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Lord Maccon’s head suddenly cocked--supernatural hearingout some new sound that Alexia could not discern
"There is so with and turned to face the entrance, crossing his arms
His wife picked up her parasol
The ghost was confused She spent a good deal of her tione, to the very last, so that she floated in herher afterlife into silence and aether Threads of her true self were drifting away And there was no friendly face to sit with her while she died a second ti unfinished Was it her life?
She re she still needed to do Was it die?
She re She had tried to fix it, hadn’t she? What should she care for the living?
Wrong, it was all wrong She rong And soon she wouldn’t be That rong, too
CHAPTER NINE
In Which the Past Complicates the Present
A knock came at the back parlor door, and Floote stuck his debonair head around the side "Madame Lefoux to see you, madam"
Lady Maccon placed her parasol carefully to one side, pretending her husband had not just given her due warning "Ah, yes, show her into the front parlor, would you, please, Floote? I’ll be in shortly We simply can’t have coood,with one hand to get hi hi her feet "Very well, I shall add Lord Woolsey to our ever-growing list of suspects who are now dead and thus useless Death can be jolly well inconvenient, if you ask me We can’t possibly prove his involveht have on this new threat to the queen" The earl placed a casual arm about his wife, assistance couched in a more Alexia-acceptable act of affection Nearly a year of
"True, true" His wife leaned against him
Another knock sounded at the back parlor door
"What now!" growled Lord Maccon
Professor Lyall’s sandy head popped in this time "You’re wanted, my lord, on a matter of pack business"
"Oh, very well" The earl helped his addle down the hallway He abandoned her at the door to the front parlor and then followed his Beta out into the night
"Hat, my lord," came Professor Lyall’s mild rebuke, a disembodied voice from the darkness
Conall came back inside, scooped a convenient top hat off of the hall stand, and disappeared outside again
Alexia paused at the door to the front parlor Floote had left it slightly ajar, and she overheard conversation drifting from within, Madame Lefoux’s mellow voice and that of another, clear and erudite, confident with age and authority
"Mr Tarabotti had significant roerously attractive to those with too much soul You, for example, probably have excess You like her, don’t you?"
"Oh, really, Mr Floote, why this sudden interest in my roht have recognized Floote’s voice, of course, except that she had never heard hiether at once It must be admitted, she had privately doubted his ability to forness to do so
"Be careful, madam" The butler’s voice was stiff with rebuke
Alexia flushed slightly at the very idea of her staff taking such a tone with a guest!
"Is it my care you are concerned with or Alexia’s?" Madarave breach in domestic protocol
"Both"
"Very well Noould you be so kind as to check up on Her Highness? I aer"
At this juncture, Lady Macconnoise and entered the room
Floote, unflappable, backed away froh it were thein the world
"Madame Lefoux, to what do I owe the pleasure of your company? I seem to have just left you" Alexia made her way laboriously across the roo for About the teapots" The inventor handed over a sheaf of old parched, e into soer "It’s in my aunt’s code, which I am certain you could decipher if you wished But essentially it indicates that she had only one order for the teapot invention that year, but it was a big one It didn’t co part It was a govern in the Bureau of Unnatural Registry"
Lady Maccon’s ent Doohed "Well, I suppose that puts Lord Woolsey to the top of my suspect list He would have held my husband’s position at the ti the door behind himself, paused on the threshold "Lord Woolsey, -eyed and innocuous "Yes I’air assassination attempt"
Madame Lefoux looked entirely uninterested at this Her present concernsany curiosity over the past "I do hope the information will be of some use, Alexia When you’re finished, could I please have those records back? I like to keep these things in proper order You understand, don’t you?"
"Of course"
"And now, I hate to be so abrupt, but I et some rest, please, Genevieve?"
"I’ll rest when the souls do," quipped the inventor with a shrug Then she left the room, only to return a ray one out in the hall?" Lady Maccon’s sto whatsoever to do with the child
"Yes"
"I believe my husband may have accidentally absconded with it Was it special?"
"Only in that it was ine it fit him Must be several sizes too small"