CHAPTER ONE

Wherein the Misses Loontwill Cope with Scandal Wherein the Misses Loontwill Cope with Scandal in Their Midst

How much longer, Mama, must we tolerate this gross humiliation?”

Lady Alexia Maccon paused before entering the breakfast room. Cutting through the comfortable sounds of chinking teacups and scrunching toast shril ed her sister’s less-than-dulcet tones. In an unsurprising morning duet of well -practiced whining, Felicity’s voice was soon fol owed by Evylin’s.

“Yes, Mumsy darling, such a scandal under our roof. We real y shouldn’t be expected to put up with it any longer.”

Felicity championed the cause once more. “This is ruining our chances”— crunch, crunch—“beyond al recuperation. It isn’t to be borne. It real y isn’t.”

Alexia made a show of checking her appearance in the hal mirror, hoping to overhear more. Much to her consternation, the Loontwil ’s new butler, Swilkins, came through with a tray of kippers. He gave her a disapproving glare that said much on his opinion of a young lady caught eavesdropping on her own family. Eavesdropping was, by rights, a butler’s proprietary art form.

“Good morning, Lady Maccon,” he said loudly enough for the family to hear even through their chatting and clattering, “you received several messages yesterday.” He handed Alexia two folded and sealed letters and then waited pointedly for her to precede him into the breakfast room.

“Yesterday! Yesterday! And why, pray tel , did you not give them to me yesterday?”

Swilkins did not reply.

Nasty bit of bother, this new butler. Alexia was finding that little was worse in life than existing in a state of hostility with one’s domestic staff.

Entering the breakfast room, Alexia actual y flounced slightly in her annoyance and turned her ire upon those seated before her. “Good morning, dearest family.”

As she made her way to the only empty chair, four pairs of blue eyes watched her progress with an air of condemnation. well , three pairs—the Right Honorable Squire Loontwil was entirely taken with the correct cracking of his soft-boiled egg. This involved the application of an ingenious little device, rather like a handheld sideways guil otine, that nipped the tip off the egg in perfect, chipless circularity. Thus happily engrossed, he did not bother to attend to the arrival of his stepdaughter.

Alexia poured herself a glass of barley water and took a piece of toast from the rack, no butter, trying to ignore the smoky smel of breakfast. It had once been her favorite meal; now it invariably curdled her stomach. So far, the infant-inconvenience—as she’d taken to thinking of it—was proving itself far more tiresome than one would have thought possible, considering it was years away from either speech or action.

Mrs. Loontwil looked with manifest approval at her daughter’s meager selection. “I shal be comforted,” she said to the table at large, “by the fact that our poor dear Alexia is practical y wasting away for want of her husband’s affection. Such fine feelings of sentimentality.” She clearly perceived Alexia’s breakfast-starvation tactics as symptoms of a superior bout of wal owing.

Alexia gave her mother an annoyed glance and inflicted minor wrath upon her toast with the butter knife. Since the infant-inconvenience had added a smal amount of weight to Alexia’s already substantial figure, she was several stone away from “wasting.” Nor was she of a personality inclined toward wal owing. In addition, she resented the fact that Lord Maccon might be thought to have anything whatsoever to do with the fact—aside from the obvious, of which her family was as yet unaware—that she was off her food.

She opened her mouth to correct her mother in this regard, but Felicity interrupted her.

“Oh, Mama, I hardly think Alexia is the type to die of a broken heart.”

“Nor is she the type to be gastronomical y chal enged,” shot back Mrs. Loontwil .

“I, on the other hand,” interjected Evylin, helping herself to a plateful of kippers, “may jol y well do both.”

“Language, Evy darling, please.” Mrs. Loontwil snapped a piece of toast in half in her distress.

The youngest Miss Loontwil rounded on Alexia, pointing a forkful of egg at her accusingly. “Captain Featherstonehaugh has thrown me over! How do you like that? We received a note only this morning.”

“Captain Featherstonehaugh?” Alexia muttered to herself. “I thought he was engaged to Ivy Hisselpenny and you were engaged to someone else. How confusing.”

“No, no, Evy’s engaged to him now. Or was. How long have you been staying with us? Nearly two weeks? Do pay attention, Alexia dear,” Mrs. Loontwil admonished.

Evylin sighed dramatical y. “And the dress is already bought and everything. I shal have to have it entirely made over.”

“He did have very nice eyebrows,” consoled Mrs. Loontwil .

“Exactly,” crowed Evylin. “Where wil I find another pair of eyebrows like that?

Devastated, I tel you, Alexia. I am utterly devastated. And it is al your fault.”

Evylin, it must be noted, did not look nearly so bothered as one rightly ought over the loss of a fiancé, especial y one reputed to possess such heights of eyebrow pre-eminence. She stuffed the egg into her mouth and chewed methodical y. She had taken it into her head recently that chewing every bite of food twenty times over would keep her slender. What it did was keep her at the dinner table longer than anyone else.

“He cited philosophical differences, but we al know why he real y broke things off.”

Felicity waved a gold-edged note at Alexia—a note that clearly contained the good captain’s deepest regrets, a note that, judging from the stains about itself, had received the concerted attention of everyone at the breakfast table, including the kippers.

“I agree.” Alexia calmly sipped her barley water. “Philosophical differences? That cannot be true. You don’t actual y have a philosophy about anything, do you, Evylin dear?”

“So you admit responsibility?” Evylin was moved to swal ow early so she could launch the attack once more. She tossed her blond curls, only one or two shades removed from the color of her egg.

“Certainly not. I never even met the man.”

“But it is stil your fault. Abandoning your husband like that, staying with us instead of him. It is outrageous. People. Are. Talking.” Evylin emphasized her words by stabbing ruthlessly at a sausage.

