Alexia peeked into the room. It was huge and in a complete and utter muddle. Containers had been knocked off tables, glass had shattered, and thousands of tiny gears were scattered across the dirt floor. A jumble of cords and wire coils lay on the ground along with the hat stand they had once been hanging on. There was black soot everywhere, coating both those tubes, gears, and springs that had not fallen and the larger pieces of machinery. Outside the blast zone, things were also in disarray. A pair of glassicals lay atop a pile of research books. Large diagrams drawn in black pencil on stiff yellow paper were pinned haphazardly to the walls. It was clear that some accident had disrupted matters, but it was equally clear the place had been untidy well before the unfortunate event.
It was noisy, as many of those mechanisms and gadgets not affected by the blast were running. Steam puffed out in little gasps and whistles, gears clanked, metal chain links clicked, and valves squealed. Such a cacophony of noises as only the great factories of the north might make. But it wasn’t an invasive noise, more a symphony in engineering.
Partly hidden behind the piles, Madame Lefoux stood, hands on angular trouser-clad hips, legs wide like a man, glaring down at some species of grubby child. The urchin came complete with grease-smeared face, filthy hands, and jaunty tilt to his newsboy cap. He was clearly in a hot spot of bother but seemed less apologetic than excited about his inadvertent pyrotechnics.
“So, what did you do, Quesnel?”
“I just soaked a bit of rag in ether and tossed it into the flame. Ether catches fire, no?”
“Oh, for goodness sake, Quesnel. Don’t you ever listen?” This came from a new voice, a ghost, who was making a show of sitting sidesaddle on an overturned barrel. She was a very solid-looking specter, which meant her dead body must be relatively close and well preserved. Regent Street was well north of the exorcised zone, so she would have escaped last night’s incident undead. If the ghost’s speech was anything to go by, her body must have traveled over from France, or she had died in London an immigrant. Her face was sharply defined, her visage that of a handsome older woman who resembled Madame Lefoux. Her arms were crossed over her chest in annoyance.
“Ether!” shrieked Madame Lefoux.
“Well, yes,” said the ragamuffin.
“Ether is explosive, you little…” After which followed a stream of unpleasant words, which still managed to sound pleasant in Madame Lefoux’s mellow voice.
“Ah,” replied the boy with a shameless grin. “But it did make a fantastic bang.”
Alexia could not help herself; she let out a little giggle.
All three gasped and looked over at her.
Lady Maccon straightened up, brushed her blue silk walking dress smooth, and entered the cavernous room, swinging her parasol back and forth.
“Ah,” said Madame Lefoux, switching back to her impeccable English. “Welcome to my contrivance chamber, Lady Maccon.”
“You are a woman of many talents, Madame Lefoux, an inventor as well as a milliner?”
Madame Lefoux inclined her head. “As you see, the two more often cross paths than one would think. I should have realized you would deduce the function of the windlass engine and the location of my laboratory, Lady Maccon.”
“Oh,” replied Alexia. “Why should you have?”
The Frenchwoman dimpled at her and bent to retrieve a fallen vial of some silvery liquid, which had managed to escape Quesnel’s explosion unbroken. “Your husband informed me that you were clever. And prone to interfering overmuch.”
“That sounds like something he would say.” Alexia made her way through the shambles, lifting her skirts delicately to keep them from getting caught on fragments of glass. Now that she could see them closer up, the gadgets lying about Madame Lefoux’s contrivance chamber were amazing. There seemed to be an entire assembly line of glassicals in midconstruction and a massive apparatus that looked to be composed of the innards of several steam engines welded to a galvanometer, a carriage wheel, and a wicker chicken.
Alexia, tripping only once over a large valve, completed her trek across the room and nodded politely to the child and the ghost.
“How do you do? Lady Maccon, at your service.”
The scrap of a boy grinned at her, made an elaborate bow, and said, “Quesnel Lefoux.”
Alexia gave him an expressionless look. “So,
Quesnel blushed. “Not exactly. But I did get a fire started. That should count for something, don’t you feel?” His English was superb.
Madame Lefoux cast her hands heavenward.
“Indubitably,” agreed Lady Maccon, endearing herself to the child for all time.
The ghost introduced herself as Formerly Beatrice Lefoux.
Alexia nodded to her politely, which surprised the ghost. The undead were often subjected to rudeness from the fully alive. But Lady Maccon always stood on formality.
“My impossible son and my noncorporeal aunt,” explained Madame Lefoux, looking at Alexia as though she expected something.
Lady Maccon filed away the fact that they all had the same last name. Had Madame Lefoux not married the child’s father? How very salacious. But Quesnel did not look at all like his mother. She need not have claimed him. He was a towheaded, pointy-chinned little creature with the most enormous violet eyes and not a dimple in sight.
The lady inventor said to her family, “This is Alexia Maccon, Lady Woolsey. She is also muhjah to the queen.”
“Ah, my husband saw fit to tell you that little fact, did he?” Alexia was surprised. Not many knew about her political position, and, as with her preternatural state, both she and her husband preferred to keep it that way: Conall, because it kept his wife out of danger; Alexia, because it caused most individuals, supernatural or otherwise, to come over all funny about soullessness.
The ghost of Beatrice Lefoux interrupted them. “You are ze muhjah? Niece, you allow an exorcist into ze vicinity of my body? Uncaring, thoughtless child! You are ze worse than your son.” Her accent was far more pronounced than her niece’s. She moved violently away from Alexia, floating back and upward off the barrel upon which she had pretended to sit. As though Alexia could
Lady Maccon frowned, realizing that the aunt’s presence eliminated Madame Lefoux as a suspect in the case of the mass exorcism. She could not have invented a weapon that acted like a preternatural, not here, not if her aunt’s spirit resided in the contrivance chamber.
“Aunt, do not get so emotional. Lady Maccon can only kill you if she touches your body, and only I know where that is kept.”
Alexia wrinkled her nose. “Please do not agitate yourself so, Formerly Lefoux. I prefer not to perform exorcisms in any event: decomposing flesh is very squishy.” She shuddered delicately.
“Oh, well, thank you for that,” sneered the ghost.
“Ew!” said Quesnel, fascinated. “Have you conducted simply masses of them?”
Alexia narrowed her eyes at him in a way she hoped was mysterious and cunning, and then turned back to his mother. “So, in what capacity did my husband see fit to inform you of my nature and my position?”
Madame Lefoux was leaning back slightly, a faint look of amusement on her lovely face. “What could your ladyship possibly mean?”
“Was he in attendance upon you as Alpha, as earl, or as the head of BUR investigations?”
Madame Lefoux dimpled once more at that. “Ah, yes, the many faces of Conall Maccon.”
Alexia bridled at the Frenchwoman’s use of Conall’s first name. “And how long, exactly, have you known my husband?” Abnormal dress was one thing, but loose morals were an entirely different matter.
“Calm yourself, my lady. My interest in your husband is purely professional. He and I know each other through BUR transactions, but he visited me here a month ago as the earl and your husband. He wished me to make you a special gift.”
“A gift?”
