Read Online Changeless: The Parasol Protectorate: Book the Second by Gail Carriger - Free Book Online

very,
     very heavily.
    Well, not
this
werewolf. Not if Lady Maccon had anything to say about it. She poked her husband hard in the ribs with a thumb.
    It might have been the poke or it might have been the preternatural contact, but he awoke with a soft snuffle.
    “What ended?”
    With his wife’s imperious face peering down at him, Lord Maccon took a moment to wonder why he had thought to crave such a
     woman in his life. Alexia bent over and nibbled at his chest. Ah, yes, initiative and ingenuity.
    The nibbles stopped. “Well?”
    And manipulation.
    His bleary tawny eyes narrowed. “Does that brain of yours never stop?”
    Alexia gave him an arch, “Well, yes.” She looked at the angle of the sunlight creeping in around the edge of one heavy velvet
     drape. “You do seem to be able to give it pause for a good two hours or so.”
    “Was that all? What do you say, Lady Maccon—shall we try for three?”
    Alexia batted at him without any real annoyance. “Aren’t you supposed to be too old for this kind of continuous exercise?”
    “What a thing to say, my love,” snorted the earl, offended. “I am only just over two hundred, a veritable cub in the woods.”
    But Lady Maccon was not to be so easily distracted a second time. “So, what ended?”
    He sighed. “That strange mass preternatural effect ceased at about three a.m. this morning. Everyone who should have returned
     to supernatural normal did, except for the ghosts. Any ghost tethered in the Thames embankment area seems to have been permanently
     exorcised. We brought in a volunteer ghost with a body about an hour after normality returned. He remained perfectly fine
     and tethered, so any new ghosts should establish in the area without difficulty, but all the old ones are gone for good.”
    “So that is it? Crisis averted?” Lady Maccon was disappointed. She must remember to jot this all down in her little investigation
     notebook.
    “Oh, I think not. This isn’t something that can be swept under the proverbial carpet. We must determine what exactly occurred.
     Everyone knows of the incident, even the daylight folk. Although they are, admittedly, much less upset about it than the supernatural
     set. Everybody wants to know what happened.”
    “Including Queen Victoria,” interjected Alexia.
    “I lost several excellent ghost agents in that mass exorcism. So did the Crown. I also had office visits from the
Times
, the
Nightly Aethograph
, and the
Evening Leader
, not to mention a very angry Lord Ambrose.”
    “My poor darling.” Lady Maccon petted his head sympathetically. The earl hated dealing with the press, and he could barely
     tolerate being in the same room as Lord Ambrose. “I take it Countess Nadasdy was in a tizzy over the matter.”
    “To say nothing of the rest of her hive. After all, it has been thousands of years since a queen was in such danger.”
    Alexia sniffed. “It probably did them all some good.” It was no secret she bore little love for and had absolutely no trust
     in the Westminster Hive queen. Lady Maccon and Countess Nadasdy were carefully polite to each other. The countess
always
invited Lord and Lady Maccon to her rare and coveted soirees, and Lord and Lady Maccon pointedly
always
attended.
    “You know, Lord Ambrose had the audacity to threaten me? Me!” The earl was practically growling. “As though it were my fault!”
    “I would have suspected he thought it was mine,” suggested his wife.
    Lord Maccon became even more angry. “Aye, well, he and his whole hive are deuced ignorant arses, and their opinion is of little
     consequence.”
    “Husband, language please. Besides, the potentate and the dewan felt the same.”
    “Did they threaten you?” The earl reared upright and grumbled several dockside phrases.
    His wife interrupted his tirade by saying, “I completely see their point.”
    “What?”
    “Be reasonable, Conall. I am the only soulless in this area, and so far as anyone knows, only