“I think it might be relevant to our current situation.”
“I hardly think that likely.”
“Are you certain you remember nothing?”
Channing evaded the question. “Any success?”
“None. Dash it.”
“Well”—Channing shrugged and made his way nonchalantly back out of the library, without a book—“I think you’re on the wrong track. No good can come of meddling in the past, my lady.” Only Channing could put on such an air of dismissive disgust.
“Meddling! I like that.”
“Yes, you do,” said the Gamma, closing the door behind him.
After that, no one else intruded upon Alexia’s investigations until some few hours before dawn, when her husband came thumping in.
She looked up to see Conall watching her fondly, propping up a bookshelf with one massive shoulder.
“Ah, finally remembered me, have you?” She smiled, her eyes soft and dark.
He strode over and kissed her gently. “Never forgot. Simply misplaced while handling matters of pack and protocol.” He tugged playfully at a dark curl that had escaped to lie against her neck in a loose whorl.
“Anything of import?”
“Nothing that should concern you.” He had learned enough to add, “Although I’m happy to relay the inconsequential details, should you wish to hear them.”
“Oh, no thank you. Do restrain yourself. How is Biffy?”
“Not so good. Not so good.”
“I’m afraid your brand of roughness is not working as it ought to pull him into the pack.”
“You may be right. I am troubled, my love. I have never faced the problem of a reluctant werewolf before. Of course, in the Dark Ages they had to deal with this kind of thing all the time. Lord knows how they managed it. But our Biffy is such a unique case in this modern time of enlightenment that even I canna fix?.?.?.” He paused, struggling for the right words, almost stuttering. “I canna fix his unhappiness.”
He cleared himself some space among the piles of books and manuscripts around his wife and settled next to her, flush against her side.
Alexia took his big hand in both of hers, stroking the palm with her thumbs. Her husband was a gorgeous lout of a man, and she could not but admit she adored both his size and his temperament, but it was his caring mother-henishness she loved best of all. “I hold them both in the highest of esteem, but Biffy has become overly Byronic. He really must endeavor to fall out of love with Lord Akeldama.”
“Oh? And how does one fall out of love?”
“Unfortunately, I have absolutely no idea.”
The earl was learning to have a good deal of faith in his capable wife. “You will think of something. And how is my delicious wife? No ill effects from your tumble earlier this evening?”
“What? Oh, onto the chaise? No, none at all. But, husband, I am having very little success on the matter of this threat to the queen.”
“Perhaps the ghost was mistaken or misheard. We have not considered that. She was close to poltergeist phase.”
“That’s possible. And it might be possible that there is no connection to the Kingair attempt.”
Lord Maccon growled in irritation.
“Yes, I am well aware that you hate to be reminded.”
“Every man hates remembering failure. But we werewolves are the worst of the lot on the subject. I cannot believe there is a connection.”
“It is my only avenue of inquiry.”
“Perhaps you can leave it for the moment. I require your presence.”
Alexia bristled at the commanding tone. “Oh, yes?”
“In bed.”
“Oh. Yes.” Alexia relaxed and smiled, allowing her husband to help her to her feet.
Alexia slept on the far side of the bed from Conall. This was not because he was a restless sleeper. In fact, he was as still as any supernatural creature, though not quite so dead-looking as a vampire, and he snored softly. And, though Lady Maccon would never admit it to anyone, not even to Ivy, she was a bit of a cuddler. She simply didn’t want him vulnerable while he slept. Also, given his irreverence for physical appearance, she was in constant fear that should she touch him all night long, he would grow a beard and then neglect to shave.
On this particular day’s rest, the infant-inconvenience allowed Lady Maccon to doze only fitfully on her side, facing the tower window. Which was why she was partly awake when the burglar entered.
There were many things wrong with a thief breaking into Woolsey Castle in the middle of the day. First, what thief in his right mind travels all the way to Barking to perform a break-in? Prospects were much better in London. Second, why bother with Woolsey Castle, a den of werewolves? Just down the road was a small but wealthy ducal estate. And third, why aim for one of the challenging tower windows and not a downstairs parlor?
Nevertheless, the masked form clambered over the sill with graceful economy of movement and stood, light and balanced on his feet, silhouetted against the thick curtains that could not entirely block out the full afternoon sun. He inhaled sharply upon seeing Lady Maccon up on one elbow staring at him. Clearly, he expected to find the room abandoned.
Lady Maccon was far less reticent. She let out a scream that might have raised the dead, and in this case did.
Her husband was no pup who, required by recent metamorphosis and weak control, must sleep solid the entire day through. Oh, no, he could be awakened. It was simply that when he was very tired, it took a mighty loud noise. Not much of a screamer as a general rule, Alexia’s lung capacity was nevertheless sufficient to the task and produced a trumpeting kind of yell. Once emitted, however, it did not, as one might expect, bring domestic staff and clavigers running. It had taken only one or two highly embarrassing incidents for the denizens of Woolsey Castle to ignore any and all strange noises produced by Lord and Lady Maccon during their slumbering hours.
