Heartless

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN In Which We All Learn a Little Something About Prudence

Later on, Lady Maccon was to describe that particular day as the worst of her life. She had neither the soul nor the romanticism to consider childbirth magical or emotionally transporting. So far as she could gather, it mostly involved pain, indignity, and mess. There was nothing engaging or appealing about the process. And, as she told her husband firmly, she intended never to go through it again.

Madame Lefoux acted as midwife. In her scientific way, she was unexpectedly adept at the job. When the infant finally appeared, she held it up for Alexia to see, rather proudly as though she’d done all the hard work herself.

“Goodness,” said an exhausted Lady Maccon, “are babies customarily that repulsive looking?”

Madame Lefoux pursed her lips and turned the infant about, as though she hadn’t quite looked closely before. “I assure you, the appearance improves with time.”

Alexia held out her arms—her dress was already ruined anyway—and received the pink wriggling thing into her embrace. She smiled up at her husband. “I told you it would be a girl.”

“Why isna she crying?” complained Lord Maccon. “Shouldna she be crying? Aren’t all bairns supposed to cry?”

“Perhaps she’s mute,” suggested Alexia. “Be a sensible thing with parents like us.”

Lord Maccon looked properly horrified at the idea.

Alexia grinned even more broadly as she came to a wonderful realization. “Look! I’m not repelled by her. No feelings of revulsion at all. She must be human, not a preternatural. How marvelous!”

A tap came at the octomaton door.

“Yes?” Lord Maccon sung out. He’d decided to stop worrying about the child and was crouched down cooing over her and making silly faces.

Professor Lyall looked in. He’d apparently found the time to change out of the improvised toga and into perfectly respectable attire. He caught sight of his Alpha, who looked up and beamed proudly.

“Randolph, I have a daughter!”

“Felicitations, my lord, my lady.”

Alexia nodded politely from her makeshift bed in the corner of the octomaton, only then noticing that she was resting against a pile of cords and springs, and there was some kind of valve digging into the small of her back. “Thank you, Professor. And it would appear that she is not a curse-breaker.”

The Beta looked over at the child with a flash of academic interest but no real surprise. “She isn’t? I thought preternaturals always breed true.”

“Apparently not.”

“Well, that is good news. However, and I do hate to interrupt the blessed event, but, my lord, we have several difficulties at the moment that could very much use your attention. Do you think we might repair to a more hospitable venue?”

Lord Maccon crouched over his wife and nuzzled her neck gently. “My dear?”

Alexia stroked his hair back from the temple with her free hand. “I’ll give it a try. I would dearly love to be in my own bed.”

Lady Maccon had to hold on to both her newborn child and Biffy as Lord Maccon carried her and Professor Lyall carried Biffy back up to the castle. At which juncture Conall declared that Woolsey smelled rotten.

Professor Lyall opened his mouth to explain but caught a sharp look from Alexia. So he refrained.

Predicting that his Alpha would find out soon enough on his own, the Beta carried Biffy down to a cell, tended to the pup’s still-angry burns with a pat of butter, and chivied him in with the Duke of Hematol as the best of a bad lot of options.

Upstairs it was decided that Madame Lefoux should also be locked up.

“Put her into the one next to the countess and Quesnel,” suggested Lady Maccon snidely to her confused husband. “Now, there will be an interesting conversation come nightfall.”

“The countess? Countess who?”

Alexia contemplated letting Quesnel out—after all, the boy hadn’t done anything wrong—but from previous experience, she saw no reason why having him underfoot might improve matters. Quesnel was an agent of chaos even at the best of times, and life was busy enough without his help. Plus, she suspected the best thing for him at the moment was some time with his maman.

“But I just delivered your child!” protested Madame Lefoux.

“And very grateful I am, too, Genevieve.” Alexia was always one to give credit where it was due. “However, you rampaged through the streets of London in a massive octopus, and you are going to have to pay for your crimes.”

“Preternaturals!” exclaimed the Frenchwoman, disgusted.

“At least this way you are near your boy. He was terribly upset by the attack,” yelled Lady Maccon as her husband hauled the struggling inventor away.

Which was when Lord Maccon discovered the reason behind the funny smell. He had a hive of vampires living in his castle.

