practical shoes.
Unfortunately for Lord and Lady Maccon, Miss Loontwill and Miss Hisselpenny decided to join them. This occasioned a wait while both ladies changed, but since Tunstell had made himself scarce, there was less competition than there might otherwise have been in this endeavor. Alexia was beginning to think they wouldn’t get out of the house before teatime when both girls appeared sporting parasols and bonnets. This reminded Alexia to get her own parasol, causing yet another delay. Really, mobilizing an entire fleet for a great naval battle would probably have been easier.
Finally they set forth, but no sooner had they attained the small copse on the southern end of the grounds than they came across the Kingair Gamma, Lachlan, and Beta, Dubh, having some sort of heated argument in low, angry voices.
“Destroy it all,” the Gamma was saying. “We canna continue ta live like this.”
“Not until we ken to which and why.”
The two men spotted the approaching party and fell silent.
Politeness dictated they join the larger group, and, with Felicity and Ivy’s assistance, Alexia actually managed to get some semblance of polite conversation going. Both men were reluctant to say much at the best of times, and, clearly, the pack was under a gag order. However, such orders did not take into account the success with which sharp determination and frivolity could loosen the tongue.
“I know you gentlemen were on the front lines in India. How brave you must be, to fight primitives like that.” Miss Hisselpenny widened her eyes and looked at the two men, hoping for tales of heroic bravery.
“Not much fighting left to do out there anymore. Simply some minor pacification of the locals,” objected Lord Maccon.
Dubh gave him a dirty look. “And how would you know?”
“Oh, but what’s it really like?” asked Ivy. “We get the stories in the papers now and again, but no real feel for the place.”
“Hotter than hell’s—”
Miss Hisselpenny gasped in anticipation of lewd talk.
Dubh civilized himself. “Well, hot.”
“And the food doesna taste verra good,” added Lachlan.
“Really?” That interested Alexia. Food always interested Alexia. “How perfectly ghastly.”
“Even Egypt was better.”
“Oh.” Miss Hisselpenny’s eyes went wide. “You were in Egypt too?”
“Of course they were in Egypt,” Felicity said snidely. “Everyone knows it is one of the main ports for the empire these days. I have a passionate interest in the military, you know? I heard that most regiments have to stop over there.”
“Oh, do they?” Ivy blinked, trying to comprehend the geographic reason behind this.
“And how did you find Egypt?” asked Alexia politely.
“Also hot,” snapped Dubh.
“Seems to me most places would be, compared to Scotland,” Lady Maccon snapped back.
“
“And you chose to go to Egypt.” Alexia was not one to back down from a verbal battle.
“Not entirely. Pack service to Queen Victoria is mandatory.” The conversation was getting tense.
“But it does not have to take the form of military service.”
“We are not loners to slink about the homeland with tails twixt our legs.” Dubh actually looked to Lord Maccon for assistance in dealing with his irascible wife. The earl merely winked at him.
Help came from an unlooked-for source. “I hear Egypt has some very nice, old”—Ivy was trying to keep matters civil—“stuff.”
“Antiquities,” added Felicity, proud of herself for knowing the word.
In a desperate attempt to keep Lady Maccon and the Beta from killing one another, Lachlan said, “We picked up quite a collection while we were there.”
Dubh growled at his pack mate.
“Isn’t that illegal?” Lord Maccon wondered softly in his BUR voice. No one paid him any attention, except for his wife, who pinched him.
She said, “Oh, really? What kind of artifacts?”
“A few bits of jewelry and some statuary to add to the pack vault and, of course, a couple of mummies.”
Ivy gasped. “Real live mummies?”
Felicity snorted. “I should hope they are not alive.” But even she seemed excited by the idea of mummies in residence. Alexia supposed that, in her sister’s world, such things were considered glamorous.
Lady Maccon said, pressing her advantage, “We should have a mummy-unwrapping party. They are all the rage in London.”
“Well, we shouldna want to be thought backward,” said Lady Kingair’s abrasive voice. She had come upon them all unnoticed, looking gray and severe. Lord Maccon, Lachlan, and Dubh all started upon hearing her speak. They were accustomed to having their supernatural sense of smell tell them when anyone approached, no matter how stealthily.
Sidheag turned to the Gamma. “Lachlan, get the clavigers to arrange it.”
“Are you certain, my lady?” he questioned.
“We could do with a bit of fun. We wouldna want to disappoint the visiting ladies, now, would we? We are in possession of the mummies. Might as well unwrap them. We were after the amulets anyway.”
“Oh, how thrilling,” said Miss Hisselpenny, practically bouncing in her excitement.
“Which mummy, my lady?” asked Lachlan.
“The smaller one, with the more nondescript coverings.”
“As you say.” The Gamma hurried off to arrange for the event.
“Oh, I shall find this so very diverting,” crowed Felicity. “You know Elsie Flinders-Pooke was lording it over me just last week that she had been to an unwrapping. Imagine what she will say when I tell her I experienced one in a haunted castle in the Scottish Highlands.”
“How do you know Kingair is haunted?”
“I know because, obviously, it
“Delighted we could provide you with some significant social coup,” sneered Lady Kingair.
“Your pleasure, I’m sure,” replied Felicity.
“My sister is a woman of mean understanding,” explained Lady Maccon apologetically.
“And what are you?” asked Sidheag.
“Oh, I am simply mean.”
“And here I was, thinking you were the sister with the understanding.”
“Not just yet. Give me time.”
They turned around and headed back toward the castle. Lord Maccon moved to draw his wife back slightly so they could converse privately.
“You believe one of the artifacts to be a humanization weapon?”
She nodded.
“But how would we know which one?”
“You may have to come allover BUR on the Kingair Pack and simply confiscate all their collected antiquities as illegal imports.”
“And then what? See them all incinerated?”
Lady Maccon frowned. She fancied herself a bit of a scholar and was not generally in favor of wanton destruction. “I had not thought to take things quite so far.”
“It would be a terrible destruction, and I should be opposed, save that we canna simply have these things wandering around the empire. Imagine if they fell into the wrong hands?”
“Such as the Hypocras Club?” Lady Maccon shuddered to even think it.
“Or the vampires.” No matter how integrated the two became into civilized society, werewolves and