Still, one angry husband was sufficient to meet Lady Maccon’s needs.
The burglar darted to one side of the room, running for Alexia’s armoire. There he opened several drawers, finally extracting a sheaf of papers. These he stuffed into a sack. Alexia rolled from the bed, cursing her own lack of mobility, and charged toward him at the same time as her husband. Conall, made clumsy by the full sun, deep sleep, and the unexpectedness of the event, got his feet caught in the bedclothes and pinwheeled widely in a circle like some large and eccentric ballet dancer, before righting himself and lurching at the intruder. That’ll teach him to steal the coverlet, thought his wife in satisfaction.
Choosing wisely, the burglar went for Alexia, the weaker link, pushing her aside. She kicked out. Her foot met flesh, but not hard enough. All that resulted was Alexia losing her balance and tumbling backward onto the floor, twisting her ankle in the process.
The intruder dove for the open window. Literally dove right through, for he managed to unfold some kind of metal reinforced cape that became a parachute. This carried him gently down the five stories to the ground. Without registering his wife’s predicament, floundering about on the floor, Lord Maccon leaped after.
“Oh, no, Conall, don’t you dare—” But Alexia’s admonishment met only empty air, for he had already jumped out of the window. A werewolf could take such a fall and survive, of course, but not without substantial damage, especially during daylight.
Greatly concerned, Alexia crawled and squirmed her way across the floor, then used a stool and the windowsill to haul herself upright, balancing precariously on her good foot. Her husband had angled his leap to land on the rooftop of the castle keep; he then lowered himself some three stories to the ground and dashed after the culprit. Naked. The wrongdoer, however, was equipped to escape at speed. He had a mono-wheel cycle, rigged up with a small steam propeller, that carried him away across the landscape at a remarkably rapid pace.
The sun was full in the sky, so Lord Maccon was unable to change into his wolf form, and even as fast as a werewolf could be after sunset, it was probably not sufficient to catch up to that wheel. Alexia watched Conall run a goodly distance before coming to this realization and stopping. Sometimes his hunter instinct took a while to defuse.
She tsked in annoyance and turned to glare at her armoire, a mile away and impossible to get at without crawling, trying to determine what exactly had been stolen. What on earth had she stashed in that drawer? She certainly hadn’t looked at whatever it was since she unpacked after her wedding. So far as she could remember, it had been full of old letters, personal correspondences, party invitations, and visiting cards. Why on earth would anyone want to steal that?
“Really, husband,” she said from her post by the window when he got around to climbing back up the many flights of stairs to their sleeping chamber, “how you manage to jump about like some deranged jackrabbit without any permanent damage is a mystery to me.”
Lord Maccon snorted at her and went to sniff suspiciously at her armoire. “So, what was in that drawer?”
“I can’t readily recall. Some society missives from before we were married, I believe. Can’t imagine what anyone would want with those.” She frowned, trying to dig her way through the mire of pregnancy-addled wits.
“You’d think they’d be after your dispatch case if it was classified paperwork they wanted.”
“Exactly so. What did you smell?”
“A bit of grease, probably from that parachute contraption. Nothing else significant. And you, of course—the whole armoire smells of you.”
“Mmm, and how do I smell?”
“Vanilla and cinnamon baked puff pastry,” he answered promptly. “Always. Delicious.”
Alexia grinned.
“But not of child. I’ve never been able to smell the bairn. Neither has Randolph. Odd that.”
Alexia’s grin faded.
Her husband returned to his examination of the drawer. “I suppose the constabulary will have to be called.”
“I don’t see why. It was only the odd bit of paperwork.”
“But you kept them.” The earl was confused.
“Yes, but that doesn’t mean they were important.”
“Ah.” He nodded his understanding. “Like all your many pairs of shoes.”
Alexia chose to ignore this. “It must be someone I know who stole it. Or arranged for the theft.”
“Hmm?” Lord Maccon slumped thoughtfully onto the bed.
“I saw him enter. He was after that drawer in particular. I don’t think he was expecting us to be here—he seemed more than usually startled to see me. He must be intimate with our family, or acquainted with some member of Woolsey staff, to know where our room is located and that we were not supposed to be in residence.”
“Or it is meant to throw us off the scent. Perhaps he stole something else or did something that has nothing to do with those papers.”
Alexia pondered, still standing on one foot, like an egret, propped back against the windowsill. “Or he is after some important item to use for blackmail. Or something to give to the popular press. There has been remarkably little scandal since you and I reconciled. I wouldn’t put that kind of thing past old Twittergaddle and the Chirrup.”