He came back upstairs fit to be pickled. “Wife!”

Lady Maccon had vanished.

“Floote!”

“She’s gone upstairs, sir. To your chambers.”

“Of course she has.”

Lord Maccon stormed upstairs to find his wife abed, the babe asleep in the crook of one arm. The child had already proved herself perfectly capable of sleeping through both her mother’s and her father’s vocal exertions. A very good survival trait, thought Alexia, wincing as Conall clomped into the room.

“There are vampires in my dungeon!”

“Yes, well, where else was I supposed to stash them?”

“The countess swarmed?” The earl leaped to the only possible conclusion. “And you invited them in? Here?”

Alexia nodded.

“Great. Wonderful! Brilliant.”

Lady Maccon sighed, a kind of sad, quiet noise that calmed Lord Maccon where her yelling would only have aggravated matters. “I can explain.”

Conall came to kneel next to the bed, his anger dissipated by her uncharacteristic meekness. His wife must be very tired.

“Very well, explain.”

Alexia relayed the events of the night, and by the time she reached the concluding pack-versus-octomaton battle, she was yawning hugely.

“What are we going to do now?” wondered her husband. Even saying it, Alexia could tell from his defeated expression that he was already facing up to the truth—for better or worse, Woolsey Castle now belonged to the Westminster Hive. Or rather, the Woolsey Hive.

Alexia saw him blink back tears and felt her heart clench. She hadn’t meant to make such a grave error in judgment, but the deed was done. Her own eyes stung in sympathy.

He nodded. “I rather loved this old place, buttresses and all. But it hasna been my home all that long. I can break from it. The rest of the pack, they are going to be difficult. Ach, my poor pack. I’ve nae served them verra well these last few months.”

“Oh, Conall, it’s not your fault! Please don’t worry. I’ll think of something. I always do.” Alexia wanted to find a solution right then and there just to wipe that horrible expression of disappointment off her husband’s sweet face, but she could hardly keep her eyes open.

The earl bent and pressed a kiss to his wife’s lips and then to his daughter’s little forehead. Alexia suspected he was contemplating going back downstairs to check in with Lyall, as there was still a lot to be done that afternoon.

“Come to bed,” said his wife.

“You two ladies do look verra peaceful. Perhaps just a little kip.”

“Lyall has both Floote and Rumpet helping him. They could run the empire, those three, if they felt like it.”

Lord Maccon chuckled and crawled in on Alexia’s other side, settling his big body down into the feather mattress.

Alexia sighed contentedly and nestled against him, curled about the baby.

He snuffled once at the nape of her neck. “We need to find a name for the wee one.”

“Mmm?” was his wife’s only answer.

“I’m nae certain that’s a verra good name.”

“Mmm.”

“Sorry to disturb you, my lord, but the vampires are asking for you.” Professor Lyall’s voice was quiet and apologetic.

Alexia Maccon came awake with a start to the feel of her husband shifting behind her. He was evidently trying to extract himself from the bed without disturbing her. Poor man, stealth of movement was not one of his stronger character traits. Not in human form at any rate.

“What time is it, Randolph?”

“Just after sunset, my lord. I thought it best to let you sleep the remainder of the day away.”

“Oh, yes? And have you been awake the whole time?”

Silence met that.

“Ah. Right. You tell me the lay of the fur, Randolph, and then you go catch some rest.”

Alexia heard a faint howling. The younger werewolves, still unable to control change so close to full moon, were back in their fur and imprisoned below for another night. Locked away with vampires.

“Who is seeing to them?” asked the earl as he, too, registered the sound.

“Channing, my lord.”

“Oh, blast.” All pretense at subtlety abandoned, Lord Maccon jumped out of bed.

This jiggled the baby. A thin, querulous wail started up from just under Alexia’s chin. She started violently, for she had, until that moment, entirely forgotten about the child. Her child.

She opened her eyes and looked down. Half a day’s intermittent rest had not improved the infant’s appearance. She was red and wrinkly, and her face got all scrunched up when she cried.

Conall, obviously still under the impression that Alexia was asleep, hurried around the bed and scooped the tiny creature up. The whining turned to a little snuffling howl, and there in his arms instead of a child, lay a newborn wolf cub.

