Changeless

certainly benefit from additional feminine influence. There is not a single doily in sight.”

“Wait…”

“She has packed for a two-week stay, but, you understand, as I have a wedding to arrange, she may need to remain at Woolsey longer. In which case, you will have to go shopping.”

“Now wait just a moment—” Alexia’s voice rose in aggravation.

“Good, that is settled, then.”

Alexia was left gaping like a fish.

Mrs. Loontwill stood, apparently recovered from her palpitations. “I shall go fetch her from the carriage, shall I?”

Lady Maccon trailed her mother out of the parlor and down the front steps to find Felicity, surrounded by a prodigious amount of baggage, on her front lawn.

Without further ado, Mrs. Loontwill kissed both of her daughters on the cheek, climbed back into the carriage, and departed in a whirl of lavender perfume and pink stripes.

Lady Maccon looked her sister over, still in shock. Felicity was dressed in the latest of velvet long coats, white with a red front, hundreds of tiny black buttons running up it, and a long white skirt with red and black bows. Her blond hair was up, and her hat was perched back on her head in just the kind of precarious manner Angelique would approve of most.

“Well,” Lady Maccon said brusquely, “I guess you had best come in.”

Felicity looked about at her bags and then maneuvered delicately around them and swept up the front steps and into the house.

“Rumpet, would you please?” Lady Maccon, left behind with the luggage, indicated the massive pile with her chin.

Rumpet nodded.

Lady Maccon stopped him as he passed. “Do not bother to see them unpacked, Rumpet. Not just yet. We shall see if we can arrange this differently.”

The butler nodded. “Very good, my lady.”

Lady Maccon followed her sister into the house.

Felicity had found her way into the front parlor and was pouring herself some of the tea. Without asking. She glanced up when Lady Maccon entered. “I do declare, you are looking rather puffy about the face, sister. Have you gained weight since I saw you last? You know, I do so worry about your health.”

Alexia refrained from commenting that the only worry Felicity felt was over next season’s gloves. She sat down across from her sister, folded her arms ostentatiously over her ample chest, and glared. “Out with it. Why would you possibly allow yourself to be foisted off on me?”

Felicity cocked her head to one side, sipped her tea, and demurred. “Well, your complexion seems to have improved. One might even mistake you for an Englishwoman. That is nice. I should never have believed it had I not seen it for myself.”

Pale skin had been popular in England since vampires officially emerged into, and took over, much of the higher ranks. But Alexia had her father’s Italian skin and no interest in fighting its inclinations merely to look like one of the undead. “Felicity,” she said sharply.

Felicity looked to one side and tutted in annoyance. “Well, if I must. Let me simply say it has become desirable for me to absent myself from London for a short while. Evylin is being overly smug. You know how she gets if she has something and she knows you want it.”

“The truth, Felicity.”

Felicity glanced about as though looking for some clue or hint, and then said finally, “I was under the impression that the regiment was in residence here at Woolsey.”

Ah, thought Alexia, so that was what was going on. “Oh, you were, were you?”

“Well, yes, I was. Are they?”

Lady Maccon narrowed her eyes. “They are encamped around the back.”

Felicity immediately stood, brushing down her skirts and plumping her curls.

“Oh no, you don’t. Sit right back down there, young lady.” Alexia took great satisfaction in treating her sister as though she were an infant. “There is no point; you simply cannot stay with me.”

“Why ever not?”

“Because I am not stopping here. I have business in Scotland, and I depart this afternoon. I cannot very well leave you at Woolsey alone and without a chaperone, especially as the regiment is in residence. Simply think how that would look.”

“But why Scotland? I should hate to have to go to Scotland. It is such a barbaric place. It is practically Ireland!” Felicity was clearly perturbed at this disruption in her carefully wrought plans.

Alexia came up with the most Felicity-safe reason for traveling that she could think of, off of the top of her head. “My husband is in Scotland on pack business. I am to join him there.”

“Well, piffle!” exclaimed Felicity, sitting back down with a whump. “What a frightful bother. Why do you always have to be so inconvenient, Alexia? Can you not think of me and my needs for a change?”

Lady Maccon interrupted what looked to be a long diatribe. “I am confident your suffering is quite beyond all description. Shall I call for the Woolsey carriage so you can at least travel back to town in style?”

Felicity looked glum. “It cannot be countenanced, Alexia. Mama will have your head if you send me back now. You know how impossible she can be about these things.”

Lady Maccon did know. But what was to be done?

Felicity sucked on her teeth. “I suppose I shall simply have to accompany you to Scotland. It will be a terrible bore, of course, and you know how I hate traveling, but I shall bear it with grace.” Felicity looked oddly cheered by this idea.

Lady Maccon blanched. “Oh no, absolutely not.” A week or more in her sister’s company and she would go categorically bonkers.

“I think the idea has merit.” Felicity grinned. “I could instruct you on the subject of appearance.” She gave Alexia a sweeping up-and-down look. “It is clear you are in need of expert guidance. Now, if I were Lady Maccon, I should not choose such somber attire.”

Lady Maccon rubbed at her face. It would make for a good cover story, removing her deranged sister from London for a desperately needed airing. Felicity was just self-involved enough not to notice or remark upon any of Alexia’s muhjah activities. Plus, it would give Angelique someone else to fuss over for a change.

That decided matters.

“Very well. I hope you are prepared to travel by air. We are catching a dirigible this afternoon.”

Felicity looked uncharacteristically unsure of herself. “Well, if I must, I must. But I am certain I did not pack the correct bonnet for air travel.”

“Cooee!” A voice reverberated down the hallway outside the open parlor door. “Anyone home?” it rang forth, singsong.

“Now what?” wondered Lady Maccon, fervently hoping she would not miss float-off. She did not want to delay her travel, particularly now that she must keep the regiment and Felicity separated.

A head appeared around the edge of the doorjamb. The head was wearing a hat comprised almost entirely of red feathers, all standing straight upright, and a few tiny puffy white ones, looking like nothing so much as an overly excited duster with a case of the pox.

“Ivy,” stated Alexia, wondering if her dear friend was perhaps secretly the leader of a Silly Hat Liberation Society.

“Oh, Alexia! I let myself in. I do not know where Rumpet has taken himself off to, but I saw the parlor door open, so I deduced you must be awake, and I thought I ought to tell you…” She trailed off upon realizing Alexia was not alone.

“Why, Miss Hisselpenny,” purred Felicity, “what are you doing here?”

“Miss Loontwill! How do you do?” Ivy blinked at Alexia’s sister in utter surprise. “I might ask you the same question.”