“People do tend to talk. I believe it is general y considered one of the better modes of communication.”

“Oh, why must you be so impossible? Mama, do something about her.” Evylin gave up on the sausage and went on to a second fried egg.

“You hardly seem very cut up about it.” Alexia watched as her sister chewed away.

“Oh, I assure you, poor Evy is deeply effected. Shockingly overwrought,” said Mrs.

Loontwil .

“Surely you mean a ffected?” Alexia was not above a barb or two where her family was concerned.

At the end of the table, Squire Loontwil , the only one likely to understand a literary joke, softly chortled.

“Herbert,” his wife reprimanded immediately, “don’t encourage her to be pert. Most unattractive quality in a married lady, pertness.” She turned back to Alexia. Mrs.

Loontwil ’s face, that of a pretty woman who had aged without realizing it, screwed itself up into a grimace Alexia supposed was meant to simulate motherly concern. Instead she looked like a Pekingese with digestive complaints. “Is that what the estrangement with him is over, Alexia? You weren’t… brainy… with him, were you, dear?” Mrs. Loontwil had refrained from referring to Lord Maccon by name ever since her daughter’s marriage, as if by doing so she might hold on to the fact that Alexia had married—a condition believed by most to be highly unlikely right up until the fateful event—without having to remember what she had married. A peer of the realm, it was true, and one of Her Majesty’s finest, to be certain, but also a werewolf. It hadn’t helped that Lord Maccon loathed Mrs. Loontwil and didn’t mind who knew it, including Mrs. Loontwil . Why, Alexia remembered, once, he had even—She stopped herself from further thought of her husband, squashing the memory ruthlessly. Unfortunately, she found that, the agitation of her thoughts had resulted in toast mutilated beyond al hope of consumption. With a sigh, she helped herself to another piece.

“It seems clear to me,” interjected Felicity with an air of finality, “that your presence here, Alexia, has somehow overset Evy’s engagement. Even you cannot argue your way out of that, sister dear.”

Felicity and Evylin were Alexia’s younger half-sisters by birth and were entirely unrelated if one took into account any other factors. They were short, blond, and slender, while Alexia was tal , dark, and, quite frankly, not so very slender. Alexia was known throughout London for her intel ectual prowess, patronage of the scientific community, and biting wit. Felicity and Evylin were known for their puffed sleeves. The world, as a result, was general y more peaceful when the three were not living under the same roof.

“And we are al aware of how considered and unbiased your opinion is on the matter, Felicity.” Alexia’s tone was unruffled.

Felicity picked up the scandal section of the Lady’s Daily Chirrup, clearly indicating she wanted nothing more to do with the conversation.

Mrs. Loontwil dove courageously on. “Surely, Alexia, darling, it is high time you returned home to Woolsey? I mean to say, you’ve been with us nearly a week, and, of course, we do love having you, but he is rumored to be back from Scotland now.”

“Bul y for him. ”

“Alexia! What a shocking thing to say!”

Evylin interjected. “No one has seen him in town, of course, but they say he returned to Woolsey yesterday.”

“Who says?”

Felicity crinkled the gossip section of the paper explanatorily.

“Oh, they. ”

“He must be pining for you, my dear,” Mrs. Loontwil resumed the attack. “Pining away, miserable for want of your…” She flailed.

“For want of my what, Mama?”

“Uh, scintil ating companionship.”

Alexia snorted—at the dining table. Conal may have enjoyed her bluntness on rare occasion, but if he missed anything, she doubted her wit was top of the list. Lord Maccon was a werewolf of hearty appetites, to say the least. What he would miss most about his wife was located substantial y lower than her tongue. An image of her husband’s face momentarily broke her resolve. That look in his eyes the last time they saw each other

—so betrayed. But what he believed of her, the fact that he doubted her in such a way, was inexcusable. How dare he leave her remembering some lost-puppy look simply to toy with her sympathies! Alexia Maccon made herself relive the things he had said to her, right then and there. She was never going to go back to that—her mind grappled for a description—that untrusting nitwit!

Lady Alexia Maccon was the type of woman who, if thrown into a briar patch, would start to tidy it up by stripping off al the thorns. Over the past few weeks and throughout the course of an inexcusably foul train journey back from Scotland, she thought she had come to terms with her husband’s rejection of both her and their child. She was finding, however, at the oddest and most irregular moments, that she hadn’t. She would feel the betrayal, like some writhing ache just under her ribs, and become both incredibly hurt and transcendently angry without warning. It was exactly like an acute attack of indigestion—only with one’s finer feelings involved. In her more lucid moments, Alexia reasoned that the cause of this sensation was the unjustness of it al . She was quite accustomed to defending herself for having done something inappropriate, but defending herself when completely innocent made for a dissimilar, and far more frustrating, experience. Not even Bogglington’s Best Darjeeling succeeded in soothing her temper. And if tea wasn’t good enough, well , what was a lady to do? It was not, certainly not, that she stil loved the man. That was entirely il ogical. But the fact remained that Alexia’s temper was tender about the edges. Her family ought to have recognized the signs.

Felicity snapped the paper closed suddenly, her face an uncharacteristic red color.

“Oh, dear.” Mrs. Loontwil fanned herself with a starched doily. “What now?”

Squire Loontwil glanced up and then took refuge in close examination of his egg.

“Nothing.” Felicity tried to shove the paper under her plate.

Evylin was having none of it. She reached over, snatched it away, and began scanning through it, looking for whatever juicy tittle-tattle had so disturbed her sister.

Felicity nibbled on a scone and looked guiltily at Alexia.

Alexia had a sudden sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. She finished her barley water with some difficulty and sat back in her chair.