Lord Maccon nearly dropped his daughter. “God’s teeth!”

Alexia sat up, not quite comprehending what she had just seen. “Conall, where’s the baby?”

Her husband, mute in shock, proffered the cub at her.

“What have you done to her?”

“Me? Nothing. I simply picked her up. She was perfectly normal and then poof.”

“Well, she’s unquestionably cuter in that form.” Alexia was prosaic.

“Here, you take her.” Lord Maccon put the squalling furry cub back into his wife’s arms.

At which juncture she promptly turned back into a baby. Alexia could feel the bone and flesh shifting under the swaddling clothes. It seemed to be relatively painless, for the infant’s cries did not modulate to those of real distress.

“Oh, my.” Alexia thought she sounded rather sedate, under the circumstances. “What have we gotten ourselves into?”

Professor Lyall’s voice was awed. “Never thought I’d live to see a real skin-stalker born in my lifetime. Amazing.”

“Is that what it means?” Alexia looked down at the child. “How extraordinary.”

Professor Lyall smiled. “I guess it must. So, what’s her name, my lady?”

Alexia frowned. “Oh, yes, that.”

Lord Maccon grinned, looking down at his wife. “With us for parents, we ought to call her Prudence.”

Lady Maccon, however, did not seem to share the joke. “Actually, I rather like that. How about Prudence Alessandra, after my father? And then Maccon, because when Lord Akeldama adopts her, she’s going to be an Akeldama.”

Lord Maccon looked down at his daughter. “Poor little thing. That’s a lot of names to live up to.”

“My lord,” interjected his Beta, “not that I don’t see the importance of this particular matter, but can it wait? Biffy could use your proximity. And the vampires are kicking up quite the fuss. We’ve no justification for keeping them locked in the dungeon. What are we going to do about them?”

Lord Maccon sighed. “Sadly, it’s not them we have to find what to do with—it’s us. We can’t stay living here, not with a hive in residence as well, and they can’t leave. Not now. When you invited the countess in, Alexia, you gave them Woolsey Castle.”

“Oh, no, surely not.”

Professor Lyall sat down in a nearby chair. Alexia had never seen him look defeated before, but at that moment, Woolsey’s Beta looked as close to crushed as any man she’d ever seen.

Lord Maccon looked grim. “Nothing else for it. We’ll have to move the pack permanently into London. We will need to buy a second town house to accommodate us all and build dungeons.”

Professor Lyall protested this decision. “Where will we run? How will we hunt? My lord, there is no such thing as an urban pack!”

“This is the age of industry, invention, and refined behavior. I suppose Woolsey really will have to learn to move with the times and become civilized.” Lord Maccon was resolved.

Alexia looked at her child. “It would only be for sixteen years or so. Until Prudence is grown. Then we could look for a new territory. Sixteen years isn’t all that long for a werewolf.”

Professor Lyall did not look cheered by this shortening of his urban sentence. “The pack is not going to like this.”

“I have made my decision,” said his Alpha.

“The queen is not going to like this.”

“We’ll just have to persuade her it’s in the best interest of the Crown.”

“I think that’s a very good idea,” said Countess Nadasdy, entering the room at that moment, followed by Quesnel and Madame Lefoux.

Well, Alexia supposed, it’s her room now.

“How did you three get out?” griped Professor Lyall.

The countess gave him a withering look. “Did you think I was queen of the vampires for nothing? We are the original inventors of the idea of a mistress of the domain. This is now my domain. No cell in all of Woolsey will hold me for long.”

“Pish tosh. She can pick locks.” Madame Lefoux crossed her arms and looked at the vampire queen witheringly.

“It was marvelous,” added Quesnel, who seemed to be regarding Countess Nadasdy with real respect for the first time.

The countess ignored the Frenchwoman and her child and gave Alexia’s baby a wary look. “Just keep that thing away from me.”

Alexia rocked the newborn at her threateningly. “You mean this dangerous vampire-eating creature?”

The countess hissed and backed away, as though Alexia might throw baby Prudence at her.

Madame Lefoux wended her way to Lady Maccon’s bedside to coo over the infant.

Countess Nadasdy said, “Woolsey is ours now, unfortunately. It is hardly to be countenanced. Me living near Barking in the countryside. Why, it is positively leagues away from everywhere.”

