Miss Tarabotti made an empathetic movement with both hands. “My point precisely! So you will understand that I had to resort to ordering my own repast. Did you expect me to starve?”
The earl gave her generous curves a rude once-over, observed that Miss Tarabotti was nicely padded in exactly the right places, and refused to be suckered into becoming sympathetic. He maintained his frown. “I suspect that is precisely what the vampire was thinking when he found you without a chaperone. An unmarried female alone in a room in this enlightened day and age! Why, if the moon had been full, even I would have attacked you!”
Alexia gave him the once-over and reached for her brass parasol. “My dear sir, I should like to see you try.”
Being Alpha made Lord Maccon a tad unprepared for such bold rebuttals, even with his Scottish past. He blinked at her in surprise for a split second and then resumed the verbal attack. “You do realize modern social mores exist for a reason?”
“I was hungry, allowances should be made,” Alexia said, as if that settled the matter, unable to understand why he persisted in harping on about it.
Professor Lyall, unobserved by the other two, was busy fishing about in his waistcoat for something. Eventually, he produced a mildly beaten-up ham and pickle sandwich wrapped in a bit of brown paper. He presented it to Miss Tarabotti, ever the gallant.
Under normal circumstances, Alexia would have been put off by the disreputable state of the sandwich, but it was meant so kindly and offered with such diffidence, she could do nothing but accept. It was actually rather tasty.
“This is delicious!” she stated, surprised.
Professor Lyall grinned. “I keep them around for when his lordship gets particularly testy. Such offerings keep the beast under control for the most part.” He frowned and then added a caveat. “Excepting at full moon, of course. Would that a nice ham and pickle sandwich was all it took then.”
Miss Tarabotti perked up, interested. “What do you do at full moon?”
Lord Maccon knew very well Miss Tarabotti was getting off the point intentionally. Driven beyond endurance, he resorted to use of her first name. “Alexia!” It was a long, polysyllabic, drawn-out growl. She waved the sandwich at him. “Uh, do you want half of this, my lord?” His frown became even darker, if such a thing could be conceived.
Professor Lyall pushed his glassicals up onto the brim of his top hat, where they looked like a strange second set of mechanical eyes, and stepped into the breach. “Miss Tarabotti, I do not believe you quite realize the delicacy of this situation. Unless we can establish strong grounds for self-defense by proving the vampire was behaving in a wholly irrational manner, you could be facing murder charges.”
Alexia swallowed her bite of sandwich so quickly she partly choked and started to cough. “What?”
Lord Maccon turned his fierce frown on his second. “Now who is being too direct for the lady's sensibilities?”
Lord Maccon was relatively new to the London area. He had arrived a social unknown, challenged for Woolsey Castle Alpha, and won. He gave young ladies heart palpitations, even outside his wolf form, with a favorable combination of mystery, preeminence, and danger. Having acquired the BUR post, Woolsey Castle, and noble rank from the dispossessed former pack leader, he never lacked for a dinner invitation. His Beta, inherited with the pack, had a tense time of it: dancing on protocol and covering up Lord Maccon's various social gaffes. So far, bluntness had proved Professor Lyall's most consistent problem. Sometimes it even rubbed off on him. He had not meant to shock Miss Tarabotti, but she was now looking most subdued.
“I was simply sitting,” Alexia explained, placing the sandwich aside, having lost her appetite. “He launched himself at me, totally unprovoked. His feeding fangs were out. I am certain if I had been a normal daylight woman, he would have bled me dry. I simply had to defend myself.”
Professor Lyall nodded. A vampire in a state of extreme hunger had two socially acceptable options: to take sips from various willing drones belonging to him or his hive, or to pay for the privilege from blood-whores down dockside. This was the nineteenth century, after all, and one simply did not attack unannounced and uninvited! Even werewolves, who could not control themselves at full moon, made certain they had enough clavigers around to lock them away. He himself had three, and it took five to keep Lord Maccon under control.
“Do you think maybe he was forced into this state?” the professor wondered.
“You mean imprisoned until he was starving and no longer in possession of his faculties?” Lord Maccon considered the idea.
Professor Lyall flipped his glassicals back down off his hat and examined the dead man's wrists and neck myopically. “No signs of confinement or torture, but hard to tell with a vampire. Even in a low blood state, he would heal most superficial wounds in”—he grabbed Lord Maccon's metal roll and stylus, dipped the tip into the clear sizzling liquid, and did some quick calculations—“a little over one hour.” The calculations remained etched into the metal.
“And then what? Did he escape or was he intentionally let go?”
Alexia interjected, “He seemed perfectly sane to me— aside from the attacking part, of course. He was able to carry on a decent conversation. He even tried to charm me. Must have been quite a young vampire. And“—she paused dramatically, lowered her voice, and said in sepulchral tones—“he had a fang-lisp.”
Professor Lyall looked shocked and blinked largely at her through the asymmetrical lenses; among vampires, lisping was the height of vulgarity.
