”
“Would she talk to me, do you think?”
“We can but try.”
Lady Maccon nodded and attempted to shrug herself out of her normally regal posture, trying to be less overbearing and physically threatening. She didn’t want to scare the ghost. Not that a woman in her corpulent condition boasted so fearsome a visage.
Madame Lefoux yelled, her normally melodious voice sharp, “Aunt, where are you? Aunt!”
Several moments later, a ghostly form shimmered into existence out of the side of a conveyer belt spool, looking grumpy.
“Yes, Niece, you summoned me?” Formerly Beatrice Lefoux had been in life an angular spinster of severe attitude and limited affection. She might once have been pretty but obviously never allowed herself, nor others, to enjoy that fact. There was much of her in Madame Lefoux, tempered by a level of good humor and mischief that the aunt had never bothered to cultivate. The specter was beginning to go fuzzy, not so badly as Alexia’s ghostly messenger but enough for it to be clear she wasn’t long for this world.