Lord Maccon did not protest her claim. “We will need a few days to clear out. The youngsters of the pack can’t be moved until the moon fades.”

“Take all the time you need,” said the vampire queen magnanimously. “But the soul-sucker and her abomination of a child must leave tonight.” She twirled toward the door dramatically and then paused on the threshold. “And the boy is mine.”

With that, she swept out, presumably to release the rest of her hive. “Oh,” Alexia heard her say to no one in particular as she walked down the stairs, “simply everything will have to be redecorated! And those buttresses!”

Madame Lefoux stayed behind. She looked worn and tired from the events of the night before, not to mention her own trials. Quesnel was practically stuck to her side, his grubby little hand entwined with hers. Madame Lefoux had grease stains on her fingertips and a smudge on her chin.

“You can’t let her take him away from me.” The Frenchwoman appealed to the assembled dignitaries with anguished green eyes. “Please.”

Now, Alexia’s subconscious had apparently given this conundrum some thought while she dozed. For a solution instantly proposed itself. “Speaking as muhjah, there is nothing we can legally do to remove him from the hive. If Angelique’s testament is as they say, and you never formally adopted Quesnel under British law, then her claim is valid and legally recognized in this country.”

Madame Lefoux nodded morosely.

Alexia pursed her lips. “You know vampires and solicitors—practically indistinguishable. I’m sorry, Genevieve, but Quesnel belongs with Countess Nadasdy now.”

Quesnel gave a little whimper at that statement. Madame Lefoux clutched him to her and looked wild-eyed at Lord Maccon. As though, somehow, he might save her.

Alexia continued. “Now, before you go off and build a gigantic squid, I should tell you that I also intend to give you to Countess Nadasdy, Genevieve.”

“What!”

“It is the only viable solution.” Alexia wished she had a judge’s wig and a mallet, for she felt like she’d done rather well with this verdict. “Quesnel is what, ten? He comes into his majority at age sixteen. So, with Countess Nadasdy’s approval—and I hardly think she’ll object—you will serve as drone to the Westminster Hive for the next six years. Or, I should say, the Woolsey Hive. I can make a case with the queen and the countess not to press charges if such an indenture could be arranged instead. Given your distaste for the hive, this should be a rather fitting punishment. And you get to stay with Quesnel.”

“Ah,” said her husband proudly, “good plan. If we cannot bring Quesnel to Madame Lefoux, we bring Madame Lefoux to Quesnel.”

“Thank you, my dear.”

“This is a terrible idea!” wailed Madame Lefoux.

Alexia ignored this. “I suggest you take over Professor Lyall’s sheep-breeding shed for your contrivance chamber. It is already rather well equipped and could easily be expanded.”

“But—” protested Madame Lefoux.

“You can think of a better solution?”

“But I hate Countess Nadasdy.”

“I suspect you have that in common with most of her drones and some of her vampires. I will have Floote draw up the necessary documentation and make the legal arrangements. Look on the bright side, Genevieve. At least you can temper the hive’s influence over Quesnel. He will still have his maman to teach him how to make things explode and all the wisdom of the vampires at his fingertips.”

Quesnel looked up at his mother, his big violet eyes pleading. “Please, Maman. I like to explode things!”

Madame Lefoux sighed. “I have gotten myself neatly enmeshed, haven’t I?”

“Yes, you have.”

“Do you think the countess will approve such a bargain?”

“Why shouldn’t she? She gets patronage, patent, and control over your inventions for the next six years. Quesnel stays with you both. Plus, think of the havoc Quesnel could cause living in a hive house! Keep them all on their toes and out of London politics for a while.”

Madame Lefoux brightened slightly at that suggestion.

Quesnel’s face lit up. “No more boarding school?”

Professor Lyall frowned. “This shifts England’s vampire power structures significantly.”

Alexia grinned. “Lord Akeldama thought he’d have London under his purview. I am merely balancing the scales. Now my pack will be living in his territory full-time, and Countess Nadasdy has Madame Lefoux working for her.”

Professor Lyall stood, still looking a little sad. “You are a very good muhjah, aren’t you, Lady Maccon?”

