“Gracious me, why?”
“You mean aside from the issue of greater mobility?”
“My love, I don’t think that’s currently the result of your clothing.”
“Indeed, well, I mean after the baby.”
“I still don’t see why you should want to.”
“Oh, no? I dare you to spend a week in a corset, long skirts, and a bustle.”
“How do you know I haven’t?”
“Oh, ho!”
“Now stop playing games, woman. How are you really feeling?”
Alexia sighed. “A little tired, a lot frustrated, but well in body if not spirit. My ankle is paining me only a little, and the infant-inconvenience has been remarkably patient with all my carriage rides and poodling about.” She contemplated how to raise the subject of Lord Akeldama’s thoughts on the matter of the queen. Finally, knowing she had little inherent delicacy of speech and that her husband had none at all, she decided he would probably appreciate directness.
“Lord Akeldama thinks the London mastermind of your Kingair plot was a Woolsey Pack member.”
“Does he, by George?”
“Now, stay calm, my dear. Think logically. I know that is difficult for you. But wouldn’t someone like Channing take—”
Lord Maccon shook his head. “No, not Channing. He would never—”
“But Lord Akeldama said that the previous Alpha was not right in the head. Couldn’t that have had something to do with it? If he ordered Channing to—”
Lord Maccon’s voice was sharp. “No. But Lord Woolsey himself? That is an idea. Much as I hate to admit it. The man was mad, my dear. Utterly mad. It can happen that way, especially to Alphas when we get too old. There’s a reason, you know, that we werewolves fight amongst ourselves. I mean aside from the etiquette of the duel. Especially Alphas. We shouldn’t be allowed to live forever—we go all funny in the brain. Or that’s what the howlers sing of. Vampires do, too, if you ask me. I mean, you only have to look at Lord Akeldama to realize he’s?.?.?.?but I digress.”
His wife reminded him of where they were in the conversation. “Lord Woolsey, you were saying?”
Lord Maccon looked down at their joined hands. “It can take on many forms, the madness—sometimes quite harmless little esoteric inclinations and sometimes not. Lord Woolsey, as I understand it, became deviant. Even brutal in his”—he paused, looking for the right word that might not shock even his indomitable wife—“tastes.”
Alexia contemplated this. Conall was an aggressive lover, demanding, although he could be quite gentle. Of course, with her, he had no real teeth to do damage beyond a nibble or two. But there had been one or two times, early on in their courtship, when she had wondered if he might not actually think of her as food. She had also read overmuch of her father’s journals.
“You mean, conjugally violent?”
“Not precisely, but from what I have been told, he was inclined to derive pleasure from sadistic activities.” Lord Maccon actually blushed. He could do that while touching her. Alexia found it little-boy endearing. With the fingers of her free hand, she stroked through his thick dark hair.
“Gracious. And how did the pack manage to keep such a thing secret?”
“Oh, you’d be surprised. Such proclivities are not confined to werewolves alone. There are even brothels that—”
Alexia held up a hand. “No, thank you, my dear. I should prefer not to know any additional details.”
“Of course, my love, of course.”
“I am glad you killed him.”
Lord Maccon nodded, letting go of his wife’s hand, then standing and turning away, lost to his memories. He fiddled with a little cluster of daguerreotypes arranged on the mantelpiece. That quick, feral quality was back to his movements, a supernatural facet of his werewolf self. “As am I, wife, as am I. I have killed many people in my day, for queen and country, for pack and challenge; rarely do I get to say I am proud of that part of my afterlife. He was a brute, and I was fortunate indeed that I was just strong enough to see him eliminated, and he was just mad enough to make bad choices during the passion of battle. He allowed himself to enjoy it too much.”
Lord Maccon’s head suddenly cocked—supernatural hearing making out some new sound that Alexia could not discern.
“There is someone at the door.” He put down the image he had been toying with and turned to face the entrance, crossing his arms.
His wife picked up her parasol.
* * *
The ghost was confused. She spent a good deal of her time confused these nights. She was also alone. Everyone had gone, to the very last, so that she floated in her madness, losing her afterlife into silence and aether. Threads of her true self were drifting away. And there was no friendly face to sit with her while she died a second time.
She remembered that there was something unfinished. Was it her life?
She remembered there was something she still needed to do. Was it die?
She remembered that there was something wrong. She had tried to fix it, hadn’t she? What should she care for the living?
Wrong, it was all wrong. She was wrong. And soon she wouldn’t be. That was wrong, too.
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.”