The clockmaker gave a small shrug. “Hortense never was one for making a fuss. She caught a tiny cold down the Riviera way, and the next thing I knew, she had just given up and expired.”
Alexia wasn’t sure what to think of such a blasé attitude.
“She was a bit of a turnip, my wife.”
Alexia decided to be mildly amused by his lack of sentiment. “How do you mean, turnip?”
The clockmaker smiled again. Clearly, he had been hoping for that question. “Bland, good as a side dish, but really only palatable when there is nothing better available.”
“Gustave, really!” Madame Lefoux pretended shock.
“But enough about me. Tell me more about yourself, Madame Tarabotti.” Monsieur Trouvé scooted toward her.
“What more should you like to know?” Alexia wanted to ask him more questions about her father but felt that the opportunity had passed.
“Do you function the same as a male soulless? Your ability to negate the supernatural, is it similar?”
“Having never met any other living preternaturals, I always assumed so.”
“So, you would say, physical touch or very near proximity with a rapid reaction time on the part of the victim?”
Alexia didn’t like the word “victim,” but his description of her abilities was accurate enough, so she nodded. “Do you make a study of us, then, Monsieur Trouvé?” Perhaps he could help with her pregnancy predicament.
The man shook his head, his eyes crinkling up at the edges in amusement. Alexia was finding she did not mind the copious facial hair, because so much of the clockmaker’s expressions were centered in his eyes. “Oh, no, no. Far outside of my sphere of particular interest.”
Madame Lefoux gave her old school chum an assessing look. “No, Gustave, you never have been one for the aetheric sciences—not enough gadgetry.”
“I’m an aetheric science?” Alexia was mystified. In her experience as a bluestocking, such studies focused on the niceties of aetheronautics and supra-oxygenic travel, not preternaturals.
A diminutive maid with a shy demeanor brought in the tea, or what Alexia supposed passed for tea in France. The maid was accompanied by a low tray of foodstuffs on wheels, which seemed to be somehow trailing her about the apartments. It made a familiar tinny skittering noise as it moved. When the maid bent to lift the tray up and place it on a table, Alexia emitted an involuntary squeak of alarm. Quite unaware of her own athletic abilities until that moment, she jumped over and behind the couch.
“Good lord, Madame Tarabotti, are you quite well?”
“Ladybug!” Alexia managed to squawk.
“Ah, yes, a prototype for a recent order.”
“You mean, it is not trying to kill me?”
“Madame Tarabotti, I assure you, in my own home, I should never be so uncouth as to kill someone with a ladybug.”
Alexia came cautiously back out from behind the couch and watched warily as the large mechanical beetle, all unconcerned for her palpitating heart, trundled after the maid and back out into the hall.
“Your artisanship, I take it?”
“Indeed.” The Frenchman looked proudly after the retreating bug.
“I have encountered it before.”
Madame Lefoux turned accusing eyes onto Monsieur Trouvé. “Cousin, I thought you preferred not to design weapons!”
“I do! And I must say I resent the implication.”
“Well, the vampires have turned them into such,” Alexia said. “I experienced a whole herd of homicidal ladybugs, sent to poke me in a carriage. Those very antennae that yours was using to carry the tea tray had been replaced with syringes.”
“And one exploded when I went to examine it,” added Madame Lefoux.
“How perfectly dreadful.” The clockmaker frowned. “Ingenious, of course, but not my modifications, I assure you. I must apologize to you, dear lady. These things always seem to happen when dealing with vampires. Although it is hard to refuse such consistent customers with such prompt accounting.”
“Can you reveal the name of your client, cousin?”
The clockmaker frowned. “American gentleman. A Mr. Beauregard. Ever heard of him?”
“Sounds like a pseudonym,” said Alexia.
Madame Lefoux nodded. “It is rather common to use handlers in this part of the world, I’m afraid. The trail will have gone quite cold by now.”
Alexia sighed regretfully. “Ah, well, deadly ladybugs will happen, Monsieur Trouvé. I understand. You can repair my finer feelings with some tea, perhaps?”
“Of course, Madame Tarabotti. Of course.”
To be certain there was tea, of indifferent quality, but Alexia’s attention was drawn to the food on offer. There were stacks of raw vegetables—raw!—and some sort of pressed gelatinous meat with tiny nutty-looking digestive biscuits. There was nothing sweet at all. Alexia was deeply suspicious of the whole arrangement. However, upon selection of a small mound of nibbles, she found the fare to be more than passing delicious, with the exception of the tea, which proved itself to be as indifferent in taste as it had appeared initially.
The clockmaker nibbled delicately at some of the foodstuffs but took no libations, commenting that he believed tea would make a superior beverage served cold over ice. Were ice, of course, to become a less expensive commodity. At which statement, Alexia utterly despaired of both him and his moral integrity.
He continued his conversation with Madame Lefoux, as though they had never been interrupted. “On the contrary, my dear Genevieve, I am interested enough in the aetheric phenomena to keep up with the current literature out of Italy. Contrary to the British and the American theories on volatile moral natures, blood derangements, and feverish humors, the Italian investigative societies now hold that souls are connected to the correct dermatological processing of ambient aether.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake, how preposterous.” Alexia was not impressed. The infant-inconvenience appeared to feel equally unimpressed by raw vegetables. Alexia stopped eating and put a hand to her stomach. Damn and blast the annoying thing. Couldn’t it leave her in peace for one meal?
Floote, previously occupied with his own comestibles, immediately moved toward her in concern.
Alexia shook her head at him.
“Ah, you are a reader of scientific literature, Madame Tarabotti?”
Alexia inclined her head.
“Well it may seem absurd to you, but I believe their ideas have merit. Not the least of which being the fact that this particular theory has temporarily halted Templar-sanctioned vivisections of supernatural test subjects.”
“You are a progressive?” Alexia was surprised.
“I try to stay out of politics. However, England seems to be doing rather well having openly accepted the supernatural. That is not to say I approve. Making them hide, however, has its disadvantages. I should love to have access to some of the vampires’ scientific investigations for one; the things they know about clocks! I also do not believe the supernatural should be hunted down and treated like animals as in the Italian mode.”
The little room in which they sat turned a pretty shade of gold as the sun began to set over the Parisian rooftops.
The clockmaker paused upon noticing the change. “Well, well, we have chatted long enough, I suspect. You must be exhausted. You will be staying the night with me, of course?”
“If you don’t mind the imposition, cousin.”
“It’s no trouble at all. So long as you forgive the arrangements, for they will be quite cramped. I am afraid you ladies will have to bunk down together.”
Alexia gave Madame Lefoux an assessing look. The Frenchwoman had made her preferences, and her interest, clear. “I suspect my virtue is safe.”