“I like to be tidy about it. While we are on the subject, Madame Lefoux, when you have cleared out your contrivance chamber, I thought that might be a good space for us to build the pack a London dungeon.”

Lord Maccon grinned. “It’s big enough, and underground, and easy to secure. An excellent idea, my love.”

Madame Lefoux looked resigned. “And the hat shop?” Even though the shop had been a front to cover over her more nefarious dealings, she’d always had an affection for the establishment.

Alexia cocked her head. “I thought Biffy might do. You remember, my dear, we discussed that he was in great need of useful employment, and such a venture might suit him better than a position at BUR.”

This time it was Professor Lyall who smiled in approval. “Wonderful notion, Lady Maccon.”

“My darling wife,” said Lord Maccon, “you think of everything.”

Alexia blushed at the compliment. “I try.”

So it was that the werewolf pack formerly of Woolsey Castle became the first ever to claim an urban hunting ground. In the late summer of 1874, they officially changed their name to the London Pack and took up residence next door to the rove vampire and potentate, Lord Akeldama. Where they kept their full-moon dungeon no one knew, but it was noted with interest that the new pack seemed to have developed a keen interest in lady’s headgear.

It was a landmark summer so far as the tattle-mongers were concerned. Even the most conservative of the daylight folk took interest in the doings of the supernatural set, for the werewolf relocation was but the half of it. The Westminster Hive, having swarmed for the only time in recorded history, relocated to the countryside and changed its name to Woolsey. No one dared comment on the unfashionable choice. It was immediately suggested the government build a train track between the hive’s new location and London. Even though Countess Nadasdy herself could not live at the heart of style, at least style could visit the countess. Protective measures were put into place and the vampires seemed to feel that isolation balanced out a known location.

The scandal rags were delighted by the entire ruckus, including the carnage caused throughout the city on that full-moon night by what was reputed to be a massive mechanical octopus. The hive house destroyed! The Pantechnicon burned to the ground! Indeed, there was so much of interest to report that a few key elements escaped the press. The fact that Chapeau de Poupe changed proprietors went unremarked upon except by such true hat aficionados as Mrs. Ivy Tunstell. The fact that the Woolsey Hive gained a very prestigious and highly valuable new drone escaped all but the scientific community’s notice.

“Very, very nicely played, my little plum pudding,” was Lord Akeldama’s comment to Lady Maccon a few evenings later. He was carrying a paper in one hand and his monocle in the other.

Alexia looked up from where she sat in her bed. “You didn’t think I would let you get away with everything, did you?”

He was visiting her in his third best closet. Lady Maccon preferred to remain in bed for the time being. She was feeling a good deal recovered from her ordeal, but she felt she ought to lie low for a while. If people knew she was back in form, she might have to attend a meeting of the Shadow Council, and the queen was reputed to be not amused by all the kerfuffle. Also there was Felicity to consider.

“And where is my lovely Biffy?” wondered the vampire.

Alexia clucked at her baby and jiggled the girl up and down a bit. Prudence gurgled good-naturedly and then spit up. “Ah, he has taken charge of Madame Lefoux’s hat shop. He always did have a remarkably good eye. “

Lord Akeldama looked wistful. “Trade? Indeed?”

“Yes, it’s proving to be a mellowing influence. And an excellent distraction.” By the time Alexia had wiped the baby’s chin with a handkerchief, the infant was fast asleep.

“Ah.” The monocle twirled, wrapping itself around Lord Akeldama’s finger until the chain was too short, at which point it began swinging in the opposite direction.

“You didn’t actually want him to pine away and die, did you?”

“Well . . .”

“Oh, you are impossible. Come over here and hold your adopted daughter.”

Lord Akeldama grinned and minced over to the side of the bed to scoop up the slumbering baby. So far Prudence was proving to be an unexpectedly docile child.

The vampire cooed over her in quite an excessive way, telling her how beautiful she was and what fun they were going to have shopping together, until he interrupted his own litany of italicized praise with an exclamation of discovery.

“Would you look at that!”

“What? What is it now?” Alexia leaned up in bed on one elbow.

Lord Akeldama tilted the child in her direction. Prudence Alessandra Maccon Akeldama had developed porcelain-white skin and a perfect set of tiny little fangs.