“Stop humoring her, Randolph,” barked Lord Maccon. The fourth Earl of Woolsey was much larger than Professor Lyall and in possession of a near-permanent frown. Or at least he always seemed to be frowning when he was in the presence of Miss Alexia Tarabotti, ever since the hedgehog incident (which really, honestly, had not been her fault). He also had unreasonably pretty tawny eyes, mahogany-colored hair, and a particularly nice nose. The eyes were currently glaring at Alexia from a shockingly intimate distance.
“Why is it, Miss Tarabotti, every time I have to clean up a mess in a library, you just happen to be in the middle of it?” the earl demanded of her.
Alexia gave him a withering look and brushed down the front of her green taffeta gown, checking for bloodstains.
Lord Maccon appreciatively watched her do it. Miss Tarabotti might examine her face in the mirror each morning with a large degree of censure, but there was nothing at all wrong with her figure. He would have to have had far less soul and a good fewer urges not to notice that appetizing fact. Of course, she always went and spoiled the appeal by opening her mouth. In his humble experience, the world had yet to produce a more vexingly verbose female.
“Lovely but unnecessary,” he said, indicating her efforts to brush away nonexistent blood drops.
Alexia reminded herself that Lord Maccon and his kind were only just civilized. One simply could not expect too much from them, especially under delicate circumstances such as these. Of course, that failed to explain Professor Lyall, who was always utterly urbane. She glanced with appreciation in the professor’s direction.
Lord Maccon’s frown intensified.
Miss Tarabotti considered that the lack of civilized behavior might be the sole provenance of Lord Maccon. Rumor had it, he had only lived in London a comparatively short while—and he had relocated from Scotland of all barbaric places.
The professor coughed delicately to get his Alpha’s attention. The earl’s yellow gaze focused on him with such intensity it should have actually burned. “Aye?”
Professor Lyall was crouched over the vampire, examining the hair stick with interest. He was poking about the wound, a spotless white lawn handkerchief wrapped around his hand.
“Very little mess, actually. Almost complete lack of blood spatter.” He leaned forward and sniffed. “Definitely Westminster,” he stated.
The Earl of Woolsey seemed to understand. He turned his piercing gaze onto the dead vampire. “He must have been very hungry.”
Professor Lyall turned the body over. “What happened here?” He took out a small set of wooden tweezers from the pocket of his waistcoat and picked at the back of the vampire’s trousers. He paused, rummaged about in his coat pockets, and produced a diminutive leather case. He clicked it open and removed a most bizarre pair of gogglelike things. They were gold in color with multiple lenses on one side, between which there appeared to be some kind of liquid. The contraption was also riddled with small knobs and dials. Professor Lyall propped the ridiculous things onto his nose and bent back over the vampire, twiddling at the dials expertly.
“Goodness gracious me,” exclaimed Alexia, “what are you wearing? It looks like the unfortunate progeny of an illicit union between a pair of binoculars and some opera glasses. What on earth are they called, binocticals, spectoculars?”
The earl snorted his amusement and then tried to pretend he hadn’t. “How about glassicals?” he suggested, apparently unable to resist a contribution. There was a twinkle in his eye as he said it that Alexia found rather unsettling.
Professor Lyall looked up from his examination and glared at the both of them. His right eye was hideously magnified. It was quite gruesome and made Alexia start involuntarily.
“These are my monocular cross-magnification lenses with spectra-modifier attachment, and they are invaluable. I will thank you not to mock them so openly.” He turned once more to the task at hand.
“Oh.” Miss Tarabotti was suitably impressed. “How do they work?” she inquired.
Professor Lyall looked back up at her, suddenly animated. “Well, you see, it is really quite interesting. By turning this little knob here, you can change the distance between the two panes of glass here, allowing the liquid to—”
The earl’s groan interrupted him. “Don’t get him started, Miss Tarabotti, or we will be here all night.”
Looking slightly crestfallen, Professor Lyall turned back to the dead vampire. “Now, what is this substance all over his clothing?”
His boss, preferring the direct approach, resumed his frown and looked accusingly at Alexia. “What on God’s green earth is that muck?”
Miss Tarabotti said, “Ah. Sadly, treacle tart. A tragic loss, I daresay.” Her stomach chose that moment to growl in agreement. She would have colored gracefully with embarrassment had she not possessed the complexion of one of those “heathen Italians,” as her mother said, who never colored, gracefully or otherwise. (Convincing her mother that Christianity had, to all intents and purposes, originated with the Italians, thus making them the exact opposite of heathen, was a waste of time and breath.) Alexia refused to apologize for the boisterousness of her stomach and favored Lord Maccon with a defiant glare. Her stomach was the reason she had sneaked away in the first place. Her mama had assured her there would be food at the ball. Yet all that appeared on offer when they arrived was a bowl of punch and some sadly wilted watercress. Never one to let her stomach get the better of her, Alexia had ordered tea from the butler and retreated to the library. Since she normally spent any ball lurking on the outskirts of the dance floor trying to look as though she did not want to be asked to waltz, tea was a welcome alternative. It was rude to order refreshments from someone else’s staff, but when one was promised sandwiches and there was nothing but watercress, well, one must simply take matters into one’s own hands!
