Gail Carriger - Timeless

“Oh, Alexia, my rose hip, I really wish you wouldn’t. Not Egypt. It’s not a nice place, so hot and smelly. Full of tourists in muted colors. The puggle might be endangered. And I, of course, could not accompany you.”

“Endangered by bad smells and muted colors?”

“Not to mention local dress. Have you seen what they wear in that country? All loose and flowy, abominable concessions to comfort and practicality.” Lord Akeldama’s hand floated up and out in the air in a simulation of the flutter of robes worn by exotic tribesmen. He lowered his voice. “There are too many secrets and too few immortals to keep them.”

Alexia pressed further. “And Queen Matakara, have you ever met her?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

Lady Maccon looked at her friend sharply. “What manner?”

“A very long time ago, my dearest pudding drop, you might say she was responsible for everything .”

Alexia gasped. “Oh my giddy aunt! She made you!”

“Well, darling, there is no need to put it so crassly as all that!”

So many questions cluttered Alexia’s mind at this revelation that her head very nearly did take to spinning. “But how did you get here ?”

“Oh, silly child. We can move long distances, for a short period of time, right after metamorphosis. How else do you think vampires managed to migrate all over the world?”

Alexia shrugged. “I suppose I thought you simply expanded outward in ever-increasing circles.”

Lord Akeldama laughed. “There would have to be considerably more of us for that, my darling sugar lump.”

Lady Maccon sighed, then asked the best question she could, given Lord Akeldama’s evasiveness. “What can you tell me about Queen Matakara?”

The vampire raised his gem-studded monocle and looked at her through the clear glass. “Not quite the right question, sweetling.”

“Oh, very well. What will you tell me about Queen Matakara? Given that I will be taking your adopted daughter into her hive whether you like it or not.”

“Hard line, my little marmalade pot , but better. I will tell you that she is very old, and her concerns are not that of the shorter lived.”

“No advice at all, not even for Prudence’s sake?”

The vampire looked at her, a slight smile on his face. “You are not above playing all the cards you have been dealt, are you, my darling girl? Very well. You want my advice? Don’t go. More than that? Be careful. What Queen Matakara says is never the whole truth, and what Queen Matakara is has been hidden by the sands of time. It is not that she no longer cares to win; it is that she does not play the game at all. For you and I, my dear, who live for such petty diversions, this is practically impossible to comprehend.”

“Then why ask to see Prudence? Why involve herself?”

“There you have the real danger, my clementine, and the real question, and, of course, there is no way for us to understand the answer.”

“Because she is outside of our understanding?”

“Precisely.”

“Unusual woman.”

“You haven’t yet seen the way she dresses.”

While Lyall tracked down dirigible possession records, and Lord Maccon dashed about looking for clues, Lady Maccon planned her trip. Or, to be precise, she told Floote what she wanted and he made the necessary arrangements and procurements. The Tunstells were accounted for, and much to Alexia’s disgust, Countess Nadasdy insisted on sending one of her drones along as ambassador for the English hives.

“She only wants to keep an eye on me ,” she objected to Floote while they contemplated which traveling gowns were best suited to an Egyptian climate. “Do you know who she’s sending? Of course you do.”

Floote said nothing.

Lady Maccon cast her hands up into the air in exasperation and began pacing about the room, gesticulating wildly in accordance with her Italian heritage.

“Exactly! Madame Lefoux. That woman simply cannot be depended upon. I’m surprised the countess trusts her so far as she can throw her. Although, I suppose being a vampire, she could throw her quite far. Then again, perhaps she is sending her along because she doesn’t trust her. I mean, who is Genevieve favoring these days? Me, the vampire, the OBO, or herself?”

“A woman of conflicted loyalties, madam.”

“To say the least! She must live a very complicated life. I’m certain I could never be so duplicitous.”

“No, madam, not in your nature. I shouldn’t let it concern you.”

“No?”

“You can be guaranteed of at least one thing, madam. This time she doesn’t want you dead.”

“Oh, yes? How can I know this?” Alexia huffed, and sat on her bed, her lace robe floating out around her in a waterfall of opulence. “You know, Floote, I really enjoyed her company. That’s the difficulty.”

“You still do, madam.”

“Don’t be familiar, Floote.”

Floote ignored this, in the manner of long-time family retainers everywhere. “It will be good for you to have someone like her along, madam.”

“Like what? What do you mean, Floote?”

“Sensible. Scientific.”

Alexia paused. “Are you speaking as my butler or as my father’s valet?”

“Both, madam.”

Floote’s face was, as always, practically impossible to read. But after days of packing and organizing, Lady Maccon was beginning to get the distinct impression that he did not approve of Egypt.

“You don’t want me to go, do you, Floote?”

Floote paused, looking down at his hands, perfectly gloved in white cotton, as was appropriate to upstairs staff.

“I made Mr. Tarabotti two promises. The first was to keep you safe. Egypt is not safe.”

“And the second?”

Floote shook his head ever so slightly. “I can’t stop you, madam. But he wouldn’t want you to go.”

Alexia had read her father’s journals. “I have done a great deal in my life he would not have approved of. My marriage, for one.”

Floote went back to packing. “He would want you to live as you wished, but not in Egypt.”

“I am sorry, Floote, but it’s time. If you won’t tell me the missing parts of my father’s life, perhaps someone there will.” Alexia had always thought Floote’s loyalty was absolute. Floote had stayed with her pregnant mother when Alessandro abandoned them. He had changed her nappies when she was a babe. He had left the Loontwill household to attend Alexia after her marriage to a werewolf. Now, she thought for the first time, perhaps it was his loyalty to her dead father that was unshakable and she was merely a proxy player.

Later that night, when her husband came home, Alexia curled against him rather more fiercely than she ordinarily might. Conall knew his wife well enough to sense the confusion and offer physical comfort of the kind she had given him only a few evenings earlier. In his touch, Alexia found reassurance. She also realized that with both Conall and Ivy along, she was leaving her home interests unsupervised. Lyall owed his loyalty to Lord Maccon, and she considered him an unreliable source ever since she found out he was behind the Kingair assassination attempt. Lord Akeldama’s motives were always his own. Who did that leave her?

Things remained excitedly on the go all that week. Biffy carved out what time he could for his precious hats but nevertheless found himself drawn into the excitement of Dubh’s murder investigation and Egyptian travel. He simply couldn’t abstain. He was overly intrigued by the affairs of others.

He did manage to return to his duties as lady’s valet. He rather adored Lady Maccon, and had from the moment she first appeared in Lord Akeldama’s life. She had such an endearingly practical way of looking at the world. He had once described her to a colleague as the type of female who was born a grande dame. Everyone and everything had a proper place or she would see they were put into one of her own devising. Although she did require his guidance in the manner of her toilette. So far as Biffy was concerned, that, too, was an admirable quality in a lady. He enjoyed being needed, and Lady Maccon would be lost without him.