Madame Lefoux’s soft chin firmed. “I am his real mother.”
Lady Maccon understood such defensiveness. “It must be hard, though, not telling him about Angelique.”
Genevieve dimpled wanly. “Oh, Quesnel knows.”
“Oh, oh, dear. How did he?.?.?.??”
“I should prefer not to talk about it just now.” The inventor’s face, always tricky to read, shut down completely, her dimples vanishing as surely as poodles after a water rat.
Alexia, saddened by such icy reticence, nevertheless respected her friend’s wishes. “I actually have a matter of business to consult you on. I recently learned something of your aunt’s past activities. She undertook the manufacture of special automated teapots, I understand, very special ones. Nickel plated?”
“Oh, yes? When was this?”
“Twenty years ago.”
“Well, I should hardly remember that myself, I’m afraid. You may be correct, of course. We can attempt to converse with my aunt on the subject or look through her records. I warn you, she is difficult.” She switched to her perfect musical French. “Aunt Beatrice?”
A ghostly body shimmered out of a wall nearby. The specter was looking worse than last time, her form barely recognizable as human, misty with lack of cohesion. “Do I hear my name? Do I hear bells? Silver bells!”
“She has gone to poltergeist?” Alexia’s voice was soft in sympathy.
“Unfortunately, almost entirely. She has some lucid moments. So not yet completely lost to me. Go ahead, try.” Genevieve’s voice was drawn with unhappiness.
“Pardon me, Formerly Lefoux, but do you recall a special order for a teapot, twenty years ago. Nickel plated?” Alexia relayed some of the other details.
The ghost ignored her, drifting up toward the high ceiling, floating about the head of her niece’s massive project, extending herself so that she became a crude kind of tiara.
Genevieve’s face fell. “Let me go check her old records. I think I may have kept them when we moved.”
While Madame Lefoux fussed about a far corner of her massive laboratory, Formerly Lefoux drifted back down to Alexia, as if drawn against her will. She was definitely beginning to lose control over noncorporeal cohesion, the end stages before involuntary disanimus. As her mental faculties failed, she was forgetting she was human, forgetting what her own body once looked like. Or that was what the scientists hypothesized. Mental control over the physical was a popular theory.
The ambient aether feathered hazy tendrils off the ghostly form, carrying them toward Lady Maccon. Alexia’s preternatural state fractured some of the remaining tether of the ghost’s body, pulling it apart. It was an eerie thing to watch, likes soap suds in water curling down a sink.
The ghost seemed to be observing the phenomenon of her own destruction with interest. Until she remembered her selfhood and tugged back, gathering herself inward. “Preternatural!” she hissed. “Preternatural female! What are you—Oh, oh, yes. You are the one who will stop it. Stop it all. You are.”
Then she became distracted by something unseen. She swirled about, drifting away from Alexia, still muttering to herself. Behind her murmuring voice, Alexia could make out the high keening wail that all her vocalizations would eventually dissolve into—the death shriek of a dying soul.
Alexia shook her head. “Poor thing. What a way to end. So embarrassing.”
“Wrong track. Wrong track!” Formerly Lefoux garbled.
Madame Lefoux returned, walking right through her aunt she was so lost in thought. “Oh, oops, sorry, Aunt. I do apologize, Alexia. I can’t seem to locate the crate where I stashed those records. Allow me some time and I’ll see what I can find later tonight. Would that do?”
“Of course, thank you for the attempt.”
“And now, if you will excuse me? I really must return to work.”
“Oh, certainly.”
“And you must return to your husband. He’s looking for you.”
“Oh? He is? How did you know?”
“Please, Alexia, you are wandering around out of bed, with a limp, grossly pregnant. Knowing you, I’m quite certain you are not meant to be. Ergo, he must be looking for you.”
“How well you know us both, Genevieve.”
Lord Maccon was indeed looking for his errant wife. The moment her carriage drew up before their new town residence, he was out the front door, down the steps, and scooping her up into his arms.
Alexia withstood his solicitous attentions with much forbearance. “Must you make a scene here in the public street?” was all she said after he had kissed her ardently.
“I was worried. You were gone much longer than I expected.”
“You thought to catch me at Lord Akeldama’s?”
“Well, yes, and instead I caught the dewan, for my pains.” This was growled out in a very wolfish manner for a man whose husbandly duties rendered him not a werewolf at that precise moment.
The earl carried his wife into their back parlor, which five days’ absence had seen adequately refurbished, if not quite up to Biffy’s exacting standards. Alexia was convinced that once recovered from this month’s bone-bender, the dandy would see to it the room was brought back up to snuff.
Lord Maccon deposited his wife into a chair and then knelt next to her, clutching one of her hands. “Tell me truthfully—how are you feeling?”
Alexia took a breath. “Truthfully? I sometimes wonder if I, like Madame Lefoux, should affect masculine dress.”