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"Interesting"
"Is it?"
"Oh, Major, you do so love to annoy, don’t you?"
"It is the stuff of living, my lady"
"Don’t be pert"
"Me? I wouldn’t dreahted at their stop, the foreign gentleain
The Woolsey Station, a new stopover, was built at considerable expense by the newly relocated Woolsey Hive with an eye toward encouraging Londoners to engage in country jaunts The greatest disappoint life was this exile to the outer reaches of Barking The Woolsey Hive queen had commissioned the station to be built and even allocated a portion of Woolsey’s extensive grounds From the station, visitors could catch a tiny private train, conducted by a coineer The location of the hive was no longer a not-very-well-kept secret The vampires seemed to feel some sense of security in the country, but they were still va directly to Woolsey; there was only this special train, the operation of which was tightly controlled by drones at the castle terminus
Lady Maccon approached the contraption warily It looked like a chubby flat-bottomed rowboat on tracks, with a fabric-covered interior and two massive parasols for protection fro helped her to step inside and then followed, settling hi at the scenery so as not to look at each other, waiting for so to happen
"I suppose they must be alerted to the fact that we have arrived" Alexia looked about for so device She noticed that off to one side of the bench sat a fat little gun After subjecting it to close examination, she shot it up into the air
Itstarted violently, un eh up and then faded out
Alexia looked at the weapon with approval "Ingenious Must be one of Madame Lefoux’s I didn’t know she dabbled in ballistics"
Channing rolled his ice-blue eyes "That woman is an inveterate dabbler"
They had no further ti Alexia to fall back hard against one of the parasol supports It was Major Channing’s turn to look amused at her predicament They rolled forward, first at quite a sedate pace and then at increasing speed, the tracks running up the long, low hill to where Woolsey Castle crouched, a confused and confusing hodgepodge of architecture
Countess Nadasdy had done what she could to improve the Maccons’ for building e She’d had it painted, and planted, and primped, and festooned, and draped to within an inch of its very long life But it was asking tooakin to dressing a bulldog up like an opera dancer Underneath the tulle, it was still a bowlegged bulldog
Major Channing helped Alexia out of the tram, and they made their way up the wide steps to the front door Alexia felt a little odd, pulling the bell rope at what once had been her ho lived there for goodness kne ht it was stoic; it was difficult to tell under all that handsohtiness
"She certainly has made"--he paused--"adjustments"
Lady Maccon nodded "The door is painted with silver swirls Silver!"
Major Channing had no opportunity to answer, for said door was opened by a beautiful young lossy ebony hair, decked out in a frilled black dress with crisp white shirt and black pin-tucked apron front Perfect in every way, as was to be expected in the countess’s household
"Lady Maccon and Major Channing, to see Countess Nadasdy"
"Oh, yes, you are expected, my lady I’ll infor onedid notthe transformation the countess had enacted upon their former abode The carpets were now all thick and plush and blood red in color The walls had been repapered in pale creaold, with a collection of fine art rescued froe of the hive’s previous abode on proes that neither appealed to a olf’s taste nor suited his lifestyle One sis when one gres on a regular basis
Major Channing, who hadn’t seen the place since the pack left it, arched one blond eyebrow "Would hardly have thought it the sa his way down the staircase toward them
"Dr Caedes, how do you do?"
"Lady Maccon" Dr Caedes was a thin, reedy man, with a hairline paused in the act of withdrawal and an interest in engineering, not medicinal , of course?"
"We may have met" The doctor inclined his head He did not sht Alexia, we are to be treated with respect How droll "My husband would have attended your suent business"
"Oh?"
"A fa serious?"
Alexia tilted her head, playing the game of reveal with aplomb She had been some time now a member of the Shadow Council and was a quick study in the fine art of conversing upon nificant "More bedraggled, I suspect Shall we proceed?"
Dr Caedes backed down, having to follow the niceties of conversation that he and his kind had insinuated into society "Of course,you in the Blue Room"
The Blue Room, as it turned out, was the room formerly occupied by the Woolsey Pack’s extensive library Alexia tried to hide her distress at the destruction of her favorite retreat The va and leather seats and had papered it in cream and sky-blue stripes The furniture was all cream in color with a decidedly Oriental influence and, unless Alexia was very inals
Countess Nadasdy sat in an arranged manner, draped to one side over the corner of aseat She wore an extrereen receiving dress trimmed with pale blue, the skirt tied back so narrowly that Lady Maccon wondered at the queen’s ability to walk about, and the sleeves were so tight Alexia very much doubted the vampire could lift her arms at all Biffy had tried to foist such absurdities upon Alexia, but only once, at which juncture she insisted that mobility was not to be sacrificed for taste, especially not with a child like Prudence dashing about Biffy hunted down daringly cut fluid styles influenced by the Far East for his mistress to wear instead and said no ure of a milkmaid who had partaken too freely of the creamy results of her labors, which did not suit the style of the dress at all Alexia would never have said a word, but she shuddered to think of Lord Akeldaure in such attire She planned, of course, to describe it in detail to her dear friend as soon as possible