“Good evening. The name's MacDougall. You'd be Miss Tarabotti, correct?” was his opening gambit.
Oh dear, thought Alexia, an American. But she nodded politely.
The supper began with an array of petite oysters over ice with cool lemon cream. Miss Tarabotti, who thought raw oysters bore a remarkable resemblance to nasal excrement, pushed the offensive mollusks away and watched from under her eyelashes in horror as Lord Maccon consumed twelve of them.
“Is not that an Italy sort of a name?” asked the scientist timidly.
Miss Tarabotti, who always thought her Italian heritage far more embarrassing than her soulless state, considered this a weak topic—especially from an American. “My father,” she admitted, “was of Italian extraction. Unfortunately, not an affliction that can be cured.” She paused. “Though he did die.”
Mr. MacDougall did not seem to know how to respond. He laughed nervously. “Didn't leave a ghost behind, did he?”
Alexia wrinkled her nose. “Not enough soul.” Not any soul at all, she was thinking. Preternatural tendencies bred true. She was what she was because of her father's soullessness. The planet ought, by rights, to be overrun with her kind. But BUR, actually Lord Maccon—she winced—had said that there were simply too few of them to start with. In addition, preternaturals tended to live very short lives.
Another nervous laugh issued from her dinner companion. “Funny you should say, me boasting a bit of an academic interest in the state of the human soul.”
Miss Tarabotti was only half listening. At the other end of the table. Miss Wibbley was saying something about her third cousin who had suddenly undertaken horticultural pursuits. Her family was evidently distrustful of this development. Lord Maccon, after glancing once or twice down the table at Alexia and her scientist, was now looking down at the vacuous girl with an expression of tolerant affection and sitting far too close.
“My particular study focus,” continued Mr. MacDougall desperately, “would be the weighing and measuring of the human soul.”
Miss Tarabotti looked miserably into her bouillabaisse. It was tasty as these things go. The Blingchesters kept a superb French chef. “How,” asked Alexia, not really interested, “would one go about measuring souls?”
The scientist looked trapped; apparently this aspect of his work did not make for civilized dinner conversation.
Miss Tarabotti became more intrigued. She put down her spoon, a mark of how unsettled her feelings that she did not finish the stew, and looked inquiringly at Mr. MacDougall. He was a plumpish young man, adorned with a pair of dented spectacles and a hairline that looked like it anticipated imminent demise. The sudden full force of her interest seemed to unnerve him.
He babbled. “Haven't quite got around to ironing out the specifics, you might say. But I've drawn up plans.”
The fish course arrived. Mr. MacDougall was saved from having to elaborate by pike breaded in a rosemary-and-black-pepper crust.
Miss Tarabotti took a small bite and watched Miss Wibbley bat her eyelashes at Lord Maccon. Alexia was familiar with the maneuver; it was the one Ivy had taught her. That made her angry. She pushed the fish away peevishly.
“So how would you approach such a study?” she asked.
“I had thought to use a large Fairbanks scale, customized with supports to hold a man-sized cot,” Mr. MacDougall explained.
“Then what would you do, weigh someone, kill them, and then weigh them again?”
“Please, Miss Tarabotti! No need to be crude! I've not worked out the details yet.” Mr. MacDougall looked faintly ill.
Alexia, taking pity on the poor sod, switched to theoretical avenues. “Why this particular interest?”
He quoted, “The affections of soul are enmattered formulable essences. That is precisely why the study of the soul must fall within the science of nature.”
Miss Tarabotti was not impressed. “Aristotle,” she said.
The scientist was delighted. “You read Greek?”
“I read Greek translations,” Alexia replied curtly, not wishing to encourage his obvious interest.
“Well, if we could divine the soul's substance, we might measure for its quantity. Then we would know, before the death bite, whether a person might be able to become supernatural or not. Imagine the lives that could be saved.”
Alexia wondered what she would weigh on such a scale. Nothing? Probably, that would be a novel experience. “Is that why you have come to England? Because of our integration of vampires and werewolves into regular society?”
The scientist shook his head. “Things are not so bad as all that across the pond these days, but, no, I'm here to present a paper. The Royal Society invited me to inaugurate the opening of their new gentlemen's club, Hypocras. Heard of it?”
Miss Tarabotti had, but she could not remember when, nor could she recall anything further about it. She simply nodded.
The fish course was taken away and the main dish set down before them: roasted beef short ribs with gravy and root vegetables.
At the far end of the table, Lord Maccon's dinner companion let out a tinkling laugh.
Miss Tarabotti asked Mr. MacDougall quite out of the blue, “Miss Wibbley is very attractive, wouldn't you say?” She tipped her rib from its upright presentation position and sawed away at the meat viciously.
The American, being an American, looked openly over at the girl in question. He blushed and said timorously into his food, “I prefer ladies with dark hair and a bit more personality.”