Miss Tarabotti continued. “It was as though he had never been trained in hive etiquette, no social class at all. He was almost a boor.” It was a word she had never thought to apply to a vampire.
Lyall took the glassicals off and put them away in their little case with an air of finality. He looked gravely at his Alpha. “You know what this means, then, my lord?”
Lord Maccon was not frowning anymore. Instead he was looking grim. Alexia felt it suited him better, setting his mouth into a straight line and touching his tawny eyes with a determined glint. She wondered idly what he would look like if he smiled a real honest smile. Then she told herself quite firmly that it was probably best not to find out.
The object of her speculations said, “It means some hive queen is intentionally biting to metamorphosis outside of BUR regulations.”
“Could it be just the once, do you think?” Professor Lyall removed a folded piece of white cloth from his waistcoat. He shook out the material, revealing it to be a large sheet of fine silk. Alexia was beginning to find the number of things he could stash in his waistcoat quite impressive.
Lord Maccon continued. “Or this could be the start of something more extensive. We'd better get back to BUR. The local hives will have to be interviewed. The queens are not going to be happy. Apart from everything else, this incident is awfully embarrassing for them.”
Miss Tarabotti agreed. “Especially if they find out about the substandard shirt selection.”
The two gentlemen wrapped the vampire's body in the silk sheet. Professor Lyall hoisted it easily over one shoulder. Even in their human form, werewolves were considerably stronger than daylight folk.
Lord Maccon rested his tawny gaze on Alexia. She was sitting primly on the chesterfield. One gloved hand rested on the ebony handle of a ridiculous-looking parasol. Her brown eyes were narrowed in consideration. He would give a hundred pounds to know what she was thinking just then. He was also certain she would tell him exactly what it was if he asked, but he refused to give her the satisfaction. Instead he issued a statement. “We'll try to keep your name out of it, Miss Tarabotti. My report will say it was simply a normal girl who got lucky and managed to escape an unwarranted attack. No need for anyone to know a preternatural was involved.”
Now it was Alexia's turn to glare. “Why do you BUR types always do that?”
Both men paused to look at her in confusion. “Do what, Miss Tarabotti?” asked the professor.
“Dismiss me as though I were a child. Do you realize I could be useful to you?”
Lord Maccon grunted. “You mean you could go around legally getting into trouble instead of just bothering us all the time?”
Alexia tried to keep from feeling hurt. “BUR employs women, and I hear you even have a preternatural on the payroll up north, for ghost control and exorcism purposes.”
Lord Maccon's caramel-colored eyes instantly narrowed. “From whom, exactly, did you hear that?”
Miss Tarabotti raised her eyebrows. As if she would ever betray the source of information told to her in confidence!
The earl understood her look perfectly. “Very well, never you mind that question.”
“I shall not,” replied Alexia primly.
Professor Lyall, still holding the body slung over one shoulder, took pity on her. “We do have both at BUR,” he admitted.
Lord Maccon elbowed him in the side, but he stepped out of range with a casual grace that bespoke much practice. “But what we do not have is any female preternaturals, and certainly not any gentlewomen. All women employed by BUR are good working-class stock.”
“You are simply still bitter about the hedgehogs,” muttered Miss Tarabotti, but she also bowed her head in acknowledgment. She'd had this conversation before, with Lord Maccon's superior at BUR, to be precise. A man her brain still referred to as that Nice Silver-Haired Gentleman. The very idea that a lady of breeding such as herself might want to work was simply too shocking. “My dearest girl,” he had said, “what if your mother found out?”
“Isn't BUR supposed to be covert? I could be covert.”
Miss Tarabotti could not help trying again. Professor Lyall, at least, liked her a little bit. Perhaps he might put in a good word.
Lord Maccon actually laughed. “You are about as covert as a sledgehammer.” Then he cursed himself silently, as she seemed suddenly forlorn. She hid it quickly, but she had definitely been saddened.
His Beta grabbed him by the arm with his free hand. “Really, sir, manners.”
The earl cleared his throat and looked contrite. “No offense meant, Miss Tarabotti.” The Scottish lilt was back in his voice.
Alexia nodded, not looking up. She plucked at one of the pansies on her parasol. “It's simply, gentlemen”—and when she raised her dark eyes they had a slight sheen in them—“I would so like something useful to do.”
Lord Maccon waited until he and the professor were out in the hallway, having bid polite, on Professor Lyall's part at least, farewells to the young lady, to ask the question that really bothered him. “For goodness' sake, Randolph, why doesn't she just get married?” His voice was full of frustration.
Randolph Lyall looked at his Alpha in genuine confusion. The earl was usually a very perceptive man, for all his bluster and Scottish grumbling. “She is a bit old, sir.”
“Balderdash,” said Lord Maccon. “She cannot possibly have more than a quarter century or so.”
“And she is very”—the professor looked for a gentlemanly way of putting it—“assertive.”