“You mean was she foreign?”
“No, snowdrop. I mean, could you make out her place in society?”
Lady Maccon considered this. “Good but not particularly well educated. I should say perhaps upstairs staff? Which could explain why she did not get proper preservation, burial?.?.?.?or registry with BUR.” Alexia was smart enough to carry the line of reasoning full unto its undignified potential. “So I am looking for a shopgirl or perhaps a housekeeper or cook. One who has died within the past two weeks. Few or no family members. And within a tethering radius of the potentate’s town house.”
Lord Akeldama shook his head in distress. “You have my deepest sympathies.”
Alexia knew this for the sham that it was. Lord Akeldama liked to pretend he attended only the best parties and fraternized with only the right kind of people. His drones were certainly drawn from the highest society had to offer. But Biffy, in his day, had unexpectedly turned up in more unsavory locales than a housekeeper would ever frequent, and Lord Akeldama would never make his drones go anywhere in London he had not vetted first himself.
The dewan kept the conversation on course. “But, Muhjah, that’s hundreds of houses, not to mention shops, private clubs, and other places of interest.”
Lady Maccon considered Madame Lefoux’s underground contrivance chamber, just outside the radius of inquiry. “In addition, it does not take into account cellars or attics built with subterfuge in mind. And it assumes strangers will tell me if someone within their household has recently died. Nevertheless, can you think of a better approach?”
Neither Lord Akeldama nor the dewan could.
The infant-inconvenience kicked out in apparent punctuation to this statement. Lady Maccon made an oof noise, glared down at her stomach, then cleared her throat when the others looked at her inquiringly.
“Do we inform the queen in the meantime?” Now that they had some kind of plan, the dewan seemed to feel that pacing about was no longer necessary. He came to sit at the table.
Lord Akeldama took a stand at that. He always took a stand over control of information. “Not just yet, I think, fluffy. Not until we have more concrete evidence. All we have now are the mutterings of a mad ghost.”
Lady Maccon, a mite suspicious of his motives, nevertheless had to agree with his point. “Very well, I’ll investigate those residences that look to be nighttime inclined, as soon as we have finished here. I’ll sleep tomorrow morning and continue in the afternoon with the daylight households.”
Lord Akeldama winced and then took a deep breath. “This may be distressing to hear, my flower, but I’m afraid it simply must be said. I am loathe to advocate such an onerous thing, but as you are searching for someone beneath you, you might want to dress down accordingly.”
Lady Maccon winced, thinking of Felicity and her knitwear. “Are you suggesting that I pretend to be a servant?”
“I am so very sorry, dumpling, but you might have greater success with subterfuge.” The vampire’s eyes welled with tears at the necessity of having to recommend such a horror.
Alexia took a deep breath to firm her resolve. “Oh, the actions I must undertake for my country.”
So it was that Lady Maccon, dressed in some menial rags of ill design and shapeless cut, accompanied by Biffy in the guise of husband, became far more familiar with her new neighborhood than she had previously imagined possible. Biffy looked more uncomfortable in his baggy, lower-class Sunday best than Alexia had ever seen him in evening garb, no matter how tight the breeches or how high the collar. Nevertheless, he threw himself wholeheartedly into the role of out-of-work butler with pregnant housekeeper wife. At each new door, they asked politely after places recently vacated. At each they were treated with a modicum of compassion by the respective butlers—partly due to Alexia’s condition but mostly due to the excellent references they were able to provide from one Lady Maccon of Woolsey Castle.
Still, after the eleventh cup of tea, they turned reluctantly back toward Lord Akeldama’s street, none the wiser as to any recent deaths that might have gone to ghost. Although, they had received, much to Alexia’s surprise, the offer of positions in the respectable town house of a minor baronet.
The infant-inconvenience, normally a fan of tea in any form, objected to such a quantity as was consumed upon visiting a succession of possible employers who treated prospective staff in accordance with all standards of common decency. Alexia positively sloshed as she walked. She gripped Biffy’s arm, partly from necessity and partly from the need to keep him human should the rising sun beat their return home. She was moved to ask him something that had been somewhat troubling her of late. “Lord Akeldama takes his tea with lemon?”
Biffy nodded, looking down at her, curious as to where she was going with the conversation.
“It never occurred to me until Professor Lyall brought it up, but this is rather peculiar a preference in a vampire. I was under the impression there were problems with fangs and citrus.”
Biffy smiled but said nothing.
Lady Maccon persisted. “Need I remind you where your loyalties now lie, young Biffy?”
“As if I could forget?” Biffy checked the lay of his collar in a nervous gesture. “Ah, well, it’s no particular secret of the commonwealth. He spent several decades, as I understand it, building up a tolerance.”
“Good gracious me, why?”
“Simply something to do, I suppose.”
“That sounds more like the Lord Akeldama of the fashion rags than the Lord Akeldama you and I know.”