BOOKS BY LILITH SAINTCROW
Bannon and Clare
The Iron Wyrm Affair
The Red Plague Affar
The Damnation Affair
Dante Valentine Novels
Working for the Devil
Dead Man Rising Devil’s Right Hand
Saint City Sinners
To Hell and Back
Dante Valentine (omnibus)
Jill Kismet Novels
Hunter’s Prayer
Redemption Alley
Flesh Circus
Heaven’s Spite
Angel Town
A Romance of Arquitaine Novels
The Hedgewitch Queen
The Bandit King
As Lili St. Crow
The Strange Angels series
Strange Angels
Betrayals
Jealousy
Defiance
Reckoning
Praise for
The Iron Wyrm Affair:
“Saintcrow scores a hit with this terrific steampunk series that rockets through a Britain-that-wasn’t with magic and industrial mayhem with a firm nod to Holmes. Genius and a rocking good time.”
—New York Times bestselling author Patricia Briggs
“Saintcrow melds a complex magic system with a subtle but effective steampunk society, adds fully fleshed and complicated characters, and delivers a clever and highly engaging mystery that kept me turning pages, fascinated to the very end.”
—Laura Anne Gilman
“Innovative world-building, powerful steampunk, master storyteller at her best. Don’t miss this one…. She’s fabulous.”
—Christine Feehan
“Lilith Saintcrow spins a world of deadly magic, grand adventure, and fast-paced intrigue through the clattering streets of a mazelike mechanized Londonium. The Iron Wyrm Affair is a fantastic mix of action, steam, and mystery dredged in dark magic with a hint of romance. Loved it! Do not miss this wonderful addition to the steampunk genre.”
—Devon Monk
“Lilith Saintcrow’s foray into steampunk plunges the reader into a Victorian England rife with magic and menace, where clo
ckwork horses pace the cobbled streets, dragons rule the ironworks, and it will take a sorceress’s discipline and a logician’s powers of deduction to unravel a bloody conspiracy.”
—Jacqueline Carey
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Copyright
Copyright © 2013 by Lilith Saintcrow
Excerpt from Soulless copyright © 2009 by Tofa Borregaard
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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ISBN 978-0-316-25369-7
Table of Contents
Cover
Table of Contents
Title Page
Welcome
Dedication
Historical Note
Chapter One: Not How Things Are Done
Chapter Two: A Duke to Chastise
Chapter Three: Grief Is Unavoidable
Chapter Four: Breakfast and Loneliness
Chapter Five: With No One to Scold
Chapter Six: One of Our Own
Chapter Seven: An Admirer
Chapter Eight: Only If You Do Not Displease
Chapter Nine: Most Singular And Unnatural
Chapter Ten: Coldfaith
Chapter Eleven: No Tongue Fit For It
Chapter Twelve: Led to Regret
Chapter Thirteen: Don’t Go that Way, Sir
Chapter Fourteen: Above Your Notice
Chapter Fifteen: Much Larger Problems
Chapter Sixteen: Barely, But Sufficient
Chapter Seventeen: A Process of Discovery
Chapter Eighteen: How Well I Obey
Chapter Nineteen: A Fineness of Morals
Chapter Twenty: An Unseemly Display
Chapter Twenty-One: A Curative Method
Chapter Twenty-Two: Unlucky Enough to Live
Chapter Twenty-Three: In Cleaner Places
Chapter Twenty-Four: Burden Of Service
Chapter Twenty-Five: A Congress of War
Chapter Twenty-Six: A Gift of Any Sort
Chapter Twenty-Seven: A Finer End
Interregnum: Londinium, Plagued
Chapter Twenty-Eight: A Footrace With Death
Chapter Twenty-Nine: One Word
Chapter Thirty: The Island’s Heart
Chapter Thirty-One: Unwise and Unbecoming
Chapter Thirty-Two: A Damned Shame
Chapter Thirty-Three: A Close-Run Race
Chapter Thirty-Four: A Stone is a Stone
Acknowledgements
Extras
Meet the Author
A Preview of "Soulless"
Books by Lilith Saintcrow
Praise for "The Iron Wyrm Affair"
Newsletters
Copyright