The duke said, “We could not have her mortal and vulnerable, not in such an unprotected state.”
Behind them, clattering through the alley behind the long row of town houses, the Woolsey carriage drew to a stop, the chestnut travelers hitched up rather than the parade bays. The countess leaped toward it as though it were some fearsome foe. Lord Ambrose held her back by snaking both arms around her from behind in an embarrassingly intimate gesture. It was only an old-fashioned gingerbread coach with a massive crest on its side and just that kind of superfluous decadence that would appeal to Lord Akeldama but that Lady Maccon had always felt was ever so slightly embarrassing for Woolsey. It was built to make an impression, not for speed or nimbleness. But Alexia hardly thought even such grandiose ugliness warranted a vampire attack.
“Well, then, as Lord Akeldama will not invite you in for tea and a sit-down, I was thinking I might suggest we retreat to Woolsey for the time being. Take refuge there.”
All the assembled vampires, even the countess, who seemed to have only a limited ability to follow what was going on around her, paused to look at Lady Maccon as though she had just donned Grecian robes and begun hurling peeled grapes at them.
“Are you certain, Lady Maccon?” asked one of them, almost timidly for a vampire.
The doctor stepped forward, elongated and frail-looking, for all he held the struggling Quesnel as though the boy weighed no more than one of Madame Lefoux’s automated feather dusters. “You are inviting us to stay, Lady Maccon? At Woolsey?”
Alexia did not see the source of their persistent confusion. “Well, yes. But I’ve only the one carriage, so you and the boy and the countess had best come with me. The others can run behind. Try to keep up.”
Lord Ambrose looked at Dr. Caedes. “It is unprecedented.”
Dr. Caedes looked at the Duke of Hematol. “There is no edict for this.”
The duke looked at Lady Maccon, rolling his head from one side to the other. “The marriage was unprecedented, and so is the forthcoming child. She but maintains her brand of tradition.” The duke moved toward his mistress. Cautiously, careful not to make any sudden movements.
“My Queen, we have an option.” He spoke precisely, careful to enunciate each and every word.
Countess Nadasdy shook herself. “We have?” Her voice sounded hollow and very far away, as though emanating from the bottom of a mine. It reminded Alexia of something, but with the child inside her creating a fuss and the prospect of a long drive ahead, she couldn’t remember what.
The countess looked to Lord Ambrose. “Who must we kill?”
“It is an offer freely given. An invitation.”
For a moment, Countess Nadasdy seemed to return to herself, focusing completely on the faces of her three most treasured hive members. Her supports. Her tentacles. “Well, let us take it, then. No time to spare.” She looked around, cornflower-blue eyes suddenly sharp. “Is that laundry? Where have you brought me?”
With a nod to Lady Maccon, Lord Ambrose hustled his queen into the Woolsey carriage. Quicker than the mortal eye could follow, he ducked back out again, his movements made smoother without the need to monitor a hat. He leaped to the driver’s box, unceremoniously dismissing the perfectly respectable coachman who sat there and taking up the reins himself. Lady Maccon arched a brow at him.
“Pardon me?”
“I once raced chariots,” he explained with a grin that showed off his fangs to perfection.
“I do not think it is quite the same thing, Lord Ambrose,” remonstrated Alexia.
Dr. Caedes and Quesnel climbed inside next. And then, reluctantly, Lady Maccon. She struggled a bit with the steps, and no vampire was willing to offer her any kind of assistance, no touching, not even for politeness’ sake. Once inside, she was unsurprised to find that the vampires were seated together on one bench so that she must sit alone on the other.
Lord Ambrose whipped the horses up and they took off at a canter, far too fast for the crowded streets of London. The clattering on the cobbles was awfully loud, and the carriage seemed to gyrate around the turns far more than Alexia had noticed before. Her belly protested the swaying.
It ordinarily took just under two hours to reach Woolsey from central London, less time for a werewolf in full fur, of course. The Count of Trizdale once claimed to have run it in his highflyer coach in only an hour and a quarter. Lord Ambrose, it seemed, was intent on trying to break that record.
Within London, the streets were worn enough into ruts for relatively smooth travel, and even though he had been tethered to Mayfair for hundreds of years, Lord Ambrose knew the way. Plenty of time to study maps, Alexia supposed. They took the lesser used road toward West Ham. However, upon exiting the city, everything went awry.
Not that the evening’s events prior to that moment had been all sugared violet petals. But still.
First, and worst, so far as Lady Maccon was concerned, they hit the dirt road of the countryside. It had never bothered her overmuch before, and the carriage was well sprung and padded inside. But the fast pace combined with more-than-was-normal jiggling did not amuse the infant-inconvenience. Fifteen minutes of that and Alexia felt a new bodily sensation commence—a dull ache in the small of her back. She wondered if she had damaged herself during one of the evening’s many bustle-crushing dismounts.
Then they heard Lord Ambrose yell and smelled acrid smoke. Here, away from looming shadows of the city buildings and under the full moon’s light, everything was much easier to see. Alexia watched through the window as one of their vampire escorts put on a burst of speed, drew alongside the carriage, and leaped. The coach lurched but did not slow, and there came the sound of the roof above them being beaten viciously.