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Angelique placed the basin and a towel on Alexia’s dressing table and disappeared once more She reappeared a polite ten minutes later with a cup of tea, whisked away the used towel and dirty water, and returned with a determined look and an air of quiet authority Usually, there was aLady Maccon, but recent praise in the society coluelique’s decisions à la toilette

"Very well, you harridan," said Lady Maccon to the silent girl "What aelique made her selection from the wardrobe: a military-inspired tea-colored affair trie brass buttons It was very s of the Shadow Council

"You will have to leave off the silk scarf," said Alexia, her token protest "I shall need to show neck tonight" She did not explain that bite elique was not one of those who knew Alexia Maccon sat as muhjah She may be Alexia’s personalon the

Angelique acquiesced without protest and put Lady Maccon’s hair up si the severity of the dress Only a few loops and tendrils peeked out froood her escape, aflutter with curiosity over her husband’s early departure

There was no one to ask No one waited at the dinner table; clavigers and pack alike had vanished along with the earl The house was empty but for the servants Alexia turned her concentrated interest on them, but they scattered about their various tasks with the ease of three months’ practice

The Woolsey butler, Runity, to answer her questions Even Floote claimed to have been in the library all afternoon and overheard nothing

"Floote, truly, you simply must be acquainted hat has transpired I depend upon you to knohat is going on! You always do"

Floote gave her a look thatfrom butler to personal secretary, Floote had never quite lost his severe aura of butlerness

He handed Alexia her leather dispatch case "I reviewed the docu"

"Well, what is your opinion?" Floote had been with Alexia’s father before her, and, despite Alessandro Tarabotti’s rather outrageous reputation (or perhaps because of it), Floote had learned things Alexia was finding herself, as muhjah, more and more reliant upon his opinion, if only to confirulation clause, madam I suspect that it is too soon to release the scientists on their own recognizance"

"Mainst that particular clause Thank you, Floote"

The elderly ned

"So substantial has happened to overset my husband I suspect research in the library ht Best to clear your schedule"

"Very good, lided off to suathered up her dispatch case, her latest parasol, and her long woolen coat, and wandered out the front door

Only to discover exactly where everyone had gone--outside onto the sweeping front lawn that led up to the cobbled courtyard of the castle They had ed to multiply themselves, don attire of a military persuasion, and, for some reason known only to their tiny little olf brains, proceed to engage in setting up a considerable nuoverne copper pots like so lass before the heat caused it to suddenly expand with a popping noise As was the general ht to stand around watching the poles boil, and when one expanded, a cheer erupted forth The pole was grasped between a set of leather potholders and taken off to a tent

Lady Maccon lost her te out here?"

No one looked at her or acknowledged her presence

Alexia threw her head back and yelled, "Tunstell!" She had not quite the lung capacity to match that of her massive husband, but neither was she built on the delicate-flower end of the feminine spectrum Alexia’s father’s ancestors had once conquered an empire, and it hen Lady Maccon yelled that people realized how that was accoly, ginger felloith a perpetual grin and a certain carelessness ofand everybody else found exasperating

"Tunstell," Alexia said calht, "why are there tents on my front lawn?"

Tunstell, Lord Maccon’s valet and chief aers, looked about in his chipper way, as if to say that he had not noticed anything ahted to find that they had coreatest character flaw He was also one of the few residents of Woolsey Castle who ed to remain entirely unfazed by, or possibly unaware of, either Lord or Lady Maccon’s wrath This was his second-greatest character flaw

"He didn’t warn you?" The claviger’s freckled face was flushed with exertion fro to raise one of the tents

"No, he most certainly did not" Alexia tapped the silver tip of her parasol on the front stoop

Tunstell grinned "Well, my lady, the rest of the pack has returned" He flipped both hands at the canvas-ridden chaos before her, waggling his fingers dra he did was drah to a dim child, "this would indicate thatpack There are no olf Alphas in England who can boast a pack of such proportions"

"Oh, well, the rest of the pack brought the rest of the regiment with theh he and Alexia were partners engaged in the htful lark

"I believe it is custoi home So that, well, one doesn’t wake up to find hundreds of soldiers cas a little differently Having the biggest pack in England, we’re the only ones who split the pack for ether for a feeeks e get hoestured expansively onceabout in the air, and nodded enthusiastically

"And does this solidarity have to occur on Woolsey’s front lawn?" Tap tap tap went the parasol The Bureau of Unnatural Registry (BUR) was experi of the Hypocras Club several months previous, a small compressed steam unit had been discovered It apparently heated continually until it burst Lord Maccon had shown it to his wife Itnoise just prior to explosion, rather like that of Alexia’s parasol at this precise ht have proceeded with greater caution On the other hand, being Tunstell, he ht not